Philippians 3:19 – Richard Sibbes

[page 175 of volume 5]

Whose end is destruction.

The word signifies a reward, and is translated and taken often for an end, because reward is given at the end of the work; and thus is salvation called a reward for goodness, because it is given at the end of a holy life. The other word signifies damnation or destruction, which implies all things tending to or accompanying the punishment of a wicked life. And the connection of these words with the former may be thus framed. He that is an enemy to the cause of life is an enemy to life, but those that are enemies to the cross of Christ are enemies to the cause of life and to that which saves them; and therefore they must needs be destroyed. This made the apostle judge of them thus, and withal he saw they were void of grace, and were incorrigible. And from hence we may infer,

That we may in some sort judge of the spiritual estate of men, even while they are alive. For as astronomers can judge of eclipses, and statesmen of the continuance or danger of the State, and physicians of the event of diseases, by the course of natural causes, so in religion there are predictions on good grounds, what will follow of ill courses tending to damnation.

But more particularly, there is a threefold judgment.

1. First, One by faith, which concerning ourselves brings certainty; and so we are able to judge of ourselves.

2. Secondly, There is a judgment by fruits, comparing men’s disposition and state with their fruits; and so we say, if men walk riotously, we can infer, Surely he is in no good estate. ‘By their fruits shall you know them,’ saith Christ,’ Matthew 7:16.

3. Thirdly, There is a particular revelation of God’s Spirit. This the prophets and apostles had, but now we have no such rule. Yet by the fruits and course of men, it is an easy matter to judge what the end of those men will be, following those courses; for God’s word is the same now that it was then. Indeed, when we judge men in things indifferent, this is rash, and condemned by the apostle, Romans 14:3.

For use hereof, let us learn to judge ourselves, and know if we break wilfully the known rules of salvation, we are in a fearful estate. And we should also submit to the judgment of God’s ministers while we are here, and amend; for else look assuredly for the sentence of death hereafter from God himself, when there will be no revoking thereof. For though punishment may be deferred a while, yet assuredly it shall not go well with the wicked at the last, Ecclesiastes 8:13.

In the next place observe, There is an end to every way, for it is taken for granted that they have an end; and surely we will not, nor cannot, be always as we are. We are labourers, and there is a time of payment of our wages. And therefore, we should look whither our ways do tend. There will be an end of this life, but damnation shall be without end. We should also be inquisitive to see if we be out of this way, that we may be reformed; for these worldly pleasures must end in eternal vengeance, and this life is but a way to that end.

And in the third place, Learn to be patient. When we see the wicked run on in a broad highway, what though they be admired here and lifted up! They are but condemned persons; and therefore, envy them not, seeing we would be loath, upon serious deliberation, to change estates with them. Observe we further from those words, that God will judge eternally, not only for gross, scandalous sins in the course of our life, but even for errors in judgment. For we must judge aright, as well as affect aright, and God hath no service from corrupt judgments. Those that join man’s merits with Christ’s merits, they cannot rely on God alone, neither can they rejoice in Christ. Christ hath but half of them. Therefore, let us keep the virginity of our judgments; prostitute them not to lies, but reserve them chaste and pure to Christ.

And secondly, Take we heed how we converse with such as are of corrupt judgments. They are God’s and Christ’s enemies, and will labour to bring us into their ways; and then, assuredly let us look for their end. It is reason, that those with whom we converse here, we should converse withal hereafter.

Whose god is their belly.

These words do partly shew the inward disposition of these men. By ‘belly,’ in this place, he means in general all contentments and worldly pleasures, whereof these teachers being satisfied, they lived at large and at ease.

Quest. But how may they be said to make their belly their God?

Ans. 1. I answer, We may be said to make anything our God, first, when we count it one, as some of the papists have esteemed of the pope, as of an essence between man and God; and some emperors have required themselves to be so esteemed, and adored as a deity.

2. Secondly, When we give such affections to it as are only due and proper to God, as to trust in it, to repose content in it, to joy in it; and so is that sentence true, amor tuus, Dens tuus.

3. Thirdly, When we use actions of invocation and adoration thereto; and thus the papists make saints their god, attributing such power in working to them, as is only proper to God.

4. Fourthly, When we bestow all labour to give satisfaction thereunto. For explication, these men gave the intension of their most inward affections, to procure content to their lusts. All their labour was to this end, and so quieted themselves in the enjoyment of them. And as they made their ‘belly their god,’ so their belly acted the part of a god, in giving them laws, bidding them to do, project, devise this or that; undermine such, and grounding them in this first fundamental law, ‘Thou canst not live long, neither wilt thou live well; therefore, while thou livest, live for thy pleasure, take thy ease;’ and from thence, enjoins them to use all means thereto: take all acquaintance, undermine all that cross thee; and all to this end, that thou mayest have thy ease.

As it was then, so now is it with the papists, their successors. All the differences in religion between them and us, are by them grounded on the belly. That is the monarchy of the pope, and worldly pomp, and masses invented for idle priests, Latin prayers, little or no preaching; only that the people being ignorant, they might more easily command them. If their errors were not invested in gain, we should soon accord their worship, especially the manner thereof, only to delight the sense.

And among ourselves, many are not wanting that make profession of religion, but deny the power thereof. So long as religion and outward content do meet, and when religion brings preferment, all will be religious, for they live by no rules but those that their lusts prescribes: morning and evening taking care for the flesh, how to be rich, how to live at ease; and for this will sell their birthright in happiness, refusing the word, refusing good company, yea, heaven itself. And this justly comes as a judgment for man’s first rebellion. When men will not serve God as they should, they are justly given over to the service of those that are no gods.

Quest. But it may be asked, May we not seek to content our flesh?

Ans. I answer, We may respect our bodies; and there is a due honour that belongs to the outward man, but we must so seek for them, as in the first place and principally we seek the kingdom of heaven, and its righteousness; and then God hath promised to cast these things upon us, Matthew 6:33. But when we break order and measure, being first and principally careful for our lusts, the devil knowing our haunts, offers baits fitting for our humours, and we, like filthy swine, devour our own destruction.

And therefore, to avoid this, let us set the fear of God and damnation before our eyes; and if we use not these things moderately and soberly, let that in Romans 8:13 he as a flaming sword to keep us from the way of destruction. ‘If we live according to the lusts of the flesh, we shall die and therefore, ‘as strangers and pilgrims, let us abstain from fleshly lusts, which fight against the soul against our comfort here, and our happy estate hereafter.

Secondly, Let us avoid the company of condemned persons, but look on them with a kind of horror and detestation of them; and pass not for their wicked censures, ‘Their end is damnation, and their belly is their god.’

But because the best are drawn away by these pleasures, let us observe some directions.

And first, Let us see the reasons why we are thus inveigled with them.

Reason 1. First, These earthly contentments are present to our sense. The other only are present to faith, which the carnal man looks not after, neither cares for.

2. Secondly, We nurse up ourselves in an opinion of the necessity of these things, seeing the present use of them; and we see no present use of those better things.

3. Thirdly, These things are bred up with us, and we are acquainted with them from our infancy, and so they plead prescription; and when we are thus taken up before, religion comes after, and very hard it must needs be, to keep our minds lifted up; and yet is it most necessary to be; for lusts do drown men in perdition, 1 Timothy 6:9.

1. But for helps in this estate of ours, observe first, with due consideration, the nature, dignity, and excellency of the soul; that it is a spirit of an excellent beauty, adorned with understanding and judgment, not made to cast off the crown, submitting itself to the rule of every base lust, which indeed is the only happiness of the beasts; nay, if happiness consists in pleasing the senses, beasts are more happy than we, for they have neither shame without, nor conscience within, to disquiet them in the enjoyment of their pleasures.

And know also that this body of ours, being of that excellent temper, is a fabric which was not made only to be a strainer for meat to pass through. The quality of the brain in man, the structure of the eye, do testify man was made for divine meditation, to contemplate of the works of God, which it doth behold with the eye as through a glass.

2. Secondly, We must know, by giving our affections to these things, we are made like the things we affect; for the soul is placed in the midst, as it were, between heaven and earth, and as it affects the one or the other, so is it fashioned. If we love the flesh we are flesh; if we follow the Spirit, we are transformed to its likeness.

3. Thirdly, Consider that God is better than the worshipper, else is he mad that will worship it. But the belly is baser than ourselves. Reason teacheth us the pleasures of this life end in death, when our souls must still continue after all. Now to seek such pleasures as cannot continue with us is madness, as appears even by the light of reason; and therefore are of more power with natural men than pure religious truths. But for those that are called, the Scripture puts them in mind of the last day of judgment, and tells them that they are made for heaven; and such are therefore to set their minds on things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, Col. iii. 1; and when they begin to grow worldly, and to follow their belly, it calls them hack with a ‘but know for all this, God will bring thee to judgment which, duly pondered, cannot but be as a hook in our jaws to bring us back to a more diligent watch over our ways.

And whose glory is in their shame.

A second part of the inward disposition, showing that they glory in that which brought shame to them; for circumcision was a ceremony given to the church when it was but in the infancy; and for them that were born in the strength of the church, being well grown, to glory in such beggarly rudiments was shameful. In the words, first consider the affection; second, the object or end, for the word implies both. And in the first consider the sin, then the cure.

The sin that is reproved in them is ‘vain-glory;’ that is, glorying in a thing not to be gloried in; and it is grounded upon pride, which is a desire of excellency in vain things; and it is for the most part in vain injudicious men, who ordinarily do glory in things that tend to shame. These Philippians saw that Paul was now committed. The doctrine he taught they thought was not good enough; they would be wiser than he, and of deeper reach.

And thus even within the pale of the church, what a scandal is it that men should glory in a graceless grace of swearing, filling up rotten discourse with new devised oaths! And others glory in their foolish conceited gallant apparel; which was for no other end but principally to cover shame. Is not this to glory in shame? And much more those, that blaming, as it were, God for making them no fairer, will mend the workmanship of God by painting. These, while they seek to keep outward blemishes from the eyes of men, do discover to the whole world that they have a spotted rotten heart within them.

And, indeed, it is too common for men ill bred up, to think admirably of themselves, when all their courses are mere vanity. He is the only man of account that cannot put up a cross word without blood. Is not this to glory in shame, whereas it is the glory of a man to pass by an offence, and they are the best men that can overcome themselves? And as helpers on of this vain boasting, we have a generation of ignorant unsettled understandings, that admire at such shameless boasters, and so are causes of strengthening such in their vain-glory. Such are flatterers of great men. Let them remember what is denounced against such. Woe be to them that call evil good and good evil.

In the next place, Shame is not only the object of vain-glory, but the end. They that are vain-glorious shall be brought to shame at length. Thus it is said of Babylon in Isaiah, and mystical Babylon in the Revelations: ‘Though she say, I sit as a queen, and shall see no mourning, yet shall her plagues come in one day, death, and destruction, and mourning,’ Isaiah 47:9, and 51:19; Revelation 18:8.

For God hath knit vain-glory and shame, a punishment proportionable and fitting to the sin, and striking the offender most near, even to the heart. And thus did God meet with Ahithophel, Absalom, and Haman. They sought vain-glory, and their ends were shameful; and such shall be the end of all such as boast that they can do mischief like Doeg, Ps. hi., title, et seq. And the righteous shall see, and fear, and laugh at them.

For use to ourselves, therefore, let us take heed of sin. For by nature the best of us are subject to it. We are all inclinable either to glory in such things as we should not, or to receive glory from such things as we ought not; or else to glory after an inordinate manner. And in that measure we glory amiss, in that measure we consult shame to ourselves. Glory we may, but it must be well grounded, and in a right manner.

And to the attaining thereto we must first labour for a sound knowledge of God, and for a sound dependence upon him in all things, and also labour for to see our own estate, and our many wants; for wanting this knowledge, men glory in merits while they live. But when they die they grow ashamed of their courses and blind judgment. For while they live they judge of themselves by their own conceit of themselves, which is grounded either by comparing of themselves with those that are worse than themselves, as the Pharisee, that thanked God he was not as the publican, Luke 18:11; or else upon the conceit that shallow persons have of them.

1. But these are not rules for us to follow. Look rather what says the humbled conscience; what says God’s word and his justice; and take example of the apostles and holy men of God, that gloried in the Lord reconciled to us in Christ, ‘who is made to us wisdom, sanctification, and redemption,’ 1 Corinthians 1:30. ‘Rejoice that our names are written in heaven,’ Luke 10:20. Rejoice that we understand and know God to be just and merciful, Jeremiah 9:23, 24. Glory in the testimony of a good conscience, that we are true Christians, though but weak, 2 Corinthians 1:12.

2. Secondly, We should be content with the judgment and approbation of God, and hearken to the admonitions of his ministers, and care not for the censures of the world.

3. Thirdly, Take we heed of the first beginnings and motions of sin; at the first they are ever modest. The worst man that ever was, was not shameless in sin at the beginning, but giving way to sin by little, loses all shame, and causes at last corruption in judgment, and justifying a man’s self in wicked courses. Pleasures, riches, and such things, they are like a vizard, only an outside of beauty; or like one that vaunted himself, he can act the person of a king, but is in himself a bond slave. They act their parts here on this worldly stage for an hour, and leave all their followers in eternal bondage for over. Therefore let us not be ashamed for Christ’s cause; but stand out, labour for sincerity now, and we shall have glory hereafter, which as the light shall increase, whereas ‘the candle of the wicked shall be put out,’ Proverbs 24:20.

Who mind earthly things.

To ‘mind,’ in this place is taken largely, to think upon, remember, desire, joy, and to have all the soul exercised. ‘Earthly things;’ that is, lusts of the flesh, lusts of the eyes, pride of life, pleasures, and profits, and honours, which are therefore called ‘earthly,’ because they are conversant about earthly things, and because they make their followers ‘earthly minded;’ and lastly, they are called earthly, in opposition to those that are heavenly. And thus in particular, those that mind honour are ambitious; those that mind riches are covetous; if pleasure, then they are voluptuous, and all of them are earthly. For as the ocean is but one, and yet divers parts thereof have several names, so worldliness is but one sin, yet having many kinds it hath also divers names.

1. The observation that hence we may gather is, that the earthly disposition and mind is the temper of that man who is in the estate of damnation; for the mind of such do shew a dead soul, estranged from the life of God: ‘To be carnally-minded is death,’ saith the apostle, Romans 8:6. For a man lives as he minds and loves.

2. Secondly, Earthly disposition is opposite to God; so Romans 8:7, ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God.’

Observe we further, the apostle describes not these by any notorious gross scandalous sin, but by the inward disposition of the heart; for outward actions are only effects and rivers flowing from the spring of corruption in our hearts.

Whence we may note, that God looks to the inward frame of the sold in men; and therefore though in the eyes of men a man may be without spot, yet is his corruption that is within, open and manifest to the all-seeing eye of God.

And therefore from hence we are to be stirred up to humble ourselves before God, by examining our hearts, and laying open our most secret corruptions.

2. And secondly, This ought to comfort us, that though in our daily practice we often fall, yet God in his goodness looks at the inward frame of the soul, and accepts of it.

3. Thirdly, This justly lays open the folly of men’s censures. If a man break not out into open outrageous sins, they esteem and commend such for good men, though it may be his soul is full stuffed with atheism, revenge, and all manner of villainy.

4. Fourthly, This should teach us to condemn ourselves, even for sinful thoughts; for know, though thou livest without danger of man’s law, thou mayest have a rebellious mind opposite to the divine law of God, by which thou shalt be judged.

Yet seeing for this present life we stand in need of earthly things, and are not to cast oft’ all care of them, let us hearken to some directions in the use of them. For riches and other necessaries, God sends them unto us to be as means to sweeten our pilgrimage here.

1. In using them, take heed they do not possess and take, up our whole heart, immoderately labouring after them, and before any spiritual grace. This the apostle blames in these men. He saw they made religion to be subordinate, and to give place to their worldly lusts, and that as he cared not, if by any means he could attain to the resurrection of the dead; so they contrarily cared not, if by any means, through any cross or loss whatsoever, they could attain to riches, honour, or the like; yea, if religion stood in their way, though it wore with the loss of religion and a good conscience.

2. Secondly, We must take hoed that we use these earthly things so as to draw good out of them, and to employ them to good. Labour we to see God in pleasure, in riches, and in our abundance, knowing and esteeming of them as a beam of the bright sunshine of God’s favour to us, and thus to be lifted up to admire and praise his goodness.

3. Thirdly, Make them instruments of mercy and, bounty. It is an excellent way to further our accounts. So receive the good as we avoid the snare. The way is not to hide our talents in a napkin, to enter into a monastery, to live idle; but to occupy, use, and employ them in the service of God and of our neighbours.

4. To conclude, Let us so use them as they be helpers of us to a better life, not hinderers; for we are in an estate between two, in a warring and conflicting estate, even as a piece of iron between two loadstones, and know not which way to lean; and yet may offend in the excess of either side.

And therefore let us observe some signs, whereby we may know whether we be right or not.

Signs. 1. And first of all, this affection of love, being the primary and principal part, is known by other affections. If therefore our love he set on the world, we shall grieve and vex ourselves for worldly losses, and fret and he chafed when we are crossed in them; and this made Ahab so lumpish, as nothing could comfort him but Naboth’s vineyard.

2. Secondly, Let us observe whither our labours and endeavours are carried, what we talk of most, what think we or meditate we on, first and last, morning and evening. If we observe our carriage, it will discover our mind.

Such are also opposite to any religious good course. He that is rich bitterly opposeth goodness; and therefore it is that Christ said, ‘Ye cannot serve God and Mammon,’ Matthew 6:21; and concludeth, ‘It is harder for a rich man to get into heaven, than for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye,’ Matthew 19:24.

But to cure this sore, let us fetch arguments from the nature of the soul of man, and the nature of these things; and consider the incongruity between the soul, a pure heavenly spiritual essence, and base earthly corrupt things. Dust was made meat for the serpent by a curse, and not for man.

And remember, the God of truth hath threatened vengeance against his dearest children that do not mortify their carnal lusts. Abhor we therefore the first thoughts of this sin, and divert our souls to higher thoughts; and be humbled, shaming ourselves for debasing our souls in that manner, else will God take us in hand. For he will not suffer his children to surfeit on the world, but will bring them back, that they shall see and know ‘all is but vanity and vexation of spirit.’