A Tried Stone

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JM

Puritan Board Doctor
William Huntington writes, “Christ Jesus is the foundation which God in his decree appointed, and in the death of him he laid this foundation in Zion; and he is the foundation that is laid by all the wise master builders that ever God employed in his building, whether prophets, apostles, evangelists, or teachers. He has borne the weight of all our sins, and of all the wrath and all the curses due to us on account of sin; and has approved himself “a tried stone.” To this foundation the Father draws us; here we cast our burdens and cares too; here the weary soul rests; here hope anchors, and faith fixes: into sweet captivity every thought goes, and love sweetly unites us to him whose strength is put forth in our weakness, and from whom life is communicated to every living stone that rests upon him: here we are sensibly borne up above despondency, above a spirit of heaviness, above the meditations of terror, and above the dark regions of the shadow of death. Upon this foundation “the sure mercies of David (in the salvation of sinners) are built up for ever;” and in our glorification “truth will be settled in heaven.”

In laying this foundation, or in the founding of Zion, “judgment was laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet,” Isaiah, xxviii. 16, 17. The undertakings of the Saviour, and the judgment that executed upon him, answered all the demands of “precept upon precept, line upon line;” and the everlasting righteousness that he wrought out and brought in was divine, perfect, complete, and in every sense adequate to the plummet, and answered to the uttermost all the rigorous exactions of vindictive justice. So that this building of mercy upon this foundation, goes up “with the seven eyes of the Lord upon it,” Zech. iii. 9, iv. 10; and is a building complete; there is no breach, shake, or settlement in it, occasioned by any dishonour to the law, nor any part that overhangs to the injury of justice; for both line and plummet have been stretched and laid to this great work, and to every living stone in it, who have all died and suffered in their Surety, and have been justified in him at his resurrection. The divine founder and fabricator has inspected very minutely every part of his building; he chose the corner stone himself, and engraved it with “grace, grace unto it;” and he likewise gave the building its name, “the temple of the living God;” and the city in which it stands, is, JEHOVAH SHAMMA: which names continue to this day and ever will. And sure I am that this foundation will ever sink, and that this building will never be laid in a ruinous heap.

Foundation signifies also the beginning of the work of grace and truth in the sinner’s soul, which is the doctrinal and experimental basis in the believing heart; such as repentance from dead works, and faith towards God, &c.; which are the beginnings of Christ’s work and word in us; because there is no salvation without repentance, faith, &c. which is a clearing away (in some sort) the rubbish that lies between us and the foundation; and because faith, repentance, &c. under the Spirit’s operation, square, fit, and polish, the rude, rough, impenitent, and stony hearted sinner, and make him more fit to join and cleave to the foundation, and when once he is cemented to it by a feeling sense of divine love, he becomes settled, firm, and ornamental in the building. Such an humbled sinner ranges and lines with the rest of the building, and appears to be one of God’s chosen materials, whom God has chosen in the foundation and called to union with it, to rest on it, and to cleave with the whole heart to him, that bears him up as a foundation, and that holds him fast as the head stone in the corner.”

“Abraham looked for a city which hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God.”
 
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