The following is an excerpt from 'Of Lovers and Whores,' a selection of Jeremiah Burroughs' sermons on Hosea, compiled and published by my friend Dave Bish. He has two other books of heart warming Puritan sermons published, which i highly recommend to you. Find them here.
Let us learn to wonder at these riches of mercy in Christ and exercise much faith about them. Certainly we would thrive in godliness much more if we exercised our faith in the bowels [heart] of God in Christ.
Fruit like apricots and May cherries that grow up by a wall and enjoy the warm beams of the sun are sooner ripe and have more sweetness than those which grow in shady places.Grass shaded by the trees in orchards are sour. So the fruit which Christians bring forth under discouragements and despairing thoughts is very sour. Some things they do because conscience compels them to duty, but it is sour fruit. Though it is better to do what conscience requires than not, yet merely to follow conscience is sour grass.
When a Christian can by faith set himself before the sunshine of these mercies of God in Christ and continually live in the midst continually in the beams of that grace he grows ripe sooner and the fruit is sweeter.
You can easily know whether the Sun of righteousness shines on you. Does your fruit grow ripe? Is it sweet fruit? Those who talk of mercy and of Christ and have His name in their mouths but bring forth sour and crabbed fruit are not in the Sun; they are blind and cannot discern it, and are but a light of their own fancy in a heart of their own making.
In Ephesians 3:18-19 the apostle prays that the Ephesians 'may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth ' of the riches of God in Christ. The philosophers tell us of only three dimensions, but there are four.
What fruit is this, 'to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.' Here is the effect of it, when we know the breadth and length and depth and height of God's love, and have that knowledge by the Spirit of God, that surpasses mental knowledge, then we are filled with the fullness of God.
Here now is a glorious Christian, a Christian filled with the fullness of God. Do you want this to be so of you? Learn to exercise faith much about the infinite riches of mercy of God in Christ. f. This will fill you with the fullness of God. You complain of barrenness and emptiness in your hearts and lives, it is because you give little heed to this.
God betroths Himself to the church in mercies, in bowels. let us learn when we are in any trouble to plead with God for bowels of mercy. Isaiah 63:15, 'look down from Heaven, and behold from the habitiation of your holiness and you glory, where is your zeal and your strength, the sound of your bowels, and your mercy towards me? Are they restrained?' Lord, have you not said you will betroth your church to yourself in bowels? Where is the sounding of your heart? Lord, let us have your heart, from which you have betrothed us through Christ.
Oh what confusion there will be one day for those who have missed these mercies of God, in which the Lord has betrothed Himself to the Church. Will you content yourself with crumbs, with the fruits of His general bounty and patience, when you hear of the glorious mercies in Jesus Christ? These things should raise our hearts, so that we protest as Luther did; 'I protest that God shall not put me off with the things of the world, with my portion here. Oh no the Lord has shown me greater riches, and though i am unworthy of any, yet, as i know His mercy is free, why should i not have my portion in these glorious things?
Come in then, come in, oh sinful soul. Be in love with Jesus Christ and the ways of godliness. Know that all these mercies are tendered to your soul this day, to break your heart, even that hard heart of yours.And they are free for you as any. There is nothing more pleasing to God than for you to be taken with the glory of His riches in mercy. You cannot perform any duty acceptable to God as this, to have your heart broken on the consideration of his heart, to have your heart yearn again and come in and join with this infinite ocean of mercy. Breathe the element of mercy, live by nothing but mercy.
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