An Ark for All God's Noahs in a
Gloomy Stormy Day or,
The Best Wine Reserved Until Last
or,
The Transcendent Excellency of a
Believer's
Portion above All Earthly Portions
by Thomas Brooks, 1662
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore
I will hope in Him." Lamentations 3:24
"I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man who would know
me, refuge failed me, no man cared for my soul, I cried unto you, O Lord, I
said you are my refuge, and my portion in the land of the living" Psalm
142:4-5.
EPISTLE DEDICATORY
To all the merchants and tradesmen of England, especially
these of the city of London, with all other sorts and ranks of people that
either have or would have God for their portion; may grace, mercy, and peace
be multiplied.
Gentlemen—The wisest prince that ever sat upon a throne
has told us, that "a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of
silver," that is, rightly ordered, placed, and circumstanced. Such a word
is, of all words, the most excellent, the most prevalent, most precious,
most sweet, most desirable, and most delectable, and the most pleasant word
that can be spoken. O sirs! to time a word, to speak a word to purpose, is
the project of this book. Though all truths are glorious, yet there is a
double glory upon seasonable truths; and, therefore, I have made it
my great business in this treatise to hold forth as seasonable a truth, and
as weighty a truth, and as comfortable and encouraging a truth, as any I
know in all the book of God. The mother of King Cyrus willed, that the words
of those who spoke unto her son should be in silk, but certainly seasonable
words are always better than silken words.
Every prudent farmer observes his fittest season to sow
his seeds, and therefore some he sows in the autumn and fall of the leaf;
and some in the spring and renewing of the year; some be sows in a dry
season, and some he sows in a wet; some he sows in a moist clay, and some he
sows in a sandy dry ground. And so all spiritual farmers must wisely observe
their fittest seasons for the sowing of that immortal seed that God has put
into their hands; and such a thing as this is I have had in my eye—but
whether I have hit the mark or missed it, let the Christian reader judge.
Augustine, speaking of the glory of heaven says, "That
the good things of eternal life are so many that they exceed number, so
great that they exceed measure, and so precious that they are above all
estimation," etc. The same may I say concerning the saint's present portion,
for certainly the good things that are in their portion—in their God—are so
many, that they exceed number, so great that they exceed measure, and so
precious that they are above all estimation.
The same author in one of his epistles has this
remarkable relation, namely, that the same day wherein Jerome died, he was
in his study, and had got pen, ink, and paper to write something of the
glory of heaven to Jerome, and suddenly Augustine saw a light breaking into
his study, and smelled also a very sweet smell, and this voice he thought he
heard—"O Augustine, what are you doing? do think to put the sea into a
little vessel? When the heavens shall cease from their continual motion—only
then shall you be able to understand what the glory of heaven is, and not
before!" Certainly, the glory of heaven is beyond all conception and all
expression, and so is that portion that is a little hinted at in the
following discourse. And, indeed, a full description of that God, who is the
believer's portion, is a work too high for an Aaron when standing upon mount
Hor; or for a Moses, when standing on the top of Nebo after a Pisgah
prospect. Yes, it is a work too high and too hard for all those blessed
seraphim that are still a-crying before the throne of God, "Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord Almighty." [Num 20:28; Deut 32:49; Deut 34:1; Isa 6:3] No finite
being, though ever so glorious, can ever be able fully to comprehend an
infinite being.
In Isaiah 6:2, we read that each seraphim had six wings,
and that with two he covered the face of God, with two his feet, and with
two he flew; intimating, as one well observes upon the place, that with two
they covered his face, the face of God, not their own face; and with
two they covered his feet, not their own feet. They covered his face,
his beginning being unknown; they covered his feet, his end being
incomprehensible; only the middle are to be seen, the things which are,
whereby there may be some glimmering knowledge made out what God is.
The wise man hit it, when he said, "That which is afar
off and exceeding deep—who can find it out?" Eccles 7:24. Who can find out
what God is? The knowledge of him is so far off, that he whose arm is able
to break even a bow of steel is not able to reach it; so far off, that he
who is able to make his nest with the eagle is not able to fly unto it; and
so exceeding deep, that he who could follow the leviathan could not fathom
it; that he who could venture to the center of the earth, is not able to
find it out! Who then is able to reach it? In a word, so far off and so deep
too, that "the depth says, It is not in me; and the sea says, It is not in
me." It is such a deep to men and angels as far exceeds the capacity of
both. Augustine speaking to that question, 'What God is?' gives this
answer—"Surely such a one as he, who, when he is spoken of, cannot be spoken
of; who, when he is considered, cannot be considered of; who, when he is
compared to anything, cannot be compared; and when he is defined, grows
greater by defining of him. If that great apostle—who learned his divinity
among the angels, yes, to whom the Holy Spirit was an immediate tutor, did
know but "in part," then certainly those who are most acute and judicious in
divine knowledge may very well conclude—that they know but part of that part
that was known to him." As for my own part, I dare pretend but to a spark of
that knowledge that others have attained to, and yet who can tell but that
God may turn this spark into such a flame as may warm the hearts of many of
his dear and precious ones. Much is done many times by a spark.
O sirs! catch not at the present profits, pleasures,
preferments, and honors of this world—but "lay up a good foundation for the
time to come," provide for eternity, make sure your interest and propriety
in God. It was an excellent saying of Lewis, emperor of Germany—"Such
goods," said he, "are worth getting and owning, as will not sink or wash
away if a shipwreck happens." How many of you have lost your all by
shipwrecks! and how has divine providence by your multiplied crosses and
losses taught you—that the good things and the great things of this world
cannot be made sure! How many of you have had rich inheritances left you by
your fathers, besides the great portions that you have had with your wives,
and the vast estates that you have gained by trading; but what is become of
all? Is not all buried in the deep, or in the grave of oblivion? Oh the
fickleness and the grand impostury of this world! Oh the flux and reflux of
riches, greatness, honors, and preferments! How many men have we seen
shining in their worldly pomp and glory like stars in the skies—who are now
vanished into smoke or comets! How has the moon of many great men's riches
and honors been eclipsed at the full, and the sun of their pomp gone down at
noon!
"It was," says the historian Justinian, "a wonderful
precedent of vanity, and variety of human condition to see mighty Xerxes to
flee away in a small vessel, who but a little before needed sea-room for his
navy." The Dutch, to express the world's vanity and uncertainty, have very
wittily pictured a man with a full blown balloon on his shoulders, and
another standing by pricking the balloon with a pin, with this motto—How
soon is all blown away! I am not willing to make the porch too wide, else I
might have given you famous instances of the vanity and uncertainty of all
worldly wealth, pomp, and glory, from the Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian,
Grecian, and Roman kingdoms, whose glory now lies all in the dust. By all
this, it is most evident that earthly portions cannot be made sure, they
"make themselves wings, and they fly away," Prov 23:5.
Oh! but God is a portion that may be made sure. In the
time of the Marian persecution, there was a woman, who, being convened
before bloody Bonner, then bishop of London, upon the trial of religion, he
threatened her that he would take away her husband from her—says she,
'Christ is my husband!' I will take away your child; 'Christ,' says she, 'is
better to me than ten sons!' I will strip you, says he, of all your outward
comforts; 'but Christ is mine,' says she, 'and you cannot strip me of him.'
A Christian may be stripped of anything but his God; he may be stripped of
his estate, his friends, his relations, his liberty, his life—but he can
never be stripped of his God. As God is a portion that none can give to a
Christian but God himself; so God is a portion that none can take from a
Christian but God himself; and, therefore, as ever you would have a sure
portion, an abiding portion, a lasting portion, yes, an everlasting portion,
make sure of God for your portion.
O Sirs! that you would judge that only worth much now,
which will be found of much worth at last—when you shall lie upon a dying
bed, and stand before a judgment-seat. Oh that men would prize and value all
earthly portions now, as they will value them when they come to die, and
when their souls shall sit upon their trembling lips, and when there shall
be but a short step between them and eternity. Oh, at what a poor rate, at
what a low rate do men then value their earthly portions! Certainly, it will
be their very great wisdom to value their earthly portions now—as they would
value them then. And oh that men would value this glorious, this matchless
portion that is held forth in this treatise now, as they will value it and
prize it when they come to die, and when they come to launch out into the
ocean of eternity!
I have read of a stationer, who, being at a fair, hung
out several pictures of famous men, among which he had also the picture of
Christ. Upon which divers men bought according to their several likings—the
soldier buys his Caesar, the lawyer his Justinian, the physician his Galen,
the philosopher his Aristotle, the poet his Virgil, the orator his Cicero,
and the divine his Augustine. But all this while the picture of Christ hung
by as a thing of no value, until a poor man, who had no more money than
would purchase that, bought it, saying, Now every man has taken away his
God, let me have mine too! O Sirs! it would make any gracious, any serious,
any ingenious, any conscientious heart to bleed, to see at what a high rate
all sorts and ranks of men do value earthly portions, which at best are but
counterfeit pictures, when this glorious portion which is here treated of,
hangs by as a thing of no value, of no price!
Most men are mad upon the world, and so they may have
much of that for their portion, they care not whether ever they have God for
their portion or not. Give them but a palace in Paris, and then with that
French duke, they care not for a place in paradise; give them but a mess of
pottage, and let who will take the birthright; give them but manna in a
wilderness, and let who will take the land of Canaan; give them but ground
which is pleasant and rich, and then with the Reubenites they will gladly
take up their rest on this side the Holy Land; give them but their bags
full, and their barns full, and then with the rich fool in the Gospel, they
can think of nothing but of taking their ease, and of eating and drinking,
and making merry, Luke 12:16-22. So brutish and foolish are they in their
understandings, as if their precious and immortal souls were good for
nothing but as salt to keep their bodies from rotting and stinking.
Oh that these men would seriously consider, that as a cup
of pleasant wine, offered to a condemned man in the way to his execution,
and as the feast of him who sat under a naked sword, hanging perpendicularly
over his head by a slender thread, and as Adam's forbidden fruit, seconded
by a flaming sword, and as Belshazzar's dainties, overlooked by an
handwriting against the wall; such and only such are all earthly portions to
those who have not God for their portion.
Well, gentlemen, remember this, there is no true
happiness to be found in any earthly portions. Solomon, having made a
critical inquiry after the excellency of all creature comforts, gives this
in as the ultimate extraction from them all, "Vanity of vanities, all is
vanity." if you should go to all the creatures round, they will tell you
that happiness is not in them. If you should go to the earth, the earth will
tell you that happiness grows not in the furrows of the field. If you go to
the sea, the sea will tell you that happiness is not in the treasures of the
deep. If you go to the beasts of the field, or to the birds of the air, they
will tell you that happiness is not to be found on them. If you go to your
bags, or heaps of gold and silver, they will tell you that happiness is not
to be found in them. If you go to crowns and scepters, they will tell you
that happiness is too precious and too glorious a gem to be found in them.
As it is not the great cage which makes the bird sing, so
it is not the great estate which makes the happy life, nor the great earthly
portion which makes the happy soul. There is no true comfort nor no true
happiness to be drawn out of the standing pools of outward sufficiencies.
All true comfort and happiness is only to be found in having of an
all-sufficient God for your portion. Psalm 144:15, "Happy is that people
that is in such a case, yes, happy is that people whose God is the Lord."
And therefore, as ever you would be happy in both worlds, it very highly
concerns you to get a saving interest in God, and to be restless in your own
souls until you come to enjoy God for your portion.
A man who has God for his portion is a paragon; he is the
rarest and the happiest man in the world; he is like the morning star in the
midst of the clouds; he is like the moon when it is full; he is like the
flower of the roses in the spring of the year; he is like the lilies by the
springs of waters; he is like the branches of frankincense in the time of
summer; he is like a vessel of gold that is set about with all manner of
precious stones.
Nothing can make that man miserable, who has God for his
portion; nor nothing can make that man happy, who lacks God for his portion.
The more rich—the more wretched; the more great—the more graceless; the more
honorable—the more miserable that man will be, who has not God for his
portion. The Sodomites were very wealthy, and who more vile and wicked than
they? The Egyptians and Babylonians were very rich, great, and potent in the
world, and what greater oppressors and persecutors of the people of God than
these? Oh the slavery, the captivity, and the woeful misery of the people of
God, under those cruel tyrants! Have not the Nimrods, the Nebuchadnezzars,
the Belshazzars, the Alexanders, and the Caesars, etc., been commonly the
lords of the world; and who so abominably wicked as these? No men for
wickedness have been able to match them or come near them.
It has been long since observed, that Daniel sets forth
the several monarchies of the world by sundry sorts of cruel beasts, to show
that as they were gotten by beastly cruelty, so they were supported and
maintained by brutish sensuality, craft, and tyranny.
Well, Sirs! you may be the lords of this world, and yet
you will certainly be miserable in another world, except you get God for
your portion. The top of man's happiness in this world lies in his having of
God for his portion. He who has God for his portion enjoys all; and he who
lacks a saving interest and propriety in God enjoys nothing at all.
Gentlemen, I have read of an heathen who, seeing a sudden
shipwreck of all his wealth, said, Well, fortune, I see now that you would
have me to be a philosopher. Oh that you would say under all your heavy
losses and crosses, Well! we now see that God would have us "lay up treasure
in heaven," Matt 6:19-20; we now see that God would have us look after a
better portion than any this world affords; we now see that it highly
concerns us to secure our interest and property in God; we now see that to
enjoy God for our portion is the one thing necessary. Have not many of you
said, nay sworn, that if you might but see and enjoy the delight of your
eyes—that then you would have a sweeping trade, and abound in all plenty and
prosperity, and grow rich and great and glorious in the world, and be eased
of everything that did but look like a burden, etc. If it be indeed thus
with you, why do you so complain, murmur, and repine? and why do many of you
walk up and down the Exchange and streets with tears in your eyes, and with
heaviness in your hearts, and with cracked credits, and threadbare coats,
and empty purses? and why are so many of you broke, and so many prisoners,
and so many hide, and so many fled? But if it be otherwise, and that you are
sensible that you have put a cheat upon yourselves, I say not upon others,
and that as you have been self-flatterers, so you have been self-deceivers,
the more highly it concerns you to do yourselves, your souls that right, as
to make sure of God for your portion. For what else can make up those woeful
disappointments under which you are fallen?
It is a sad sight to see all the arrows that men shoot to
fall upon their own heads; or to see them twist a rope to hang themselves;
or to see men dig a pit for others and to fall into it themselves. And it is
but justice that men should bake as they brew, and that those who brew
mischief should have the first and largest draught of it themselves. Now the
best way to prevent so sad a sight and so great a mischief, is to get God
for your portion—for when once God comes to be a man's portion, then "all
things shall work together for his good," Rom 8:28, and then God will
preserve him from such hurtful and mischievous actings.
The whole world is a great bedlam, and multitudes there
are that think madly, and that design madly, and that talk madly, and that
act madly, and that walk madly. Now as you would not be found in the number
of those bedlams, it highly concerns you to get God for your portion, so
that you may be filled with that wisdom that may preserve you from the folly
and madness of this mad world.
Gentlemen, the following sermons I preached in 1660, and
God blessed them then to those Christians that attended on my ministry, and
I hope he will bless them also to the internal and eternal welfare of your
souls, to whom they are now dedicated. They are much enlarged; the profit
will be yours, the labor has been mine. I judge them very seasonable and
suitable to present dispensations, else they had not seen the light at this
time. Curiosity is the spiritual adultery of the soul; curiosity is that
green-sickness of the soul, whereby it longs for novelties, and loathes
sound and wholesome truths; it is the epidemic distemper of this age and
hour.
And therefore, if any of you are troubled with this itch
of curiosity, and love to be wise above what is written, and delight to scan
the choice mysteries of religion by carnal reason, and affect elegant
expressions and seraphic notions, and the flowers of rhetoric, more than
sound and wholesome truths, then you may ease yourselves, if you please, of
the trouble of reading this following treatise. Only remember this, that the
prudent farmer looks more and delights more in the ripeness and soundness
and goodness of the corn that is in his field, than he does at the beauty of
the cockle; and remember, that no man can live more miserably than he who
lives altogether upon sweets; and he who looks more at the handsomeness than
he does at the wholesomeness of the dishes of food which are set before him,
may well pass for a fool.
Well, gentlemen, for a close, remember this, that as Noah
was drunk with his own wine, and as Goliath was beheaded by his own sword,
and as the rose is destroyed by the canker that it breeds in itself, and as
Agrippina was killed by Nero, to whom she gave breath; so if ever you are
eternally destroyed, you will be destroyed by yourselves; if ever you are
undone, you will be undone by yourselves; if ever you are scourged to death,
it will be by rods of your own making; and if ever the bitter cup of
damnation be put into your hands, it will be found to be of your own
preparing, mingling, and embittering.
Behold, I have set life and death, heaven and hell, glory
and misery, before you in this treatise; and therefore, if you will needs
choose death rather than life, hell rather than heaven, misery rather than
glory, what can be more just—than that you should perish to all eternity? If
you will not have God for your portion, you shall be sure to have His wrath
for your portion, and hell for your portion!
Well, sirs! remember this at last—Every man shall only
thank his own folly for his own bane, his own sin for his own everlasting
shame, his own iniquity for his own endless misery!
I have now no more to do but to improve all the interest
that I have in heaven, that this treatise may be blessed to all your souls,
and that you all experience what it is to have God for your portion; for
that will be my joy as well as yours, and my crown as well as yours, and my
glorying as well as yours, in the great day of our Lord Jesus; and so "I
commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you
up, and to give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified," Acts
20:32; and rest, gentlemen, your souls' servant,
Thomas Brooks.
A MATCHLESS PORTION
"The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore
I will hope in Him." Lamentations 3:24.
Certainly if Ennius could pick out gold out of a
dunghill, I may, by divine assistance, much better pick out golden matter
out of such a golden mine as my text is—to enrich the souls of men. The best
of painters Apelles, to draw an exquisite Venus, had set before him an
hundred choice and selected beauties, to take from one an eye, another a
lip, a third a smile, a fourth an hand, and from each of them that special
lineament in which the most excelled; but I have no need of any other
scripture to be set before me to draw forth the excellency of the saints'
portion, than that which I have now pitched upon; for the beauty,
excellency, and glory of a hundred choice scriptures are epitomized in this
one!
The Jewish doctors and other writers differ about the
time of Jeremiah's penning this book of the Lamentations; but to be ignorant
of the circumstance of time when this book was made, is such a crime as I
suppose will not be charged upon any man's account in the great day of our
Lord Jesus.
Doubtless this book of the Lamentations was composed by
Jeremiah in the time of the Babylonian captivity. In this book the prophet
sadly laments and bewails the grievous calamities and miseries that had
befallen the Jews, namely—the ruin of their state, the devastation of their
land, the destruction of their glorious city and temple, which was the great
wonder of the world, the profanation of all his holy things, the
contemptible and deplorable condition of all sorts, ranks, and degrees of
men. And then he complains of their sins as the procuring causes of all
those calamities that God in his righteousness had inflicted upon them.
He exhorts them also to patience under the mighty hand of God, and stirs
them up to repent and reform, as they would have their sins pardoned,
judgments removed, divine wrath pacified, their insulting enemies
suppressed, and former acts and grants of favor and grace restored to them.
But to come to the words of my text, "The LORD is
my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him." Lamentations 3:24
The LORD Jehovah, from havah, he was. This name
Jehovah is the most proper name of God, and it is never attributed to any
but to God.
1. First, Jehovah sets out God's eternity, in that
it contains all times, future, present, and past.
2. Secondly, It sets out also God's self-existence,
coming from havah, to be.
3. Thirdly, When either some special mercy is promised,
or some extraordinary judgment is threatened, then the name of Jehovah is
commonly annexed; to show that that God whose being is from himself, and who
gives a being to all his creatures both on heaven and on earth—will
certainly give a being to his promises and threatenings, and not fail to
accomplish the words that are gone out of his mouth.
4. Fourthly, This name Jehovah consists only of quiescent
letters, that is letters of rest, as the Hebrews call them, to show that
there is no rest until we come to Jehovah, and that in him we may safely and
securely rest, as the dove did in Noah's ark.
"Is my portion." the Hebrew word signifies to divide. He
alludes, as I take it, to the dividing of the land of Canaan among the
Israelites by lot. "The Lord," says he, "is my portion," my part, my lot;
and with this portion I rest fully satisfied, as the Israelites were to do
with their parts and portions in that pleasant land. It is true, says
Jeremiah, in the name of the church, I am thus and thus afflicted, and
sorely distressed on all hands; but yet "the Lord is my portion," and that
supports and bears up my spirits from fainting and sinking in this evil day.
"Says my soul." The Hebrew word has nine various senses
or significations in the Scripture. But let this suffice, that by soul
here in the text we are to understand the heart, the mind, the spirit,
and the understanding of a man. Well, says the prophet, though I am in a sea
of sorrow, and in a gulf of misery, yet my heart tells me that "the Lord is
my portion;" my mind tells me that "the Lord is my portion;" my spirit tells
me that "the Lord is my portion;" and my understanding tells me that "the
Lord is my portion;" and therefore I will bear up bravely in the face of all
calamities and miseries.
"Therefore will I hope in him." The Hebrew word that is
here rendered hope, signifies both hoping, expecting, and trusting; also it
signifies a patient waiting upon the Lord. [Gen 8:10; Isaiah 42:4; Psalm
31:25] The prophet Jeremiah had not only a witness above him—but also a
witness within him, that the Lord was his portion; and therefore he resolves
firmly to hope in the Lord, and sweetly to trust on the Lord, and quietly
and patiently to wait upon the Lord, until God should turn his storm into a
calm, and his sad winter into a blessed summer.
In my text there are three things observable:
First, An assertion or proposition in those words, "The
Lord is my portion."
Secondly, A proof of it in those words, "says my soul."
Thirdly, The use or inference from the premises in those
words, "Therefore will I hope in him."
The words being thus opened, the proposition that I
intend to insist upon is this, namely:
Doctrine. That the Lord is the
saints' portion.
I shall call in a few scriptures to witness to the truth
of this proposition, and then I shall further open it to you. Psalm 16:5,
"The Lord is the portion of my inheritance, and of my cup—you maintain my
lot." Psalm 73:26, "My flesh and my heart may fail—but God is the strength
of my heart, and my portion forever." Psalm 119:57, "You are my portion, O
Lord—I have said that I would keep your words." Jer 10:16, "He who is the
Portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the Maker of all things,
including Israel, the tribe of his inheritance—the Lord Almighty is his
name."
Now for the further opening and clearing up of this great
and glorious, this sweet and blessed truth, I shall endeavor to show you,
First, What a portion the Lord is to his saints, to his
gracious ones.
Secondly, The reasons or grounds whereupon the saints
have laid claim to God as their portion.