I answer, I think not so fitly; for, alas! the best of sermons in the world are but as thin slices cut out of those large dishes. Our ministers are the carvers, good doctrine is the meat, and the charger in which this meat is found are the holy canonical Scriptures, &c., though, as I said, most properly the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
In these is Christ most truly, lively, and amply set before us as crucified, or roasted at the fire of God's law for our sins, that we might live by him through faith, feeding upon him (2 Cor 3:12; Gal 3:12; Acts 3:18-22, 13:2-5, 26:22; 1 Peter 1:10; Acts 7:52, 15:15, 28:23; Rom 16:26; Rev 10:7).
There is in these chargers not only meat, but sauce, if you like it, to eat the meat withal; for the passover there are bitter herbs, or sound repentance; and for other, as the thank-offerings, their is holy cheerfulness and prayers to God for grace. All these are set forth before in the holy Scriptures, and presented to us thereby, as in the gold chargers of the temple. He that will scoff at this, let him scoff. The chargers were a type of something; and he that can show a fitter antitype than is here proposed to consideration, let him do it, and I will be thankful to him.
Christians, here is your meat before you, and get your carvers to slice it out for you, and this know, the deeper you dip it in the sauce, the better it will relish. But let not unbelief teach you such manners as to make you leave the best bits behind you. For your liberty is to eat freely of the best, of the fat, and of the sweet.
LIII. Of the goings out of the Temple.
As to the comings into the temple, of them we have spoken already; namely, of the outer and inner court, as also of the doors of the porch and temple. The coming in was but one strait course, and that a type of Jesus Christ; but the goings out were many (John 10:9, 14:6).
Now, as I said, it is insinuated that the goings out are many, answerable to the many ways which the children of men have invented to apostatize in from God. Christ is the way into; but sin the way out of the temple of God. True, I read not of a description of the goings out of this house, as I read of the comings in. Only when they had Athaliah out thence, she is said to go out by the way by which the horses come into the king's stables, and there she was slain, as it were upon the horse dung-hill (2 Kings 11:16; 2 Chron 23:15). When Uzziah also went out of this house for his transgression, he was cast out of all society, and made to dwell in a kind of a pest-house, even to the day of his death (2 Chron 26:21).
Thus, therefore, though these goings out are not particularly described, the judgments that followed them that have for their transgressions been thrust out thence, have been both remarkable and tremendous: for to die upon a dung-hill, or in a pest-house, and that for wicked actions, is a shameful, a disgraceful thing. And God will still be spreading dung upon the faces of such; no greatness shall prevent it (Mal 2:3). Yea, and will take them away with it. 'I will drive them out of my house,' says he, 'I will love them no more' (Hosea 9:15).
But what are we to understand in gospel days, by going out of the house of the Lord, for or by sin? I answer, if it be done voluntarily, then sin leads you out: if it be done by the holy compulsion of the church, then it is done by the judicial judgment of God; that is, they are cut off, and cast out from thence, as a just reward for their transgressions (Lev 20, 21:3; Eze 14:8; 1 Cor 5:13).[27]
Well, but whither do they go, that are thus gone out of the temple or church of God? I answer, not to the dunghill with Athaliah, nor to the pest-house with Uzziah, but to the devil, that is the first step, and so to hell, without repentance. But if their sin be not unpardonable, they may by repentance be recovered, and in mercy tread these courts again. Now the way to this recovery is to think seriously what they have done, or by what way they went out from the house of God. Hence the prophet is bid to show to the rebellious house, first the goings out of the house, and then the comings in. But, I say, first he bids show them the goings out thereof (Eze 43:10,11). And this is of absolute necessity for the recovering of the sinner. For until he that has sinned himself out of God's house shall see what danger he has incurred to himself by this his wicked going out, he will not unfeignedly desire to come in thither again.