FIRST KIND OF PEACE.
[Peace
with God the blessing of the gospel.]
Peace with God we may
call peace of reconciliation; and peace of reconciliation with God is the
blessing of the gospel. Three things are here to be done in prosecution of
the point.
First.
I shall show you that there is a quarrel depending between God and the sons of
men. Second. I shall show you
that the gospel, and only the gospel, takes this up, and makes peace betwixt
God and man; therefore called the gospel of peace.
Third. I shall show you why God
conveys this second piece of reconciliation into the world in this way, and
by this method.
[Need for peace
with God.]
First. I shall show you there
is a quarrel depending betwixt God and the sons of men. Open acts of
hostility done by one nation against another proclaim there is a war
commenced. Now, such acts of hostility pass betwixt God and man. Bullets fly
quickly to and fro on either hand. Man, he lets fly against God—though,
against his will, he shoots short —whole volleys of sins and impieties. The
best saints acknowledge thus much of themselves, before converting grace took
them off. ‘We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived,
serving divers lusts and pleasures,’
Titus 3:3.
Mark the last words, ‘serving lusts and pleasures.’ They were in pay to sin,
willing to fight against God, and side with this his only enemy. Not a
faculty of the soul or member of the body of an unconverted man which is not
in arms against him. ‘The carnal mind,’ saith the apostle, ‘is enmity
against God,’
Rom. 8:7.
And if there be war in the mind, to be sure there can be no peace in the
members—inferior faculties, I mean—of the soul, which are commanded all by
it. Indeed, we are by nature worst in our best part; the enmity against God
is chiefly seated in the superior faculties of the soul. As in armies, the
common soldiery are wholly taken up with the booty and spoil they get by the
war, without much minding one side or other, but the more principal officers,
especially the princes or general, go into the field full of enmity against
them that oppose them; so the inferior faculties seek only satisfaction to
their sensual appetite in the booty that sin affords, but the superior
faculties of the mind, these come forth more directly against God, and oppose
his sovereignty; yea, if it could lay a plot effectually to take away the life
of God himself, there is enmity enough in the carnal mind to put it in
execution.
And as man is in arms
against God, so is he against man. ‘God is angry with the wicked every
day;...he hath bent his bow and made it ready; he hath also prepared for him
the instruments of his death,’
Ps. 7:11-13.
God hath set up his royal standard in defiance of all the sons and daughters
of apostate Adam, who from his own mouth are proclaimed rebels and traitors
to his crown and dignity; and as against such, he hath taken the field, as
with fire and sword, to be avenged on them. Yea, he gives the world
sufficient testimony of his incensed wrath, by that of it which is revealed
from heaven daily in the judgements executed upon sinners, and those, many of
them, but ‘of a span long’—before they can show what nature they have by
actual sin—yet crushed to death by God’s righteous foot, only for the viperous
kind of which they come. At every door where sin sets it foot, there the
wrath of God meets us. Every faculty of soul and member of body are used as a
weapon of unrighteousness against God; so every one hath its portion of wrath,
even to the tip of the tongue. As man is sinful all over, so is he cursed all
over; inside and outside, soul and body, written all with woes and curses so
close and full, that there is not room for another to interline or add to what
God hath written.
In a word, so fiery
is the Lord’s wrath against sinful man, that all the creatures share with him
in it. Though God takes his aim at man, and levels his arrows primarily at
his very heart, yet as they go they slant upon the creature. God’s curse
blasts the whole creation for man’s sake; and so he pays him some of his
misery from the hand of those creatures which were primarily ordained to
minister to him in his happy estate, yea, contribute some drops to the filling
of his cup. As an enraged army makes spoil and havoc of all in their enemies’
land—destroys their provision, stops or poisons their waters, burns up their
houses, and lets out his fury on all his hand comes at—truly thus God plagues
man in every creature, not one escapes his hand. The very bread we eat,
water we drink, and air we breathe in, are poisoned with the curse of God; of
which they who live longest die at last. All these, however, are no more to
hell than the few files of men in a forlorn[2]
to the whole body of an army. God doth but skirmish with sinners here, by
some small parties of judgments, sent out to let them know they have an enemy
alive, that observes their motions, takes the alarm their sins give him, and
can be too hard for them when he pleaseth. But it is in hell where he falls on
with his whole power. There sinners ‘shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power,’
II Thes.
1:9. And so much for the
first, that there is a quarrel between God and man: the second follows.
[The gospel
effects the peace needed.]
Second. I shall show you
that the gospel, and only the gospel, takes this quarrel up, and makes peace
between God and man:—therefore called the ‘gospel of peace.’ This will
appear in two particulars. First. The gospel presents us with the
articles of peace which God offers graciously to treat upon with the children
of men, and this none but the gospel doth. Second. The gospel,
preached and published, is the great instrument of God to effect this peace
thus offered.
First. The
gospel presents us with the articles of peace which God graciously offers
to treat and conclude an inviolable peace upon, with rebellious man. In it
we have the whole method which God laid in his own thoughts from eternity of
reconciling poor sinners to himself. The gospel, what is it but God’s heart
in print? The precious promises of the gospel, what are they but heaven’s
court-rolls translated into the creature’s language? In them are exposed to
the view of our faith all the counsels and purposes of love and mercy which
were concluded on by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for the recovery of
lost man by Jesus Christ, who was sent as heaven’s plenipotentiary to earth,
fully empowered and enabled, not only by preaching to treat of a peace as
desired on God’s part to be concluded between God and man, but by the purchase
of his death to procure a peace, and by his Spirit to seal and ratify the same
to all those who —believing the credential letters which God sent with him in
the miracles wrought by him, and especially the testimony which the Scripture
gives of him—do by a faith unfeigned receive him into their souls as their
only Lord and Saviour,
Gal. 3:23.
This is such a notion as is not to be learned elsewhere. A deep silence we
find concerning it in Aristotle and Tully. They cannot tell us how a poor
sinner may be at peace with God. Nothing of this is to be spelled from the
covenant God made with Adam. That shuts the sinner up in a dark dungeon of
despair—bids him look for nothing but what the wrath of a just God can measure
out to him. Thus the guilty creature is surrounded on every side as with a
deluge of wrath —no hope nor help to be heard of—till the gospel, like the
dove, brings the olive branch of peace, and tells him the tide is turned, and
that flood of wrath which was poured on man for his sin is now fallen into
another channel, even upon Christ, who was ‘made a curse for us,’ and hath not
only drunk of the brook that lay in the way and hindered our passage to God,
but hath drunk it off; so that where a sea was now appears dry land, a safe
and fair causey, called, ‘a living way,’
Heb. 10:20,
by which every truly repenting and believing sinner may pass without any
danger from the justice of God now appeased into the love and favor of God.
‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ,’
Rom. 5:1.
We are entirely beholden to the gospel for the discovery of this secret, which
the apostle solemnly acknowledgeth, where Christ is said to bring ‘life and
immortality to light by the gospel,’
II Tim. 1:10.
It lay hid in the womb of God’s purpose, till the gospel arose, and let us
into the knowledge of it, as the light of the sun reveals to the eye what was
before, but what could not be seen without its light; and therefore, it is not
only called ‘a living way,’ but ‘a new and living way which he hath
consecrated for us,’ in the place forementioned—so ‘new,’ that the
heart of man never was acquainted with one thought of it, till the gospel
opens it, according to that of Isa. 42:16, ‘I will bring the blind by a way
that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known.’
Second. The
gospel, published and preached, is the great instrument of God to effect
this peace. Before peace is concluded betwixt God and the creature, both
must be agreed; as God to pardon, so the sinner to accept and embrace peace
upon God’s own terms. But how shall this be done? The heart of man is so
deeply rooted in its enmity against God, that it requires a strength to pluck
up this equal with that which tears up mountains, and carries rocks from one
place to another. The gospel preached is the instrument which God useth for
the effecting of it. ‘I am not ashamed,’ saith the apostle, ‘of the gospel of
Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation,’
Rom. 1:16.
It is the chariot wherein the Spirit rides victoriously when he makes his
entrance into the hearts of man—called therefore ‘the ministration of the
Spirit,’
II Cor. 3:8.
He fashions anew the heart, as he framed the world at first, with a word
speaking. This is the day of God’s ‘power,’ wherein he makes his people
‘willing’—power indeed, to make those that had the seeds of war sown in their
very natures against God willing to be friends with him. Unheard-of power!
As if the beating of a drum should carry such a charm along with its sound as
to make those on the enemy’s side upon the hearing of it to throw down their
arms, and seek peace at his hand against whom they even now took the field
with great rage and fury. Such a secret power accompanies the gospel. It
strikes many times not only the sinner's sword out of his hand while it is
stretched out against God, but the enmity out of his heart, and brings the
stoutest rebel upon his knee, humbly to crave the benefit of the articles of
peace published in the gospel. It makes sinners so pliant and tractable to
the call of God in the gospel, that they on a sudden, upon the hearing of a
gospel sermon, forget their old natural affections which they have had to
their beloved lusts, and leap out of their embraces with indignation, lest
they should keep God and them at odds one moment longer. Now follows the
third.
[Why God
effects peace by the gospel.]
Third. Why doth God convey this
peace of reconciliation unto the sons of men in this way and by this method?
or, in plainer terms, why doth God chose to reconcile poor sinners to himself
by Christ? For this is the peace which the gospel proclaims,
Col. 1:20,
‘And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile
all things unto himself;’ and,
ver. 21, 22,
‘and you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked
works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to
present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.’
But let us reply.
They are too bold with God who say that he could not find out another way.
Who can tell that, except God himself had told him so? Alas! how unmeet is
the short line of our created understanding for such a daring attempt as to
fathom the unsearchableness of God's omnipotent wisdom! —to determine what God
can, and what he cannot do! But we may say, and not forgat to revere the
Majesty of heaven, that the wisdom of God could not have laid the method of
salvation more advantageous to the exalting of his own glorious name, and his
poor creatures’ happiness, than in this expedient of reconciling them to
himself by Christ our great Peace-maker. This transaction hath in it a happy
temperament to solve all the difficulties on either hand; and, for its
mysterious contrivance, it exceeds the workmanship which God put forth in
making this exterior world—though in its kind so perfect and so glorious that
the least creature tells its maker to be a Deity, and puts the atheist to
shame in his own conscience that will not believe so; yet, I say, the plan of
reconciliation exceeds this goodly frame of heaven and earth as far as the
watch itself doth the case which covers it. Indeed, God intended, by this way
of reconciling poor sinners to himself, to make work for angels and saints to
admire the mystery of his wisdom, power, and love therein, to everlasting.
O, when they shall
all meet together in heaven, and there have the whole counsel of God unfolded
to them!—when they shall behold what seas were dried up, and what rocks of
creature impossibilities digged through, by the omnipotent wisdom and love of
God, before a sinner’s peace could be obtained, and then behold the work,
notwithstanding all this, to be effected and brought to a happy perfection—O
how will they be swallowed up in adoring the abyss of his wisdom, who laid
the platform of all this according to the eternal counsel of his own will!
Surely the sun doth not so much exceed the strength of our mortal eyes as the
glory of this will their understandings from ever fully comprehending it.
This, this is the piece which God drew on purpose, for its rare workmanship,
to beautify heaven itself withal. When Christ returned to heaven he carried
none of this world's rarities with him—not its silver and gold, not crowns and
diadems, which here men venture their lives, yea part with their souls, so
prodigally for. Alas! what are these, and the whole pride and gallantry of
this world, to heaven? That which it glories most of, suits heaven no better
than the beggar’s dish and scraps do a prince’s table; or the patched,
tattered coat of the one, the wardrobe of the other. No, the Lord Christ came
on a higher design than this to earth. The enterprise he undertook to
achieve was to negotiate, yea effect, a peace betwixt God and his rebel
creature man, that had by his revolt incurred his just wrath and vengeance.
This was a work that became God himself so well to engage in, that he thought
none high and worthy enough to be trusted with the transacting of it beneath
his only Son, who stayed here but while he had brought his negotiation to a
happy period, and then carried the joyful tidings of its being finished back
with him to heaven, which made his return infinitely welcome to his Father,
and all the glorious inhabitants of heaven, his attendants. But I shall
proceed to give some more particular answer to the question propounded.
[Particular
reasons why God adopts
the method of
reconciliation by the gospel.]
Reason First.
God lays this method of reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, that he
might give the deepest testimony of his perfect hatred to sin in that very act
wherein he expresseth the highest love and mercy to sinners. No act of
mercy and love like that of pardoning sin. To receive a reconciled sinner
into heaven is not so great an advance as to take a rebel into a state of
favour and reconciliation. The terms here are infinitely wider. There is
reason to expect the one, none to look for the other. It is pure mercy to
pardon, but truth, being pardoned, to save,
Micah 7:19, 20.
Well, when God puts forth this very act, he will have the creature see his
hatred to sin written upon the face of that love he shows to the sinner. And
truly this was but needful, if we consider how hard it is for our corrupt
hearts to conceive of God’s mercy without some dishonourable reflection upon
his holiness. ‘I kept silence,’ saith God,
Ps. 50:21.
And what inference doth the wicked draw from thence? ‘Thou thoughtest that I
was altogether such an one as thyself,’ that is, ‘thou thoughtest I liked sin
as well as thyself.’ Now, if so plain and easy a text as God’s forbearing
mercy be wrested, and a false gloss, so repugnant, not only to the end of God
therein, but to the holy nature of God, imposed, how much more subject is
forgiving mercy—that is so far superlative to that, and infinitely more
luscious to the sinner’s palate—to be abused? Some men gaze so long on this
pleasing object that they are not willing to look off, and see any other
attribute of God. Now, in this way of reconciling himself to sinners by
Christ, he hath given such an argument to convince sinners that he is an
implacable hater of sin, as hath not its fellow. It is true, every threat in
the Bible tells us that sin finds no favour in God's heart; the guilty
consciences of men, that hunt them home, and follow them into their own
bosoms, continually yelling and crying damnation in their ears; the
remarkable judgments which now and then take hold of sinners in this world;
and much more the furnace which is heating for them in another world, show
abundantly how hot and burning God's heart within him is in wrath against
sin. But, when we see him run upon his Son, and lay the envenomed knife of
his wrath to his throat, yea, thrust it into his very heart, and there let it
stick—for all the supplications and prayers which in his bitter agonies he
offered up to his Father, ‘with strong crying and tears’—without the least
sparing of him, till he had forced his life, in a throng of sad groans and
sighs, out of his body, and therewith paid justice the full debt, which he
had, as man’s surety, undertaken to discharge—this, this I say, doth give us
a greater advantage to conceive of God’s hatred to sin, than if we could stand
in a place to see what entertainment the damned find in hell, and at once
behold all the torments they endure. Alas! their backs are not broad enough
to bear the whole weight of God’s wrath at once—it being infinite and they
finite, which, if they could, we would not find them lying in that prison for
nonpayment. But behold one here who had the whole curse of sin at once upon
his back. Indeed, their sufferings are infinite extensivè—extensively,
because everlasting; but his were infinite intensivè —intensively. He
paid in one sum what they shall be ever paying, and yet never come to the last
farthing of. ‘The chastisement of our peace was upon him,’
Isa. 53:5.
‘the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,’
ver. 6.
Or [as it is in the margin], ‘he hath made the iniquity of us all to meet in
him.’ The whole curse met in him, as all streams do in the sea—a virtual
collection of all the threatenings denounced against sin, and all laid on
him. And now, take but one step more, and consider in how near relation
Christ stood to God, as also the infinite and unspeakable love with which this
relation was filled, and mutually endeared on each hand, and this at the very
same time when he ascended the stage for this bloody tragedy to be acted on
him in; and, I think, that you are at the highest stair the word of God can
lead you to ascend by, into the meditation of this subject.
Should you see a
father that has but one only son, and can have no more, make him his
mittimus to prison; come into court himself, and sit judge upon his life;
and with his own lips pass sentence of death upon him, and order that it be
executed with the most exquisite torments that may be, yea, go to the place
himself, and with his own eyes, and those not full of water, as mourning for
his death, but full of fire and fury—yea, a countenance in every way so set as
might tell all that see it, the man took pleasure in his child’s death;—should
you see this, you would say, Surely he bitterly hates his son, or the sin his
son hath committed. This you see in God the Father towards his Son. It was
he, more than men or devils, that procured his death. Christ took notice of
this, that the warrant for his death had his Father's hand and seal to it.
‘Shall I not drink of the cup my Father gives me?’ Yea, he stands by and
rejoiceth in it. His blood was the wine that made glad the heart of God—‘It
pleased the Lord to bruise him,’
Isa. 53:10.
When God corrects a saint he doth it, in a manner, unwillingly; but when
Christ suffers, it pleaseth him; and not this from want of love in his heart
to Christ, nor that any disobedience in Christ had hardened his Father’s
against him —for he never displeased him—but from that hatred he had to sin,
and from zeal to exalt his mercy towards sinners, by satisfying his justice on
his Son.
Reason Second.
God effected our peace by Christ, that he might for ever hide pride from
his saints’ eyes. Pride was the stone on which both angels and men
stumbled and fell. In man’s recovery, therefore, he will roll that stone, as
far as may be, out of the way—he will lay that knife aside with which man did
himself the mischief. And that he may do this, he transacts the whole
business by Christ for them. Man’s project was to cut off the entail of his
obedience to God, and set up for himself as a free and absolute prince,
without holding upon his Maker. A strange plot! for to effect this he must
first have thrown away that being which God gave him, and, by self-creation—if
such a thing had been possible —have bestowed a new one upon himself; then,
indeed, and not till then, he might have had his will. But alas! his pride to
be what he could not, lost him what he had, and still might have, enjoyed.
Yet how foolish soever it now appears and infeasible, that was the plot pride
had sprung into man’s heart. Now, God, to preserve his children from all
future assaults and batteries of hell at this door, chose such a way of
reconciling and saving them, that, when the prince of the world comes to tempt
them to pride, he should find nothing in them to give the least countenance or
colour to such a motion; so that, of all sins, pride is such a one as we may
wonder how it should grow, for it hath no other root to bear it up but what is
found in man's dreaming fancy or imagination. It grows, as sometimes we shall
see a mushroom or moss, among stones, where little or no soil is for its root
to take hold of. God, in this gospel way reconciling sinners by Christ, makes
him fetch all from without doors. Wilt thou, poor soul, have peace with God?
Thou must not have it from thine own penance for thy sins. ‘The chastisement
of our peace was upon him;,’
Isa. 53:5.
O know thou art not thy own peacemaker! That is Christ’s name, who did that
work: ‘for he is our peace, who hath made both one,’
Eph. 2:14—Jew
and Gentile one with God, and one with one another. Wouldst thou be
righteous? Then thou must not appear before God in thy own clothes. It is
another’s righteousness, not thy own, that is provided for thee. ‘Surely,
shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness,’
Isa. 45:24.
In a word, wouldst thou ever have a right in heaven’s glory? Thy penny is not
good silver to purchase it with. The price must not come out of thy purse,
but Christ’s heart; and therefore, as it is called the ‘purchased
possession,’ in regard of Christ —because he obtained it for us with a great
sum, not ‘silver and gold,’ but his ‘precious blood’— so ‘an inheritance’ in
regard of us, because it descends upon us as freely as the father’s estate on
his child,
Eph. 1:14.
And why all this, but that the ‘lofty looks’ of man may be ‘humbled,’ and the
‘haughtiness of man’ should be ‘bowed down, and the Lord alone exalted’ in the
day of our salvation? The manna is expounded by Christ himself in a type of
him: ‘The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life
unto the world,’
John 6:33.
Now observe wherefore God chose that way of feeding them in the wilderness:
‘Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that
he might humble thee,’
Deut. 8:16.
But wherein lay this great humbling of them? Were they not shrewdly humbled
think you, to be fed with such a dainty dish, which had God for its cook, and
is called ‘angels’ food’ for its delicacy?
Ps. 78:25—such,
that if they needed any repast, might well suit their table. I answer, it was
not the meanness of the fare, but the manner of having it, which God intended
should humble them. Man is proud, and loves to be his own provider, and not
stand to another’s allowance. The same feast sent in by the charity and
bounty of another, will not go down so well with his high stomach as when it
is provided at his own cost and charges; he had rather have the honour of
keeping his own house, though mean, than to live higher upon the alms and
allowance of another’s charity. This made them wish themselves at their
onions in their own gardens in Egypt, and their flesh-pots there, which though
they were grosser diet, they liked better, because bought with their own
penny.
Reason Third.
God lays this method of reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, that it
might be a peace with the greatest advantage possible—that God and man
might meet again on better terms by this pacification, than when Adam stood
in all his primitive glory. God, no doubt, would not have let the beauty of
his first workmanship to be so defaced by sin, had he not meant to have reared
a more magnificent structure out of its ruins. Now, God intending to print
man’s happiness in the second edition with a fairer character than at the
first, he employs Christ in the work, as the only fit instrument to accomplish
so great a design. Christ himself tells us as much: ‘I am come that they
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,’
John 10:10.
His coming was not to give those who were dead and damned bare peace, naked
life, but ‘more abundantly’ than ever man had before the breach. It was
Christ in the second temple who filled it with a glory superlative to the
first—Christ in the second creation of man, that lifts his head above the
first state in happiness. As Adam was a pattern to all his seed—what he was
in his innocent state, that should they all have been, if sin had not altered
the scene, and turned the tables —so Christ is a pattern to all his seed of
that glory which they shall be clothed with,
I John 3:2.
‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him’—that
is, ‘our vile bodies like his glorious body.’ as the apostle hath it,
Php. 3.21,
and our souls also, like his glorious soul. Now, by how much our nature in
Christ is more glorious than it was in Adam, by so much the state of a
reconciled sinner surpasseth Adam’s first condition. Some little discovery
whereof, take in two particulars.
[Superiority of
our nature in Christ
to its state in
Adam.]
1. The reconciled
sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his union to God. 2. The reconciled
sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his communion with God.
1. The reconciled
sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his union to God. And that,
(1.) As it is
nearer. The union is nearer, because God and man make one person in
Christ. This is such a mystery as was not heard of by Adam in all his glory.
He, indeed, was in league of love and friendship with God—and that was the
best flower in his crown—but he could lay no claim to such kindred and
consanguinity as now—with reverence be it spoken—the reconciled soul can with
God. This comes in by the marriage of the divine nature with the human, in
the person of Christ, which personal union is the foundation of another, a
mystical union betwixt Christ and the person of every believer; and this is
so near a union, that, as by the union of the divine nature and human, there
is one person, so also by this mystical union, the saints and their head make
one Christ, ‘for as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the
members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ,’
I Cor. 12:12.
Ecclesia est Christus explicatus—the church is nothing but Christ
displayed. Who can speak what an advance this is to the human nature in
general, and to the persons of believers in especial?—such a one, as it leaves
not only Adam, but angels, beneath a reconciled sinner in this respect. Adam,
at first, was made but ‘little lower than the angels;’ but, by this pair of
unions, God hath set the reconciled soul more than a little above them both,
for Christ, by taking on him, not ‘the nature of angels’—though the more
ancient and noble house—but the seed of Abraham,’ made ‘the elder serve the
younger.’ Even angels themselves minister to the meanest saint, as unto their
Master’s heir,
Heb. 1:14.
(2.) As it is
stronger. Therefore stronger, because nearer. The closer stones stand
together the stronger the building. The union betwixt God and Adam in the
first covenant, was not so near but Adam might fall, and yet God’s glory stand
entire and unshaken; but the union now is so close and strong betwixt Christ
and his saints, that Christ cannot be Christ without his members. ‘Because I
live,’ saith Christ, ‘ye shall live also,’
John 14:19—implying
that their life was bound up in his, and [that] it was as easy for him to be
turned out of heaven as for them to be kept out. The church is called
Christ's ‘body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all,’
Eph. 1:23.
A body is not full if it hath not every member and joint, though never so
little, and them in their fulness too. The saints’ graces is Christ's glory,
II Cor.
8:23; and, though his
essential glory as God receives no filling from his saints, or their graces,
yet consider him in his mediatorship as head of his church, so Christ’s glory
is daily filling, as the elect are called in daily, and as those that are
called in grow up to their appointed stature. Christ hath not his fulness
till the saints have their perfection and complement of grace in heaven’s
glory.
2. The reconciled
sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his communion with God. The
nearer, we use to say, the dearer. Communion results from union. If the
union be nearer and stronger between a reconciled soul and God than Adam’s
was, his communion must needs be sweeter and fuller. Why else is the
communion between husband and wife fuller than of friend and friend, but
because the union is closer? God converseth with Adam as a friend with his
friend and ally, but with the reconciled soul as a husband with his wife.
‘For thy Maker is thy husband,’
Isa. 54:5.
There is a double sweetness peculiar to the reconciled sinner’s communion with
God.
(1.) There is, in
Christ, a foundation laid for greater familiarity with God, than Adam was
at first capable of. He, indeed, was the son of God, yet he was kept at a
further distance, and treated with more state and majesty, from God, than now
the reconciled soul is; for, though he was the son of God, by creation, yet
‘the Son of God’ was not then ‘the Son of man’ by incarnation; and at this
door comes in the believer's sweetest familiarity with God. The Christian
cannot now lift up an eye of faith to God, but sees his own nature standing
upon the throne by him, in the person of Christ. And, if the sight of Joseph
at Pharaoh's right hand, in court favour and honour, sent the patriarchs home
with such joyful news to their aged father, what a ravishing message of joy
must faith carry then to the soul of a reconciled sinner, when it comes in
after some vision of love in an ordinance and saith, ‘Cheer up, O my soul, I
see Jesus Christ, thy near kinsman, at God’s right hand in glory, to whom ‘all
power is given in heaven and earth;’ fear not, he is so nigh in blood to thee
that he cannot be unmindful of thee, except he should do what is unnatural in
thyself, that is, hide himself from his own flesh.’ The lower a prince
stoops to the meanest of his subjects, the more familiar he makes himself to
his subjects.
It was a wonderful
condescension in the great God, who can have no compeer, first to make man,
and then to strike so friendly a league and covenant with him. This
God doth now with every reconciled soul, and that too enriched with so many
astonishing circumstances of condescending grace as must needs speak the way
of the believer’s access to God more familiar. God, in this second and new
alliance with the poor creature, descend from his throne—exchanges his
majestic robes of glory for the rags of man’s frail flesh. He leaves his
palace to live for a time in his creature’s humble cottage, and there not only
familiarly converses with him, but, which is stranger, ministers to him, yea,
which is more than all these, he surrenders himself up to endure all manner of
indignities from his sorry creature’s hand; and when this, his coarse
entertainment is done, back he posts to heaven, not to complain to his Father
how he hath been abused here below, and to raise heaven’s power against those
that had so ill-entreated him, but to make ready heaven’s palace for the
reception of those who had thus abused him, and now will but accept of his
grace; and lest these yet left on earth should fear his re-assumed royalty
and majesty in heaven's glory would make some alteration in their affairs in
his heart—to give them therefore a constant demonstration that he would be the
same in the height of his honour that he was in the depth of his abasement—he
goes back in the same clothes he had borrowed of their nature, to wear them on
the throne in all his glory—only some princely cost bestowed, to put them into
the fashion of that heavenly kingdom, and make them suit with his glorified
state—giving them a pattern by this, what their own vile bodies, which are now
so dishonourable, shall be made another day. Now none of all those
circumstances were found in God’s first administration to Adam, and therefore
this is the more familiar.
(2.) There is the
sweetness of pardoning mercy, and the bleeding love of Christ—who, by his
death, purchased it for him—to be tasted in the reconciled soul’s communion
with God. This lump of sugar Adam had not in his cup. He knew what the
love of a giving God meant, but was stranger to the mercy of a forgiving God.
The reconciled soul experiments both. The love of a father, more than
ordinary kind, is a great comfort to a dutiful child—one that never displeased
his father; but it carries no such wonder in it to our thoughts as the
compassion and melting bowels of a father towards a rebellious child doth. And
certainly the prodigal child, that is received again into his father's
embraces, hath the advantage for loving his father more than his brother that
never came under his father’s displeasure. O this pardoning mercy, and the
love of Christ that procured it! —they are the most spacious and fruitful
heads for a gracious soul to enlarge his sweetest meditations upon, here on
earth. But who can conceive what ravishing music glorified saints will make
in running division on this sweet note? I am sure the song their harps are
tuned unto is ‘the song of the Lamb,’
Rev. 15:2, 3.
The saints’ finished happiness in heaven’s glory is a composition of all the
rare ingredients possible—so tempered by the wise hand of God, that, as none
could well be spared, so not the taste of any one shall be lost in another.
But this ingredient of pardoning mercy, and of the stupendous love and wisdom
of God through Christ therein, shall, as I may so say, give a sweet relish to
all, and be tasted above all the rest.
[Use or
application.]
Let it provoke
everyone to labour to get an interest in this peace of reconciliation with
God which the gospel brings. Peace with God! Sure it is worth the
sinner’s having, or else the angels were ill employed when they welcomed the
tidings thereof into the world at our Saviour’s birth with such acclamations
of joy. ‘Glory to God,....on earth peace,’
Luke 2:14.
Yea otherwise Christ himself was deceived in his purchase, who, if a sinner's
peace with God be not of high praise and value, hath little to show for the
effusion of his heart-blood, which he thought well spent to gain this. But
this we cannot believe. And yet to see how freely God offers peace and pardon
to the sons of men through Christ, and how coy, yea sullen and cross they are
to the motion:—one that does not well know them both—God's infinite goodness,
and wretched man's horrible baseness—might be ready to think it some low
prized ware which lay upon God’s hands, and this to be the cause why God is so
earnest to put it off, and man so loath to take it off his hands. Ah poor
deluded wretches! who is the wicked counsellor that hardens your hearts from
embracing your own mercies? None, sure, but a devil can hate God and you so
much. And hath he sped so well in his own quarrel against God, that he should
be hearkened to by thee, poor sinner? Can he give thee armour that will
quench God's bullets? How then is it that he is so unkind to himself as to
let them lie burning in his own bosom to his unspeakable torment? Or will he
lend thee any pity when thou hast by his advice undone thyself? Alas! no more
than the cruel wolf doth the silly sheep, when he hath sucked her blood and
torn her in pieces. Think, and think again, poor sinner, what answer thou
meanest to send to heaven before God calls his ambassadors home, and the
treaty break up, never to be renewed again. And that thou mayest not want some
seasonable matter for thy musing thoughts to enlarge upon on this subject,
let me desire thee to treat with thy own heart upon these four heads.
First. Consider what it is that is offered thee. Second. Who it is
that offers it. Third. How he offers it. Fourth. What thou dost
when thou refusest it.
[Exhortations
to the sinner to embrace this
peace with God,
offered in the gospel.]
First.
Consider what it is that is offered thee —peace with God. A thing so
indispensable—thou canst not have less, and so comprehensive—thou needest have
no more than this, and what cometh with it, to make thee truly, fully happy.
Of all the variety of enjoyments with which it is possible thy table can be
spread, this is a dish can least be spared. Take away peace, and that but of
an inferior nature —outward peace—and the feast is spoiled, though it be on a
prince’s table. David’s children had little stomach to their royal dinner
when one of them was slain that sat at the board with them. And what taste
can you have in all your junkets while God is in array against you; many
sinners slain before your eye by God's judgments; and the same sword that hath
let out their blood, at thy throat, while the meat is in thy mouth? Methinks
your sweet morsels should stick in your throat, and hardly get down, and
hardly get down, while you muse on these things. O sinner! is not this as a
toad swelling at the bottom of thy most sweetly sugared cup—that the
controversy yet depends betwixt God and thee? Thy sins are unpardoned, and
thou a dead damned creature, however thou dost frolic it for the present in
thy prison. Would you not wonder to see a man at his sport, hunting or
hawking, and one should tell you that that man is to be hanged tomorrow?
Truly God is more merciful to thee than thou canst promise thyself, if he stay
the execution till another day. I confess, when I meet a man whose life
proclaims him an unreconciled sinner, and see him spruce up himself with the
joy of his children, estate, honour, or the like, in this life, it administers
matter of admiration [amazement] to me, what such a one thinks of God or
himself. Canst thou think it is long thou shalt sit at this fire of thorns
thou hast kindled, and not God for thee? Must it needs provoke a creditor to
see his debtor live high, and go brave, all at his cost, and all the while
never think of getting out of his debt, or of making his peace with him? Much
more then doth it provoke God to see sinners spend upon his bounty—lead joyful
jovial lives in the abundance of outward enjoyments he lends them, but take no
thought of making peace with him in whose debt‑book they are so deep in
arrears.
What folly had it
been for the Jews, when Ahasuerus had sealed the warrant for their
destruction, to have gone and painted their houses, planted their fields, and
let out their hearts in the enjoyment of their estates, without taking care,
in the first place, of getting that bloody decree reversed? A worse sot art
thou, that doest all these, while thou carriest the sentence of death from
God’s mouth, about thee in thy own conscience. Sir Thomas More, when in the
Tower, would not so much as trim himself, saying, ‘There was a controversy
betwixt the king and him for his head, and till that was at a happy end, he
would be at no cost about it.’ Scum but off the froth of his wit and you may
make a solemn use of it. Certainly all the cost you bestow on yourselves to
make your lives pleasurable and joyous to you is mere folly, till it be
decided what will become of the suit betwixt God and you, not for your heads,
but souls, yea soul and body, whether for heaven or hell. O were it not thy
wisest choice to begin with making thy peace, and then thou mayest soon lead a
happy life! We say, ‘He that gets out of debt grows rich.’ I am sure the
reconciled soul cannot be poor. As soon as the peace is concluded a free
trade is opened betwixt God and the soul. If once pardoned, thou mayest then
sail to any port that lies in God’s dominions, and be welcome. All the
promises stand open with their rich treasure. Take, poor soul, full lading in
of all the precious things they afford, even as much as thy faith can bear,
and none shall hinder thee. As a man may draw the wine of a whole vessel
through one tap, so faith may draw the comfort of all the covenant out of this
one promise of reconciliation. If reconciled, then the door is open to let
thee into communion with God in all his ordinances. God and thou being agreed
may now walk together, whereas before thou couldst not look into God’s
presence but his heart rose against thee, as one at the sight of his enemy,
ready to draw upon thee with his judgments. ‘The smith,’ we say, ‘and his
penny, both are black.’ So wert thou with all thy duties and performances,
while unreconciled in his eye. But now thy ‘voice is sweet, and countenance
comely.’ All the attributes of God, thy ally, are thine: his horses and
chariots thine, as Jehoshaphat told Ahab. Whenever any enemy puts thee in
fear, you know where to have a friend that will take part with thee. All his
providences, though like bees, they fly some this way, and some that, yea, one
contrary to another, as, thou thinkest, impossible to trace them, are yet all
at work for thee; and thy soul is the hive wherein they will unlade the sweet
fruit of all their labour, though possibly it may be night—the evening of thy
days—before thou findest it. In a word, if reconciled, thou standest next
step to heaven; ‘whom he justifies, them he glorifies,’
Rom. 8:30.
Thou art sure to be there as soon as death rends the veil of thy flesh, which
is all that interposeth between thee and it.
Second.
Consider who it is that offers peace to thee—the great God. It is hard
to say which speaks the greatest wonder—for God to offer, or thee to deny
what he offers. We marvel not to see the undutiful child on his knee,
labouring to soften his father’s heart with his tears, which he hath hardened
against him with his rebellions; nor a condemned traitor prostrate at his
prince’s foot, begging for his life, now forfeited to the justice of the law;
but it is something strange to see the father become suppliant to his child,
more, for the traitor to open his dungeon door and find his prince standing
there, and that upon no other errand than to desire him to accept of a pardon.
And yet self-love may be the great motive for this seeming self-denial. The
parent doth but love himself when he steps below his place to gain his child,
that carries so much of its parent’s life about him. And such necessity of
state there is sometimes, that great princes are forced to stoop to the
meanest, yea worst of his subjects. A prince’s safety may be so intimately
concerned in a traitor’s life that he cannot cut off his head without imminent
danger to the crown that stands upon his own. But none of these straits
forced God to take up thoughts of peace to his poor creature; no, they are the
birth of free condescending love. And now, think again, sinner, before the
great God hath a denial from thee. If a neighbour, the poorest in the town,
and he one that hath done thee wrong, and not received it from thee, comes to
thee and desires peace, shouldst thou reject the motion? Would not thy
conscience reproach thee to thy dying day? How then wilt thou endure to look
God or conscience in the face, if thou refusest peace at God’s hands that thou
doth not treat, like men, when their sword is broke, and they cannot fight,
but when he hath absolute power over thy life—which is ever in his hands—yea,
a God that hath ever received the wrong—never did thee any—yea, should have
done thee none, if he had long before this hanged thee up in chains of
darkness among the damned.
Third.
Consider how God offers thee peace.
1. He offers peace
sincerely. He covers not fraud under a treaty of peace. Among men there
hath been horrible juggling in this case. The flag of peace is oft hung out
at lip only, to draw them within the reach of their dagger, which is ready to
smite them, as Joab did Abner, ‘under the fifth rib.’ In all the civil wars
of France the poor Protestants found peace more costly to them than war; they
beat the Papists in the field, when open enemies, but were betrayed by them in
the chamber, when false friends. But for thy comfort know it is, ‘a God of
truth’ thou treatest with. Never did he shed the blood of war in peace, or
give a soul to the sword of his wrath, after quarter taken and peace given.
‘If we confess,....he is just and faithful to forgive.’ His promises are not
‘yea and nay,’ like the devil’s, who lays them so that he may have the credit
both ways. No, the very heart of God may be seen as through a crystal window
in the promise; they are all ‘yea and amen’ in Christ,
II Cor. 1:20.
2. He offers peace
affectionately, his heart deeply engaged in the tenders of mercy to poor
sinners; which will appear,
(1.) In his
contriving a way for reconciling sinners to himself. What men strongly
desire, they stretch their wits to the utmost how to accomplish. ‘The liberal
man deviseth liberal things,’
Isa. 32:8.
It shows the heart exceeding large in charity, when a man shall sit down and
study how he may find out ways for the exercise of his charity; whereas, most
men, alas! beat their brains how they may save their purses and escape with
giving as little as may be to the poor. O what a rare invention hath God
found out for showing mercy, which hath so many mysterious passages in it,
that angels themselves are put hither to school, that by studying this mystery
of God’s reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, they might know ‘the
manifold wisdom of God!’
Eph. 3:10.
(2.) By the early
discovery he made of this to the sons of men. He would go among us, for
no sooner had man broken the peace, and taken up rebellious arms against his
Maker, but the Lord's heart relented towards him, and could not let the sun go
down on his wrath against him, but must, in the very same day that he sinned,
let him hear of a Saviour, by preaching peace to him, in ‘the seed of the
woman,’
Gen 3:15.
Little did Adam think that God had such a message in his mouth for him, when
he first heard him coming towards him, and for fear ran his head into a bush,
meditating a flight from him, if he had known whither to have gone. O, that
‘Adam, where art thou?’ sounded, no doubt, in his guilty ears, like the voice
of an avenging God calling him, a malefactor, to execution! But it proved the
voice of a gracious God, coming, not to meet man in his way returning to him,
but to seek him out, who had lost all thoughts of him, that he might give some
ease to his own gracious heart, now full of mercy to his poor creature, by
disclosing to him the purposes of grace which he had there conceived towards
him. Surely his heart was very full, or else this would not have burst out so
soon.
(3.) The great
ordinance of the gospel-ministry, which God hath set up in the church, on
purpose to treat with sinners upon a peace, speaks his deep affection to
the work,
II Cor. 5:18.
One would have thought it had been enough to print his thoughts and purposes
of mercy in the Scripture, though he had done no more. Princes, when they put
out a statute or law, expect all their subjects should inquire after it, and
do not send one to every town, whose office shall be to give notice thereof,
and persuade people to submit to it. Yet this the great God doth. The
minister’s work from one end of the year to the other, what is it but to
beseech sinners to be reconciled to God? And in this observe,
(a) The
persons he sends to preach. Not angels, foreigners to our nature, who,
though they wish us well, yet are not so intimately concerned in man’s fall,
as to give them the advantage of preaching with those melting bowels, that God
would have them filled with who go on his errand. No, he sends men, with whom
he may converse familiarly, creatures of like passions—whose nature puts them
under the same depravation, temptation, condemnation with ourselves—who can,
from the acquaintance they have with their own hearts, tells us the baseness
of ours —from the fire of God’s wrath, which hath scorched them for their
sins, [can] tell us the desert of ours, and the danger we are in by reason of
them—as also, from the sweet sense that the taste of God’s love in Christ hath
left on their souls, can commend the cheer and feast they invite us to upon
their own knowledge. Did not God, think you, desire good speed to his
embassage when he chose such to carry it?
(b) Observe
the qualifications required in those he employs as ambassadors to offer
peace to sinners. ‘The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle
unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose
themselves,’
II Tim. 2:24,
25. O how careful is God
that nothing should be in the preacher to prejudice the sinner’s judgment, or
harden his heart, against the offer of his grace. If the servant be proud and
hasty, how shall they know the master is meek and patient? God would have
them do nothing to make the breach wider, or hinder a happy close betwixt him
and them. Indeed, he that will take the bird must not scare it. A froward
peevish messenger is no friend to him that sends him. Sinners are not pelted
into Christ with stones of hard provoking language, but wooed into Christ by
heart-melting exhortations.
(c) Look into
the commission God gives his ambassadors, and still his heart appears
in the business, whether you consider the largeness of it, on the one hand, or
the strictness of it on the other. First, the largeness of it—‘Go and
preach,’ saith Christ, ‘the gospel to every creature.’ Make no
difference—rich or poor, great sinners or little, old sinners or young. Offer
peace to all that will but repent and believe. Bid as many come as will; here
is room for all that come. Again, the strictness of it on the other
hand. O what a solemn charge have they of delivering their message
faithfully! Paul trembles at the thoughts of loitering—‘Woe is me if I preach
not.’ What an argument doth Christ use—fetched from his very heart—to
persuade Peter to be careful, ‘If thou lovest me, feed my sheep.’ As if he
had said, ‘Peter, thou now art in tears for thy cowardice in denying me, but
thou hast yet one way left, for all that unkindness, to demonstrate thy love
to me, and that is by feeding my sheep; do this, and trouble not thyself for
that.’ Christ shows more care of his sheep than of himself.
(d) The joy
God expresseth when poor sinners come into the offer of peace. Joy is the
highest testimony that can be given to our complacency in any thing or
person. Love to joy is as fuel to the fire. If love lay little fuel of
desires on the heart, then the flame of joy that comes thence will not be
great. Now God's joy is great in pardoning poor sinners that come in;
therefore his affection great in the offer thereof. It is made the very motive
that prevails with God to pardon sinners, ‘because he delighteth in mercy,’
Micah
7:18. ‘Who is a God like
unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the
remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he
delighteth in mercy.’ God doth all this, ‘because he delighteth in mercy.’
Ask why the fisher stands all night with his angle in the river. He will tell
you, ‘because he delights in the sport.’ Well, you now know the reason why
God stands so long waiting on sinners, months, years, preaching to them; it
is that he may be gracious in pardoning them, and in that act delight
himself. Princes very oft pardon traitors to please others more than
themselves, or else it would never be done, but God doth it chiefly to delight
and gladden his own merciful heart. Hence the business Christ came
about—which was no other but to reconcile sinners to God—is called ‘the
pleasure of the Lord,’
Isa. 53:10.
The Lord takes such joy and pleasure in this, that, whereas other fathers
—whose love to their children sinks infinitely beneath any comparison with
the love of God to Christ —mourn at the death of their children, and most of
all when violent and bloody, God takes content in his Son's death; yea, had
the chief hand in the procuring of it, and that with infinite complacency: ‘It
pleased the Lord to bruise him.’ And what joy could God take in his Son’s
death, but as it made way for him and his poor creature that were fallen out,
and at open war one against another, to fall in again by a happy accord? And
now, speak, O sinner! if God doth so affectionately desire to be reconciled
with thee, doth it not much more behove thee to embrace the peace, than it
doth him to offer it? There is but one thing more I would desire thee,
sinner, to consider, and then I leave thee to thy own choice.
Fourth.
Consider what thou doest when thou refusest peace with God.
Determinations of war or peace use to be the result of the most grave counsels
and mature deliberation possible. Think and think again, what thou doest,
before thou breakest off the treaty of peace, lest thou makest work for
repentance when it will be bootless. But, lest thou shouldst not be so
faithful to God and thy own soul as to give thy conscience liberty to speak
freely in this matter, I shall do it for thee, and tell thee what thou doest
when thou rejectest peace. Thou justifiest thy former hostilities against
God, and declarest that thou wilt vouch what thou hast done, let God right
himself as well as he can. He that refuseth a pardon, either denieth he hath
done wrong, or, which is worse, stands to defend it. Thou hadst as good say
thou desirest not to be friends with God, but hast a mind to perpetuate the
feud betwixt God and thee, like Amilcar, who was such an enemy to Rome, that,
when he died, he made his son Hannibal heir to his hatred against them. Is it
not enough that thou hast fought so many battles on earth against thy Maker,
but wilt thou keep the quarrel up in another world also, where there is no
more possibility to put an end to it than to eternity itself? Thou throwest
the greatest scorn upon God that it is possible for a creature to do. As if
God’s love and hatred were such inconsiderable things that they need not, when
cast into the scale of thy thoughts, preponderate[3]
thee either way—the one to move thy desire, or the other thy fear! In a word,
thou consentest to thy own damnation, and desperately flingest thyself into
the mouth of God’s flaming wrath, which gapes in the threatening upon thee.
God is under an oath to procure thy destruction, if thou diest in this mind,
which God forbid! Death is the trap-door which will let thee down to hell’s
dungeon; and when once thou art there, thou art where thou wilt have space
enough to weep over thy past folly, though here thou hast neither mind nor
leisure to make God thy friend. The very thoughts of those offers of peace
which once thou hadst, but no heart to embrace them, will be like so much salt
and vinegar, with which thy accusing conscience will be continually basting
thee, as thou liest roasting in hell-fire, to make thy torment the more
intolerable. I know this language grates on the sinners’ ears, but not so ill
as the gnashing of the sinner’s own teeth will in hell.
I have read of a
foolish, I may say cruel, law among the Lacedemonians[4],
that none should tell his neighbour any ill news befallen him, but every one
should be left, in process of time, to find it out themselves. Many among
us, I think, would be content if there were such a law, that might tie up
ministers’ mouths from scaring them with their sins, and the miseries that
attend their unreconciled state. The most are more careful to run from the
discourse of their misery, than to get out of the danger of it—are more
offended with the talk of hell, than troubled for that sinful state that shall
bring them thither. But alas! when, then, shall we show our love to the souls
of sinners if not now, seeing that in hell there remains no more offices of
love to be done for them? Hell is a pest-house, that we may not write so much
on the door of it as ‘Lord, have mercy on them that are in it.’ Nay, they who
now pray for their salvation, and weep over their condition, must then with
Christ vote for their damnation, and rejoice in it, though they be their own
fathers, husbands, and wives they see there. O, now bethink yourselves, before
the heart of God and man be hardened against you!
Question. But
how may a poor sinner be at peace with God?
1. See and be
sensible of the feud and enmity that at present stands betwixt God and thee.
2. Look thou propoundest right ends in thy desire of reconciliation with God.
3. Throw down thy rebellious arms, and humbly submit to his mercy. 4. Hie
thee, as soon as may be, to the throne of grace, and humbly present thy
request to God to be at peace with thee through Christ.
[Directions to
sinners as to how
they may be at
peace with God.]
1. Direction.
See and be sensible of the feud and enmity that at present stands betwixt
God and thee.
(1.) As to the
reality of the thing, that there is indeed a quarrel, which God hath
against thee. Wherever thou goest, an angry God is at thy back, and his
wrath, like a big-bellied cloud, hangs full of curses over thy head, ready
every moment to empty them upon thy head. There is need of pressing this.
For, though it is ordinary for men to confess themselves sinners, yet most are
loath to disparage their state so far as to rank themselves among the enemies
of God. No, they hope God and they are good friends for all this. Like
thieves they will confess some little matter, but they have a care of letting
fall anything that may hazard their necks. ‘Sinner’ is a favourable word.
Who lives and sins not? That they will grant. But, to be in a state of
enmity, and under the wrath of God, this scares them too much, and brings them
too near the sight of the gallows—the seat of hell—which are due to that
state; and therefore, when pressed thus far—as the Jews desired Rabshakeh,
when he scared them with the dreadful things that would befall them if they
stood out against the king his master, ‘that he would not speak in the Jews’
language in the ears of the people,’
Isa. 36:11,
for fear of affrighting them, but in a foreign tongue—so sinners desire those
that deal plainly with them, that they should not speak so broad in the
hearing of their conscience, which they are afraid should know the worst.
But, if thou lovest thy own soul, make a true representation of thy state to
thyself. O what folly is it for a man to lose his cause by concealing the
badness of it!
(2.) Labour to bring
thyself under the sense of thy miserable condition as thou art. Hadst
thou the empire of the world, and all nations creeping to thy foot, as once
the beasts did to Adam, and a lease as long as Methuselah’s life twice told to
enjoy it in, without the interposition of one cloud all the while, to darken
the glory of this thy royalty, yet, supposing thee to be one to whom God is an
enemy, I would choose to be the worm under thy foot, the toad in the ditch,
sooner than thy miserable self in thy palace. One thought of thy approaching
death, and eternal misery in store for thee, will let out all the joy of thy
present happiness. This, this makes the great ones of the world—indeed all
unreconciled sinners, high and low—to go to their graves as bears down a
hill—backwards. Alas! if they should but look forward whither they were
going, their hearts would soon be at their mouths, for want of this
breastplate—a comfortable persuasion of their peace made with God. Go,
therefore, as a poor malefactor condemned to die would do, shut thyself up
from all thy old flattering companions, that would still lullaby thy miserable
soul in a senseless security—the cradle which the devil rocks souls in, to
their utter destruction; let none of them come to thee, but send for those
that dare be faithful to thee, and, like Samuel, dare tell thee every word
that God saith against thee, and conceal nothing; yea, read thy doom with thy
own eyes in the word, and take thy condemnation from God’s own mouth, and not
man’s. ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’ Muse on it till it
cleaves to thy soul like a drawing-plaster to a sore, and brings out the very
core of thy pride and carnal confidence, which hardened thy heart from all
sense of thy condition; by which time, the anguish of thy own spirit, seeing
the straits thou art brought into, will prompt thee to desire peace with God,
and this is that which God waits for to hear drop from thee, as much as
Benhadad’s servants did for a word from Ahab’s mouth.
2. Direction.
Look thou propoundest right ends in thy desire of reconciliation with God.
Nothing more hateful to God or man than falsehood and treachery in treaties of
peace; and yet some men can have words as smooth as butter in their mouths,
and war be in their hearts at the same time,
Ps. 55:21.
O take heed of any hollowness of heart in thy inquiry for peace! When found
out—as it must needs be, except God's eye fails him, which is impossible—it
will exceedingly harden the heart of God against thee. God never repented of
any he pardoned or took up into the chariot of peace with him, because he was
never deceived by any, as men are, who make often peace with those that prove
at last false brethren, and give them cause to wish they had never known
them. Joab killed Amasa, but he took no heed to the sword in Joab's
hand. God looks to the heart, and sees what is in its hand; be sure thou
therefore stand clear in thy own thoughts as to the ends thou aimest at. It
is lawful for thee to look to thy own safety. God will give thee leave to
look to thyself. This thou mayest, and yet not neglect him. But never was
any peace true or sure where only self-love made it, whether it be with God,
or between man and man. Thou seest thou art undone if thou keepest thy old
side, and therefore thou seekest peace with God, as the kings that served
Hadarezer. When they saw he was ‘smitten before Israel, they made peace with
Israel’ themselves,
II Sam. 10:19.
Well, this may be allowed thee to come over to God, because his is the surer
side. Never any made peace with God, but this argument weighed much with
them. If Jacob could have been safe at home, he had never fled to Laban. All
are fired out of their holds before they yield to God. But take heed this be
not all thou aimest at, or the chief thou aimest at. This thou mayest do, and
hate God as much as ever, like those who are said to yield ‘feignedly’ to
David’s victorious arms, because no help for it. A man taken in a storm may
be forced under the pent-house of his greatest enemy for shelter, without any
change of his heart, or better thoughts of him than before he was wont. Two
things, therefore, thou mayest look to have in thy eye, above thy own
self-preservation.
(1.) You must desire
to be reconciled to God with an eye to the honour of God. Hence, oft
the saints’ prayers are pressed with an argument from God, as well as
themselves and their own misery: ‘Help us, O God of our salvation, for the
glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's
sake,’
Ps. 79:9. Certainly, if
God could not be more glorified in our peace and reconciliation, than in our
death and damnation, it were a wicked thing to desire it. But God hath
cleared this up to us, that he is no loser by acts of mercy. In this lies the
greatest revenue of his crown, or else he could not love ‘mercy rather than
sacrifice.’ God is free to choose what suits his own heart best, and most
conduceth to the exalting of his great name; and he delights more in the mercy
shown to one, than in the blood of all the damned that are made a sacrifice to
his justice. And, indeed, he had a higher end in their damnation than their
suffering, and that was the enhancing of the glory of his mercy in his saved
ones. This is the beautiful piece God takes delight in, and the other but
the shadow to it. Then thou art in a fit disposition to pray for peace, and
mayest go with encouragement, when thy heart is deeply affected with the
honour that will accrue to God by it. It is an argument God will not deny.
‘This,’ said Abigail to David, ‘shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of
heart unto my lord,’
I Sam. 25:31.
She meant he should never have cause to repent that he was kept from shedding
blood. Thus mayest thou plead with God and say, ‘O Lord, when I shall with
saints and angels be praising thy pardoning grace in heaven, it will not
grieve thee that thy mercy kept thee from shedding my blood, damning my soul
to hell.’ But now it is evident that many who seem to seek peace, and pursue
it too, very strongly, yet do not take overmuch care for God’s honour in the
thing, because they are earnest with God to pardon them in a way that were to
him dishonourable. Pardoned they would be, though wholly ignorant of God and
Christ. They would have God to be at peace with them while they were enemies
to him. Like a thief at the bar, he would have the judge spare his life,
right or wrong, legally or illegally, what cares he? Doth this wretch consider
the honour of the judge? or that sinner, who, so he be saved, how unrighteous
God is in the act of mercy? O deceive not yourselves, poor souls, God will
not make war between his own attributes to make peace with you!
(2.) You must desire
to be reconciled to God, that you may have fellowship with God.
Certainly a soul sensible what the loss of communion with God is, counts it
hath not all her errand done when it hath naked peace given it. Should God
say, ‘Soul, I am friends with thee—I have ordered thou shalt never go to
hell. Here is a discharge under my hand that thou shalt never be arrested for
my debt more; but, as for any fellowship with me, or fruition of me, thou
canst expect none. I have done with thee—for ever being acquainted more with
thee.’ Certainly the soul, in such a case, would take little joy in her
peace. Were the fire out as to positive torments, yet a hell would be left in
the dismal darkness which the soul would sit under for want of God's
presence. Absalom knew no middle condition that could please him betwixt
seeing the king his father's face, and being killed. ‘Let me see the king's
face; and if there be any iniquity in me, let him kill me,’
II Sam. 14:32—‘if
I be not worthy to enjoy my father’s love and presence, neither do I desire to
live;’ whereas a naughty heart seeks reconciliation without any longing after
any fellowship with God. Like the traitor, if the king will but pardon and
save him from the gallows, he is ready to promise him never to trouble him at
court. It is his own life, not the king's favour, he desires.
3. Direction.
Throw down thy rebellious arms and humbly submit to his mercy. God will
not so much as treat with thee so long as thy sword is in thy hand—‘Come now,
and let us reason together, saith the Lord,’
Isa. 1:18.
Mark when the parley begins: ‘put away the evil of your doings,’
ver. 16.
Now come and treat with God about a peace.
(1.) God is a
great God, and it doth not become his sovereignty to treat with his sorry
creature on equal terms, as a king doth with his fellow-prince, who, if he
cannot have peace on his own terms, is able probably to revenge himself by
force of arms; but, as a mighty king with his rebel subject, whom he hath fast
bound with chains in prison, and can at pleasure hang up for his treason. The
great God will have thee know that. Let those capitulate who can retire to
their strength and live without peace. But as for thee, poor sinner, thou
dost not, I hope, think thou art in a capacity to meet with God in the field,
or to thrive by this trade of war against God. No, thy only way is to conquer
him upon thy knee, to lay thy neck at his foot and say, ‘Lord, I put my life
in thy hands, thy true prisoner I will be, choosing rather to die by the hand
of thy justice, than to continue fighting against thy mercy.’ Now, poor soul,
thou art got into the right path, that leads to peace. ‘Humble yourselves in
the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up,’
James 4:10.
That soul shall not long be out of his arms that is prostrate at his foot.
But, though ‘the high and lofty One’ can stoop to take up a penitent sinner
into the arms of his pardoning mercy, yet he will not debase his sovereignty
to treat with a wretch that stands to his arms and stouts it out with him.
There is one red letter in God's name—‘he will by no means clear the guilty,’
Exodus
34:7.
(2.) The holy
nature of God requires this. Sin is that which made the breach, and
caused God to take arms against his creature; how canst thou rationally think
to make thy peace with him, and keep this makebate[5]
in thy bosom? God is willing to be reconciled with thee, but wilt thou have
him be at peace with thy sin also? Is it not enough to be justified from thy
sin? but wouldst thou have God betray his own honour by justifying thee in thy
sin? Did you ever hear a prince give a patent to another to cut his own
throat? What security canst thou give to God of thy love to him if thou wilt
not renounce that which is the only thing that seeks his life? Peccatum
est deicidium—sin is deicide. As long as the traitor is in favour within,
God will not raise his siege, or hear of peace without. They cannot reign
together; choose which you will have of them. And be not so far deluded as
to think it is enough to send thy lust out of the way for a while, as princes
use to do their favourites in a popular commotion, to please the people, and
then call for them home when the hubbub is over. No, God will not be thus
dodged and mocked. See how the promise runs, and this he will stand to. ‘Let
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him
return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he
will abundantly pardon,’
Isa. 55:7.
See how cautious God is in the terms; no corner left for the least sin to
skulk and save its life in—he must ‘forsake all.’ That implies,
(a) A
deliberate choice in the soul; he does it freely. Some men’s sins
‘forsake’ them. The unclean spirit goes out, and is not driven
out—occasions to sin cease, or bodily ability to execute the command of sin is
wanting. There is no forsaking sin, however, in all this. But to break from
it with a holy indignation and resolution, when temptation is most busy and
strength most active—now as David said, when his enemy opposed him as bees, in
the name of the Lord to repel and resist them—this is to forsake. This is the
encomium[6]
of Moses. He forsook the court when he was grown up; not for age, as
Barzillai, but when his blood was warm in his veins. A man doth not forsake
his wife when he is detained from her in prison, but when he puts her away,
and gives her a bill of divorce.
(b) To
‘forsake’ sin is to leave it without any thought reserved of returning to
it again. Every time a man takes a journey from home about business we do
not say he hath forsaken his house, because he meant, when he went out, to
come to it again. No, but when we see a man leave his house, carry all his
stuff away with him, lock up his doors, and take up his abode in another,
never to dwell there more, here is a man hath indeed forsaken his house. It
were strange to find a drunkard so constant in the exercise of that sin, but
some time you may find him sober, and yet a drunkard he is, as well as if he
was then drunk. Every one hath not forsaken his trade that we see now and
then in their holiday suit. Then the man forsakes his sin when he throws it
from him, and bolts the door upon it with a purpose never to open more to it.
‘Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?’
Hosea 14:8.
Again observe, before
pardon can be sealed he must ‘forsake,’ not this sin or that, but the whole
‘way’ of sin. ‘Let the wicked forsake his way.’ A traveller may step from
one path to another, and still go on in the same way—leave a dirty, deep,
rugged path, for one more smooth and even. So many, finding some gross sins
uneasy, and too toilsome to their awakened consciences, step into a more
cleanly path of civility; but alas! poor creatures, all they get is to go a
little more easily and cleanly to hell than their beastly neighbours. But he
forsakes the way of sin that turns out of the whole road. In a word, thou
must forsake the blindest path of all in sin’s way —that which lies behind the
hedge, as I may so say, in the thoughts of the heart—‘and the unrighteous man
his thoughts;’ or else thou knockest in vain at God’s door for pardoning
mercy; and therefore, poor soul, forsake all or none. Save one lust and you
lose one soul. If men mean to go to hell, why are they so mannerly? This
halving with sin is ridiculous. Art thou afraid of this sin, and not of a
less, which hinders thy peace, and procures thy damnation as sure, only not
with so much distraction to thy drowsy conscience at present? This is as
ridiculous as it was with him, who, being to be hanged, desired that he might
by no means go through such a street to the gallows, for fear of the plague
that was there. What wilt thou get, poor sinner, if thou goest to hell,
though thou goest thither by thy ignorance, unbelief, spiritual pride, &c.,
yet led about so as to escape the plague of open profaneness? O sirs, consider
but the equity, the honourableness of the terms that God offers peace upon.
What lust is so sweet or profitable that is worth burning in hell for?
Darius, when he fled before Alexander, that he might run the faster out of
danger, threw away his massy crown from his head which hindered him; and is
any lust so precious in thy eye that thou canst not leave it behind thee,
rather than fall into the hands of God's justice? But so sottish is foolish
man, that a wise heathen could take notice of it[7]—we
think we only buy what we part with money for, and as for those things we pay
ourselves our souls for, these we think we have for nothing, as if the man
were not more worth than his money! Having been faithful to follow the
preceding directions, thou art now in a fair way to effect thy much desired
enterprise. Therefore,
4. Direction. Hie
thee, therefore, as soon as may be, to the throne of grace, and humbly present
thy request to God that he would be at peace with thee, yea, carry with
thee a faith that thou shalt find him more ready to embrace the motion than
thou to make it. Take heed only, what thou makest thy plea to move God, and
where thou placest thy confidence. Not in thy repentance or reformation, this
were to play the merchant with God; but know he expects not a chapman to truck
with him, but a humble supplicant to be suitor to him. Nor his absolute
mercy, as ignorant souls do. This is to take hold of the sword by the blade,
and not by the hilt. Such will find their death and damnation from that mercy
which they might be saved by, if they did take hold of it as God offers it
them, and that is ‘through Christ.’ ‘Let him take hold of my strength, that
he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me,’
Isa. 27:5.
And where lies god's saving strength, but in Christ? He hath, ‘laid strength’
upon this ‘mighty’ one, ‘able to save to the uttermost all that come unto
God.’ It is not God’s absolute power or mercy will help thee, but his
covenant strength and mercy, and this is in Christ. Take hold of Christ and
thou hast hold of God’s arm; he cannot strike the soul that holds thereby.
Indeed, God’s
essential goodness is a powerful argument to persuade the poor soul to rely
upon the promise in Christ for pardon—when he considers that God who promiseth
peace to the believer, is a God whose very nature is forgiving, and mercy
itself —but had there been no promise to engage this mercy to poor sinners
through Christ, this would have been but cold comfort to have believed God was
good. He could have damned the whole stock of Adam, and not called his
essential goodness the least in question. It is no blot to the almightiness
of his power that he doth not all he can. He could make more worlds, if he
was so pleased, than he hath done; but we have no ground to believe he will,
neither is he the less almighty because he does not. So he could have saved
the fallen angels with the sons of lost man. He is not scanted in mercy for
such a design, if he had thought it fit. But, having passed no promise for
such a thing, the essential goodness of God affords the devils but little
relief, or hope that he will do it. And yet God continues good. And, for
aught I can find out of the word, they among the sons of men who, either throu
gh simple ignorance of the gospel, or prejudice, which their proud reason hath
taken up against the way it chalks out for making our peace with God, through
Christ’s satisfaction for us, do neglect Christ, or scornfully reject his
satisfaction, and betake themselves to the absolute goodness and mercy of God,
as the plea which they will make at Christ’s bar for their pardon and
salvation, shall find as little benefit from it as the devils themselves.
Suppose, friends, a
prince should freely make a law, by which he will govern his people, and takes
a solemn oath to keep close to it, could a malefactor that is condemned by
this law to die expect any relief by appealing from the law to the mercy and
goodness of the prince's nature? I confess some have sped and saved their
lives by taking this course. But it hath been, because either the prince was
imprudent in making the law, or unfaithful in keeping his oath; neither of
which can, without blasphemy, be imputed to God, infinitely wise and holy. He
hath enacted a law, called the law of faith, for the saving poor sinners
through Christ, and is under an oath to make it good both in the salvation of
every one that believes on Christ, and damnation on every one that doth not
believe: and, to make all sure, hath given Christ an oath to be faithful in
his office; who was trusted as priest to secure redemption, and shall sit
judge to pronounce the sentence at the great day of absolution or
condemnation. Take heed, therefore, poor sinner, that thou beest not drawn
from placing thy entire confidence on Christ the Son of God—both God and man
in one person—who laid down his life upon agreement with his Father, to make
an atonement for the sin of the world; and now offers thee that blood which
then he shed, as a price to carry in the hand of thy faith to the Father, for
pardon and peace. No, though they should come and call thee from Christ to
Christ—from a Christ without thee, to a Christ within thee. As the Jesuit
doth in the Quaker, into whom he is now got; as the friars of old were wont
into their hollow images, viz. that they might deliver their lying doctrines
out of the mouths of their reputed saints, and thereby cozen the multitude
without any suspicion of their knavery. Just so do the Jesuits nowadays
deliver their popish stuff out of the mouths of the Quakers—a design so much
more dangerous as it is more cunning than the other. There is too much light
shed abroad for that old puppet play to take. But, though men are too wise to
lend an ear to a block or a stone, yet holiness in a living saint commands
such reverence, that the devil hath ever found, and will, to the end of the
world, that he may pass least suspected under this cloak. Well, when he comes
to call thee from a Christ without thee to a Christ within thee; strip the
doctrine out of its pleasing phrase, and, in plain English, he calls thee from
trusting in the righteousness of Christ wrought by him for thee, and by faith
to be made thine for thy justification before God, to an inherent work of
grace or righteousness wrought by the Spirit of God in thee for thy
sanctification and renovation, called sometimes the ‘new creature,’ and
‘Christ within us.’ Now, hadst thou not made a goodly change if thou hadst
let go thy hold on Christ, who is thy righteousness, to rely on a creature,
and that a weak one too, God knows, full of so many imperfections that thy
conscience —except injudicious and given over to believe a lie —can tell it is
but a vein of gold embased with much more earth and dross, which shall never
be quite purged till thou beest put into the refining pot of the grave. Look
to thyself, Christian. Here it is a matter of life and death. Prize Christ’s
grace within thee thou must; yea thou hast none in thee, if thou dost not
value it above all the mountains of gold the world hath. But trust not to
this Christ or grace of Christ within thee for life and salvation; for now
thou prizest the creature above God, and settest ‘Christ within thee’ to fight
with ‘Christ without thee.’ The bride doth well highly to esteem her
husband’s picture which he hath given her, especially if very like him, and
most of all, if drawn by his own hand; but it were very ridiculous if she
should dote on that so far as to slight her husband, and, when she wants
money, clothes, or the like, to go, not to her husband, but to the picture he
gave her, for all. The saint’s grace is called ‘Christ within him,’ because
it is his picture, and makes the saint so like Christ. This, for the
resemblance it bears to the holiness of Christ, himself thy husband, who with
the finger of his own Spirit, drew it on thy soul, deserves highly to be
valued. But, what a dotage were it for thee turn thy back on the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, to whom by faith thou art married, and, when thou wantest
pardon and comfort —wouldst have heaven and happiness—to expect these, not
from Christ, but from thy grace? O will Christ thank thee for honouring his
creature to the dishonour of his person?
[Exhortations
to those already
at peace with
God.]
A few words by way of
improvement to you whose peace with God is concluded with Christ.
First. Hast thou
peace with God?—look thou makest no peace with sin. This broke thy
peace with God; now let thy peace with God begin a war with that never to have
end. Thou canst not, sure, forget the inestimable wrong and damage thou hast
suffered by it. Every moment’s sweet enjoyment of God —whose bosom-love thou
hast now happily recovered—will help to keep the fire of wrath and revenge
burning in thy heart against that cursed enemy, that both threw and kept thee
so long thence. God hath now won thy heart, I hope, by his pardoning mercy,
dearly to love him for his love to thee. How then canst thou with patience
see any lust come braving forth from its trench—thy heart I mean—defying thy
God and his grace in thee? Paul’s spirit was stirred in him at Athens to see
God dishonoured by the superstition of others; and is not thine, to see him
reproached by the pride, unbelief, and other sins, that do it from under thy
own soul’s roof? O Christian, meditate some noble exploit against it. Now,
the more to steel thy heart, and harden it against all relenting towards it,
carry the blood and wounds of thy Saviour into the field with thee, in the
hand of thy faith. The sight of those will certainly enrage thy heart against
thy lusts, that stabbed and killed him, more than the bloody garments of
Cæsar, held up by Antony, did the Roman citizens against his murderers. O
see how cruelly they used the Lord of glory, and where they laid him in an
ignominious grave —and that fastened with a seal, stronger than that which man
set to it—the curse due to us sinners, never possible to have been broke up by
any less than his own almighty arm! And now, Christian, shall these
murderers, not of man, but of God—for it was the blood of God that was
shed—escape that vengeance which God would have done with thy hand upon them?
Wherefore else doth he leave thee any life in thy soul but that thou shouldst
have the opportunity of showing thy love to Christ by running thy dagger of
mortification into their heart? Alexander got no more honour by his great
victories in the field than by his piety to his dead father Philip, whose
bloody death he avenged as soon as he came into the throne, slaying the
murderers upon his father’s tomb. O, show thou, Christian, thy pity to thy
dear Saviour by falling upon thy cursed lusts, and that speedily! Never rest
till thou hast had their blood that shed his. Till thou dost this thou art
consenting to all the cruelty that was executed on him. This, this is the
‘honour’ which all ‘the saints shall have,’ and therefore the ‘two-edged
sword’ of the Spirit is put into their hands that they may execute the
vengeance written.
Second. Is
God reconciled to thee? Be thou willing to be reconciled to any that
have wronged thee. Thy God expects it at thy hands. Thou hast reason to
pardon thy brother for God’s sake, who pardoned thee for his pure mercies’
sake. Thou, in pardoning, dost no more than thou owest thy brother, but God
pardoned thee when he did owe thee nothing but wrath. Thou needest not, I
hope, think that thou dishonourest thyself in the act, though it be to the
veriest beggar in the town. Know thou dost it after thy betters. Thy God
stooped lower when he reconciled himself to thee, yea, sought it at thy hands,
and no dishonour, neither, to the high and lofty One. Nay, by implacableness
and revenge, thou debasest thyself the most thou canst likely do; for, by
these, thou stoopest not only beneath thy heaven-born nature, but beneath thy
human nature. It is the devil, and none but such as bear his image, that are
implacable enemies. Hell-fire it is that is unquenchable. ‘The wisdom from
above’ is ‘easy to be entreated.’ Thou a Christian, and carry hell-fire about
thee! How can it be? When we see a child, that comes of merciful parents,
furious and revengeful, we use to say, ‘We wonder of whom he got his currish,
churlish disposition, his father and mother were not so.’ Who learns thee, O
Christian, to be so revengeful and unmerciful? Thou hast it not of thy
heavenly Father, I am sure.
Third. Is God at
peace with thee? Hath he pardoned thy sins? Never, then, distrust his
providence for anything thou wantest as to this life. Two things, well
weighed, would help thy faith in this particular.
1. When he pardoned
thy sins he did more for thee than this comes to. And, did he give the
greater, and will he grudge thee the less? Thou hast Christ in thy pardon
bestowed on thee. ‘How shall he not with him also freely give thee all
things?’
Rom. 8:32.
When the father gives his child the whole orchard, it were folly to question
he gives him this apple or that in it —‘all things are yours,’ and ‘ye are
Christ's,’
I Cor. 3:22.
The reconciled soul hath a right to all. The whole world is his. But, as a
father who, though he settles a fair estate on his child, yet lets him hold no
more in his own hand than he can well manage; so God gives believers a right
to all the comforts of this life, but proportions so much out to them for
their actual use, as his infinite wisdom sees meet, so that he that hath less
than another in his present possession, ought to impute it not to any want of
love or care in God, but to the wisdom both of his love and care, that gives
stock as we have grace to work it out. We pour the wine accordingly as the cup
is. That which but fills one would half be lost if poured into a less.
2. Consider how
God gives these temporals to those he denies peace and pardon to. Though,
within a while, they are to be tumbled into hell, yet while on earth his
providence reacheth unto them. And, doth God feed these ‘ravens,’ unclean
birds? Doth he cause his rain to drop fatness on their fields, and will he
neglect thee, thinkest thou, that art a believer? If the prince feeds the
traitor in prison, surely the child in his house shall not starve. In a word,
to allude to that,
Luke 12:28,
if God in his providence so abounds to the to the ungodly, as we see he doth,
if he ‘so clothe the grass,’ for to this the wicked may well be compared,
‘which is to-day in the field, and to- morrow is cast into hell’s burning
oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?’
Fourth. Art thou
at peace with God? O show then no discontent at any cross or affliction
that God visiteth thee withal! If he hath visited thee first with his mercy,
thou hast reason to bid him kindly welcome when he comes to visit thee with
his rod. Thou hast sugar by thee now to sweeten thy bitter cup. When the
Prophet Samuel came to Bethlehem, it is said, ‘The elders of the town trembled
at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably? And he said, Peaceably!’
I Sam.
16:4, 5. Thus when God
comes with some heavy affliction to us, it may make us tremble till we know
what it comes for, whether peaceable or no. Now, if thou beest at peace with
God the fear is over, it cannot but come peaceably; thou mayest conclude it
comes on mercy’s errand.
What condition canst
thou, O pardoned soul, be in, that should part thee and the joy of thy peace
with God? Is it the wrath of man thou fearest? Possibly thou hast many
enemies, and those great ones, and their wrath as great as such can express.
Let it be so. Is God among them or no? Doth God let out their wrath in his
wrath against thee? If not, thou exceedingly wrongest God, if overmuch
troubled, and thyself also. Thou wrongest God by not sanctifying his
name in thy heart, whose mercy, I hope, is able to secure thee from their
wrath: ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’
Rom. 8:31.
Thou needest not fear them though an army of them were about thee—no more than
if they were so many wisps of straw. And thou wrongest thyself also:
for how, indeed, can we wrong God and not ourselves? So long as thou art
under the power of such a fear from man's wrath, thou canst never have the
taste of God’s love in its true sweetness.
Again, art thou sick,
poor, and what not beside? May not God reasonably expect that reconciling
mercy should stop thy mouth from whispering any word of discontent against
him, and prevent all envious glances of thy eye at the prosperity of the
wicked? Remember, man, that thou canst say one great word which they cannot,
in the midst of all their pomp and worldly glory. ‘Though I lie here poor and
sick, yet I am, through mercy, at peace with God.’ This, well thought on,
would soon change both your notes—the joy of the prosperous sinner into bitter
mourning, and thy sorrow, Christian, into joy. The Lady Elizabeth —afterwards
England’s gracious queen—hearing a simple milk-maid sing merrily in the field,
when the poor princess, being then a sorrowful prisoner, had more mind to sigh
than sing, though served at the same time in state as a princess, said, ‘That
poor maid was happier than herself.’ And so would the sinner, how great and
high soever in the world, think the poorest Christian, with his rags and
penury, a better man, and happier in his liberty, and peace with God, than
himself in all his grandeur and worldly gaieties, did he but consider that in
the midst of all these he is a prisoner, not to man, but God, out of whose
hands there is no escaping.
Fifth.
Comfort thyself with this, that thou, who art at peace with God now on earth,
shalt feast with God ere long in heaven. ‘And whom he justified, them
he also glorified,’
Rom. 8:30.
And do not think this news to be too good or great to be true. Here is a word
for it, you see. Heaven's number of glorified saint’s is made up of justified
sinners. Neither more nor less of the one than of the other. Art thou
justified by faith, by which thou hast peace with God? Then, lose not thy
privilege, but rejoice with thy fellow-saints, ‘in hope of the glory of God.’
It is before thee. Every day brings thee nearer to it, and nothing can
hinder thee of it at last. Not thy sins themselves, and I know thou fearest
them most. He that paid thy great score at thy conversion will find mercy
enough in his heart, surely, to pass by thy dribbling debts, which thy own
infirmity, and Satan’s subtlety, have run thee into. Thou wert an enemy when
God thought of doing the first, but now thou art a friend; and this will
oblige him to do the second, that he may not lose his disbursement in the
first; yea, provision is made by God in this method of our salvation for the
one, as strongly as for the other. Christ died to make us, of enemies to God,
friends with him, and he lives now to bring God and us, being thus made
friends, to meet in one heaven together. Yea, the apostle gives the advantage
to this of the two for our faith to triumph in. ‘For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved by his life,’
Rom. 5:10.
As if the apostle had said, ‘Can you believe that God hath taken you that were
bloody enemies, into a state of peace and favour with himself? Surely, then,
you must needs find it easier for your faith to argue from reconciliation to
salvation, than from hostility to enmity to pardon and peace. Could Christ
procure the one by his death, when he was weakest, as I may so say, and at the
lowest descent of his humiliation; how much more shall he, in the height of
his court-favour in heaven —when he hath all power given him, and in
particular ‘the keys of the hell and death’ to open and shut as he pleaseth—to
be able to save those whom he hath reconciled?’
Rev. 1:18.
Sixth. Art thou
at peace with God? Knowing the goodness of God to thyself, then do
thou woo in some others to embrace the same mercy. The house is not so
full, but ‘yet there is room,’
Luke 14:22.
Hast thou none thou lovest so well as to wish them thy happiness? Haply, thou
hast a carnal husband lying by thy side, children of thy womb or loins,
neighbours in whose company thou art every day almost, and all these in an
unreconciled state—who, should they die as now they live, their precious souls
are lost for ever, and yet themselves think no more of this misery coming on
them, than the silly sheep doth, as to what the butcher is doing, when he is
whetting his knife to cut her throat. Well, the less merciful they are to
their own souls, the more need there is thou shouldst show thy compassion
towards them. We take most care of those that are least capable of taking
care for themselves. If thou hadst a friend sick in thy house, and of such a
disease that he could not help himself, should he die rather than thou wouldst
look after him? If a child were condemned to die, though he did himself not
mind the getting of a pardon, yet surely thou wouldst run and ride to obtain
it, rather than see him end his days so shamefully. In a word, didst thou but
know thy next neighbour had an intention to foredo himself, and for that end
had locked himself up in a room, wouldst thou not bestir thee to break up the
door, rather than the man should thus miscarry? But alas, where is the holy
violence that is used to save poor souls? Parents, husbands, neighbours, they
can see their relations going to hell before their eyes, and who saith to
them, Why do you so? O, for the Lord’s sake, be more merciful to the souls of
others. Thou hast found a feast, let not any that are near thee starve for
want of knowing where it is to be had. Go and invite all thou canst see to
God’s house. So did David: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good,’
Ps. 34:8.
Thou needst not fear a chiding from God for sending him more guests. He
complains he hath no more. ‘Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,’
John
5:40. He threatens those
that keep sinners off from making their peace with him, by flattering them
with a false one, called a ‘strengthening the hands of the wicked, that he
should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life,’
Eze. 13:22.
O how acceptable a work then must it needs be to woo souls to Christ! The
merchant is not angry for sending a customer into his warehouse that will buy
what he hath taken so much cost and travail to get that he may sell. Nor will
the physician blame any for bringing a patient to him, by whose cure he may
let the world know his skill and art. And this is the great design Christ
hath long had in particular prayed for, viz. ‘that the world might believe he
was sent of God,’
John 17:21.
What aims he at in the gathering in of souls by the grace of the gospel, but
‘to take out of them a people’ from the heap of sinners ‘for his name,’
Acts
15:14, that is, cull out
a number, in showing mercy to whom he might exalt his own name gloriously.
SECOND KIND OF PEACE.
[Peace
of conscience the blessing of the gospel.]
We come now to the
second kind of peace, and that is peace of consolation, or peace of
conscience. By the former—peace of reconciliation—the poor sinner is
reconciled to God; by this, he becomes anima pacata sibi—a soul
reconciled to itself. Since man fell out with God, he could never be truly
friends with his own conscience. This second peace is so necessary, that he
cannot taste the sweetness of the first, nor indeed of any other mercy,
without it. This is to the soul what health is to the body, it sugars and
sweetens all enjoyments. A suit, though of cloth of gold, sits not easy on a
sick man's back. Nothing joyous to a distressed conscience. Moses brought
good news to the distressed Israelites in Egypt, but it is said, ‘They
hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit,’
Ex. 6:9.
Hannah, she went up to the festival at Jerusalem with her husband, but it is
said, ‘She wept, and did not eat,’
I Sam. 1:7.
Truly, thus the wounded soul goes to the sermon, but doth not eat of the feast
before it; hears many precious promises, but her ear is shut up from receiving
the good news they bring. Tell one in trouble of conscience, here is your
dear husband, [your] sweet children, will you not rejoice with them; alas, the
throes such a one feels are so amazing, that he regards these things no more
than Phinehas' wife in her sore travail did the woman that joyed her with the
birth of a son. Set the most royal feast before such a soul that ever was on
prince’s table, and, poor heart, it had rather go into a corner and weep, than
sit and eat of those delicacies. ‘A wounded spirit who can bear?’ yea, who
can cure? Some diseases are, for their incurableness, called ludibrium
medicorum—the physician’s shame and reproach. To be sure this spiritual
trouble of an accusing conscience puts all the world to shame for their vain
attempts. Many have attempted to conjure this evil spirit out of their own
bosoms and others’; but have found it at last to leap upon them, and prevail
against them, as the ‘evil spirit’ did by the sons of Sceva,
Acts 19:14.
No, peace of
conscience, I am now to show, is the blessing of the gospel, and only of the
gospel. Conscience knows Jesus, and the gospel of Jesus; these and none else
it will obey. Two particulars considered will demonstrate the truth of the
point. First. If we consider what is the argument that pacifies and
satisfies conscience. Second. If we consider what the power is and
strength required to apply this argument so close and home to the conscience
as to quiet and fully satisfy it. Both these will be found in the gospel, and
only in the gospel.
[The
argument which gives peace
to the
conscience.]
First. Let us
inquire what is the argument that is able to pacify conscience when
thoroughly awakened. Now to know this, we must inquire what is the cause
of all those convulsions of horror and terror with which the consciences of
men are at any time so sadly rent and distorted. Now this is sin. Could this
little word—but great plague—be quite blotted out of men’s minds and hearts,
the storm would soon be hushed, and the soul become a pacific sea, quiet and
smooth, without the least wave of fear to wrinkle the face thereof. This is
the Jonah which raiseth the storm—the Achan that troubles the soul. Wherever
this comes, as was observed of a great queen in France, a war is sure to
follow. When Adam sinned, he dissolved another manner of jewel than Cleopatra
did, he drank away this sweet peace of conscience in one unhappy draught,
which was worth more to him than the world he lived in,
Heb. 10:2.
No wonder that it rose in his conscience as soon as it was down his
throat—‘they saw that they were naked.’ Their consciences reproached them
for cursed apostates. That therefore which brings peace to conscience must
prostrate this Goliath—throw this troubler overboard —pluck this arrow out of
the soul—or else the war will not end, the storm will not down, the wound will
not close and heal which conscience labours under. Now the envenomed head of
sin’s arrow, that lies burning in conscience, and, by its continual boking[8]
and throbbing there, keeps the poor sinner out of quiet—yea, sometimes in
unsupportable torment and horror—is guilt. By it the creature is
alarmed up to judgment, and bound over to the punishment due to his sin;
which, being no less than the infinite wrath of the eternal living God, must
needs lay the poor creature into a dismal agony, from the fearful expectation
thereof in his accusing conscience. He, therefore, that would use an argument
to pacify and comfort a distressed conscience that lies roasting upon these
burning coals of God’s wrath kindled by his guilt, must quench these coals,
and bring him the certain news of this joyful message—that his sins are all
pardoned; and that God, whose wrath doth so affright him is undoubtedly, yea
everlastingly, reconciled to him. This and no other argument will stop the
mouth of conscience, and bring the creature to true peace with his own
thoughts. ‘Son, be of good cheer,’ said Christ to the palsied man, ‘thy sins
be forgiven thee,’
Matt. 9:2.
Not, be of good cheer, thy health is given thee (thou gh that he had also);
but, thy ‘sins are forgiven thee.’
If a friend should
come to a malefactor on his way to the gallows, put a sweet posy into his
hands, and bid him ‘be of good cheer, smell on that,’ alas! this would bring
little joy with it to the poor man’s heart, who sees the place of execution
before him. But if one comes from the prince with a pardon, which he puts into
his hand, and bids him be of good cheer; this, and this only, will reach the
poor man’s heart, and overrun it with a sudden ravishment of joy. Truly,
anything short of pardoning mercy is as inconsiderable to a troubled
conscience towards any relieving or pacifying of it, as that posy in a dying
prisoner’s hand would be. Conscience demands as much to satisfy it as God
himself doth to satisfy him for the wrong the creature hath done him. Nothing
can take off conscience from accusing but that which takes off God from
threatening. Conscience is God’s sergeant he employs to arrest the sinner.
Now the sergeant hath no power to release his prisoner upon any private
composition between him and the prisoner, but listens whether the debt be
fully paid, or the creditor be fully satisfied; then, and not till then, he is
discharged of his prisoner. Well, we have now only one step to go further,
and we will bring this demonstration to a head.
From what quarter
comes this good news, that God is reconciled to a poor soul, and that his sins
are pardoned? Surely from the gospel of Christ, and no other way besides.
Here alone is the covenant of peace to be read betwixt God and sinners; here
the sacrifice by which this pardon is purchased; here the means discovered by
which poor sinners may have benefit of this purchase; and therefore here alone
can the accusing conscience find peace. Had the stung Israelites looked on
any other object besides the brazen serpent, they had never been healed.
Neither will the stung conscience find ease with looking upon any besides
Christ in the gospel promise. The Levite and the priest looked on the wounded
man, but would not come near him. There he might have lain and perished in
his blood for all them. It was the good Samaritan that poured oil into his
wounds. Not the law, but Christ by his blood, bathes and supplies, closeth
and cureth, the wounded conscience. Not a drop of oil in all the world to be
got that is worth anything for this purpose besides what is provided and laid
up in this gospel vial. There was abundance of sacrifices offered up in the
Jewish church; yet, put all the blood of those beasts together which was
poured out from first to last in that dispensation, and they were not able to
quiet one conscience or purge away one sin. The ‘conscience of sin,’ as the
apostle phraseth it,
Heb. 10:2—that
is, guilt in their conscience—would still have remained unblotted
notwithstanding all these, if severed from what was spiritually signified by
them. And the reason is given,
ver. 4,
‘for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins.’ There is no proportion betwixt the blood of beasts, though it should
swell into a river—a sea, and the demerit of the least sin. Man’s sin
deserves man’s death, and that eternal, both of body and soul, in hell. This
is the price God hath set upon the head of every sin. Now, the death of
beasts being so far beneath this price which divine justice demands as
satisfaction for the wrong sin doeth him, it must needs be as far beneath
pacifying the sinner’s conscience —which requires as much to satisfy it, yea,
the very same, as it doth to satisfy the justice of God himself. But in the
gospel, behold, joyful news is brought to the sinner’s ears, of a fountain of
blood there opened, which for its preciousness is as far above the price that
divine justice demands for man's, as the blood of bulls and beasts was beneath
it, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ, who freely poured it out upon the
cross, and by it ‘obtained eternal redemption for us,’
Heb. 9.
This is the door all true peace and joy comes into the conscience by. Hence
we are directed to bottom our confidence and draw our comfort here, and
nowhere else: ‘Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,’
Heb. 10:22.
Mark that, ‘sprinkled from an evil conscience.’
Conscience, by
office, is appointed to judge of a man’s actions and state, whether good or
bad, pardoned or unpardoned. If the state be good, then it is to acquit and
comfort; if evil, then to accuse and condemn him; therefore the ‘evil
conscience’ here, is the accusing conscience. From this ‘evil conscience’ we
are said to be ‘sprinkled,’ that is, freed by the blood of Christ sprinkled on
us. It is sin the evil conscience accuseth of, and wrath, the due punishment
for that, it condemns the poor creature unto; and to be sprinkled with the
blood of Christ is to have the blood of Christ applied to the heart by the
Spirit, for pardon and reconciliation with God. Sprinkling in the law did
denote the cleansing of the person so sprinkled from all legal impurities;
yea, the believing soul from all sinful uncleanness by the blood of Christ,
which was signified by the blood of those sacrifices. Therefore David prays,
‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean,’
Ps. 51:7—that
is, apply the blood of Christ to my troubled conscience, as they did with the
bunch of hyssop did the blood of the beast into which it was dipped upon the
leper, to cleanse him, ‘then,’ saith he, ‘I shall be clean,’
Lev. 14:6.
This sin, which now doth affright my conscience, shall be washed off, and I at
peace, as if I had never sinned. To this sprinkling of blood the Holy Ghost
alludes, where we are said in the gospel administration to be ‘come...to Jesus
the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that
speaketh better things than that of Abel,’
Heb. 12:24,
that is, ‘better things’ in the conscience. Abel’s blood, sprinkled in the
guilt of it upon Cain’s conscience, spake swords and daggers, hell and
damnation; but the blood of Christ sprinkled in the conscience of a poor
trembling sinner speaks pardon and peace. Hence it is called ‘the answer of a
good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,’
I Pet. 3:21.
An answer supposeth a question, an ‘answer toward God’ supposeth a question
from God to the creature. Now the question God here is supposed to propound
to the poor creature may be conceived to be this, viz. what canst thou say
—who art a sinner, and standest by the curse of my righteous law doomed to
death and damnation—why thou shouldst not die the death pronounced against
every sinner?
Now the soul that
hath heard of Christ, and hearing of him hath received him by faith into his
heart, is the person, and the only person, that can answer this question so as
to satisfy God or himself. Take the answer as it is formed and fitted for,
yea, put into the mouth of every believer, by the apostle Paul, ‘Who is he
that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who
is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us,’
Rom. 8:34.
Such an answer this is that God himself cannot object against it, and
therefore St. Paul, representing all believers, triumphs in the invincible
strength thereof against all the enemies of our salvation, ‘who shall separate
us from the love of Christ?
ver. 35,
and proceeds to challenge in death and devils, with all their attendants, to
come and do their worst against believers who have got this breast-work about
them, and at last he displays his victorious colours, and goes out of the
field with this holy confidence, that none—be they what they will—shall ever
be able to hurt them: ‘I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities,...shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,’
Rom. 8:38, 39.
In him he lodgeth his colours, and lays up all his confidence. But I am
afraid I have been too long; if I can be said to be too long on this
subject—the richest vein in the whole mine of gospel treasure.
[The
power required so to apply this argument
as to give
peace of conscience.]
Second. This
second demonstration is taken from the strength and power required to press
this argument home to the conscience, so as to quiet and fully satisfy it.
Conscience is a lock that goes hard; though the key fit it (I mean the
argument used to comfort it be suitable and strong), yet, if this key be in a
weak hand, that cannot turn it in this lock—as it is whenever a mere creature
holds it—conscience will not open; its doubts and fears will not be resolved.
No, this must be the work of the Spirit, or else it will never be done.
Conscience is God’s officer; and, though the debt be paid in heaven, yet it
will not let the soul go free, till a warrant comes from thence to authorize
it. And who can bring this but the Spirit of God? Thus as it is not in all
their power that are about the poor prisoner to comfort him, till news come
from court what the prince means to do with him; so here in this case. ‘When
he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hideth his face,
who then can behold him?’
Job 34:29.
Now two things I shall do for the bringing of this demonstration to a head.
1. I shall show that the gospel alone presents the Spirit of God to us under
the notion of a Comforter. 2. I shall show the admirable fitness and
sufficiency of the Holy Spirit to pacify and comfort a guilty troubled
conscience. The first will evince that peace of conscience is nowhere else
to be found but from the gospel; the second will show that it is there
abundantly to be found.
1. It is the
gospel alone that presents the Spirit of God as a Comforter to poor sinners.
Indeed the comforting office of the Spirit is founded on the satisfaction of
Jesus Christ. When Christ had shed his blood, and in it laid down upon the
nail the full price of a sinner’s peace with God; then, at his return to
heaven, he prays his Father to send the Comforter. Neither could Christ desire
this request of his Father, nor his Father grant it to him, but upon the
account of this his death, which secures the justice of God from receiving any
damage by the comfort which the Spirit carries into the believing sinner’s
bosom. Christ tells his disciples thus much, ‘If I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you,’
John 16:7.
Pray, mark the Spirit, as a Comforter, stays till Christ goes to heaven to
send him down, and no room for Christ there, till the work was done he came
about. And what was that, but, by his bloody death, to purchase peace with
God for poor believing sinners? Now let him come when he will. The Spirit is
ready to be sent as a comforter, as soon as he appears in the heavens with
his blood as an intercessor. But whence then had the Old Testament saints all
their peace and comfort, who lived before Christ returned to heaven, yea,
before he took his first journey from heaven, I mean to earth? I answer,
‘Upon the same account they had their comfort, that they had their pardon.’
They were pardoned through the blood of Christ, who was virtually a lamb
slain from the beginning of the world; and they were comforted by the Spirit
of Christ, whose comforting office bears the same date with Christ’s
mediatorial office. As all their pardons were issued out upon the credit of
Christ, who stood engaged in the fulness of time to lay down his life; so all
the comfort which the Spirit of Christ issued out into their consciences, was
upon the same credit of Christ, who should, as in the fulness of time die on
earth for sinners, so appear also in the heavens—by virtue of the satisfaction
that his death should make—there to intercede with the Father for a
comforter. Thus you see the first thing. The Spirit as a comforter hath his
office from the gospel covenant, and could never have spoken a word of
comfort, but upon this gospel account. Hence it is, when the Father sends
him as a comforter, he sends him in Christ’s name, who hath made up the breach
betwixt him and sinners,
John 14:26—that
is, for his sake and at his entreaty. Yea, when the Spirit doth comfort, what
is it he saith? The joyful news he brings is gospel intelligence, ‘He shall
not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,’
John
16:13. The meaning is
[that] when he comes to teach, he shall not bring new light, different from
what shines in the gospel, but what truth Christ preached in the gospel, that
he shall teach. When he comforts, the ingredients which his soul-reviving
cordials shall be made of, are what grow in the gospel garden,
as ver. 14:
‘He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto
you’—that is, my death, my merit, my resurrection, my ascension and
intercession, my promises purchased and sealed with my blood—these he shall
take and make report of to you, for your eternal joy and comfort. So that, if
it had not been for these, the Spirit, who is Christ’s messenger, would have
wanted an errand of this comfortable nature to have brought unto poor sinners,
yea, instead of a comforter, he would have been an accuser and a tormentor.
He that now bears witness with our spirits for our reconciliation, adoption,
and salvation, would have joined in a sad testimony with our guilty
consciences against us, for our damnation and destruction.
2. I am to show the
admirable fitness of the Spirit for this comforting office, which the
gospel reveals him to have, for the pacifying and satisfying the consciences
of poor disconsolate sinners. You have heard the gospel affords an argument
sufficient to satisfy the most troubled conscience in the world—to wit, the
full satisfaction which Christ by his precious blood hath made to God for
sinners—but, if poor man had been left to improve this as well as he could for
his comfort, he might have lain long enough roaring in the horror of his
scorched conscience without ease, for want of one to drop this cooling healing
balm into it. But, as both the wisdom and love of God appeared in providing
an able Saviour to purchase eternal redemption for us; so also a meet
Comforter, as able to apply this purchased redemption to us. His consolations
are called ‘strong consolations.’ Christ showed his strength, when he
unhinged the gates of the grave, and made his way out of that dark prison by
his glorious resurrection. By this he was ‘declared to be the Son of God with
power,’ as the apostle hath it,
Rom. 1:4.
And truly, it requires no less power to break open the dungeon, wherein the
guilty conscience lies shut up, as one free among the dead in his own
despairing thoughts. For, if you observe it well, the same stone and seal
are upon the sinner’s conscience to keep him down from a resurrection of
comfort, as was on Christ’s grave to keep him down from a resurrection to
life. What was the heaviest stone, the strongest seal, upon dead Jesus to
keep him from rising? Not the stone man rolled upon him, not the seal the
Jews thought to fasten the grave with, but the curse of the law for sin, which
divine justice rolled upon him. This pressed heaviest upon Christ without all
compare. The angel himself that rolled away the stone could not have removed
the curse. Now, look in upon the distressed conscience’s grave, where its own
guilt hath laid it. What is that? no other than the lowest hell in its fears
and present dismal apprehensions. I am damned, I am for ever an undone
creature, is the language such a one rings continually in his own ears. But
inquire, what is it that keeps him down in this grave? what hinders, but the
poor wretch may be helped out of this pit of horror, and receive some
comfort? Alas he will tell you, that it is but in vain to comfort him; this
ointment is all wasted to no purpose, which you pour upon his head. No, he is
an undone sinner. The curse of God sticks like a dagger in his heart; the
wrath of God lies like a mountain of lead on his conscience. Except you can
put your hand into his bosom, and pluck out the one, or by main force roll off
the other, it is impossible he should be raised to any peace or comfort in his
miserable conscience. You see it is the same gravestone on both. But for thy
eternal comfort know, poor heart, that art thus fast laid under the sense of
the curse due to thy sins, know that as the weight that keeps thee from
comfort is the same which lay on Christ to keep him from life; so the same
power and strength is sent to raise thee to comfort, that enabled Christ to
rise to life. That Spirit, who kept the Lord Jesus from seeing corruption in
the grave; that restrained death, when it had Christ in its very mouth, so as
it could no more feed on him than the whale could digest Jonah in her belly;
yea that quickened his dead body, and raised him with honour, not only to
life, but immortality also—is he that Christ sends for his messenger, to come
and satisfy the trembling consciences of his poor children on earth
concerning his love, yea his Father’s love to them for his sake. This blessed
Spirit hath all the properties of a comforter. He is also pure and holy, he
cannot deceive; called therefore ‘the Spirit of truth,’
John 14.
If he tell thee thy sins are pardoned, thou mayest believe him. He will not
flatter. If thy were not so pardoned he would have brought another message to
thee; for he can chide and reprove as well as comfort, convince of sin as well
as of righteousness. He is so wise and omniscient, that he cannot be
deceived. Never did the Spirit of God knock at the wrong doors, and deliver
his letters into a wrong hand, as a man may do, especially where persons are
very like. The Spirit exactly knows the heart of God to the creature, with
all his counsels concerning him: ‘The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the
deep things of God,’
I Cor. 2:10.
And what are those ‘deep things of God’ the apostle means, but the counsels of
love, which lie deep in his heart, till the Spirit draws them forth and
acquaints the creature with them? That appears by ver. 9. And he also knows
the whole frame of man’s heart. It were strange indeed if he that made the
cabinet should not know every secret box in it. Some few men have compassed
that we call the greater world. But the little world of man, as we call him,
never did any creature encircle with his knowledge, no not the devil himself,
who hath made it his work so many thousands of years to make a full discovery
of it. But the Spirit of God doth know him, intus est in cute—as we
say, thoroughly; and knowing both these, he cannot be deceived.
In a word, he is so
unresistible, that none can hinder the efficacy of his comforts. The pardon
brought by Nathan to David did not lie so close as the holy man desired; and
therefore away goes he to beg comfort of the Comforter,
Ps. 51.
There you find him on his knees praying hard to have his lost joy restored,
and his trembling heart established by the free Spirit of God. Though thou
canst baffle man, and through thy own melancholy fancy, and the sophistry of
Satan, who coins distinctions for thee, evade the arguments that Christians
and ministers bring for thy comfort; yet, when the Spirit comes himself, all
disputes end. The devil cannot chop logic with him. No; then the lying
spirit vanisheth, and our own fears too, as the darkness flees before the
sun. So sweetly and powerfully doth the comforting Spirit overrun the heart
with a flood of joy that the soul can no more see her sins in the guilt of
them, than Noah could the mole-hills when the whole earth was under water.
USE OR APPLICATION.
[A reproof to
three sorts of persons.]
Use first. Is
peace of conscience the blessing of the gospel? This reproves three sorts
of persons.
1. Sort. The
Papists, who interpretatively deny that peace of conscience is the
blessing of the gospel, for they deny that any person can know in this life,
unless by an extraordinary revelation, that he is a child of God, and one that
shall be saved—which, if true, would stave all to pieces the vessel in which
the Christian’s joy and inward peace is kept. Whence comes the peace we have
with our own consciences, but from the knowledge we have of our peace with
God? ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand,
and rejoice in hope of the glory of God,’
Rom. 5:1.
If the poor soul be left at uncertainties here, and the gospel cannot resolve
to it what its state is for hell or heaven, farewell to all inward peace. The
poor Christian may then say of himself, with a trembling heart, what St, John
saith, in another case, of him that hateth his brother, ‘He walketh in
darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth,’
I John 2:11.
Truly then the gospel might rather be called the gospel of fears and doubts,
than the gospel of peace. But is that the top of the blessing the gospel
brings to saints, which was almost the bottom of the curse that the law
denounced against sinners?—that ‘their life should hang in doubt before them;
and they shall fear day and night, and should have no assurance of life,’
Deut.
28:66. Bold men they are
that dare so wretchedly disfigure the sweet face of the gospel; making Christ
in his precious promises speak as doubtfully to his saints, as the devil did
in his oracles to his devotees. Because their hypocrisy makes them
justly question their own salvation, and will not suffer them to apply the
comfort of the promises to themselves, must they therefore seal up these wells
of salvation from those that are sincere, and then lay the blame on the gospel
which is due only to their own wickedness? But there is a mystery of iniquity
which hath at last been found to be at the root of this uncomfortable doctrine
of theirs. They are a little akin to Judas, who was a thief, and carried the
bag. These have a bag, too, into which they put more gold and silver, that
this doctrine brings them in, than ever Judas had in his. Though the doctrine
of gospel-grace to poor sinners’ would bring more peace to others’ consciences
—might it be seen in its naked glory among them —yet the superstitious fear
which they keep ignorant souls in, brings more money to their purses; and this
lies so near the heart of their religion, that gospel, Christ, heaven, and
all, must bow unto it.
2. Sort.
Those are to be reproved, who frame very unlovely images in their own
foolish imaginations of the gospel—as if there was nothing less than peace
of conscience and inward comfort to be found in it—and all, because they see
some that profess it, who cannot show that they have got any more peace and
comfort since their acquaintance with the gospel than they had before, or than
themselves have who are yet strangers to it; yea may be, discover more trouble
of spirit. Such I would desire to take these following particulars, by way of
answer, into their serious consideration.
(1.) Consider all
that are not true Christians that hang upon the gospel by profession. And no
blame can be laid on the gospel, though it doth not lavish out this treasure
to every one that scrapes acquaintance with it. The Spirit of God is too wise
and faithful to set his seal to a blank. The minister indeed offers peace
to all that will accept it. But where the peace of the gospel meets with a
false heart, it will not stay there, ‘If the house be not worthy, let your
peace return to you,’
Matt. 10:13.
As the dove returned to the ark again, when it found the earth under water, so
doth the Spirit of God carry his comfort back with him to heaven from a soul
that is yet in the suds of sin, soaking in his abominations. Where can this
heavenly dove find rest for the sole of her foot in such a soul? And will he
speak peace to that soul in which himself can find no rest?
(2.) As for those
that are sincere, true-hearted Christians, there are several considerations
which will vindicate the gospel to answer its name, and to be a gospel of
peace and consolation.
(a) Some that
are sincere Christians, do not so clearly understand the doctrine of
the gospel as others; and the want of light, of joy, and comfort in their
consciences comes from that want of light in their understandings. The
ignorance of the workman doth not disparage the art. Plus est in arte,
quam in artifice—there is more in an art than the attainment of the
artist. There is a fulness of comfort in the principles of the gospel, but
every Christian hath not attained to the ‘riches of the full assurance of
understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the
Father, and of Christ,’ which the apostle directs the Colossians to, as a
sovereign means whereby ‘their hearts might be comforted,’
Col. 2:2.
(b) Some that
do understand the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ—the only
foundation to build and rear up true comfort and peace of conscience on—yet
may, by their negligence in their Christian course—not walking carefully by
the rule of the gospel—deprive themselves at present of this sweet peace,
which otherwise might flow into their bosoms from the promises of the gospel.
‘As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them,’
Gal. 6:16.
And if so, what blame can be laid on the gospel? Be the pen never so good, and
the hand never so skilful, it will not write on wet paper; yet we do not
fault the hand or pen, but the paper. If the heart—though of a saint never so
eminent —be under the defilement of a present lust, not repented of, no
promise will speak peace to him; he is a disorderly walker, and the Spirit
hath his rod to whip such. No sweetmeats of joy and peace to entertain them
withal in that night.
(3.) As for those
which do walk close to the rule of the gospel—I mean by a sincere
endeavour—and thou seest no such peace and comfort, as we speak of, that they
have, I answer,
(a) They may
have it, and thou not know it. The saint's joy and peace is not such a light
giggling joy as the world’s; res severa verum gaudium—true joy is a
real thing. The parlour, wherein the Spirit of Christ entertains the
Christian, is an inner room, not next to the street, for every one that goes
by to smell the feast. ‘The stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy,’
Prov.
14:10. Christ and the
soul may be at supper within, and thou not so much as see one dish go in, or
hear the music that sounds so sweetly in the Christian’s ears. Perhaps thou
thinkest he wants peace, because he doth not hang out a sign in his
countenance of the joy and peace he hath within. Alas, poor wretch! may not
the saint have a peaceful conscience with a solemn, yea sad countenance, as
well as thou and thy companions have a sorrowful heart, when there is nothing
but fair weather in your faces? ‘In laughter the heart is sorrowful,’
Prov. 14:13.
Sure he means the wicked man’s laughter. It never looks more like rain with
them than when it shines. Their conscience lowers when their face laughs.
So, on the contrary, there is never more inward peace and comfort to be found
in a saint’s bosom, than sometimes when his face is blubbered with tears.
Shouldst thou come in and hear the Christian bemoaning himself, and
complaining with sighs and sobs of his sins against God, thou wouldst go home,
and cry out of this melancholy religion, and the sad condition this man was
in. And yet he whom thou so pitiest can desire thee to save it for thyself,
and not spend it in vain for him; for he would not part with that very sorrow
that scares thee so much, for all the joy which the world, with all its
gallantry, when best set forth, could afford. There is a mystery in this
sorrow which thou canst not unriddle. Know therefore that there is a sorrow
and anguish of heart which ariseth from the guilt of sin and the fearful
apprehensions of God’s wrath due to sin; and another that flows, not from fear
of wrath arising from guilt, but from the sense of sin’s inbeing in the soul,
provoking the Christian to do that which is dishonourable to that God who hath
pardoned his sins to him; and this is the sorrow which sometimes makes the
saints go for sad uncomfortable creatures, when all the same time their hearts
are as full of comfort from the sense of God’s pardoning mercy as they can
hold. This sorrow is but like a summer shower, melted by the sense of God’s
love, as that by the warm sun, and leaves the soul—as that doth a garden of
sweet flowers—on which it falls, more fresh and odoriferous.
(b) Though
some precious souls, that have closed with Christ, and embraced the gospel, be
not at present brought to rest in their own consciences, but continue for a
while under some dissatisfactions and troubles in their own spirits; yet even
then they have peace of conscience in a threefold respect. In precio, in
promisso, in semine—in what purchases it, in the promise, and in the germ.
Every true believer
hath peace of conscience in precio —in the price. The gospel puts that
price into his hand which will assuredly purchase it, and that is the blood of
Christ. We say, ‘That is gold which is worth gold’—which we may anywhere
exchange for gold. Such is the blood of Christ. It is peace of conscience,
because the soul that hath it, may exchange it for this. God himself cannot
deny the poor creature that prays on these terms, ‘Lord, give me peace of
conscience, here is Christ's blood the price of it.’ That which could pay the
debt, surely can procure the receipt. Peace of conscience is but a discharge
under God's hand that the debt due to divine justice is fully paid. The blood
of Christ hath done that the greater for the believer, it shall therefore do
this the less. If there were such a rare potion, that did infallibly procure
health to every one that takes it, we might safely say, as soon as the sick
man hath drunk it down, that he hath drunk his health; it is in him, though at
present he doth not feel himself to have it, in time it will appear.
Every true believer
hath peace of conscience in promisso—in the promise. And that we count
as good as ready money in the purse, which we have sure bond for,
Ps. 29:11.
‘The Lord will bless his people with peace.’ He is resolved on it, and then
who shall hinder it? It is worth your reading the whole psalm, to see what
weight the Lord gives to this sweet promise, for the encouragement of our
faith in expecting the performance thereof; nothing more hard to enter into
the heart of a poor creature—when all is in an uproar in his bosom, and his
conscience threatening nothing but fire and sword, wrath and vengeance, from
God for his sins—than thoughts or hopes of peace and comfort. Now, the psalm
is spent is showing what great things God can do, and that with no more
trouble to himself than a word speaking. ‘The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty,’
ver. 4.
‘It breaketh the cedars; it divideth the flames; it shaketh the wilderness;
it maketh the hinds to calve.’ This God that doth all this, promiseth to
bless his people with peace, outward and inward. For without this inward
peace, though he might give them peace, yet could he never bless them with
peace as he here undertakes. A sad peace, were it not, to have quiet streets,
but cutting of throats in our houses? yet infinitely more sad is it to have
peace both in our streets and houses, but war and blood in our guilty
consciences. What peace can a poor creature taste or relish, while the sword
of God’s wrath lies at the throat of conscience—not peace with God himself?
Therefore Christ purchased peace of pardon, to obtain peace of conscience for
his pardoned ones; and accordingly hath bequeathed it in the promise to them.
‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,’
John 14:27.
There, you see, he is both the testator to leave and the executor of his own
will—to give out with his own hands what his love hath left believers; so that
there is no fear, but his will shall be performed to the full, seeing himself
lives to see it done.
Every believer hath
this inward peace in semine—in the seed. ‘Light is sown for the
righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart,’
Ps. 97:11.
Where sown, but in the furrows of the believer’s own bosom, when principles of
grace and holiness were cast into it by the Spirit of God? Hence it is called
‘the peaceable fruit of righteousness,’
Heb. 12:11.
It shoots as naturally from holiness as any fruit in its kind doth from the
seed proper to it. It is indeed most true, that this seed runs and ripens
into this fruit sooner in some than it doth in others. This spiritual harvest
comes not alike soon to all, no more than the other that is outward doth. But
here is the comfort, whoever hath a seedtime of grace pass over his soul,
shall have his harvest-time also of joy. This law God hath bound himself to,
as strongly as for the other; which are 'not to cease while the earth
remaineth,’
Gen. 8:22;
yea, more strongly, for that was to the world in general, not to every
particular country, town or field in these, which may want a harvest, and yet
God keep his word; but God cannot perform his promise, if any one particular
saint should everlastingly go without his reaping time. ‘He that goeth forth
and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him,’
Ps. 126:6.
And therefore you who think so basely of the gospel and the professors of it,
because at present their peace and comfort is not come, know it is on the way
to them, and comes to stay everlastingly with them; whereas your peace is
going from you every moment, and is sure to leave you without any hope of
returning to you again. Look not how the Christian begins, but ends. The
Spirit of God by his convictions comes into the soul with some terrors, but it
closeth with peace and joy. As we say of March, ‘It enters like a lion, but
goes out like a lamb.’ ‘Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the
end of that man is peace,’
Ps. 37:37.
3. Sort. This
reproves those that think to heal their consciences with other than gospel
balm; who leave the waters of living comfort, that flow from this fountain
opened in the gospel by Christ, to draw their peace and comfort out of
cisterns of their own hewing, and they are two—a carnal cistern, and a legal
cistern.
(1.) Some think to
draw their peace out of a carnal cistern. There is not more variety
of plasters and foolish medicines used for the cure of the ague of the body,
than there is of carnal receipts used by self-deceiving sinners to rid
themselves of the shaking ague which the fear of God's wrath brings upon their
guilty consciences. Some, if they be but a little awakened by the word, and
they feel their hearts chill within them, from a few serious thoughts of their
wretched undone condition, fall to the physic of Felix; who, as soon as his
conscience began to be sick at Paul’s sermon, had enough of the preacher, and
made all the haste he could to get that unpleasing noise out of his head:
‘Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way,’
Acts 24:25.
Thus many turn their back off God, run as far as they can from those
ordinances, that company, or anything else that is likely to grate upon their
consciences, and revive the thoughts of their deplored state, which all their
care is to forget. Such a one I have heard of, that would not be present at
any funeral; could not bear the sight of his own gray hairs, and therefore
used a black-lead comb to discolour them; lest, by these, the thoughts of
death, which he so abhorred, should crowd in upon him. A poor cowardly
shift, God knows! yet all that this wretch had, and all that many more have,
betwixt them and a hell above ground in their consciences. Others, their
light is so strong, and glares on them so constantly, that this will not do,
but wherever they go, though they hear not a sermon in a month, look not on a
Bible in a year, and keep far enough from such company as would awake their
consciences, yet they are haunted with their own guilt. And therefore they do
not only go ‘from the presence of the Lord,’ as Cain did,
Gen. 4:16;
but as he also made diversion of those musing thoughts which gathered to his
guilty conscience, by employing them another way in ‘building a city,’
ver. 17,
so do they labour to give their consciences the slip in a crowd of worldly
businesses. This is the great leviathan that swallows up all the thoughts of
heaven and hell in many men’s hearts. They are so taken up with that project
and this, that conscience finds them not at leisure to exchange a few words
with them of a long time together. Conscience is as much hunched at and
spited among sinners, as Joseph was among the patriarchs. That which
conscience tells them, likes them no better than Joseph’s dream did his
brethren; and this makes many play the merchants with their consciences, as
they did with him—which they do by bribing it with the profits of the world.
But this physic is found too weak also; and therefore Saul’s harp, and Nabal’s
feast, is thought on by others. With these they hope to drown their cares, and
lay their raving consciences asleep, like some ruffian that is under an arrest
for debt, and hath no way, but now to prison he must go, except he can make
the sergeant drunk in whose hand he is; which he doth, and so makes an
escape. Thus many besot their conscience with the brutish pleasures of sin;
and when they have laid it as fast asleep in senseless stupidity as one that
is dead drunk, then they may sin without control till it wakes again. This is
the height of that peace which any carnal recipe can help the sinner unto—to
give a sleeping potion, that shall bind up the senses of conscience for a
while, in which time the wretch may forget his misery, as the condemned man
doth when he is asleep; but as soon as it awakes, the horror of his condition
is sure again to affright him worse than before. God keeps you all from such
a cure for your troubles of conscience, which is a thousand times worse than
the disease itself. Better to have a dog that will, by his barking, tell us a
thief is in our yard, than one that will still, and let us be robbed before we
have any notice of our danger.
(2.) Some draw their
peace of conscience from a legal cistern. All the comfort they have is
from their own righteousness. This good work, and that good duty, they bless
themselves in, when any qualm comes over their hearts. The cordial drink
which they use to revive and comfort themselves with, is drawn, not from the
satisfaction which Christ by his death hath given to God for them poor
sinners, but from the righteousness of their own lives; not from Christ’s
intercession in heaven for them, but [from] their own good prayers on earth
for themselves. In a word, when any spark of disquiet kindles in their
consciences—as it were strange, if, where so much combustible matter is,
there should not at one time or other some smothering fire begin in such a
one’s bosom—then, not Christ’s blood, but their own tears, are cast to quench
it. Well, whosever thou art that goest this way to work to obtain peace of
conscience, I accuse thee as an enemy to Jesus Christ and his gospel. If
any herb could be found growing in thy garden to heal the wounds of thy
conscience, why did the Lord Christ commend for such a rarity the balm which
he came from heaven on purpose to compound with his own blood? why doth he
call sinners from all besides himself as comforters of no value, and bid us
come to him, as ever we would find rest for our souls?
Matt. 11:28.
No; know, poor creature, and believe it —while the knowing of it may do thee
good—either Christ was an impostor, and the gospel a fable, which I hope thou
art not such an infidel, worse than the devil himself, to believe; or else
thou takest not the right method of healing thy conscience wounded for sin,
and laying a sure bottom for solid peace in thy bosom. Prayers and
tears—repentance I mean—good works and duties, these are not to be neglected;
nay, thou canst never have peace without them in thy conscience; yet these do
not, cannot, procure this peace for thee, because they cannot thy peace with
God. And peace of conscience is nothing but the echo of pardoning mercy,
which, sounding in the conscience, brings the soul into a sweet rest with the
pleasant music it makes. And the echo is but the same voice repeated; so
that, if prayers and tears, good duties and good works, cannot procure our
peace of pardon, then not our peace of comfort. I pray remember I said, ‘You
can never have inward peace without these; and yet not have it by these.’ A
wound would hardly ever cure, if not wrapped up from the open air, and also
kept clean; yet not these, but the balm cures it. Cease therefore, not from
praying and the exercise of any other holy exercise of grace or duty, but from
expecting thy peace and comfort to grow from their root, or else thou
shuttest thyself out from having any benefit of that true peace which the
gospel offers. The one resists the other; like those two famous rivers in
Germany, whose streams, when they meet, will not mingle together. Gospel
peace will not mingle and incorporate, as I may so say, with any other. Thou
must drink it pure and unmixed, or have none at all. ‘We,’ saith holy Paul
for himself, and all other sincere believers, ‘are the circumcision, which
worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence
in the flesh,’
Php. 3:3.
As if he had said, ‘We are not short of any in holy duties and services, nay,
we exceed them, for we worship God in the Spirit; but this is not the
tap from whence we draw our joy and comfort; we rejoice (fiduciarily)
in Christ Jesus, not in the flesh,’ where, that which he called
worshipping God in the Spirit, now, in opposition to Christ and
rejoicing in him, he calls flesh.
They are to be proved
from hence, who do indeed use the balm of the gospel for the healing of
conscience-wounds; but who use it very unevangelically. The matter they
bottom their peace and comfort on, is right and good—Christ and the mercy of
God through him in the promise to poor sinners. What can be said better? But
they do not observe gospel rule and order in the applying it. They snatch the
promise presumptuously, force and ravish it, rather than seek to have Christ’s
consent—like Saul, who was in such haste that he could not stay till Samuel
came to sacrifice for him, but boldly falls to work before he comes, flat
against order given him. Thus many are so hot upon having comfort, that they
will not stay for the Spirit of God to come and sprinkle their consciences
with the blood of Christ in gospel order; but profanely do it themselves, by
applying the comfort of those promises which indeed at present does not
belong to them. O sirs, can this do well in the end? Should he consult well
for his health, that will not stay for the doctor’s direction, but runs into
the apothecary’s shop, and on his own head takes his physic, without the
counsel of the physician how to prepare it, or himself for the taking of it?
This every profane wretch doth, that lives in sin, and yet sprinkles himself
with the blood of Christ, and blesseth himself in the pardoning mercy of God.
But let such know that, as the blood of the paschal lamb was not struck on the
Egyptians’ doors, but the Israelites’; so neither is the blood of Christ to be
sprinkled on the obstinate sinner, but on the sincere penitent. Nay,
further, as that blood was not to be spilt on the threshold of an Israelite’s
door, where it might be trampled on, but on the side posts; so neither is the
blood of Christ to be applied to the believer himself while he lies in any
sin unrepented of, for his present comfort. This were indeed to throw it
under his foot to be trod upon. David confesseth his sin with shame, before
Nathan comforts him with the news of a pardon.
[Four
characters of gospel peace.]
Use Second.
Let this doctrine be as a touchstone to try the truth of your peace and
comfort; hath it a gospel stamp upon it? The devil hath his false mint
of comfort as well as of grace; put thyself therefore to the trial, while I
shall lay before you some characters of the peace that Christ in his gospel
speaks to his people.
1. Character of
gospel peace. Gospel comfort may be known by the vessel it is poured
into, which is a broken heart. The promise is superscribed by name to
such, and such only. ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that
is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to
revive the heart of the contrite ones,’
Isa. 57:15.
Christ’s commission from his Father binds him up; he can comfort none
besides. ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath
anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up
the brokenhearted,’
Isa. 61:1.
And what he receives himself from the Father, the same he gives to those he
sends upon the same errand. First, he gives his Spirit, concerning whom he
tells his disciples, that ‘the Comforter, when he is come, he will reprove the
world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,’
John 16:8.
Mark, first of sin; and as for his inferior messengers, they have
direction to whom they are to apply the comforts of the gospel. ‘Strengthen
ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a
fearful heart, Be strong, fear not,’
Isa. 35:3.
And upon their peril be it, if they pour this ointment upon the head of an
unhumbled sinner; to give such any comfort, by promising life to him, as he
is. God protests against it; he calls it a lie, a ‘strengthening the hands of
the wicked,’ and as much as in them lies, by blowing him up with a false
comfort, to make sure that he shall never have the true peace.
Thus you see the
order of the gospel in comforting souls. As in needle-work, the sad
groundwork is laid before the beautiful colours; as the statuary cuts and
carves his statue before he gilds it; so doth the Spirit of Christ beginning
with sadness, ends in joy; first cuts and wounds, then heals and overlays the
soul with comfort and peace. I hope that you do not think I limit the Holy
One in his workings to the same degree and measure in all. I have opened my
thoughts in another place concerning this. But so far the convincing,
humbling work of the Spirit goes in every soul before peace and comfort comes,
as to empty the soul of all her false comforts and confidences which she had
laid up; that the heart becomes like a vessel whose bottom is beat out, and
all the water it held thereby split and let out. The sins it loved, now it
hates. The hopes and comforts it pleased itself with, they are gone, and the
creature left in desolate solitary condition. No way now it sees, but perish
it must, except Christ be her friend, and interpose betwixt hell and it. To
him she therefore makes her moan, as willing to follow his counsel, and to be
ordered by his direction, as every patient was by his physician, of whose
skill and care he is thoroughly satisfied. This I call ‘the broken heart,’
which if you be wholly strangers to, your acquaintance is to begin with gospel
peace. I beseech you, rest not till you have an answer from your
consciences. What is it they say? was your wine once water? doth your light
arise out of darkness? is your peace the issue of a soul-conflict and trouble?
did you bleed before you were healed? You may hope it is a kindly work of
God’s gracious Spirit; make much of it, and bless thy God that hath given this
wine to cheer thy sad heart. But if thou commencest per saltum—by a
leap, hast thy wine, before thy pots were filled with water—[if] thy morning
be come, before thou hast had thy evening—thy peace be settled, before thy
false peace is broken—thy conscience sound and whole, before it is lanced, and
the putrid stuff of thy pride, carnal confidence, and other sins thou hast
lived in, be let out —[if so,] thou mayest have some ease for a while; but
know it, the Lord Jesus denies it to be his cure. The strong man’s house kept
‘in peace,’
Luke 11:21,
as well as the good man’s. It requires more power to work true sorrow, than
false joy and peace. A happier man thou wouldst be, if mourning in the
distress of a troubled conscience, than dancing about this idol peace, which
the devil, thy sworn enemy, mocks thee withal.
2. Character of
gospel peace. Gospel peace is obtained in a gospel way, and that
is twofold.
(1.) Gospel peace is
given to the soul in a way of obedience and holy walking. ‘As many as
walk according to this rule, peace be on them,
Gal. 6:16.
Now this rule you may see, to be the rule of the ‘new creature,’
ver. 15.
And what is that, but the holy rule of the word? to which the principles of
grace planted in the soul of a believer are so fitted, that there is not a
more connatural[9]
agreement betwixt the eye and light, than betwixt the disposition of this new
nature in a saint, and the rule of holiness in the word. Now, it is not
enough for one to be a new creature, and to have a principle of grace in his
bosom, but he must actually walk by this rule, or else he will be to seek for
true peace in his conscience. No comfort in the saints is to be found, but
what the Comforter brings. And he who commands us to ‘withdraw from them’
(though our brethren) ‘that walk disorderly,’
II Thes. 3:6,
will himself surely withdraw from such, and withhold his comforts, so long as
they are disorderly walkers; which they are as long as they walk beside this
rule. And therefore, if thou be such a one, say not the Spirit brought thy
comfort to thy hand; for he would not bid thee good speed in an evil way. No;
he hath been withdrawn as a Comforter ever since thou hast withdrawn thy foot
from walking by the holy rule. All thy peace, which thou pretendest to have
in this time, is base-born; and thou hast more cause to be ashamed of it, than
to glory in it. It is little credit to the wife, that she hath a child when
her husband is abroad, and cannot father it; and as little to pretend to
comfort, when the Spirit of Christ will not own it.
(2.) Gospel peace is
given in the soul in a way of duty, and close attendance on God in his
ordinances. ‘Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all
means.’
II Thes. 3:16—that
is, bless all means of comforting and filling your souls with inward peace, so
that he who drives no trade in ordinances, and brags of his peace and comfort,
speaks enough to bring the truth of it into suspicion in the thoughts of sober
Christians. I know God can by immediate illapses[10]
of his Spirit comfort the Christian, and save him the labour of hearing,
praying, meditating; but where did he say he would? Why may we not expect a
harvest as well without sowing and ploughing, as peace without using the
means? If we were like Israel in the wilderness—in such a state and posture,
wherein the means is cut from us, and not by pride or sloth put from us, as
sometimes it is the Christian’s condition [when] he is sick, and knocked off
from ordinances, or, by some other providence as pressing, shut out from the
help of this means or that—then I should not wonder to see comfort lie as
thick in his soul as manna about the Israelites’ tents; but as God would not
rain bread any longer, when once they had corn, of which with their labour
might make bread,
Joshua 5:11,
12, so neither will the
Lord comfort by a miracle, when the soul may have it in an ordinance. God
could have taught the eunuch, and satisfied him with light from heaven, and
never have sent for Philip to preach to him. But he chooseth to do it out of
Philip’s mouth, rather than immediately out of his own, no doubt to put honour
on his ordinance.
3. Character of
gospel peace. Gospel peace in the conscience is strengthening and
restorative. It makes the Christian strong to fight against sin and
Satan. The Christian is revived, and finds his strength come, upon a little
tasting of this honey; but O what a slaughter doth he make of his spiritual
enemies, when he hath a full meal of this honey, a deep draught of this wine!
now he goes like a giant refreshed with wine into the field against them. No
lust can stand before him. It makes him strong to work. O how Paul laid about
him for Christ! He ‘laboured more abundantly than they all.’ The good man
remembered what a wretch he once was, and what mercy he had obtained; the
sense of this love of God lay so glowing at his heart, that it infired him
with a zeal for God above his fellow-apostles. This made holy David pray so
hard to drink again of this wine, which so long had been locked up from him.
‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit;
then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto
thee,’
Ps. 51:12, 13. Pray mark,
it was not his lickerish palate after the sweet taste of this wine of comfort
that was the only or chief reason why he so longed for it; but the admirable
virtue he knew in it, to inspirit and empower him with zeal for God. Whereas
the false peace and comfort of hypocrites is more heady than hearty; it leaves
them as weak as they were before; yea, it lies rotting, like unwholesome food
in the stomach, and leaves a surfeit in their souls—as luscious summer fruits
do in the bodies of men—which soon breaks out in loose practices. Thieves
commonly spend their money as ill as they get it; and so do hypocrites and
formalists their stolen comforts. Stay but a little, and you shall find them
feasting some lust or other with them. ‘I have peace-offerings with me,’
saith the religious whore—the hypocritical harlot —‘this day I have paid my
vows, therefore I came forth to meet thee,’
Prov 7:14, 15.
She pacifies her conscience and comforts herself with this religious service
she performs; and now, having, as she thought, quit scores with God, she
returns to her own lustful trade; yea, emboldens herself from this, in her
wickedness. ‘Therefore came I forth to meet thee,’ as if she durst not have
played the whore with man till she had played the hypocrite with God, and
stopped the mouth of her conscience with her peace-offering. Look, therefore,
I beseech you, very carefully, what effect your peace and comfort have in your
hearts and lives. Are you the more humble or proud for your comfort? do you
walk more closely or loosely after your peace? how stand you to duties of
worship? are you made more ready for communion with God in them, or do you
grow strange to and infrequent in them? have you more quickening in them, or
lie more formal and lifeless under them? In a word, can you show that grace
and peace grow in thee alike? or doth the one less appear, since thou doest
more pretend to the other? By this thou mayest know whether thy peace comes
from the peace-maker, or peace-marrer, from the God of truth or the father of
lies.
4. Character of
gospel peace. Gospel peace comforts the soul, and that strongly,
when it hath no other comfort to mingle with it. It is a cordial rich enough
itself, and needs not any other ingredient to be compounded with it. David
singles out God by himself. ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is
none upon earth that I desire beside thee,’
Ps. 73:25.
Give David but his God, and let who will take all besides; let him alone to
live comfortably, may he but have his love and favour. Hence it is that the
Christian’s peace pays him in the greatest revenues of joy and comfort, when
outward enjoyments contribute least, yea nothing at all, but bring in matter
of trouble. ‘But David encouraged himself in his God,’
I Sam. 30:6.
You know when that was. If David’s peace had not been right and sound, he
would have been more troubled to think of God at such a time than of all his
other disasters. ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall
offend them,’
Ps. 119:165.
This distinguishes the saint’s peace, both from the worldling’s and the
hypocrite’s.
(1.) From the
worldling’s. His peace and comfort, poor wretch, runs dregs as soon as
creature-enjoyments run a tilt—when poverty, disgrace, sickness, or anything
else, crosseth him in that which he fondly doted on, then his night is come,
and day shut up in dismal darkness. In this respect it is, that Christ, as I
conceive, opposeth his peace to the world’s. ‘Peace I leave with you, my
peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,’
John 14:27.
Pray mark, Christ is laying in arguments of comfort for his disciples against
his departure, which he knew would go so near their hearts. One amongst the
rest is taken from the difference of that peace and comfort which he leaves
them, from what the world gives. If he had said, If the peace and comfort you
have from me lay in such things as the world’s peace is made up of—plenty,
ease, outward prosperity, and carnal joy—truly then you had reason to be the
greatest mourners at my funeral that ever followed friend to the grave; for
after my departure you are like to have none of these; nay, rather expect
trouble and persecution. But know, the peace I have with you is not in your
houses, but hearts; the comfort I give you lies not in silver and gold, but in
pardon of sin, hopes of glory, and inward consolations, which the Comforter
that is to come from me to dwell with you, shall, upon my appointment, pay
into your bosoms; and this shall outlive all the world’s joy. This is such a
legacy as never any left their children. Many a father dying, hath in a
farewell speech to his children, wished them all peace and comfort when he
should be dead and gone; but who besides Jesus Christ could send a comforter
into their hearts, and thrust peace and comfort into their bosoms? Again, it
distinguisheth the true Christian’s peace,
(2.) From the
hypocrite’s. He, though he pretends to place his comfort, not in the
creatures, but in God, and seems to take joy in the interest which he lays
claim to have in Christ and the precious promises of the gospel; yet, when it
comes indeed to the trial, that he sees all his creature-comforts gone, and
not like to return anymore—which at this time had his heart, though he would
not it should be thought so —and now he sees he must in earnest into another
world, to stand or fall eternally, as he shall then be found in God’s own
scrutiny to have been sincere or false-hearted in his pretensions to Christ
and his grace; truly, then recoil his thoughts, his conscience flies in his
face, and reproacheth him for spiritual cozenage[11]
and forgery. Now, soul, speak, is it thus with thee? does thy peace go with
thee just to the prison door, and there leave thee? Art thou confident thy
sins are pardoned all the while thou art in health and strength, but as soon
as ever the sergeant knocks at the door to speak with thee—as soon as death, I
mean, comes in sight—do thy thoughts then alter, and thy conscience tells thee
he comes to prove thee a liar in thy pretended peace and joy? This is a sad
symptom. I know indeed that the time of affliction is a trying time to grace;
that is true. The sincere Christian for a while may, like a valiant soldier,
be beat from his artillery, and the enemy Satan may seem to possess his peace
and confidence; yea, so far have some precious saints been carried down the
stream of violent temptations, as to question whether their former comforts
were from the Holy Spirit the Comforter, or the evil spirit the deceiver; yet
their is great difference between the one and the other.
(a) They
differ in their causes. This darkness, which sometimes is upon the
sincere Christian's spirit in deep distress, comes from the withdrawing of
God’s lightsome countenance; but the horror of the other from his own guilty
conscience, that before was lullabied asleep with prosperity, but now, being
awakened by the hand of God on him, doth accuse him to have been false with
God in the whole course of his profession. It is true, some particular guilt
may be contracted by the Christian through negligence or strong temptation in
his Christian course, for which his conscience may accuse him, and may further
embitter the present desertion he is in so far, as from those particular
miscarriages to fear his sincerity in the rest, though he hath no reason to do
it; but his conscience cannot charge him of an hypocritical design, to have
been the spring that hath set him on work through the whole course of his
profession.
(b) They
differ in their accompaniments. There is something concomitant with
the Christian’s present darkness of spirit, that distinguisheth it from
the hypocrite’s horror; and it is the lively working of grace, which then
commonly is very visible when his peace and former comfort are most questioned
by him. The less joy he hath from any present sense of the love of God, the
more abounding you shall find him in sorrow for his sin that clouded his joy.
The further Christ is gone out of his sight, the more he clings in his love to
Christ, and vehemently cries after him in prayer, as we see in Heman, ‘Unto
thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee,’
Ps.
88:13. O the fervent
prayers that then are shot from his troubled spirit to heaven, the pangs of
affection which are springing after God, and his face and favour! Never did
banished child more desire admittance into his angry father's presence, than
he to have the light of God’s countenance shine on him, which is now veiled
from him. O how he searcheth his heart, studies the Scripture, wrestles with
God for to give him that grace, the non-evidence of which at present makes him
so question the comforts he hath formerly had! Might he but have true grace,
he will not fall out with God for want of comfort, though he stays for it till
the other world. Never did any woman big with child long more to have the
child in her arms that is at present in her womb, than such a soul doth to
have that grace which is in his heart—but through temptation questioned by him
at present—evidenced to him in the truth of it. Whereas the hypocrite in the
midst of all his horror doth not, cannot—till he hath a better heart put into
his bosom —cordially love or desire grace and holiness for any intrinsic
excellency in itself—only as an expedient for escaping the tormentor’s hand,
which he sees he is now falling into.
(c) They
differ in the issue. The Christian—he, like a star in the heavens,
wades through the cloud that, for a time, hides his comfort; but the other,
like a meteor in the air, blazeth a little, and then drops into some ditch or
other, where it is quenched. Or, as the Spirit of God distinguisheth them,
‘The light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp (or candle, as in the
Hebrew) of the wicked shall be put out,’
Prov. 13:9.
The sincere Christian’s joy and comfort is compared there to the light of the
sun, that is climbing higher, while it is muffled up with clouds from our eye;
and by and by, when it breaks out more gloriously, doth rejoice over those
mists and clouds that seemed to obscure it; but the joy of the wicked, like a
candle, wastes and spends—being fed with gross fuel of outward prosperity,
which in a short time fails—and the wretches comfort goes out in a snuff at
last, past all hope of being lighted again. The Christian’s trouble of spirit
again is compared to a swooning fainting fit, which he within a while
recovers. A qualm comes over the holy man’s heart from the thought of his
sins in the day of his great distress. ‘Innumerable evils have compassed me
about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look
up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me,’
Ps.
40:12; but, before the
psalm is at an end, after a few deep groans in prayer,
ver. 13, 14,
he comes again to himself, and acts his faith strongly on God ‘yet the Lord
thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer,’
ver. 17.
But the hypocrite’s confidence and hope, when once it begins to sink and
falter, it dies and perisheth. ‘The eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they
shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost,’
Job
11:20.
THIRD KIND OF PEACE.
[Peace
of love and unity
the blessing of
the gospel.]
We come now to the
third kind of peace, which I called a peace of love and unity. A
heavenly grace this is, whereby the minds and hearts of men, that even now
jarred and rang backwards are made tunable each to other; so as to chime all
in to an harmonious consent and concord among themselves. Thus peace in
Scripture is frequently taken, as you may see,
Mark 9:50;
Heb. 12:14; I Thes. 5:13.
Now the gospel is a ‘gospel of peace,’ if taken in this notion also, which we
shall briefly speak to from this note.
[The gospel
alone can knit the hearts
of men in solid
peace.]
The doctrine we lay
down is, that the gospel, and only the gospel, can knit the hearts and minds
of men together in a solid peace and love. This, next the reconciling us to
God and ourselves, is especially designed by Christ in the gospel; and truly
those [blessings] without this, would not fill up the saint's happiness;
except God should make a heaven for every Christian by himself to live in.
John Baptist’s ministry, which was as it were the preface to and brief
contents of, the gospel, was divided into these two heads, ‘To turn many of
the children of Israel to the Lord their God,’
Luke 1:16,
and ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’
ver. 17;
that is, to make them friends with God and one another. This is the natural
effect of the gospel, where it is powerfully and sincerely embraced—to unite
and endear the hearts of men and women in love and peace together, how
contrary soever they were before. This is the strange metamorphosis, which
the prophet speaks shall be under the gospel, ‘The wolf shall dwell with the
lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,’
Isa. 11:6.
That is, men and women, between whom there was a great feud and enmity as
betwixt those creatures, they shall yet sweetly agree, and lie in one
another’s bosoms peaceably. And how all this, but by the efficacy of the
gospel on their hearts? So ‘for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of
the Lord,’
ver. 9.
Indeed it is in the dark when men fight, and draw upon one another in wrath
and fury. If gospel light comes once savingly in, the sword will soon be put
up. The sweet spirit of love will not suffer these doings where he dwells;
and so peculiar is this blessing to the gospel, that Christ appoints it for
the badge and cognizance by which not only they should know one another, but
[by which] even strangers should be able to know them from any other sect and
sort of men in the world,
John 13:35.
‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another.’ A nobleman's servant is known as far as he can be seen, by the coat
on his back, whose man he is; so, saith Christ, shall all men know you, by
your mutual love, that you retain to me and my gospel. If we would judge
curiously of wine, [as to] what is its natural relish, we must taste of it,
before it comes into the huckster’s hands, or after it is refined from its
lees. So, the best way to judge of the gospel and the fruit it bears, is to
taste of it, either when it is professed and embraced, with most
simplicity—and that was without doubt in the first promulgation—or, secondly,
when it shall have its full effect on the hearts of men, and that is in
heaven. In both these, though chiefly the last, this peace will appear to be
the natural fruit of the gospel.
First. When
the gospel was first preached and embraced, what a sweet harmony of peace
and admirable oneness of heart was then amongst the holy professors of it,
who but a while before were strangers to or bitter enemies one against
another! They lived and loved, as if each Christian’s heart had forsaken his
own, to creep into his brother’s bosom. They alienated their estates to keep
their love entire. They could give their bread out of their own mouths to put
it into their brethren’s that were hungry; yea, when their love to their
fellow-Christians was most costly and heavy, it was least grudged and felt by
them. See those blessed souls, ‘They sold their possessions and goods, and
parted them to all men, as every man had need; and they, continuing daily with
one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat
their bread with gladness and singleness of heart,’
Acts 2:46.
More, they are more merry now they have been emptying of their bags by
charity, than if they had come from filling them by worldly traffic. So
notorious was the love of Christians in the primitive times, that the very
heathens would point at them, as Tertullian saith, and say, ‘See how they love
one another.’ And therefore, if less love and peace be found now amongst
Christians, the blame lies not on the gospel, but on them. The gospel is as
peaceful, but they are minùs evangelici—less evangelical, as we shall
further show.
Second. Look
on the gospel, as at last, in the complement of all in heaven, when the
hearts of saints shall be thoroughly gospelized, and the promises concerning
the peaceable state of saints have their full accomplishment—then above all
this peace of the gospel will appear. Here it puts out and in, like a budding
flower in the spring; which one warm day opens a little, and another that is
cold and sharp shuts it again. The ‘silence’ in the lower heaven—the church
on earth—is but for ‘the space of half an hour,’
Rev. 8:1.
Now there is a love and peace among Christians; anon, scandals are given, and
differences arise, which drive this sweet spring back; but in heaven it is
full blown, and so continues to eternity. There dissenting brethren are made
thorough friends, never to fall out. There, not only the wound of contention
is cured; but the scar which is here oft left upon the place, is not to be
seen on the face of heaven’s peace, to disfigure the beauty of it, which made
the German divine so long to be in heaven—where, said he, Luther and
Zuinglius are perfectly agreed, though they could not be agreed on earth. But
I come to give some particular account how the gospel knits the hearts and
minds of men in peace together, and why the gospel alone can do this. While I
clear one, I shall the other also.
[How the gospel
knits the hearts of men
in peace, and
why it alone can do so.]
First. The
gospel knits the hearts of men together, as it propounds powerful
arguments for peace and unity; and indeed such as are found nowhere else.
It hath cords of love to draw and bind souls together that were never weaved
in nature’s loom: such as we may run through all the topics of morality, and
meet with [in] none of them, being all supernatural and of divine revelation,
Eph.
4:3. The apostle exhorts
them ‘to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’ And how doth he
persuade them
ver. 4-7.
First, ‘there is one body.’ Such a one however, it is, as natural philosophy
treats not of; but a mystical one, the church—which consists of several
saints, as the natural body of several members; and, as it were strange to
see one member to fall out with another—which all are preserved in life by
their union together—so much more in the mystical body. Again there is ‘one
spirit.’ That is the same holy Spirit which quickens them all that are true
saints, and he is to the whole number of saints as the soul is to the whole
man —informing every part. Now, as it were a prodigious violence to the law
of nature, if the members, by an intestine war among themselves, should drive
the soul out of the body, which gives life to them in union together; so much
more would it be for Christians to force the Holy Spirit from them by their
contentions and strifes; as indeed a wider door cannot easily be opened for
them to go out at. Again, it presseth ‘unity,’ from the ‘one hope of our
calling,’ where hope is put pro re speratâ—for the thing hoped for, the
bliss we all hope for in heaven. There is a day coming, and it cannot be far
from us, in which we shall meet lovingly in heaven, and sit at one feast
without grudging one to see what lies on another's trencher. Full fruition
of God shall be the feast, and peace and love the sweet music that shall sound
to it. What folly is it then for us to fight here, who shall feast there?
draw blood of one another here, that shall so quickly lie in each other’s
bosom’s? Now the gospel invites to this feast, and calls us to this hope. I
might run through the other particulars, which are all as purely
evangelical—as these, ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism;’ but enough to have
given you a taste.
Second. The
gospel doth this, as it takes away the cause of that feud and enmity which
is among the sons and daughters of men. They are chiefly two —the curse
of God on them, and their own lusts in them.
1. The feud and
hostility that is among men and women is part of that curse which lies upon
mankind for his apostasy from God. We read how the ground was cursed for
man’s sake, ‘thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,’ saith
God,
Gen. 3:18. But a far
greater curse it was, that one man should become as a thorn and briar, to
fetch blood of another. Some have a fancy that the rose grew in paradise
without prickles. To be sure man, had he not sinned, should never have been
such a pricking briar as now the best of them is. These thorns that come up
so thick in man’s dogged, quarrelsome nature, what do they speak but the
efficacy of God’s curse? The first man that was born in the world proved a
murderer; and the first that died, went to his grave by that bloody murderer’s
hand. May we not wonder as much at the power of God’s curse on man’s nature,
that appeared so soon in Cain’s malicious heart, as the disciples did at the
sudden withering of the fig tree blasted by Christ’s curse? And truly, it was
but just with God to mingle a perverse spirit among them who had expressed so
false a one to him. They deserved to be confounded in their language, and
suffered to bite and devour one another, who durst make an attempt upon God
himself, by their disobedience. Very observable is that in Zech. 11:10,
compared with ver. 14. When once ‘the staff of beauty,’
ver. 10
—which represented God’s covenant with the Jews —was asunder, then presently
the ‘staff of bands’ —which signified the brotherhood between Judah and
Jerusalem—was cut asunder, also. When a people break covenant with God, they
must not expect peace among themselves. It is the wisdom of a prince, if he
can, to find his enemy work at home. As soon as man fell out with God, behold
there is a fire of war kindled at his own door, in his own nature. No more
bitter enemy now to mankind than itself. One man is a wolf, yea a devil, to
another. Now, before there can be any hope of true solid peace among men,
this curse must be reversed; and the gospel, and only the gospel, can do
that. There an expedient is found how the quarrel betwixt God and the sinner
may be reconciled; which done, the curse ceaseth. A curse is a judiciary
doom, whereby God in wrath condemns his rebel creature to something that is
evil. But there is ‘no condemnation’ to him that is in Christ. The curse is
gone. No arrow now in the bow of threatening; that was shot into
Christ’s heart, and can never enter into the believer’s. God may whip his
people, by some unbrotherly unkindness they receive from one another’s hands,
by way of fatherly chastisement —and indeed it is as sharp a rod as he can use
in his discipline—the more to make them sensible of their falling out with
him. But the curse is gone, and his people are under a promise of enjoying
peace and unity; which they shall, when best for them, have performed to them.
2. The internal cause
of all the hostility and feud that is to be found amongst men is lust that
dwells in their own bosoms. This is the principle and root that bears all
the bitter fruit of strife and contention in the world: ‘From whence come wars
and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in
your members?’
James. 4:1.
This breaks the peace with God, ourselves, and others. If there be a fiery
exhalation wrapped up in the cloud, we must look for thunder and lightning to
follow; if lust in the heart, it will vent itself, though it rends peace of
family, church, and kingdom. Now, before there can be a foundation for a
firm, solid peace, these unruly lusts of men must be taken to. What peace and
quiet can there be while pride, envy, ambition, malice, and such like lusts,
continue to sit in throne and hurry men at their pleasure? Neither will it be
enough for the procuring peace, to restrain these unruly passions, and bind
them up, forcibly. If peace be not made between the hearts of men, it is
worth nothing. The chain that ties up the mad dog will in time wear; and so
with all cords break, by which men seem at present so strongly bound
together, if they be not tied by the heart-strings, and the grounds of the
quarrel be there taken away. Now the gospel, and only the gospel, can help us
to a plaster, that can draw out of the heart the very core of contention and
strife. Hear the apostle telling us how himself and others his fellow-saints
got cure of that malicious heart which once they were in bondage to. ‘For we
ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers
lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one
another,’
Titus 3:3.
Well, what was the physic that recovered them?
See ver. 4, 5,
‘But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy
he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.’
As if he had said, Had not this love of God to us in Christ appeared, and we
been thus washed by his regenerating Spirit, we might have lain to this day
under the power of those lusts, for all the help that any other could afford
us. Mortification is a work of the Spirit. ‘If ye through the Spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live,’
Rom. 8:13.
And the gospel is the sacrificing knife in the hand of the Spirit. The word
is called ‘the sword of the Spirit,’ as that which he useth to kill and slay
sin within the hearts of his people.
3. As the gospel lays
the axe to the root of bitterness and strife, to stub that up; so it fills
the hearts of those that embrace it with such gracious principles as to
incline to peace and unity. Such are self-denial —that prefers another in
honour before himself, and will not jostle for the wall; long-suffering—a
grace which is not easily moved and provoked; gentleness —which, if moved by
any wrong, keeps the doors open for peace to come in at again, and makes him
easy to be entreated. See a whole bundle of these sweet herbs growing in one
bed, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,’
Gal. 5:22.
Mark, I pray, this is not fruit that grows in every hedge, but ‘fruit of the
Spirit’—fruit that springs from gospel seed. As the stones in the quarry, and
cedars as they grew in the wood, would never have lain close and comely
together in the temple, so neither could the one cut and polish, nor the other
hew and carve themselves into that fitness and beauty which they all had in
that stately fabric. No, that was the work of men gifted of God for that
purpose. Neither can men and women, with all their skill and tools of
morality, square and frame their hearts so as to fall in lovingly into one
holy temple. This is the work of the Spirit, and that also with this
instrument and chisel of the gospel, to do; partly by cutting off the
knottiness of our churlish natures, by his mortifying grace; as also by
carving, polishing, and smoothing them, with those graces which are the
emanations of his own sweet, meek, and Holy Spirit.
USE AND APPLICATION.
[Difference
between the peace among saints
and that of the
wicked.]
Use First.
What we have now learned of gospel peace as a peace of love and unity,
helps us what to think of that peace and love which sometimes is to be found
among the wicked of the world. It is not true peace and solid love,
because they are strangers to the gospel that alone can unite hearts
together. What then shall we call this their peace? In some, it is a mere
conspiracy. ‘Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall
say, A confederacy,’
Isa. 8:12.
The peace of some is rather founded in wrath to the saints that in love among
themselves. They are united—but how?—no other way than Samson’s foxes, to do
mischief to others, rather than good to themselves. Two dogs that are
worrying one another, can leave off to run both after a hare that comes by
them; who, when the chase is over, can to it as fiercely as before. ‘In the
same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at
enmity between themselves,’
Luke 23:12.
Again, the peace and unity of others is founded upon some base lust that ties
them together. Thus shall you see a knot of ‘good fellows,’ as they miscall
themselves, set over the pot with abundance of seeming content in one
another. And a pack of thieves, when upon a wicked design, jug and call one
another together, as partridges their fellows, saying, ‘Come with us; cast in
thy lot among us; let us all have one purse,’
Prov. 1:14.
Here now is peace and unity, but alas! they are only ‘brethren in iniquity.’
Thirdly, where it is not thus gross; as it cannot indeed be denied but there
are some that never felt the power of the gospel so as to be made new
creatures by it, who yet hold very fair quarter one with another, and
correspond together; and that not on so base and sordid an account, among whom
such offices of love are reciprocated as do much sweeten their lives and
endear them one to another; and for this they are much beholden to the gospel,
which doth civilize oft, where it doth not sanctify. But this is a peace so
fundamentally defective, that it doth not deserve the name of true peace.
1. The peace of the
wicked is in cortice non in corde—superficial and external, not inward
and cordial. We may say, rather their lusts are chained from open war than
their hearts are changed into inward love. As the beasts agreed in the ark
pretty well, yet kept their hostile nature, so do unregenerate men.
2. The peace of the
wicked is unsanctified peace.
(1.) Because, while they seem to
have peace with one another, they have not peace with God; and it is peace
with God takes away the curse. (2.) Because it proceeds from unsanctified
hearts. It is the altar that sanctifies the gift; the heart, the unity.
Amicitia non esti inter bonos—friendship exists only between the good. A
heathen could say this—that true love and friendship can only be between good
men; but alas he knew not what made a good man. When God intends in mercy to
make the hearts of men ‘one,’ he first makes them ‘new,’ ‘and I will give them
one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you,’
Eze. 11:19.
The peace of the right kind is a fruit of the Spirit, and that sanctifies
before it unifies. (3.) Because the end that all such propound in their love
is carnal, not spiritual. As Austin did not admire Cicero for his eloquence
and oratory so much as he did undervalue and pity him because the name of
Jesus Christ was not to be found in him; so, this draws a black line upon
carnal men’s peace and unity—nothing of God and Christ in it. Is it his
glory they aim at? Christ’s command that binds them to the peace? No alas!
here is the ‘still voice,’ but God is not in it. Their own quiet and carnal
advantage is the primum mobile—prime motive. Peace and unity are such
good guests, and pay so well for their entertainment, that this makes their
men who have no grace, if they have but their wits left, desirous but to keep
up an external peace among themselves.
3. The peace of the
wicked is, in a word, a peace that will not long last, because it wants
a strong cement. Stones may a while lie together without mortar, but not
long. The only lasting cement for love is the blood of Christ; as Austin
sayeth of his friend Alypius and himself, they were sanguine Christi
glutinati—cemented in their friendship by the blood of Christ.
[The sin of
ministers who stir up strife.]
Use Second.
Is the gospel a gospel of peace in this sense as taken for unity and love?—this
dips their sin into a deep die, who abuse the gospel to a quite
contrary end, and make it their instrument to promote strife and
contention withal. Such the apostle speaks of, ‘Some indeed preach Christ
even of envy and strife,’
Php. 1:15.
The gospel of peace is a strange text, one would think, to preach division and
raise strife from; and the pulpit as strange a mount for to plant the
battering pieces of contention on. O how strangely do these men forget their
Lord that sent them, who is a Prince of peace! and their work, which is not to
blow a trumpet of sedition and confusion, or sound an alarm to battle, but
rather a joyful retreat from the bloody fight wherein their lusts had engaged
them against God and one another. Indeed there is a war they are to proclaim,
but it is only against sin and Satan; and I am sure we are not fit to march
out against them till we can agree among ourselves. What would the prince
think of that captain who, instead of encouraging his soldiers to fall on with
united forces as one man against a common enemy, should make a speech to set
his soldiers together by the ears among themselves? surely he would hang him
up for a traitor. Good was Luther’s prayer, A doctore glorioso, à pastore
contentioso, et inutilibus quæstionibus liberet ecclesiam Deus—from a
vainglorious doctor, a contentious pastor, and nice questions, the Lord
deliver his church. And we, in these sad times, have reason to say as hearty
an amen to it as any since his age. Do we not live in a time when the church
is turned into a sophister’s school? where such a wrangling and jangling hath
been that the most precious truths of the gospel are lost already to many.
Their eyes are put out with the dust these contentions have raised, and they
have at last fairly disputed themselves out of all their sober principles; as
some ill husbands that light among cunning gamesters, and play all their money
out of their purses. O woe to such vile men, who have prostituted the gospel
to such devilish ends! God may have mercy on the cheated souls to bring them
back to the love of the truth, but for the cheaters, they are gone too far
towards hell that we can look for their return.
This gives us the
reason why there is no more peace and unity among the saints themselves. The
gospel cannot be faulted that breathes peace. No! it is not because they are
gospellers, but because they are but imperfectly gospelized, that they are no
more peaceful. the more they partake of the spirit of the gospel, the less
will they be haunted with the evil spirit of contention and strife. The best
of saints are in part unevangelical in two particulars, from which come all
the unkind quarrellings and unbrotherly contests among them.
1. Christians are
unevangelical in their judgments; ‘they know but in part, and prophesy
but in part,’
I Cor. 13:9.
He that pretends to more than this boasts without his measure, and doth
thereby discover what he denies—his ignorance, I mean, in the gospel. And this
defect and craze that is in the saints’ judgments exposeth them sometimes to
drink in principles that are not evangelical. Now, these are they that make
the bustle and disturb their peace and unity. All truth is reducible to a
unity; like lines they lovingly meet in one center—the God of truth—and are so
far from jostling and clashing, that, as stones in an arch, they uphold one
another. They then which so sweetly agree in one themselves cannot learn us
to divide. No, it is this strange error that creeps in among the
saints, and will needs be judge; this breaks the peace, and kindles a fire in
the house, that in a while, if let alone, will be seen at the house-top.
Wholesome food makes no disturbance to a healthy body; but corrupt food doth
presently make the body feverish and untoward, and then, when the man is
distempered, no wonder if he begins to be pettish and peevish; we have seen it
by woful experience. Those from whom we had nothing but sweetness and love
while they fed on the same dish of gospel truth with us, how strangely froward
are they grown since they have taken down some unevangelical and erroneous
principles! We know not well how to carry ourselves towards them they are so
captious and quarrelsome; yea, at the very hearing of the word, if they have
not yet forgot the way to the ordinance, what a distasteful behaviour do many
of them show, as if every word went against their stomach, and made them
sick! O sirs, let us not blame the gospel, it is innocent as to these sad
contentions among us. Paul tells us where to find a father for this brat of
strife. See at whose door he directs us to lay it: ‘Now I beseech you,
brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the
doctrine ye have learned,’
Rom. 16:17.
I pray observe how he clears the gospel here. This dividing quarrelling spirit
is contrary to the gospel; they never learned it in Christ’s school. And
then he tacitly implies that they have it somewhere else, from some false
teacher and false doctrine or other. ‘Mark them,’ saith he, as if he had
said, ‘Observe them well, and you shall find them tainted some way or
other.’ They have been warming themselves at Satan’s fire, and from thence
have brought a coal with them, that does the mischief.
2. Christians are in
part unevangelical in their hearts and lives. The whole root of sin is
not stubbed up at once; no wonder some bitter taste remains in the fruit they
bear. Saints in heaven shall be all grace, and no sin in them, and then they
shall be all love also; but here they are part grace, part corruption, and so
their love is not perfect. How can they be fully soldered together in unity
never to fall out, as long as they are not so fully reconciled to God, in the
point of sanctification, but now and then there are some breeches betwixt them
and God himself? And the less progress the gospel hath made in their hearts
to mortify lust and strengthen grace, the less peace and love is to be
expected among them. The apostle concludes from the contentions among the
Christians at Corinth, that they were of little growth in grace, such as were
not past the child’s spoon and meat. ‘I have fed you with milk, and not with
meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able,
for ye are yet carnal,’
I Cor. 3:2.
Nay, he conceives this to be so clear evidence, that he appeals to their
consciences if it be not so. ‘For whereas there is among you envying, and
strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?’
ver. 3.
But as grace strengthens, and the gospel prevails on the hearts of Christians,
so does love and a spirit of unity increase with it. We say ‘older and
wiser;’—though children, when young, do scratch and fight, yet when they get
up into years, they begin to agree better. Omne invalidum est naturá
quærulum—those that are young and weak are peevish and quarrelsome. Age
and strength bring wisdom to overcome those petty differences that now cannot
be borne. In the controversy between the servants of Abraham and Lot,
Abraham, who was the elder and stronger Christian, was most forward for peace,
so as to crave it at the hands of his nephew, every way his inferior. Paul,
who was a Christian higher by the head than others—O how he excelled in
love!—he saith of himself,
I Tim. 1:14,
‘The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in
Christ Jesus;’ where, saith Calvin, fides incredulitati opponitur; dilectio
in Christo sævitiæ quam exercuerat adversus fideles—faith is opposed to
his former obstinate unbelief, when a Pharisee; love in Christ Jesus, to the
cruelty he expressed against Christians, when, breathing slaughter, he went on
a persecuting errand to Damascus. Now he was as full of faith as then of
unbelief, now as fire-hot of love to the saints as then of cruelty against
them. But that I quote chiefly the place for, is to see how this pair of
graces thrive and grow together; if abundant in faith, then abundant in love.
[Exhortation to
saints to maintain
and promote
peace.]
Use Third.
What we have learned of gospel peace as a peace of love and unity, brings a
seasonable exhortation to all the saints, that they would nourish peace
what they can among themselves. You all profess to have been baptized into
the spirit of the gospel, but you do not show it when you bite and snarl at
one another. The gospel, that makes wolves and lambs agree, doth not teach
the lambs to turn {into} wolves and devour each other. Our Saviour told the
two disciples whose choler was soon up, that they would be fetching fire from
heaven to go on their revengeful errand, that they little thought from what
hearth that wild-fire of their passion came: ‘Ye know not what manner of
spirit ye are of,’
Luke 9:55.
As if he had said, Such fiery wrathful speeches do not suit with the meek
Master you serve, nor with the gospel of peace he preacheth to you. And if
the gospel will not allow us to pay our enemies in their own coin, and give
them wrath for wrath, then much less will it suffer brethren to spit fire at
one another’s faces. No, when any such embers of contention begin to smoke
among Christians, we may show who left the spark —no other but Satan; he is
the greatest kindle-coal of all their contentions. If there be a tempest, not
in the air, but in the spirits of Christians, and the wind of their passions
be high and loud, it is easy to tell who is the conjurer. O it is the devil,
who is practicing his black art upon their lusts, which yet are so much
unmortified as gives him too great an advantage of raising many times sad
storms of division and strife among them. Paul and Barnabas set out in a calm
together, but the devil sends a storm after them —such a storm as parted them
in the midst of their voyage: ‘And the contention was so sharp between them,
that they departed asunder one from the other,’
Acts 15:39.
There is nothing, next Christ and heaven, that the devil grudged believers
more than their peace and mutual love. If he cannot rend them from Christ,
stop them from getting heaven, yet he takes some pleasure in seeing them go
thither in a storm; like a shattered fleet severed one from another, that they
may have no assistance from, nor comfort of, each other's company all the way;
though, where he can divide he hopes to ruin also, well knowing this to be the
most probable means to effect it. One ship is easier taken than a squadron.
A town, if it can be but set on fire, the enemy may hope to take it with more
ease; Let it therefore be your great care to keep the devil’s spark from your
powder. Certainly peace among Christians is no small mercy, that the devil’s
arrows fly so thick at its breast. Something I would fain speak to endear
this mercy to the people of God. I love, I confess, a clear and still air,
but, above all, in the church among believers; and I am made the more sensible
what a mercy this would be, by the dismal consequence of these divisions and
differences that have for some years together troubled our air, and filled us
with such horror and confusion, that we have not been much unlike that land
called Terra del Fuego—the land of smoke, because of the frequent
flashings of lightnings and abundance of smoke found there. What can I
compare error to, better than smoke? and contention to, better than to fire? a
kind of emblem of hell itself, where flames and darkness meet together to
increase the horror of the place. But, to press the exhortation a little
closer, give me leave to provoke you by three arguments to peace and unity.
1. Argument.
The Christian should seek peace for Christ’s sake. And methinks, when
begging for his sake I should have no nay. When you pray to God and do but
use his name in the business, you are sure to speed. And why should not an
exhortation, that woos you for Christ's sake, move your hearts to duty, as a
prayer put up by you in his name, moves God’s heart to mercy? Indeed, how can
you in faith use Christ’s name as an argument to unlock God’s heart to thee,
which hath not so much credit with thyself as to open thy own heart into a
compliance with a duty, which is so strongly set on his heart to promote among
his people? This appears,
(1.) By the solemn
charge he gave his disciples in this particular: ‘A new commandment I give
unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one
another,’
John 13:34.
I pray observe how he prepares their hearts to open readily, and bid his
commandment kindly welcome. He sets his own name upon it—‘a new commandment I
give unto you.’ As if he had said, ‘Let this command, though as old as any
other,
Lev. 19:18, yet go under
my name in an especial manner. When I am gone and the fire of strife begins
at any time among you, remember what particular charge I now give you, and
let it quench it presently.’ Again, observe how he delivers this precept, and
that is by way of gift and privilege. ‘A new commandment I give unto you.’
Indeed, this was Christ’s farewell sermon, the very streakings of that milk
which he had fed them withal. Never dropped a sweeter discourse from his
blessed lips. He saved his best wine till the last. He was now making his
will, and amongst other things that he bequeaths his disciples, he takes this
commandment, as a father would do his seal-ring off his finger, and gives it
to them. Again, thirdly, he doth not barely lay the command before them, but,
to make it the more effectual, he annexeth in a few words the most powerful
argument why they should, as also the most clear and full direction how they
might, do this, that is possible to be given—As I have loved you, that ye also
love one another.
O Christians, what
may not the love of Christ command you? If it were to lay down your lives for
him that loved you to death, would you deny them? and shall not this his love
persuade you to lay down your strifes and divisions? This speaks enough, how
much weight he laid upon this commandment. But then, again, observe how
Christ, in the same sermon, over and over again minds them of this; which if
he had not been very solicitous of, should not have had so large a room in his
thoughts at that time, when he had so little time left in which he was to
crowd and sum up all the heavenly counsel and comfort he desired to leave
with them before his departure. Nay, so great weight he lays on this, that he
seems to lock up his own joy and theirs together in the care that they should
take about this one command of loving one another, ‘These things have I spoken
unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full,’
John
15:11. What these things
were appears by the precedent verse, ‘If ye keep my commandment, ye shall
abide in my love.’ These were the things that he spake of in order to {keep}
his joy in them, and theirs in him, that they would ‘keep his commandments.’
Now, to let them know how high a place their obedience to this particular
command of love and unity had in his heart, and how eminently it conduced to
the continuing his joy in them, and filling up their own; he chooseth that
above any for this instance, in order to what he had said, as you may see,
ver. 12,
‘This is my commandment, That ye love one another.’ Observe still, how
Christ appropriates this commandment to himself. ‘This is my commandment;’ as
if he would signify to them that as he had one disciple, who went by the name
of ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ so he would have a darling commandment, in
which he takes some singular delight, and that this should be it, ‘their
loving one another.’
But we are not yet at
the last link of this golden chain of Christ’s discourse. When he hath put
some more warmth into their affections to this duty, by exposing his own love
to them in the deepest expression of it, even to die for them,
ver. 13,
then he comes on more boldly, and tells them he will own them for his friends,
as they are careful to observe what he had left in charge with them,
ver. 14,
‘Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’ And now taking it for
granted that he had prevailed upon them, and that they would walk in unity and
love as he had commanded them, he cannot conceal the pleasure he takes
therein, yea and in them for it. He opens his heart to them, and locks no
secret from them, yea bids them go and open their heart to God and be free to
him, as he is to them. And mark from what blessed hour all this familiarity
that they are admitted to, bears date. ‘From henceforth I call you not
servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’
ver. 15,
that is from the time you walk dutiful to me and lovingly to one another. One
would think he had now said enough; but he thinks not so. In the very next
words he is at it again. ‘These things I command you, that ye love one
another,’
ver. 17,
as if all he had left else in charge with them had been subservient to this.
(2.) A second thing
that speaks Christ’s heart deeply engaged in the promoting of love and unity
among Christians, is his fervent prayer for this. Should you hear a
preacher with abundance of vehemency press a grace or duty upon the people in
his pulpit, and as soon as sermon is done, you should go under his closet
window, and hear him as earnestly wrestling with God that he would give his
people what he had so zealously pressed upon them; you would easily believe
the man was in earnest. Our blessed Saviour hath taught us ministers whither
to go when we come out of the pulpit, and what to do. No sooner hath he done
his sermon to them, but he is at prayer with God for them. And what he
insisted on most in preaching he enlargeth most upon in prayer. Unity and
peace was the legacy he desired so much to leave with them, and this is the
boon he puts in strongly with God to bestow on them: ‘Father, keep through
thine own power those whom thou hast given me,’
John 17:11.
And why all this care?—‘that they may be one, as we are.’ As if he had said,
‘Father, did we ever fall out? was there ever discord betwixt us? why then
should they, who are thine and mine, disagree?’ So,
ver. 21,
and again,
ver. 23,
he is pleading hard for the same mercy. And why so oft? is it so hardly wrung
from God, that Christ himself must tug so often for it? No, sure; but as
Christ said of the voice that came from heaven, ‘This voice came not because
of me, but for your sakes;’
John 12:30,
so may I say here. This ingeminated[12]
zeal of Christ for his people’s unity and love was for their sakes.
(a) He would
by this raise the price of this mercy in their thoughts. That is sure
worth their care which he counted. Worth his redoubled prayer—when not a word
was spoken for his own life—or else he misplaced his zeal, and improved not
his time with God for the best advantage of his people.
(b) He would
make divisions appear more scareful and dreadful things to his people, by
putting in so many requests to God for preventing them. Certainly if
Christ had known one evil worse than another like to come upon his people at
his departure, he would have been so true and kind to his children as to
deprecate that above all, and keep that off. He told his children what they
must look for at the world’s hand—all manner of sufferings and torments that
their wit could help their malice to devise —yet he prays not so much for
immunity from these, as from unbrotherly contentions among themselves. He
makes account, if they can agree together, and be in love, saint with saint,
church with church, that they have a mercy that will alleviate the other, and
make it tolerable, yea joyous. This heavenly fire of love among themselves
will quench the flames of the persecutor’s fire, at least the horror of them.
(c) In a word,
Christ would, as strengthen our faith to ask boldly for that which he hath
bespoke for us, so also aggravate the sin of contention to such a height, that
all who have any love to him, when they shall see they cannot live in strife,
but they must sin against those prayers which Christ with strong cries put up
for peace and unity, may tremble at the thoughts of it.
(3.) The price
that Christ gave for the obtaining of this peace and unity. As Christ
went from preaching up peace to pulling down peace from heaven by prayer, so
he went from praying to paying for it. Indeed Christ’s prayers are not
beggar’s prayers, as ours are; he prays his Father that he may only have what
he pays for. He was now on the way to the place of payment, Calvary, where
his blood was the coin he laid down for this peace. I confess peace with God
was the chief pearl that this wise merchant, Christ, bought up for his
people. But he had this in his eye also, viz. love to the brethren; and
therefore the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, which is the commemoration
feast of Christ’s death, as it seals our peace with God, so it signifies our
love one to another,
I Cor. 10.
And need I now give you any account why our dear Lord pursued his design so
close of knitting his people in peace and unity together? Truly the church
is intended by Christ to be his house, in which he means to take up his rest.
And what rest could he take in a house all on fire about him? It is his
kingdom; and how can his laws be obeyed, if all his subjects be in a hubbub
one against another? Inter arma silent leges—laws are silent amid
arms. In a word, his church are a people that are called out of the world to
be a praise to him in the sight of the nations, as Peter saith, ‘God did visit
the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name,’
Acts 15:14—that
is, a people for his honour. But a wrangling divided people would be little
credit to the name of Christ. Yea such, where they are foun d—and where alas
are they not to be found?—are to the name of Christ as smoke and dirt to a
fair face. They crock and disfigure Christ, so that the world will not
acknowledge him to be who he saith he is; they lead them even into temptation
to think basely of Christ and his gospel. Christ prays his people may be made
perfect in one, and mark his argument—‘That the world may know that thou hast
sent me,’
John 17:23.
Whose heart bleeds not to hear Christ blasphemed at this day by so many black
mouths? and what hath opened them more than the saints’ divisions?
2. Argument.
The second argument shall be taken from yourselves; for your own sakes
live in peace and unity.
(1.) Consider your
obligations to love and unity; your relations call for it. If
believers, Paul tells you your kindred, ‘Ye are all the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus,’
Gal. 3:26;
not only children of God, so are all by creation, but by faith in Jesus Christ
also. Christ is the foundation of a new brotherhood to believers. O
Christians! consider how near you are set one to another. You are conceived
in the same womb of the church, begotten by the same seed of the word to this
new creation, whereby, as one saith, you become brethren of the whole blood,
and therefore there should be more unity and dear affection among you than
among any others. Joseph’s heart went out more to Benjamin, than any of the
rest of his brethren, because he was his brother both by father and mother.
If you fall out, who shall agree? what is it that can rationally break your
peace? Those things which use to be bones of contention, and occasion
squabbling among other brethren, Christ hath taken care to remove them all, so
that of all others, your quarrellings are most childish, yea sinful.
Sometimes one child finds himself grieved at the partiality of his parents’
affection, more set on some others than himself, and this makes him envy
them, and they despise him. But there is no such foundling in his God’s
family—all dear alike to Christ: ‘Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us,
and hath given himself for us,’
Eph. 5:2,
that is, for one as well as another. Christ in the church is like the soul in
the body, he is totus in toto, et totus in qualibet parte—every member
in Christ hath whole Christ, his whole heart and love, as if there were none
besides himself to enjoy it.
Again, among men,
though the father shows not so much partiality in his affection, yet oft great
inequality in the distribution of his estate. Though all are children, yet
not all heirs, and this sows the seed of strife among them; as Jacob found by
woeful experience. But Christ hath made his will so, that they are all
provided for alike, called therefore the ‘common salvation,’
Jude 3,
and ‘the inheritance of the saints in light,’
Col. 1:12,
for the community. All may enjoy their happiness without justling with or
prejudicing of one another, as millions of people who look upon the same sun,
and at the same time, and none stand in another’s light. Methinks that speech
of Christ looks a little this way, ‘The glory which thou gavest me I have
given them; that they may be one,’
John 17:22.
By ‘glory’ there I would understand heaven’s glory principally. Now saith
Christ, ‘I have given it,’ that is, in reversion, I have given it them; not
this or that favourite, but ‘them’—I have laid it out as the portion
of all sincere believers, and why? ‘that they may be one,’ that all squabbles
may be silenced, and none may envy another for what he hath above him, when
he sees glory in his. It is true indeed some difference there is in
Christians’ outward garb—some poor, some rich —and in common gifts also—some
have more of them, some less. But are these tanti? of such weight, to
commence a war upon, among those that wait for the same heaven? If the father
clothes all his children in the same cloth, it were sad to see them stab one
another, because one hath a lace more than the other; nay because one’s lace
is red, and the other’s green; for indeed the quarrel among Christians is
sometimes, not for having less gifts than another, but because they are not
the same in kind, though another, as good and useful, which possibly he wants
whom we envy.
(2.) Consider
where you are, and among whom. Are you not in your enemies’ quarters? If
you fall out, what do you but kindle a fire for them to warm their hands by?
‘Aha! so would we have it,’ say they. The sea of their rage will weaken this
bank fast enough; you need not cut it for them. The unseasonableness of the
strife betwixt Abraham’s herdsmen and Lot’s is aggravated by the near
neighbourhood of the heathens to them: ‘And there was a strife between the
herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite
and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land,’
Gen. 13:7.
To fall out while these idolaters looked on—this would be town-talk presently,
and put themselves and their religion both to shame. And I pray, who have
been in our land all the while the people of God have been scuffling? Those
that have curiously observed every uncomely behaviour among them, and told all
the world of it —such as have wit and malice enough to make use of it for
their wicked purposes. They stand on tiptoes to be at work; only we are not
yet quite laid up and disabled, by the soreness of those our wounds, which we
have given ourselves, from withstanding their fury. They hope it will come to
that; and then they will cure us of our wounds, by giving one, if they can,
that shall go deep enough to the heart of our life, gospel and all. O
Christians! shall Herod and Pilate put you to shame? They clapped up a peace
to strengthen their hands against Christ; and will not you unite against your
common enemy? It is an ill time for mariners to be fighting, when an enemy is
boring a hole at the bottom of their ship.
(3.) Consider the
sad consequences of your contentions.
(a) You put a
stop to the growth of grace. The body may as well thrive in a fever,
as the soul prosper when on a flame with strife and contention. No, first
this fire in the bones must be quenched, and brought into its natural temper,
and so must this unkindly heat be slaked among Christians before either can
grow. I pray observe that place, ‘But speaking the truth in love’—or being
sincere in love—‘may grow up into him in all things,’
Eph. 4:15.
The apostle is upon a cure, showing how souls that at present are weak and
their grace rather wan and withered than growing, may come to thrive and
flourish; and the recipe he gives is a composition of these two rare drugs,
sincerity and love. Preserve these, and all will do well; as ver. 16, where
the whole body is said to ‘edify itself in love.’ There may be preaching, but
no edifying, without love. Our times are a sad comment upon this text.
(b) You cut
off your trade with heaven at the throne of grace. You will be little
in prayer to God, I warrant you, if much in squabbling with your brethren. It
is impossible to go from wrangling to praying with a free spirit. And if you
should be so bold as to knock at God's door, you are sure to have cold
welcome. ‘Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be
reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift,’
Matt. 5:24.
God will not have the incense of prayer put to such strange fire; nor will he
eat of our leavened bread, taste of any performance soured with malice and
bitterness of spirit. First the peace was renewed, and a covenant of love and
friendship struck between Laban and Jacob,
Gen. 31:44,
and then, ‘Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to
eat bread,’
ver. 54.
The very heathens thought no serious business could be well done by
quarrelling spirits. Therefore the senators of Rome used to visit the temple
dedicated Jovi depositorio, because there they did deponere
inimicitias—lay down all their feuds and controversies, before they went
into the senate to consult of state affairs. Durst not they go to the senate,
till friends? and dare we go up to God’s altar, bow our knees to him in
prayer, while our hearts are roiled and swollen with anger, envy, and malice?
O God humble us.
(c) As we cut off
our trade with heaven, so with one another. When two countries fall out,
whose great interest lies in their mutual traffic, they must needs both pinch
by the war. Truly, the Christians’ great gains come in by their mutual
commerce, and they are the richest Christians commonly who are seated with the
greatest advantage for this trade. As no nation have all their commodities of
their own growth, but needs some merchandise with others; so there is no
Christian that could well live without borrowing from his brethren. There is
‘that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the
measure of every part,’
Eph. 4:16.
Paul himself is not so well laid in, but he hopes to get something more than
he hath from the meanest of those he preacheth to. He tells the Christians at
Rome,
Rom. 1, he longs to see
them, as to impart some spiritual gift to them,
ver. 11,
so, saith he, ‘that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith
both of you and me,’
Rom. 1:12;
yea, he hopes to be ‘filled with their company,’
Rom. 15:24.
As a man is filled with good cheer, so he hopes to make a feast of their
company. Now contentions and divisions spoil all intercourse between
believers. They are as baneful to Christian communion, as a great pestilence
or plague is to the trade of a market town. Communication flows from
communion, and communion that is founded upon union. The church grows under
persecution. That sheds the seed all over the field, and brings the
gospel where else it had not been heard of. But divisions and contentions,
like a furious storm, wash the seed out of the land, with its heart, fatness,
and all.
(d) You do not
only hazard the decay of grace, but growth of sin. Indeed, it shows
there is more than a little corruption got within doors already; but it opens
the door to much more, ‘If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts,
glory not,’
James 3:14;
that is do not think you are such good Christians. This stains all your other
excellencies. Had ye the knowledge and gifts of the holy angels, yet this
would make you look more like devils than them. He gives the reason, ‘For
where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work,’
ver. 16.
Contention is the devil’s forge, in which if he can but give a Christian a
heat or two, he will not doubt but to soften him for his hammer of
temptation. Moses himself when his spirit was a little hot ‘spake unadvisedly
with his lips.’ It must needs be an occasion of much sinning, which renders it
impossible for a man while in his distemper to do any one righteous action.
‘For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,’
James 1:20.
Now what a sad thing is it for Christians to stay long in that temper in which
they can do no good to one another, but provoke lust?
(e) They are
prognostics of judgment coming. A lowering sky speaks of foul weather
at hand; and mariners look for a storm at sea, when the waves begin to swell
and utter a murmuring noise. Hath there been nothing like these among us?
What can we think but a judgment is breeding, by the lowering countenances of
Christians, their swellings of heart, and discontented passions vented from
their swollen spirits, like the murmuring of waters, or rumbling of thunder in
the air before a tempest? When children fight and wrangle, now is the time
they may expect their father to come and part them with his rod. ‘He shall
turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse,’
Mal. 4:6.
Strife and contention set a people next door to a curse. God makes account he
brings a heavy judgment upon a people when himself leaves them. If the
master leaves the ship, it is near sinking indeed. And truly no readier way
to send him going, than by contentions. These smoke him out of his own
house. ‘Be of one mind,’ saith the apostle, ‘and the God of love and peace
shall be with you,’
II Cor. 13:11—implying,
if they did not live in peace, they must not look to have his company long
with them. God was coming in Moses with a great salvation to the Israelites,
and, as a handsel of the good services he was to do for them, he begins to
make peace between two discontented brethren as they strove; but his kindness
was not accepted, and this was the occasion of many years’ misery more that
they endured in Egypt. ‘Then fled Moses at this saying, and was a stranger
in the land of Midian,’
Acts 7:29.
And there was no news of deliverance for the space of ‘forty years’ after,
ver. 30.
And have not our dissensions, or rather our rejecting those overtures which
God by men of healing spirits have offered for peace, been the cause why mercy
hath fled so fast from us, and we left to groan under those sad miseries that
are upon us at this day? and who knows how long? O who can think what a
glorious morning shone upon England in that famous Parliament begun 1640, and
not weep and weep again to see our hopes for a glorious reformation, that
opened with them, now shut up in blood and war, contention and
confusion!—miseries too like the fire and brimstone that fell from heaven upon
those unhappy cities of the plain.
3. Argument.
O labour for peace and unity, for others’s sake, I mean those who at
present are wicked and ungodly, among whom ye live. We are not, saith Austin,
to despair of the wicked, but do our utmost they may be made good and godly:
quia numerus sanctorum, semper de numero impiorum auctus est —because
God ever calls his number out of the heap and multitude of the ungodly world.
Now, no more winning means to work upon them, and pave a way for their
conversion, than to commend the truths and ways of God to them, by the
amiableness of your love and unity that profess the same. This is the
cumin-seed that would draw souls, like doves, to the window. This is the gold,
to overlay the temple of God, the church, so as to make all in love with its
beauty that look into it. Every one is afraid to dwell in a house haunted
with evil spirits; and hath hell a worse than the spirit of division? O
Christians, agree together and your number will increase. It is said, ‘They,
continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house
to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,’
Acts 2:46.
And mark what follows: ‘They had favour with all the people, and the Lord
added to the church daily such as should be saved,’
Acts 2:47.
The world was so great a stranger to love and peace, that it was amused, and
set of considering what heavenly doctrine that was, which could so mollify
men’s hearts, plane their rugged natures, and joint them so close in love
together, and were the more easily persuaded to adopt themselves into the
true family of love. But alas, when this gold became dim—I mean, peace among
Christians faded—then the gospel lost credit in the world, and the doctrine of
it came under more suspicion in their thoughts, who, seeing such clefts gape
in their walls, were more afraid to put their heads under its roof, ‘I charge
you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field,
that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please,’
Song 2:7.
Cotton, on the place, ‘by the roes and hinds of the field’—which are fearful
creatures, easily scared away, yet otherwise willing to feed with the
sheep—takes the Gentiles to be meant; inclinable to embrace the Jewish
religion, but very soon scared away by the troublesome state of it, or any
offensive carriage of the Jews. And what more offensive carriage than
divisions and strifes? See them joined together, ‘Mark them which cause
divisions and offences,’
Rom. 16:17.
If divisions, then there are sure to be offences taken, and many possibly
hardened in their sins thereby. Do not your hearts tremble to lay the
stumbling block for any to break his neck over? to roll the stone over any
poor sinner's grave, and seal him down in it, that he never have a
resurrection to grace here or glory hereafter? As you would keep yourselves
free of the blood of those that die in their sins, O take heed of lending
anything by your divisions to the hardening of their souls in their
impenitency!
FOURTH KIND OF PEACE.
[Peace
of indemnity and service
the blessing of
the gospel.]
The fourth and last
sort of peace which I thought to have spoken of, is a peace with all the
creatures, even the most fierce and cruel. I called it a peace of
indemnity and service. This, Adam, in his primitive state, enjoyed.
While he was innocent, all the creatures were innocent and harmless to him.
The whole creation was at his service. No mutinous principle was found in
any creature that did incline it in the least to rebel against him. When God
sent the beasts of the field and fowls of the air to receive names from him,
it was that they should do their homage to him and acknowledge him as their
lord; and that he, by exercising that act of authority over them—in giving
them names —might have an experiment of his perfect, though not absolute and
independent, dominion over them. But no sooner did man withdraw his
allegiance from God; than all the creatures—as if they had been sensible of
the wrong man by his apostasy had done his and their Maker, by whose patent he
had held his lordship over them —presently forget their subjection to him,
yea, take up arms in their supreme Lord’s quarrel against apostate man. And
thus they continue in array against him, till God and man meet together again
in a happy covenant of peace; and then the commission, which God in wrath gave
them against rebel man, is called in; and, in the same day that God and the
believing soul are made friends, the war ends between him and them. ‘In that
day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the
fowls of heaven,’
Hosea 2:18.
And mark the day from whence this covenant bears date: ‘In that day,’ that is,
in the day that ‘I betroth thee unto me.’ So that our peace with the
creatures comes in by our peace with God. And this being the blessing of the
gospel, so must that also. But as our peace with God is not so perfectly
enjoyed in this life, but God hath left himself a liberty to chastise his
reconciled ones, and that sharply too; so our peace with the creatures doth
not hinder but that they may be, yea often are, the rod which God useth to
correct them with. The water may drown one saint, and the fire consume
another to ashes, and yet these creatures at peace with these saints; because
they are not sent by God in wrath against them, for any real hurt that God
means them thereby. This indeed was the commission he gave all the creatures
against apostate man as part of his curse for his sin. He sent the creatures
against him—as a prince doth his general against a company of traitors in arms
against him—with authority to take vengeance on them for their horrid
rebellion against their Maker. But now the commission is altered, and runs in
a more comfortable strain. Go, fire, and be the chariot in which such a saint
may be brought home from earth to me in heaven's glory. Go, water, waft
another; and so of all the rest. Not a creature comes on a worse message to a
saint. It is true they are sharp corrections as to the present smart they
bring; but they are ever mercies, and do a friendly office in the intention of
God and happy issue to the believer. ‘All things work together for good to
them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,’
Rom.
8:28. And the apostle
speaks it as a common principle well known among the saints. ‘We know that
all things work,’ &c., as if he had said, ‘Where is the saint that doth not
know this?’ And yet it were happy for us {if} we knew it better. Some of us
would then pass our days more comfortably than now we do. But I intend not a
discourse of this. Let brevity here make amends for prolixity in the former.
We come, however, to the third inquiry or question from these words
propounded.
FIRST DOCTRINE.
[The saints’
duty to be
always prepared for trials.]
It is our duty, as
Christians, to be always prepared and ready to meet with any trial, and
endure any hardship, which God may lay out for us in our Christian warfare.
Saints are sure to want no trials and sufferings. ‘These,’ as Christ saith of
the poor, ‘we shall have always with us.’ The bloody sweat which Christ felt
signified, saith Augustine, the sufferings which in his whole mystical body
he should endure. Christ’s whole body was lift upon the cross, and no member
must now look to escape the cross. And, when the cross comes, how must we
behave ourselves towards it? It will not speak us Christians, that we are
merely passive, and make no notorious resistance against the will of God; but
we must be active in our patience, if I may so speak, by showing a holy
readiness and alacrity of spirit to be at God's ordering, though it were to be
led down into the very chambers of death itself. That epitaph would not
become a Christian's gravestone, which I have heard was engraved upon one’s
tomb, and might too truly on most that die: ‘Here lies one against his will.’
Holy Paul was of a better mind, ‘I am ready not to be bound only, but also to
die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus,’
Acts 21:13.
But, may be, this was but a flourish of his colours, when he knew the enemy to
be far enough off; he may yet live to change his thoughts, when he comes to
look death in the face. No, what he hath said he stands to: ‘I am now ready
to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand,’
FBX<*@µ"4,
II Tim.
4:6. He speaks of it as
if it were already done. Indeed he had already laid his head on the block,
and was dead before the stroke was given, not with fear (as some have been),
but with a free resignation of himself to it; and, if a malefactor be
civiliter mortuus—dead in a law sense, as soon as the sentence is out of
the judge’s mouth, though he lives some weeks after, then I am sure in a
gospel sense we may say those are dead already that are ready to die, that
have freely put themselves under the sentence of it in their own willingness.
And this alacrity and serenity that was on Paul’s spirit was the more
remarkable if we consider how close he stood to his end. Indeed, some from
the word FBX<*@µ"4—which
properly signifieth a libation or drink offering—conceive that Paul knew the
very kind of death which he should suffer, namely, beheading; and that he
alludes to the pouring out of the blood or wine, used in sacrifice, as that
kind of sacrifice which did best illustrate the nature of his death, viz. the
pouring out of his blood, which he did as willingly offer up in the service of
Christ and his church as they did pour out their wine in a drink-offering to
the Lord. We shall now give some rational account of the point why we are to
be ready and prompt at suffering-work. The reasons of the point shall fall
under two heads. First. [Those]
taken from Christ, for or from whom we suffer.
Second. Those taken from the
excellency of such a temper as this readiness to endure any hardship imports.
[Why
we are to be always ready for trials
—Reasons
in regard of Christ.]
First. There are reasons
taken from Christ, for or from whom we suffer, why we are to be always
prepared for trials.
Reason First.
Christ commands this frame of spirit. Indeed, this frame of spirit is implied
in every duty as the modus agendi—that qualification which, like the
stamp on coin, makes it current in God’s account. ‘Put them in mind,’ saith
the apostle, ‘to be ready to every good work,’
Titus 3:1;
be it active or passive, they must be ready for it, or else all they do is to
no purpose. The word there is the same with this in the text, and is taken
from a vessel that is fashioned and fitted for the use the master puts it to.
We do not like, when we are to use, or to mend and scour, a vessel, cup, or
pot, to have them out of the way at the time we call for them; but to find
them at hand, on the shelf, clean and fit for present use, or our servants
shall hear of it. Thus God expects we should keep our hearts clean from the
defilements of sin, and our affections whole and entire for himself—that they
be not lent out to the creature, nor broken and battered by any inordinacy of
delight in them, lest we should be to seek when he calls us to do or suffer,
or be found very unprepared, without much ado to set us to right, and make us
willing for the work, as the same apostle, ‘If a man therefore purge himself
from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the
Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,’
II Tim. 2:21.
Now, as God commands this readiness in all, so especially in suffering-work:
‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross
daily, and follow me,’
Luke 9:23.
These words may be called the Christian's indenture. Every one that will be
Christ’s servant must seal to this before he hath leave from Christ to call
him Master; wherein you see the chief provision Christ makes is about
suffering-work, as that which will most try the man. If the servant can but
fadge[13]
with that, no fear but he will like the other part of his work well enough.
Now, I pray observe how careful Christ is to engage the heart in this work; he
will have his servants not only endure the hardship of his service, but show
their readiness in it also. Four remarkable passages are put in for this
purpose.
1. The Christian
‘must deny himself’—that is, deliver up his own will out of his own hands;
and, from that day that he enters into Christ’s service, acknowledge himself
not to be sui juris—at his own disposal. Whatever Christ bears, he
cannot{,} to hear his servants, when sent by him on any business, say, ‘I will
not.’
2. Christ tells his
people the worst at first, and chooseth to speak of the cross they must
bear, rather than [of] the crown they shall at last wear; and
withal, that he expects they should not only ‘bear’ it—this the wicked do full
sore against their wills—but also ‘take it up.’ Indeed he doth not bid them
make the cross, run themselves into trouble of their own head, but he will
have them take that up which he makes for them—that is, not step out of the
way by any sinful shift to escape any trouble, but to accept of the burden God
lays for them, and go cheerfully under it, yea thankfully, as if God did us a
favour to employ us in any suffering for him. We do not take so much pains as
to stoop to take up that which is not worth something. Christ will have his
people take up the cross as one does to take up a pearl that lies on the
ground before him.
3. This they must do
every day—‘take up his cross daily.’ When there is none on his
back, he must carry one in his heart, that is, continually be preparing
himself to stand ready for the first call, as porters stand at the merchants’
doors in London, waiting for when their masters have any burden for them to
carry. Thus Paul professeth he ‘died daily.’ How, but by a readiness of mind
to die? He set himself in a posture to bid God’s messenger welcome, whenever
it came. This indeed is to ‘take up the cross daily,’ when our present
enjoyments do not make us strange to, or fall out with, the thoughts of future
trials. The Jews were to eat the passover with their loins girded, their
shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand, and in all haste,
Ex. 12:11.
When God is feasting the Christian with present comforts, he must have this
gospel shoe on, he must not set to it as if he were feasting at home, but as
at a running meal on his way in an inn, willing to be gone as soon as he is
refreshed a little for his journey.
4. When the cross is
on—what then? then the Christian must ‘follow Christ.’ He is not [to]
stand still and fret, but ‘follow;’ not be drawn and hauled after Christ, but
[to] follow, as a soldier his captain, voluntarily. Christ doth not, as some
generals, drive the country before him, and make his servants fight whether
they will or no; but he invites them in, ‘I will allure her...into the
wilderness,’
Hosea 2:14.
Indeed a gracious heart follows Christ into the wilderness of affliction as
willing as a lover his beloved into some solitary private arbour or bower,
there to sit and enjoy his presence. Christ useth arguments in his word, and
by his Spirit, so satisfactory to the Christian, that he is very willing to
follow him; as the patient, who at first, may be, shrinks and draws back, when
the physician talks of cutting or bleeding, but, when he hath heard the
reasons given by him why that course must be taken, and is convinced it is the
best way for his health, then he very freely puts forth his arm to the knife,
and thanks the physician for his pains.
Reason Second.
Christ deserves this frame of spirit at our hands. Of many, take but
two particulars, wherein this will appear. 1. If we consider his readiness to
endure trouble and sorrow for us. 2. [If we consider] his tender care over
us, when he calls us into a suffering condition.
1. Christ deserves
this readiness to meet any suffering he lays out in his providence for us, if
we consider his readiness to endure sorrow and trouble for us. When
God called him to the work of mediatorship, he found the way laid with
sharper stones, I hope, than we do in the road that is appointed us to walk
in. He was to tread upon swords and spikes, all manner of sorrows—and those
edged with the wrath of God; this was the sharpest stone of all, which
he hath taken out of our way, and yet how light did he go upon the ground! O
had not his feet been well shod with love to our souls, he would soon have
turned back, and said the way was unpassable; but he goes on and blinks not;
never did we sin more willingly, than he went to suffer for our sin. ‘Lo, I
come,’ saith he to his Father, ‘I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy
law is within my heart,’
Ps. 40:7, 8.
O what a full consent did the heart of Christ rebound to his Father’s call,
like some echo that answers what is spoken twice or thrice over! Thus, when
his Father speaks to him to undertake the work of saving poor lost man, he
doth not give a bare assent to the call, but trebles it; ‘I come...I delight
to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.’ He was so ready,
that before his enemies laid hands on him, in the instituting of the Lord’s
supper, and there did sacramentally rend the flesh of his own body, and broach
his own heart to fill that cup with his precious blood, which with his own
hand he gave them, that they might not look upon his death now at hand as a
mere butchery from the hand of man’s violence, but rather as a sacrifice,
wherein he did freely offer up himself to God for them and all believers. And
when the time was come that the sad tragedy should be acted, he, knowing the
very place whither the traitor with his black guard would come, goes out, and
marcheth into the very mouth of them. O what a shame were it, that we should
be unwilling to go a mile or two of rugged way to bear so sweet a Saviour
company in his sufferings! ‘Could ye not watch with me one hour?’ said Christ
to Peter,
Matt. 26:40—not
with me, who am now going to meet with death itself, and ready to bid the
bitterest pangs of it welcome for your sakes? not with me?
2. Christ deserves
this readiness to meet any suffering he lays out in his providence for us, if
we consider his tender care over his saints, when he calls them into a
suffering condition. Kind masters may well expect cheerful servants. The
more tender the captain is over his soldiers, the more prodigal they are of
their own lives at his command. And it were strange, if Christ’s care, which
deserves more, should meet with less ingenuity in a saint. Now Christ’s care
appears,
(1.) In
proportioning the burden to the back he lays it on. That which overloads
one ship, and would hazard to sink her, is but just ballast for another of a
greater burden. Those sufferings which one Christian cannot bear, another
sails trim and even under. The weaker shoulder is sure to have the lighter
carriage. As Paul burdened some churches, which he knew more able, to spare
others; so Christ, to ease the weaker Christian, lays more weight on the
stronger. ‘Paul laboured more abundantly than them all,’ he tells us,
I Cor. 15:10.
But why did Christ so unequally divide the work? Observe the place, and shall
find that it was but necessary to employ that abundant grace he had given
him. ‘His grace,’ saith he, ‘which was bestowed on me, was not in vain; but I
laboured more,’ &c. There was so much grace poured into him, that some of it
would have been in vain, if God had not found him more to do and suffer than
the rest. Christ hath a perfect rate by him of every saint’s spiritual
estate, and according to this all are assessed, and so none are oppressed.
The rich in grace can as easily pay his pound, as the poor his penny. Paul
laid down his head on the block for the cause of Christ as freely as some—and
those true, but weak Christians —would have done a few pounds out of their
purse. He endured death with less trouble than some could have done reproach
for Christ. All have not a martyr’s faith, nor all the martyr’s fire. This
forlorn consists of a few files picked out of the whole army of the saints.
(2.) In the
consolations he gives them then (in exceedings) above other of their
brethren, that are not called out to such hard service. That part of an army
which is upon action in the field is sure to have their pay—if their masters
have any money in their purse or care of them—yea, sometimes, when their
fellows left in their quarters are made to stay. I am sure, there is more
gold and silver—spiritual joy I mean, and comfort—to be found in Christ’s
camp, among his suffering ones, than their brethren at home, in peace and
prosperity, ordinarily can show. What are the promises, but vessels of
cordial wine, tunned on purpose against a groaning hour, when God usually
broacheth them? ‘Call upon me (saith God) in the day of trouble,’
Ps. 50:15.
And may we not do so in the day of peace? yes, but he would have us most bold
with him in a ‘day of trouble.’ None find such quick despatch at the throne
of grace as suffering saints. ‘In the day when I cried (saith David), thou
answeredst me, and gavest me strength in my soul,’
Ps. 138:3.
He was now at a strait, and God comes in haste to him. Though we may make a
well friend stay, that sends for us, yet we will give a sick friend leave to
call us up at midnight. In such extremities we usually go with the messenger
that comes for us, and so doth God with the prayer. Peter knocks at their
gate, who were assembled to seek God for him, almost as soon as their prayer
knocked at heaven-gate in his behalf. And truly it is no more than needs, if
we consider the temptations of an afflicted condition. We are prone then to
be suspicious our best friends forget us, and to think every stay a delay and
neglect of us. Therefore God chooseth to show himself most kind at such a
time: ‘As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also
aboundeth by Christ,’
II Cor. 1:5.
As man laid on trouble, so Christ laid on consolation. Both tides rose and
fell together. When it was spring-tide with him in affliction, it was so with
him in his joy. We relieve the poor as their charge increaseth; so Christ
comforts his people as their troubles multiply. And now, Christian, tell me,
doth not thy dear Lord deserve a ready spirit in thee to meet any suffering
with, for, or from him, who gives his sweetest comforts when his people use to
expect their saddest sorrows? Well may the servant do his work cheerfully,
when his master is so careful of him as with his own hands to bring him his
breakfast into the fields. The Christian stays not till he come to heaven for
all his comfort. There indeed shall be the full supper; but there is a
breakfast, Christian, of previous joys, more or less, which Christ brings to
thee in the field, and shall be eaten on the place where thou endurest thy
hardship.
(3.) In seasonable
succours which Christ sends to bring them off safe. He doth not only
comfort them in, but helps them out of, all their troubles. There is ever a
door more than the Christian sees in his prison, by which Christ can, with a
turn of his hand, open a way for his saint's escape. And what can we desire
more? All is well that ends well. And what better security can we desire for
this than the promise of the great God, with whom to lie is impossible? And I
hope the credit which God hath in his people’s hearts is not so low, but a
bill under his hand will be accepted at first sight by them in exchange of
what is dearest to them—life itself not excepted. Look to thyself when thou
hast to do with others. None so firm, but may crack under thee, if thou
layest too much weight on them. One would have thought so worthy a captain as
Uriah was, might have trusted his general, yea his prince, and he so holy a
man as David was. But he was unworthily betrayed by them both into the hands
of death. Man may, the devil, to be sure, will, leave all in the lurch that
do his work. But if God sets thee on, he will bring thee off; never fear a
‘look thou to that’ from his lips, when thy faithfulness to him hath brought
thee into the briers. He that would work a wonder, rather than let a runaway
prophet perish in his sinful voyage—because a good man in the main—will heap
miracle upon miracle rather than thou shalt miscarry and sink in thy duty.
Only, be not troubled, if thou beest cast overboard, like Jonah, before thou
seest the provision which God makes for thy safety. It is ever at hand, but
sometimes lies close, and out of the creature’s sight, like Jonah’s whale—sent
of God to ferry him to shore —underwater, and the prophet in its belly, before
he knew where he was. That, which thou thinkest comes to devour thee, may be
the messenger that God sends to bring thee safe to land. Is not thy shoe,
Christian, yet on? Art thou not yet ready to march? Canst [thou] fear any
stone can now hurt thy foot through so thick a sole?
[Why we are to
be always ready for trials—reasons
from the excellency of such a spirit.]
Second. There are reasons why
Christians should always be prepared for trials, taken from the excellency
of the frame of spirit which such a holy readiness would import.
First. This
readiness of heart to stoop to the cross evidenceth a gracious heart.
And a gracious spirit, I am sure, is an excellent spirit. Flesh and blood
never made any willing to suffer either for God or from God. He that can do
this, hath that ‘other spirit’ with Caleb, which proves him of a higher
descent than this world,
Num. 14:24.
A carnal heart can neither act nor suffer freely; voluntas libera, in
quantum liberata—the will is no more free than it is made free by grace
(Luther). So much flesh as is left in a saint, so much awkness[14]
and unwillingness to come to God's foot; and therefore where there is nothing
but flesh, there can be nothing but unwillingness. He that can find his heart
following God in his command or providence cheerfully, may know who hath been
there (as one said of the famous Grecian limner). This is a line that none but
God could draw on thy soul. The midwives said of the Israelitish women, they
were not like the Egyptian in bringing forth their children, for they are
lively, and are delivered ere the midwives could come in unto them,
Ex. 1:19.
Truly thus lively and ready is the gracious heart in anything it is called to
do or suffer. It is not delivered with so much difficulty of a duty as a
carnal heart, which must have the help and midwifery of some carnal arguments,
or else it sticks in the birth. But the gracious heart has done before these
come to lend their helping hand. Pure love to God, obedience to the call of
his command, and faith on the security of his promise, facilitate the work, so
that, be it never so burdensome to the flesh, yet it is not grievous to their
spirit. It is ever ready to say, ‘Thy will be done, and not mine.’ The
apostle makes this free submission to the disclosure to the disposure of God’s
afflicting hand to evidence a son's spirit, ‘If ye endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as with sons,’
Heb. 12:7.
Observe, he doth not say, ‘If you be chastened,’ but, ‘If ye endure
chastening.’ Naked suffering doth not prove sonship, but
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doth—to endure it so as not to sink in our courage, or shrink from under the
burden God lays on, but readily to offer our shoulder to it, and patiently
carry it, looking with a cheerful eye at the reward when we come—not to throw
it off, but to have it taken off by that hand which laid it on, all which the
word imports. This shows a childlike spirit. And the evidence thereof must
needs be a comfortable companion to the soul, especially at such a time, when
that sophister of hell useth the afflictions which lie upon it as an argument
to disprove its child's relation to God. Now—to have this answer to stop the
liar's mouth at hand—Satan, if I be not a child, how could I so readily submit
to the Lord's family discipline? This is no small mercy.
Second. This
frame of spirit makes him a free man that hath it. Now no mean price
useth to be set upon the head of liberty. The very birds had rather be abroad
in the woods with liberty—though lean with cold and care —to pick up here and
there a little livelihood, than in a golden cage with all their attendance.
Now truly there is a bondage which few are sensible of, and that is a bondage
to the creature —when a man is so enslaved to his enjoyments and low
contentments here on earth, that they give law to him that should give law to
them, and measure out his joy to him (what he shall have), little or much, as
he abounds with or is cut short of them. Thus, some are slaves to their
estates; it is said, ‘Their heart goes after their covetousness’—that is, as
the servant after the master, who dares not be from his back. Their money is
the master, and hath the best keeping. Their heart waits on it, shall I say as
a servant after his master? yea, as a dog at his master’s foot. Others are as
great slaves to their honours, so poor-spirited that they cannot enjoy
themselves if they have not the cap and knee of all they meet. Such a slave
was Haman, the great favourite of his prince. Who but he at court? At the
expense of a few words he could get the king’s ring to seal a bloody decree
for the massacring of so many thousands of innocent persons, against all sense
and reason of state, merely to fulfill his lust. Had not this man honour
enough put upon him to content his ambitious spirit? No, there is a poor Jew
at the king’s gate will not make a leg to him as he goes by, and so roils his
proud stomach, that he has no joy of all his other greatness, ‘Yet all this
availeth me nothing,’ saith the poor-spirited wretch, ‘so long as I see
Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate,’
Est. 5:13.
A third sort are as
much in bondage to their pleasures. They are said to ‘live in pleasure on the
earth,’
James 5:5.
Their life is bound up in their pleasures. As the rush grows in the mud, and
the fish lives in the water, they cannot live without their pleasures. Take
them from their feasts and sports, and their hearts, with Nabal’s, die like a
stone in their bosoms. Now this frame of spirit we are speaking of breaks all
these chains, and brings the Christian out of every house of bondage. It
learns him to like what fare God sends. If prosperity comes, he ‘knows how to
abound,’ so, that if he be, by a turn of providence, thrown out of the saddle
of his present enjoyments, his foot shall not hang in the stirrup, nor his
enslaved soul drag him after it with whining desires. No, through grace he is
a free man, and can spare the company of any creature, so long as he may but
have Christ’s with him. Blessed Paul stands upon his liberty. ‘All things
are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any,’
I Cor. 6:12.
I know the place is meant of those indifferent things, concerning which there
was a present dispute. There is but another sense, in which all things here
below were indifferent things to that holy man; honour or dishonour, abundance
or want, life or death. These were indifferent to Paul, he would not come
under the power of any one of them all. It did not become a servant of
Christ, he thought, to be so tender of his reputation as to write himself
undone when he had not this or that—not to be so in love with abundance as not
to be ready to welcome want—not to be endeared so to life as to run from the
thoughts of death —nor to be so weary of a suffering life as to hasten death
to come for his ease. That mind is to be called superior which chooses rather
to meet and show the experiences of life, than to escape them.
Third. This
readiness to suffer, as it ennobles with freedom, so it enables the
Christian for service. It is a sure truth [that] so far and no more is the
Christian fit to live serviceably, than he is prepared to suffer readily.
Because there is no duty but hath the cross attending on it; and he that is
offended at the cross, will not be long pleased with the service that brings
it. Prayer is the daily exercise of a saint. This he cannot do as he should,
except he can heartily say, ‘Thy will be done.’ And who can do that in truth,
unless ready to suffer? Praising God is a standing duty; yea, ‘in everything
we must give thanks,’
I Thes. 5:18.
But, what if affliction befalls us? How shall we tune our hearts to that
note, if not ready to suffer? Can we bless God, and murmur?—praise God, and
repine? The minister’s work is to preach, ‘Woe to him if he do not;’ and if
he do preach, he is sure to suffer. Paul had his orders for the one, and his
mittimus for the other, together. He was sent at the same time to preach the
grace of God to the world and to endure the wrath of the world for God. So
God told Ananias, ‘that he should bear his name before the Gentiles,’ and
‘suffer great things for his name’s sake,’
Acts 9:15, 16.
And if the gospel did not please the ungrateful world out of Paul’s mouth, who
had such a rare art of sweetening it, it were strange that any who fall so far
short of his gifts to move in the pulpit, and of his grace to win upon the
hearts of men when out, should, if they mean to be faithful, think to go
without the wages which the world paid him for his pains—reproach and
contempt, if not downright blows of bloody persecution, as he met with. And
is not this shoe needful for the preacher’s foot, that is to walk among so
many hissing serpents? Who but a Paul, that had got over the fond love of
life, and fear of a bloody death, would have been so willing to go into the
very lion's den, and preach the gospel there, where in a manner, he invited
death to come unto him?—I mean at Rome itself, the seat of cruel Nero. ‘So
much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome
also; for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,’
Rom. 1:15, 16.
In a word, it is the
duty of every Christian to make a free profession of Christ. Now this cannot
be done without hazard many times. And if the heart be not resolved in this
point—what to do; the first storm that riseth will make the poor man put in to
any creek or hole, rather than venture abroad in foul weather. ‘Among the
chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did
not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue,’
John 12:42.
Poor souls, they could have been content if the coast had been clear to have
put forth, but had not courage enough to bear a little scorn that threatened
them. O what folly is it to engage for God, except we be willing to lay all
at stake for him! It is not worth the while to set out in Christ’s company by
profession, except we mean to go through with him, and not leave him unkindly
when we are half way, because of a slough or two.
Fourth. This
readiness of spirit to suffer, gives the Christian the true enjoyment of
his life. A man never comes to enjoy himself truly, in any comfort of his
life, till prepared to deny himself readily in it. It is a riddle; but two
considerations will unfold it.
1. Consideration.
When we are prepared to deny ourselves in any comfort we may enjoy, then,
and not till then, is that which hinders the enjoyment of our lives taken
away; and that is fear. Where there is, ‘there is torment.’ The
outsetting deer is observed to be lean—though where good food is—because
always in fear. And so must they needs be, in the midst of all their
enjoyments, on whose heart this virtue is continually feeding. There needs
nothing else to bring a man’s joy into a consumption, than an inordinate
fear of losing what he hath at present. Let but this get hold of a man’s
spirit, and [he] once become hectical[15],
and the comfort of his life is gone past recovery. How many, by this, are
more cruel to themselves, than it is possible their worst enemies in the world
could be to them? They alas, when they have done their utmost, can kill them
but once. But, by antedating their own miseries, they kill themselves a
thousand times over, even as oft as the fear of dying comes over their
miserable hearts.
When once, however,
the Christian hath got this piece of armour on—‘the gospel of peace’—his soul
is prepared for death and danger. He sits at the feast which God in his
present providence allows him, and fears no messenger with ill news to knock
at his door. Yea, he can talk of his dying hour, and not spoil the mirth of
his present condition, as carnal men think it does. To them a discourse of
dying in the midst of their junkets, is like the coming in of the officer to
attack a company of thieves that are making merry together with their stolen
goods about them; or, like the wet cloth that Hazael clapped on the king his
master’s face, it makes all the joy, which flushed out before, squat in on a
sudden, [so] that the poor creatures sit dispirited and all a mort, as we say,
till they get out of this affrighting subject by some divertisement or
other. [And even when they do so, the effect is] only to relieve them for the
present. It puts them out of that particular fit which this brought upon
them; but leaves them deeper in slavery to such amazement of heart, whenever
the same ghost shall appear for the future. Whereas, the Christian, that hath
this preparation of heart, never tastes more sweetness in the enjoyments of
this life, than when he dips these morsels in the meditation of death and
eternity. It is no more grief to his heart to think of the remove of
these—which makes way for those far sweeter enjoyments—than it would be to one
at a feast, to have the first course taken off, when he hath fed well on it,
that the second course of all rare sweetmeats and banqueting stuff may come
on, which it cannot till the other be gone. Holy David,
Ps. 23:4, 5,
brings in (as it were), a death’s head with his feast. In the same breath
almost he speaks of his dying,
ver. 4,
and of the rich feast he at present sat at, through the bounty of God,
ver. 5.
To that however he was not so tied by the teeth, but if God, that gave him
this cheer, should call him from it to look death in the face, he could do so
and ‘fear no evil, when in the valley of the shadow thereof,’
Ps. 23:4.
And what think you of
the blessed apostle Peter? Had not he, think you, the true enjoyment of his
life? when he could sleep so sweetly in a prison—no desirable place—fast bound
‘between two soldiers’ —no comfortable posture—and this the very ‘night’
before Herod ‘would have brought him forth’ in all probability to his
execution! This was no likely time (one would think) to get any rest; yet we
find him even there, thus, and then, so sound asleep, that the
angel who was sent to give him his gaol delivery smote him on the side to
awake him,
Acts 12:6, 7.
I question whether Herod himself slept so well that night as this his prisoner
did. And what was the potion that brought this holy man so quietly to rest?
No doubt ‘this preparation of the gospel of peace.’ He was ready to die, and
that made him able to sleep. Why should that break his rest in this world,
which, if it had been effected, would have brought him to his eternal rest in
the other?
2. Consideration.
The more ready and prepared the Christian is to suffer from God, or for God,
the more God is engaged to take care for him, and of him. A good
general is most tender of that soldier’s life who is least tender of it
himself. The less the Christian values himself and his interests for God’s
sake, the more careful God is of him, either to keep him from suffering, or in
it. Both of these blessings are meant, ‘Whosoever will lose his life for my
sake shall find it,’
Matt. 16:25.
Abraham was ready to offer up his son, and then God would not suffer him to do
it. But if the Lord at any time takes the Christian’s offer, and lets the
blow be given, though to the severing of soul and body, he yet shows his
tender care of him, by the high esteem he sets upon their blood, which is not
more prodigally spilt by man’s cruelty, than carefully gathered up by God.
‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’
Thus we see, that by
resigning ourselves up readily to the disposure of God, we engage God to take
care of us whatever befalls us. And that man or woman, sure, if any other in
the world, must needs live comfortably, that hath the care of himself wholly
taken off his own shoulders, and rolled upon God, at whose finding he now
lives. The poor widow was never better off than when the prophet kept house
for her. She freely parted with her little meal for the prophet’s use, and,
[as] a reward of her faith—in crediting the message he brought from the Lord,
so far as to give the bread out of her own mouth, and child’s, to the
prophet—she is provided for by a miracle,
I Kings 17:12,
13. O when a soul is
once thus brought to the foot of God, that it can sincerely say, ‘Lord, here I
am; willing to deliver up all I have, and am, to be at thy dispose; my will
shall be done, when thou hast thy will of me;’ God accounts himself deeply
obliged to look after that soul!
USE OR APPLICATION.
[True
Christians few, shown from the gospel
holy readiness
to suffer.]
Use First. Must
the Christian stand thus shod in readiness to march at the call of God in any
way or weather? This will exceedingly thin and lessen the number of true
Christians, to what they appear to be at the first view, by the estimate of an
easy cheap profession. He that should come into our assemblies, and see them
thracked and wedged in so close with multitudes flocking after the word, might
wonder at first to hear the ministers sink the number of Christians so low,
and speak of them as so little a company. Surely their eyes fail them, that
they cannot see wood for trees, Christians for multitudes of Christians that
stand before them. This very thing made one of the disciples ask Christ with
no little stranging [wondering] at it, ‘Lord, are there few that be saved?’
Luke
13:23. Observe the
occasion of this question. Christ, ‘went through the cities and villages,
teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem,’
ver. 22.
He saw Christ so free of his pains to preach at every town he came to, and
people throng after him, with great expressions of joy that fell from many,
ver. 17.
Then said he, ‘Lord, are there few that be save d?’ As if he had said, This
seems very strange and almost incredible. To see the way to heaven strewed so
thick with people, and the means of salvation in such request, and yet be few
saved at last! how can this be? Now mark our Saviour's unriddling this
mystery. ‘And he said unto them (it seems the man spoke more than his own
scruple), Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you,
will seek to enter in, and shall not be able,’
ver. 24.
As if Christ had said, You judge by a wrong rule. If profession would serve
the turn, and flocking after sermons, with some seeming joy at the word, were
enough to save, heaven would soon be full. But, as you love your souls, do
not boult[16]
or try yourselves by this coarse sieve; but ‘strive to enter,’
•(T<Æ.,F2,—fight
and wrestle, venture life and limb, rather than fall short of heaven. ‘For
many shall seek,...but shall not be able;’ that is, seek by an easy
profession, and cheap religion, such as is hearing the word, performance of
duties, and the like. Of this kind there are many that will come and walk
about heaven-door—willing enough to enter, if they may do it without ruffling
their pride in a crowd, or hazarding their present carnal interest by any
contest and scuffle; ‘but they shall not be able!’ that is, they ‘shall not
be able to enter’—because their carnal cowardly hearts shall not be
able to strive. So that take Christians under the notion of ‘seekers,’ and by
Christ’s own words they are ‘many.’ But consider them under the notion of
‘strivers,’ such as stand ready shod with a holy resolution to strive even to
blood—if such trials meet them in the way to heaven—rather than not enter, and
then the number of Christian soldiers will shrink, like Gideon's goodly host,
to a ‘little troop.’ O how easy were it to instance in several sorts of
Christians—so called in a large sense—that have not this gospel shoe to their
foot, and therefore are sure to founder and falter when once brought to go
upon sharp stones!
1. Sort. The
ignorant Christian—what work is he like to make of suffering for Christ
and his gospel? and such are not the least number in many congregations. Now,
they who have not so much light of knowledge in their understanding, as to
know who Christ is and what he hath done for them, will they have so much heat
of love as to march cheerfully after him, when every step they take must fetch
blood from them? Nabal thought he gave a rational answer to David’s servants,
that asked some relief of him in their present strait, when he said, ‘Shall I
then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my
shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?’
I Sam. 25:11.
He thought it too much to part with upon so little acquaintance. And will the
ignorant person, think you, be ready to part, not only with his bread and
flesh out of the pot —a little of his estate I mean—but the flesh of his own
body, if called to suffer, and all this at the command of Christ, who is one
he knows not whence he is? Paul gives this as the reason why he suffered and
was not ashamed, ‘for (saith he) I know whom I have believed,’
II Tim. 1:12.
Story tells us of the Samaritans —a mongrel kind of people both in their
descent and religion—that, when it went well with the people of God, the
Israelites, then they would claim kindred with them, and be Jews, but, when
the church of God was under any outward affliction, then they would disclaim
it again. And we may the less wonder at this base cowardly spirit in them, if
we read the character Christ gives of them, to be a people that ‘worship they
know not what,’
John 4:22.
Religion hath but loose hold of them, that have no better hold of it than a
blind man’s hand.
2. Sort. Carnal
gospellers, who keep possession of their lusts while they make profession
of Christ. A generation these are that have nothing to prove themselves
Christians by, but their baptism, and a Christian name which they have
obtained thereby; such as, were they to live among Turks and heathens, their
language and conversations—did they but conceal whence they came—would never
bewray them to be Christians. Can it now be rationally thought then that
these are the men and women who stand ready to suffer for Christ and his
gospel? No sure; they who will not wear Christ’s yoke will much less bear his
burden. If the yoke of command that binds them to duty be thought grievous,
they will much more think the burden of the cross insupportable. He that will
not do [work] for Christ, will not die for Christ. That servant
is very unlike to fight to blood in his master’s quarrel, that will not work
for him so as to sweat in his service.
3. Sort. The
politic professor—a fundamental article in whose creed is, to save
himself, not from sin, but from danger. And therefore he studies the times
more than the Scriptures; and is often looking what corner the wind lies in,
that accordingly he may shape his course, and order his profession, which,
like the hedgehog’s house, ever opens toward the warm side!
4. Sort. The
covetous professor, whose heart and head are so full of worldly projects,
that suffering for Christ must needs be very unwelcome to him, and find him
far enough from such a disposition. You know what the Egyptians said of the
Israelites, ‘They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them
in,’
Ex. 14:3. More true is
it of this sort of professors. They are entangled in the world, this
wilderness hath shut them in. A man whose foot in a snare is as fit to walk
and run as they to follow Christ, when to do it may prejudice their worldly
interest. Our Saviour, speaking of the miseries that were to come on
Jerusalem, saith, ‘Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give
suck in those days,’
Matt. 24:19—because
it would be more difficult for them to escape the danger by flight. But many
more woes to them, who in days of trial and persecution for the gospel, shall
be found big with the world, or that give suck to any covetous inordinate
affection to the creature. Such will find it hard to escape the temptation
that these will beset them with. It is impossible in such a time to keep
estate and Christ together; and as impossible for a heart that is set upon the
world, to be willing to leave it for Christ’s company.
5. Sort. The
conceited professor, who hath a high opinion of himself, and is so far
from a humble holy jealously and fear of himself, that he is self-confident.
Here is a man shod and prepared he thinks, but not with the right gospel
shoe. ‘By strength shall no man prevail,’
I Sam. 2:9.
He that, in Queen Mary’s days, was so free of his flesh for Christ [that], as
he said, he would see his fat—of which he had a good store—melt in the fire
rather than fall back to Popery, lived, poor man, to see this his resolution
melt, and himself cowardly part with his faith to save his fat. Those that
glory of their valour, when they put on the harness, ever put it off with
shame. ‘The heart’ of man ‘is deceitful above all things,’—a very Jacob, that
will supplant its own self. He that cannot take the length of his own foot,
how can he of himself fit a shoe to it?
[Exhortation to
get on this
shoe of
preparation.]
Use Second.
Be exhorted all you that take the name of Christ upon you, to get this shoe of
preparation on, and keep it on, that you may be ready at all times to follow
the call of God's providence, though it should lead you into a suffering
condition. Take but two motives.
1. Motive.
Consider, Christian, suffering work may overtake thee suddenly, before thou
art aware of it; therefore be ready shod. Sometimes orders come to
soldiers for a sudden march; they have not so much as an hour’s warning, but
must be gone as soon as the drum beats. And so mayest thou be called out,
Christian, before thou art aware, into the field, either to suffer for God or
from God. Abraham had little time given him to deal with his heart, and
persuade it into a compliance with God, for offering his son Isaac. A great
trial, and short warning, ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,’
Gen. 22:2,
not a year, a month, a week hence, but now. This was in the night, and
Abraham is gone ‘early in the morning,’
ver. 3.
How would he have entertained this strange news, if he had been then to gain
the consent of his heart? But that was not now to do. God had Abraham’s heart
already, and therefore he doth not now dispute his order, but obeys. God can
make a sudden alteration in thy private affairs, Christian; how couldst thou
in thy perfect strength and health, endure to hear the message of death? If
God should, before any lingering sickness hath brought thee into some
acquaintance with death, say no more, but ‘Up and die,’ as once to Moses, art
thou shod for such a journey? Couldst thou say, ‘Good is the word of the
Lord?’ What if one day thou wert to step out of honour into disgrace, to be
stripped of thy silks and velvets, and, in vile raiment, called to act a
beggar’s part? Couldst thou rejoice that thou art made low, and find thy
heart ready to bless the Most High? This would speak thee a soul
evangelically shod indeed.
Again, God can as
soon change the scene, in the public affairs of the times thou livest in, as
to the gospel and profession of it. May be, now, authority smiles on the
church of God; but, within a while it may frown, and the storm of persecution
arise. ‘Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea,’
Acts 9:31.
This was a blessed time. But how long did it last? Alas! not long,
see Acts 12.
There is sad news of a bloody persecution in the first verse of it. ‘Now
about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the
church.’ In this persecution James the brother of John lost his life by his
cruel sword; and Peter we find in prison, like to go to the same shambles.
The entire church, indeed, is driven into a corner to pray in the night
together,
ver. 12.
O what a sad change is here! Now in blood, who even now had ‘rest’ on every
side. It is observed that in islands the weather is far more variable and
uncertain than in the continent. Here you may know, ordinarily, what weather
will be for a long time together; but in islands, in the morning we know not
what weather will be before night. We have ofttimes summer and winter in the
same day. And all this is imputed to the near neighbourhood of the sea that
surrounds them. The saints in heaven, they live, as I may so say, on the
continent. A blessed constancy of peace and rest is there enjoyed. They may
know by what peace and bliss they have at present, what they shall have to
eternity. But here below, the church of Christ is as a floating island,
compassed with the world —I mean men of the world—as with a sea; and these [i.e.
men of the world] sometimes blow hot, and sometimes cold; sometimes they are
still and peaceable, and sometimes enraged and cruel, even as God binds up or
lets loose their wrath. Now, Christian, doth it not behove thee to be always
in a readiness, when thou knowest not but in the next moment the wind may turn
into the cold corner, and the times which now favour the gospel, so as to fill
the sails of thy profession with all encouragement, on a sudden blow full on
thy face, and oppose it as much as it did before countenance it?
2. Motive.
Consider, if thy feet be not shod with a preparation to suffer for Christ
here on earth, thy head cannot be crowned in heaven. ‘If children, then
heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,’
Rom. 8:17.
Now mark the following words, ‘If so be that we suffer with him, that we may
also be glorified together.’ It is true, all the saints do not die martyrs
at a stake; but every saint must have a spirit of martyrdom, as I may so call
it—a heart prepared for suffering. God never intended Isaac should be
sacrificed, yet he will have Abraham lay the knife to his throat. Thus God
will have us lay our neck on the block, and be, as Paul said of himself,
‘bound in the spirit,’ under a sincere purpose of heart to give up ourselves
to his will and pleasure, which is called ‘a presenting our bodies a living
sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,’
Rom. 12:1.
The end in view is, that as the Jew brought the beast alive, and presented it
freely before him, to be done withal as God had commanded, so we are to
present our bodies before God, to be disposed of as he commands, both in
active and passive obedience. He that refuseth to suffer for Christ, refuseth
also to reign with Christ. The putting off of the shoe among the Jews was a
sign of a man’s putting off the right of an inheritance,
Deut. 25:9, 10.
Thus did Elimelech’s kinsman, when he renounced and disclaimed any right that
he might have in his estate—he drew off his shoe,
Ruth 4:7, 8.
O Christian, Talk heed of putting off thy gospel shoe! By this thou dost
disclaim thy right in heaven’s inheritance. No portion is there laid up for
any that will not suffer for Christ. The persecutions which the saints endure
for the gospel, are made by Paul an evident token to them of salvation, and
that of God,
Php. 1:28.
Surely then the denying Christ, to escape suffering, is a sad token of
perdition. O sirs, is not heaven’s inheritance worth enduring a little
trouble for it? Naboth’s vineyard was no great matter, yet rather than he
would—not lose it, but—sell it to its worth, or change it for a better in
another place, chose to lay his life at stake by provoking a mighty king.
Thou canst, Christian, venture no more for thy heavenly inheritance, than he
paid for refusing his petty patrimony of an acre or two of land—thy temporal
life I mean. And besides the odds between his vineyard on earth and thy
paradise in heaven —which is infinite, and suffers no proportion, thou hast
this advantage also of him in thy sufferings for Christ. When Naboth lost
his life, he lost his inheritance also that he so strove to keep; but thy
persecuting enemies shall do thee this friendly office against their wills,
that when they dispossess thee of thy life, they shall help thee into
possession of thy inheritance.
[Directions for
helping on
this spiritual
shoe.]
The great question I
expect now to fall from thy mouth, Christian, is not how mayest thou escape
these troubles and trials which, as the evil genius of the gospel, do always
attend it? but rather, how thou mayest get this shoe on, thy heart ready for a
march to go and meet them when they come, and cheerfully wade through them,
whatever they be, or how long soever they stay with thee? This is a question
well becoming a Christian soldier, to ask for armour wherewith he may fight;
whereas the coward throws away his armour, and asks whether he may flee. I
shall therefore give the best counsel I can, in these few particulars.
First Direction.
Look carefully to the ground of thy active obedience, that it be sound and
sincere. The same right principles whereby the sincere soul acts for
Christ, will carry him to suffer for Christ, when a call from God comes
with such an errand, ‘The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows,
turned back in the day of battle,’
Ps. 78:9.
Why? what is the matter? so well armed, and yet so cowardly? This seems
strange. Read the precedent verse, and you will cease wondering. They are
called there ‘a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit
was not stedfast with God.’ Let the armour be what it will, yea, if soldiers
were in a castle whose foundation were a rock, and its walls brass, yet, if
their hearts be not right to their prince an easy storm will drive them from
the walls, and a little scare open their gate, which hath not this bolt of
sincerity on it to hold it fast. In our late wars we have seen that honest
hearts within thin and weak works have held the town, when no walls would
defend treachery from betraying trust. O labour for sincerity in the engaging
at first for God and his gospel! Be oft asking thy own soul for whom thou
prayest, hearest, reformest this practice and that. If thou canst get a
satisfactory answer from thy soul here, thou mayest hope well. If faith’s
working hand be sincere, then its fighting hand will be valiant. That place
is observable,
Heb. 11:33
‘Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire,’ and with other
great things, that faith enabled them to endure,
as you may read in vv. 34-36.
There note, I pray, how the power of faith enabling the Christian to ‘work
righteousness’—that is, live holily and righteously—is reckoned among the
wonders of sufferings which it strengthened them to endure. Indeed had it
not done this, it would never have endured these.
Second Direction.
Pray for a suffering spirit. This is not a common gift, which every
carnal gospeller and slighty professor hath. No; it is a peculiar gift, and
bestowed on a few sincere souls. ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of
Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake,’
Php. 1:29.
All the parts and common gifts that a man hath will never enable him to drink
deep of this cup for Christ. Such is the pride of man's heart. He had rather
suffer any way than this; rather from himself, and for himself, than from
Christ or for Christ. You would wonder to see sometimes, how much a child
will endure at his play, and never cry for it—this fall, and that knock, and
no great matter is made of it, because got in a way that is pleasing to him.
But, let his father whip him, though it puts him not to half the smart, yet he
roars and takes on, that there is no quieting of him. Thus, men can bring
trouble on themselves, and bite in their complaints. They can, one play away
his estate at cards and dice, and another whore away his health, or cut off
many years from his life by beastly drunkenness; and all is endured
patiently. Yea, if they had their money and strength again, they should go
the same way. They do not repent of what their lusts have cost them, but
mourn they have no more to bestow upon them. Their lusts shall have all they
have, to a morsel of bread in their cupboard and drop of blood in their veins;
yea, they are not afraid of burning in hell, as their sins' martyrs. But
come, and ask these that are so free of their purse, flesh, soul, and all, in
lust's service, to lay their estate or life for a few moments at stake in
Christ's cause and his truth’s, and you shall see that God is not so much
beholden them. And therefore pray and pray again for a suffering spirit in
Christ's cause. Yea, saints themselves need earnestly to plead with God for
this. Alas! they do not find suffering work follow their hand so easily. The
flesh loves to be cockered, not crucified. Many a groan it costs the
Christian before he can learn to love this work. Now prayer, if any means,
will be helpful to thee in this particular. He that can wrestle with God,
need not fear the face of death and danger. Prayer engageth God’s strength
and wisdom for our help. And what is there too hard for the creature, that
hath God at his back for his help, to do or suffer? We are bid to ‘count it
all joy, when we fall into divers temptations,’
James 1:2—not
temptations to sin, but for righteousness. He means troubles for
Christ and his gospel. Ah! but might the poor Christian say, it were cause of
more joy to be able to stand under these temptations, than to fall into them.
Little joy would it be to have the temptation, and not the grace to endure
temptation. True indeed; but, for thy comfort, Christian, he that leads thee
into this temptation stands ready to help thee through it. Therefore,
ver. 5,
there is a gracious si quis —if any one—set up; ‘If any of you’—i.e.
you suffers chiefly—‘lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men
liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.’ This, methinks,
should not much strain our faith to believe. There are not many masters so
disingenuous to be found, that would twit and upbraid their servant for asking
humbly their counsel in a work of peril and difficulty, which they cheerfully
undertake out of love to their persons and obedience to their command. How
much less then needest thou fear such dealing from thy God? If thou hast so
much faith and love as to venture at his command upon the sea of suffering, he
will, without doubt, find so much mercy as to keep thee from drowning, if,
feeling thyself begin to sink, thou criest earnestly as Peter did to him,
‘Lord, save me.’ Wert thou even under water, prayer would buoy thee up
again. The proverb indeed is, ‘He that would learn to pray, let him go to
sea.’ But I think it were better thus, ‘He that would go to sea—this I mean
of suffering—let him learn to pray before he comes there.’ But, if thou beest
not a man of prayer before suffering work come, thou wilt be able to do little
at that weapon then.
Third Direction.
Be much in the meditation of a suffering state. He will say his lesson
best, when his master calls him forth, that is oftenest conning[17]
it over beforehand to himself. Do by the troubles thou mayest meet with, as
porters used to do with their burdens—they will lift them again and again,
before they take them on their back. Thus do thou. Be often lifting up in
thy meditations those evils that may befall thee for Christ and his truth; and
try how thou couldst fadge [agree] with them, if called to endure them. Set
poverty, prison, banishment, fire, and fagot, before thee, on the one hand;
and the precious truths of Christ on the other, with the sweet promises made
to those that shall hold fast the word of patience held forth in such an hour
of temptation. Suppose it were now thy very case, and thou wert put to thy
choice which hand thou wouldst take, study the question seriously, till thou
determinest it clearly in thy conscience. And do this often, so that the
arguments which flesh and blood will then be sure to use for thy pitying
thyself, may not be new and unanswered, nor the encouragements and strong
consolations which the word affords be strange and under any suspicion in thy
thoughts, when thou art to venture thy life upon their credit and truth.
That of Augustine we shall find most true, non facile inveniuntur præsidia
in adversitate, quæ non fuerint in pace quæsita—the garrisons are not
easily found in adversity which were not sought for and known during peace.
The promises are our garrison and fastness at such a time; and we shall not
find it easy to run to them in a strait, except we were acquainted with them
in a time of peace. A stranger that flies to a house for refuge in the dark
night, he fumbles about the door, and knows not how to find the latch—his
enemy, if nigh, may kill him before he can open the door. But one that lives
in the house, or is well acquainted with it, is not long a getting in.
‘Come, my people,’ saith God, ‘enter thou into thy chambers,’
Isa. 26:20.
He is showing them their lodgings in his attributes and promises, before it
is night and their sufferings be come, that they may readily find the way to
them in the dark.
Fourth Direction.
Make a daily resignation of thyself up to the will of God. Indeed this
should be, as it were, the lock of the night and the key of the morning. We
should open and shut our eyes with this recommending of ourselves into the
hands of God. This, if daily performed—not formally, as all duties
frequently repeated, without the more care, are like to be; but solemnly—would
sweetly dispose the soul for a welcoming of any trial that can befall him. The
awkness of our hearts to suffer comes much from distrust. An unbelieving soul
treads upon the promise as a man upon ice—at the first going upon it, it is
full of fears and tumultuous thoughts lest it should crack. Now this daily
resignation of thy heart, as it will give thee an occasion of conversing more
with the thoughts of God's power, faithfulness, and other of his
attributes—for want of familiarity with which, jealousies arise in our hearts
when put to any great plunge—so also it will furnish thee with many
experiences of the reality both of his attributes and promises; which, though
they need not any testimony from sense to gain them any credit with us, yet,
so much are we made of sense, so childish and weak is our faith, that we find
our hearts much helped by those experiences we have had, to rely on him for
the future. Look therefore carefully to this; every morning leave thyself
and ways in God’s hand, as the phrase is,
Ps 10:14.
And at night, look again, how well God hath looked to his trust, and sleep not
till thou hast affected thy heart with his faithfulness, and laid a stronger
charge on thy heart to trust itself again in God’s keeping in the night. And
when any breach is made, and seeming loss befall thee in any enjoyment, which
thou hast by faith insured of thy God, observe how God fills up that breach,
and makes up that loss to thee; and rest not till thou hast fully vindicated
the good name of God to thy own heart. Be sure thou lettest no discontent or
dissatisfaction lie upon thy spirit at God's dealings; but chide thy heart for
it, as David did his,
Ps. 42.
And thus doing, with God’s blessing, thou shalt keep thy faith in breath for a
longer race, when called to run it.
Fifth Direction.
Make self-denial appear as rational and reasonable as thou canst to thy soul.
The stronger the understanding is able to reason for the equity and
rationality of any work or duty, the more readily and cheerfully it is done,
if the heart is honest and sincere. Suppose, Christian, thy God should call
for thy estate, liberty, yea, life and all; can it seem unreasonable to thee?
especially,
1. If thou
considerest that he bids thee deliver his own, not thy own. He lent
thee these, but he never gave away the propriety of them from himself. Dost
thou wrong thy neighbour to call for that money thou lentest him a year or two
past? No sure, thou thinkest he hath reason to thank thee for lending it to
him, but none to complain for calling it from him.
2. Consider that he
doth not, indeed cannot, bid thee deny so much for him as he hath done for
thee. Is reproach for Christ so intolerable, that thy proud spirit cannot
brook it? Why, who art thou? what great house comest thou from? See One that
had more honour to lay at stake than I hope thou darest pretend to—Jesus
Christ—who ‘thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of
no reputation,’
Php. 2:6, 7.
Is it pain and torment thou art afraid of? O look up to the cross where the
Lord of life hung for thy sins! and thou wilt take up thy own cross more
willingly, and thank God too, that he hath made thine so light and easy, when
he provided one so heavy and tormenting for his beloved Son.
3. Consider, whatever
God calls thee to deny for his truth, it is not more than he can
recompense. Moses saw this, and that made him leap out of his honours and
riches into the reproach of Christ, ‘for he had respect unto the recompence of
the reward,’
Heb. 11:26.
It is much that a man will deny himself in for something his heart strongly
desires in this life. If a man be greedy of gain, he will deny himself half
of a night’s sleep to plot in his bed, or rise early from it to be at his
work; he will eat homely fare, go in vile raiment, dwell in a smoky hole, as
we see in London, for the conveniency of a shop. How men of quality will
crowd themselves up into a little corner, though to the prejudice of their
healths, and hazard sometimes of their lives! yet, hope of gain recompenseth
all. And now, put their gains into the scale with thine Christian, that are
sure to come in by denying thyself for Christ, which theirs are not, and ask
thy soul whether it blush not to see them so freely deny themselves of the
comfort of their lives for an imaginary, uncertain, at best a short advantage,
while thou hucklest[18]
so with Christ for a few outward enjoyments, which shall be paid thee over a
hundred-fold here, and beyond what thou canst now conceive when thou comest to
heaven's glory!
Sixth Direction.
Labour to carry on the work of mortification every day to further degrees than
other. It is the sap in the wood that makes it hard to burn, and
corruption unmortified that makes the Christian loath to suffer. Dried wood
will not kindle sooner, than a heart dried and mortified to the lusts of the
world will endure anything for Christ. The apostle speaks of some that were
‘tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better
resurrection,’
Heb. 11:35.
They did not like the world so well, as being so far on their journey to
heaven—though in hard way —to be willing to come back to live in it any
longer. Take heed, Christian, of leaving any worldly lust unmortified in thy
soul. This will never consent thou shouldest endure much for Christ. Few
ships sink at sea; they are the rocks and shelves that split them. Couldst
thou get off the rocks of pride and unbelief, and escape knocking on the sands
of fear of man, love of the world, thou wouldst do well enough in the greatest
storm that can overtake thee in the sea of this world. ‘If a man purge
himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for
his Master's use, and prepared unto every good work,’
II Tim. 2:21.
O that we knew the heaven that is in a mortified soul! one that is crucified
to the world and lusts of it. He hath the advantage of any other in doing or
suffering for Christ, and enjoying Christ in both. A mortified soul lives out
of all noise and disturbance from those carnal passions, which put all out of
quiet where they come. When the mortified soul goes to duty there are not
those rude and unmannerly intrusions of impertinent, carnal, yea sinful
thoughts, between him and his God. Is he to go to prison? Here is not such
weeping and taking on; no lust to hang about his legs, and break his heart
with its insinuations; no self-love to entreat him that he would pity
himself. His heart is free, got out of the acquaintance of these troublers of
his peace; and a prison to him, if he may go upon so honourable an errand as
testifying to the truth, O how welcome to him! Whereas a unmortified heart is
wedged in with so great acquaintance and kindred, as I may so say, which his
heart hath in the world, that it is impossible to get out of their embraces
into any willingness to suffer. A man that comes into an inn in a strange
place, he may rise at what time he pleaseth, and be gone as early as he
pleaseth in the morning. There are none {to} entreat him to stay. But it is
hard to get out of a friend's house; these, like the Levite’s father‑in‑law,
will be desiring him to stay one day, and then one more, and another after
that. The mortified soul is the stranger. He meets with no disturbance—I
mean comparatively—in his journey to heaven; while the unmortified one is
linked in fast enough for getting on his journey in haste, especially so long
as the flesh hath so fair an excuse as the foulness of the way or weather,
any hardship likely to be endured for his profession. I have read of one of
the Catos, that, in his old age, he withdrew himself from Rome to his
country-house, that he might spend his elder years free from care and
trouble. And all the Romans, as they ride by his house, used to say, iste
solus scit vivere—this man alone knows how to live. I know not what art
Cato had to disburden himself, by his retiring, of the world’s cares. I am
sure, a man may go into the country and yet not leave the city behind him.
His mind may be in a crowd while his body is in the solitude of a wilderness.
Alas! poor man, he was a stranger to the gospel. Had he been but acquainted
with this, it could have shown him a way out of the world’s crowd in the midst
of Rome itself, and that is, by mortifying his heart to the world, both in the
pleasures and troubles of it; and then that high commendation might have been
given him without any hyperbole. For, to speak truth, he only knows aright
how to live in the world that hath learned to die to the world. And so much
for the first point; which, we may remind you, was, that the Christian is to
stand ready for all trials and troubles that may befall him. The second
follows.
SECOND DOCTRINE.
[The gospel’s
blessing of peace
prepares the saint for trials.]
The peace which the
gospel brings and speaks to the heart, will make the creature ready to wade
through any trial or trouble that meets him in his Christian course. He
who enjoys in his bosom the peace of the gospel, is the person and the only
person, that stands shod for all ways, prepared for all troubles and trials.
None can make a shoe to the creature’s foot, so as he shall go easy on a hard
way, but Christ. He can do it to the creature’s full content. And how doth
he {do} it? Truly by no other way that by underlaying it, or, if you will,
lining it, with the peace of the gospel. What though the way be set with
sharp stones? if this shoe go between the Christian’s foot and them, they
cannot much be felt. Solomon tells us that ways of wisdom,—that is,
Christ—‘are ways of pleasantness.’ But how so, when some of them are ways of
suffering? The next words resolve it; ‘and all her paths are peace,’
Prov. 3:17.
Where there is peace—such peace as peace with God and conscience—there can
want no pleasure. David goes merry to bed when he hath nothing to supper but
the gladness that God by this puts into his heart, and promiseth himself a
better night’s rest than any of them all that are feasted with the world's
cheer; ‘Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their
corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep,’
Ps.
4:7, 8. This same peace
with God enjoyed in the conscience, redounds to the comfort of the body. Now
David can sleep sweetly when he lies on a hard bed. What here he saith he
would do, he saith he had done: ‘I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the
Lord sustained me,’
Ps. 3:5.
The title of the psalm tells us when David had this sweet night’s rest, not
when he lay on his bed of downs in his stately palace at Jerusalem, but when
he fled for his life from his unnatural son Absalom, and possibly was forced
to lie in the open field under the canopy of heaven. Truly it must be a soft
pillow indeed that could make him forget his danger, who then had such a
disloyal army at his back hunting of him. Yea, so transcendent is the sweet
influence of this peace, that it can make the creature lie down as cheerfully
to sleep in the grave as on the softest bed. You shall say that child is
willing that calls to be put to bed. Some of the saints have desired God to
lay them at rest in their beds of dust; and that not in a pet and discontent
with their present trouble, as Job did, but from a sweet sense of this peace
in their bosoms. ‘Now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have
seen thy salvation,’ was the swan-like song of old Simeon. He speaks like a
merchant that had got all his goods on shipboard, and now desires the master
of the ship to hoist sail and be gone homewards. Indeed what should a
Christian, that is but a foreigner here, desire to stay any longer for in the
world, but to get this full lading in for heaven? And when hath he that, if
not when he is assured of his peace with God? This peace of the gospel, and
sense of the love of God in the soul, doth so admirably conduce to the
enabling of a person in all difficulties, and temptations, and troubles, that
ordinarily before he calls his saints to any hard service or hot work, he
gives them a draught of this cordial wine next their hearts, to cheer them up,
and embolden them in the conflict. God calls Abram out of his native country,
Gen
12:1, and what so fit as
a promise of Christ to bring his heart to God’s foot?
ver. 2, 3.
A sad errand it was that sent Jacob to Padan-aram. He fled from an angry
wrathful brother, that had murdered him already in his thoughts, to an unkind,
deceitful, uncle, under whom he should endure much hardship. Now God comes
in a sweet gospel vision to comfort this poor pilgrim; for by that ‘ladder,
whose foot stood on earth, and top reached heaven,’ Christ was signified to
his faith, in whom heaven and earth meet, God and man are reconciled; and, by
the ‘moving up and down of the angels on the ladder,’ the ministry of the
angels, which Christ by his death and intercession procures for his saints,
that they shall tend on them, as servants on their master’s children. So that
the sum of all is as much as God had said, ‘Jacob, thy brother Esau hates
thee, but in Christ I am reconciled to thee, thy uncle Laban, he will wrong
thee, and deal hardly by thee, but fear him not. As I am in Christ at peace
with thee so through him thou shalt have my especial care over thee, and the
guardianship of the holy angels about thee, to defend thee wherever thou
goest.’
The Israelites when
ready to take their march out of Egypt into a desolate wilderness, where they
should be put to many plunges, and their faith tried to purpose; to prepare
them the more for these, he entertains them at a gospel supper before they go
forth—I mean the passover, which pointed to Christ. And no doubt the sweetness
of this feast made some gracious souls among them, that tasted Christ in it,
endure the hardship and hunger of the wilderness the more cheerfully. And the
same care and love did our Lord Jesus observe in the institution of his
supper, choosing that for the time of erecting this sweet ordinance when his
disciples’ feet stood at the brink of a sea of sorrows and troubles, which his
death and the consequences of it would inevitably bring upon them. Now the
pardon of their sins, sealed to their souls in the ordinance must needs be
welcome, and enable them to wade through their sufferings the more
comfortably. Indeed, the great care which Christ took for his disciples, when
he left the world, was not to leave them a quiet world to live in, but to arm
them against a troublesome world. And to do this, he labours to satisfy their
poor hearts with his love to them, and his father’s love to them for his sake;
he bequeaths unto them his peace, and empties it in the sweet consolations of
it into their bosoms; for which end he tells them, as soon as he got to
heaven, he would pray his Father to send the Comforter to them with all speed,
and sends them to Jerusalem, there to stay privately, and not go into the
field, or openly contest with the angry world, till they received the strength
and succour which the Spirit in his comforts should bring with him. By all
which it doth abundantly appear how powerful this gospel peace is to enable
the soul for suffering.
Now I proceed to show
how this peace doth prepare the heart for all sufferings. And that it doth
these two ways. First. As it brings along with it, and possesseth the soul
where it comes, with such glorious privileges as lift it above all danger and
damage from any sufferings whatever from God, man, or devils. Second. As it
is influential unto the saint’s graces and affections, exciting them, and
making them act to such a height, as lifts the Christian above the fear of
trouble and suffering.
[How gospel
peace prepares the soul
for suffering
by its privileges.]
First. Gospel peace prepares the
heart for suffering, as it brings along with it, and possesseth the soul
where it comes, with such glorious privileges as lift it above all danger from
any sufferings whatever, from God man, or devils. If a man could be
assured he might walk as safely on the waves of the sea, or in the flames of
fire, as he doth in his garden, he would be no more afraid of the one than he
is to do the other. Or, if a man had some coat of mail secretly about him,
that would undoubtedly resist all blows and quench all shot that are sent
against him, it would be no such scareful thing for him to stand in the midst
of swords and guns. Now, the soul that is indeed at peace with God, is
invested with such privileges as do set it above all hurt and damage from
sufferings. ‘The peace of God’ is said ‘to garrison the believer’s heart and
mind,’
Php. 4:7. He is
surrounded with such blessed privileges, that he is as safe as one in an
impregnable castle.
1. Privilege.
A person at peace with God becomes then a child of God. And when once
the Christian comes to know his relation, and the dear love of his heavenly
Father to him, afflictions for or sufferings from him, dread him not, because
he knows it is inconsistent with the love of a father, either to hurt his
child himself, or to suffer him to be hurt by another, if he can help it. I
have often wondered at Isaac’s patience to submit to be bound for a sacrifice,
and see the knife so near his throat, without any hideous outcries or
strugglings that we read of. He was old enough to be apprehensive of death,
and the horror of it, being conceived by some to be above twenty years of
age. That he was of good growth is out of doubt by the wood which Abraham
caused him to carry for the sacrifice. But, such was the authority Abraham
had over his son, and the confidence that Isaac had in his father, that he
durst put his knife into his hands; which, had the knife been in any other
hand, he would hardly have done. Whoever may be the instrument of any trouble
to a saint, the rod or sword is at God's disposure. Christ saw the cup in his
Father’s hand, and that made him take it willingly.
2. Privilege.
Every soul at peace with God is heir to God. This follows his
relation. ‘If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ,’
Rom. 8:17.
This is such a transcendent privilege, that the soul to whom the joyful news
of it comes is lift up above the amazing and affrightening fears of any
suffering. The apostle having, in the forenamed place, but a little
sweetened his thoughts with a few meditations on this soul-ravishing subject,
see how his blessed soul is raised into a holy slighting of all the troubles
of this life: ‘I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,’
Rom. 8:18.
He will not allow his own soul, or any that hath the hope of this inheritance,
so far to undervalue the glory thereof, or the love of God that settled it on
them, as to mention the greatness of their sufferings in any way of pitying
themselves for them. As if he had said, ‘Hath God made us his heirs, and
bestowed heaven upon us in reversion, and shall we be so poor-spirited to sit
down and bemoan ourselves for our present sorrows, that are no more to be
compared with the glory that we are going to, than the little point of time,
into which our short life with all our sufferings are contracted, is to be
compared with the vast circumference of that eternity which we are to spend in
endless bliss and happiness?’ He is a poor man, we say, that one or two petty
losses quite undoes; and he is a poor Christian that cries out he is undone by
any cross in this life. We may safely conclude such a one either is heir to
nothing in the other world, or hath little or no evidence for what he hath
here.
[How gospel
peace prepares the soul
for suffering
by its influences.]
Second. Gospel peace prepares
the heart for suffering, as it is influential unto the saint’s graces and
affections, exciting them, and making them act to such a height, as lifts him
above the fear of trouble and suffering.
1. Influence.
This peace where it is felt, makes the Christian unconquerable in his
faith. Nothing is too hard for such a one to believe, that carries a
pardon in his conscience, that hath his peace with God sealed to him. Moses
was to meet with many difficulties in that great work of conducting Israel out
of Egypt towards Canaan. Therefore, to make them all a more easy conquest to
his faith, when he should be assaulted with them, God gives him at his very
first entering upon his charge an experiment of his mighty power in some
miracles—as the turning {of} his rod into a serpent, and that again into a
rod, making his hand leprous, and then restoring it again to be as sound as
before—that he might never think anything too hard for that God to do towards
their salvation and deliverance, even when things seem most desperate. And
how unconquerable Moses was after these in his faith, we see. Truly, when God
speaks to a poor soul, he gives such a testimony of his almighty power and
love, that, so long as the sweet sense of this lasts in the soul, the
creature's faith cannot be posed. What doth God in his pardoning mercy, but
turn the serpent of the law—with all its threatenings, from which the sinner
fled, as that which would sting him to death—into the blossoming rod of the
gospel, that brings forth the sweet fruit of peace and life? And which is the
greater miracle of the two, think you?—the leprous hand of Moses made clean
and sound, or a poor sinner's heart, leprous with sin, made clean and pure by
washing in the blood of Christ? Certainly this miracle of mercy, where it is
strongly believed to be done, will make it easy for that soul to trust God in
a sea of temporal sufferings, and cheerfully follow him through a whole
wilderness of troubles in this life. When David hath comfortable
apprehensions of God's pardoning mercy, then his faith is up, and can strongly
act on God for temporal deliverance. We find him,
Ps. 32:5,
under the sweet sense of his peace with God, able to vouch God as reconciled
to him. ‘I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou
forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’ And now see,
ver. 7,
to what a height his faith acts on God as to outward troubles. ‘Thou art my
hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about
with songs of deliverance.’ He spells this, which is the less, from the
other, that is incomparably the greater mercy.
2. Influence.
This peace with God, where it is felt, fills the heart with love to Christ.
The Christian’s love to Christ takes fire at Christ’s love to him. And the
hotter Christ’s love lies on the soul, the stronger reflection doth the
creature make of love to him again, ‘she loved much,’ to whom much was
‘forgiven,’
Luke 7:47.
And the more love, the less fear there will be of suffering. We will venture
far for a dear friend. When Christ told his disciples Lazarus was dead,
Thomas would needs go and die with him for company,
John 11:16.
So powerful is love, even as strong as death. ‘For a good man,’ saith the
apostle, ‘some would even dare to die’—that is, a merciful kind man, whose had
endeared him to them. How much more daring will a gracious soul be to
sacrifice his life for a good God? ‘Thy name,’ saith the spouse of Christ,
‘is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee,’
Song 1:3.
Then Christ’s name is poured forth, when the love of God through him is shed
abroad in the soul. Let this precious box be but broke, and the sweet savour
of it diffused in the heart, and it will take away the unsavoury scent of the
most stinking prison in the world. This heavenly fire of Christ’s love,
beaming powerfully on the soul, will not only put out the kitchen fire of
creature love; but also the hell fire, as I may call it, of slavish fear.
What makes us so aghast at the thoughts of death, especially if it comes
towards us in a bloody dress, and hath some circumstances of persecutors'
cruelty, to put a further grimness on its unpleasing countenance? Surely
this comes from guilt, and unacquaintance with Christ, and what he hath done
for us; who came partly on this very errand into the world, ‘To deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,’
Heb. 2:15.
And how hath he done it, but by reconciling us to God, and so reconciling us
to the thoughts of death itself, as that which only can do us this kind
office—bring us and Christ, that hath done all this for us, together.
3. Influence.
This peace enjoyed in the Christian’s bosom hath a sweet influence into his
self-denial—as grace so necessary to suffering, that Christ lays the
cross, as I may so say, upon the back of it. ‘Whosoever will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,’
Mark 8:34.
Another, with Simon of Cyrene, may be compelled to carry Christ's cross after
him a little way. But, it is the self-denying soul that will stoop willingly,
and down on his knees, to have this burden laid on him at Christ's hand. Now
the sense of a soul’s peace with God will enable the creature in a twofold
self-denial, and by both, sweetly dispose him for any suffering from or
for Christ.
(1.) The sense
of this peace will enable the Christian to deny himself in his sinful self.
Sin may well be called ourself; it cleaves so close to us, even as members to
our body. [It is] as hard to mortify a lust as to cut off a joint. Some sins
too are more ourself than others, as our life is more bound up in some members
than others. Well, let them be what they will, there is a good day, in which,
if Christ asks the head of the proudest lust among them all, he shall have it
with less regret than Herodias obtained the Baptist’s at Herod’s hands. And
what is that gaudy day, in which the Christian can so freely deny his sin, and
deliver it up to justice, but when Christ is feasting him with this ‘hidden
manna’ of pardon and peace? A true friend will rather deny himself than one he
loves dearly, if it be in his power to grant his request. But, least of all
can he deny him, when his friend is doing him a greater kindness at the same
time that he asks a less. No such picklock to open the heart as love. When
love comes a begging, and that at a time when it is showing itself in some
eminent expression of kindness to him at whose door she knocks, there is
little fear but to speed. Esther chose that time to engage Ahasuerus' heart
against Haman her enemy, when she expressed her love most to Ahasuerus, viz.
at a banquet. When doth God give, or indeed when can he give, the like
demonstration of his love to a poor soul, as when he entertains it at this
gospel banquet? Now sure, if ever, God may prevail with his child to send the
cursed Amalekite to the gallows, his lust to the gibbet. Do you think that
Mary Magdalene, when that blessed news dropped from Christ into her mournful
heart, that her ‘sins, which were many, were all forgiven her,’ could now have
been persuaded to have opened the door to any of her former lovers, and gone
out of these embraces of Christ’s love to have played the whore again? No, I
doubt not but she would sooner have chosen the flames of martyrdom than of
lust. Indeed, that which can make the creature deny a lust, can make the
creature it shall not deny a cross.
(2.) The sense
of this peace will enable the Christian to deny himself in his carnal
enjoyments. And these the Christian finds his great pull-backs from
suffering. As the heart burns in the hot fit of love to the pleasures and
profits of this world when he abounds with them, in that degree will his
shaking fit of fear and grief be when Christ calls him to part with them.
What the sweet wines and dainty fare of Capua was to Hannibal’s soldiers, that
we shall find any intemperance of heart to the creature will be to us. It
will enervate our spirits, and so effeminate us, that we shall have little
mind to endure hardship when drawn into the field to look an enemy in the
face. Now the sense of this gospel peace will deaden the heart to the
creature, and facilitate the work of self-denial as to the greatest enjoyments
the world hath. ‘God forbid,’ saith Paul, ‘that I should glory, save in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I
unto the world,’
Gal. 6:14.
Paul’s heart is dead to the world. Now mark what gave the death's wound to
his carnal affections. ‘By whom,’ saith he, ‘the world is crucified to me, and
I unto it;’ that is, Christ and his cross. There was a time, indeed, that
Paul loved the world as well who most. But, since he hath been acquainted
with Christ, and the mercy of God in him to his soul —pardoning his sins and
receiving him into favour and fellowship with himself—he is of another mind.
He leaves the world, as Saul his seeking of the asses, at the news of a
kingdom; his haunt lies another way now. Let the Zibas of the world take the
world, and all they can make of it with their best husbandry. He will not
grudge them their happiness, forasmuch as his heavenly Lord and King is come
in peace to his soul. None can part with the comfort of the creature so
cheerfully as he who hath his mouth at the fountain-head, the love of God
himself. Parents are near, and friends are dear, yet a loving wife can forget
her father's house, and leave her old friends’ company, to go with her husband
though it be to a prison. How much more will a gracious soul bid adieu to
these, yea life itself, to go to Christ, especially when he hath sent the
Comforter into his bosom, to cheer him in the solitariness of the way with his
sweet company?
4. Influence.
This peace, where it is felt, promotes the suffering grace of patience.
Affliction and suffering to a patient soul are not grievous. Patience is, as
one calls it, BXR4H
J0H
RLP0H—the
concoctive faculty of the soul —that grace which digests all things, and turns
them into good nourishment. Meats of hard digestion will not do well with
squeamish weak stomachs, and therefore they are dainty and nice in their
diets; whereas men of strong stomachs, they refuse no meat that is set before
them; all fare is alike to them. Truly thus there are some things which are
of very hard digestion to the spirits of men. The peevish, passionate,
short-spirited professor will never concoct reproaches, prison, and death
itself, but rather quarrel with his profession, if such fare as these attend
the gospel. ‘When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by
and by he is offended,’
Matt. 13:21.
This will not stay in his stomach, but makes him cast up even that which else
he could have kept—a profession of Christ—might he have had it with a quiet
life and a whole skin. But now the patient soul, he makes his meal of what
God in his providence sets before him. If peace and prosperity be served up
with the gospel, he is thankful, and enjoys the sweetness of the mercy while
it lasts. If God takes these away, and instead of them, will have him eat the
gospel feast with sour herbs of affliction and persecution, it shall not make
him sick of his cheer. It is but eating more largely of the comforts of the
gospel with them, and they go down very well wrapped up in them. Indeed the
Christian is beholden to those consolations which flow from the peace of the
gospel for his patience. It were impossible for the people of God to endure
with what sometimes they meet with from men and devils also, as they do, had
they not sweet help from the sense of God’s love in Christ, that lies glowing
at their hearts in inward peace and joy. The apostle resolves all the saints'
patience, experience, and hope, yea, glorying in their tribulations, into
this, as the cause of all, ‘Because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,’
Rom. 5:5.
Sin makes suffering intolerable. When that [sin, viz.] is gone, the worst
part of the trouble is removed. A light cart goes through that slough easily,
where the cart deeply laden is set fast. Guilt loads the soul, and bemires it
in any suffering. Take that away, and let God speak peace to his soul, and he
that raged before like a madman under the cross, shall carry it without
whinching[1]
and whining. ‘The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds,’
Php. 4:7.
Now what is patience but the keeping of the heart and mind composed and serene
in all troubles that befall us? But a word or two for application.
[Use or
Application.]
Use First. The
preceding doctrine informs our judgments in two particulars. 1. What to
judge of their patience in affliction that have no interest in the gospel’s
peace. 2. What to think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience
at all.
1. What we are to
judge of their patience in affliction who have no interest in the gospel’s
peace. Some you shall see very still and quiet in affliction, yet mere
strangers to this peace, ignorant of Christ the Peace-maker, walking in
opposition to the terms God offers peace in the gospel upon, and yet very calm
in affliction. Certainly all is not right with this poor creature. If he had
any sense how it is with him, he would have little patience to see himself
under the hand of God, and not know but it may leave him in hell before it
hath done with him. When I see one run over the stones and hard ways barefoot
and not complain, I do not admire his patience, but pity the poor creature
that hath benumbed his feet, and, as it were, soled them with a brawny, dead
kind of flesh, so as to lose his feeling. But, save your pity much more for
those whose consciences are so benumbed and hearts petrified into a senseless
stupidity, that they feel their misery no more than the stone doth the
mason’s saw which cuts it asunder. Of all men out of hell, none [is] more to
be pitied than he that hangs over the mouth of it, and yet is fearless of his
danger, while thus the poor wretch is incapable of all means for his good.
What good does physic put into a dead man’s mouth? If he cannot be chased to
some sense of his condition, all applications are in vain. And if
afflictions—which are the strongest physic—leave the creature senseless, there
is little hope left that any other will work upon him.
2. What are we to
think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience at all—those
that are great pretenders to gospel peace, yet cannot think with any patience
of suffering from God or for God. Certainly, so far as the creature is
acquainted with this peace, and hath the true sense of God's love in Christ
lying warm at his heart, he cannot but find proportionably his heart stand
ready to submit to any suffering that God lays out for him. And therefore it
behooves us well to try our peace and comfort. If thou hast no heart to
suffer for God, but choosest a sin to escape a cross, thy peace is false. If
thou hast but little patience under ordinary afflictions, to compose thy
spirit from murmuring, and sustain thy heart from sinking, thy faith on the
promise is weak. ‘If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is
small,’
Prov. 24:10.
Use Second. Let
this doctrine stir thee up, Christian, to be very tender and chary of thy
peace with God and thy own conscience. Keep this peace clear and
unbroken, and it will keep thy heart whole, when the whole world breaks about
thee. So long as this peace of God rules in your hearts, you are safe from
fear or danger, though in a prison or at a stake. But if thou sufferest it to
be wounded, then thy enemies will come upon thee as Simeon and Levi on the
men of Shechem when sore, and be too hard for thee. O it is sad, friends—you
will find it so—to go with sore and smarting consciences into a suffering
condition. A thorn in the foot will make any way uneasy to the traveller; and
guilt in the conscience any condition uncomfortable to the Christian, but most
of all a suffering one. Now, if you will keep your peace unbroken, you must
bestow some attendance on it, and set as it were a life-guard about it. The
choicest flowers need most looking to. The richer the treasure the safer we
lay it. This peace is thy treasure; look well where thou layest it. Two ways
our Saviour tells us that worldly treasure, such as silver and gold is, may be
lost—by thieves that break in and carry it away, and by rust that eats and
corrupts it,
Matt. 6:19.
There are two ways something like these, wherein the Christian may go by the
loss in this his heavenly treasure of inward peace and comfort.
1. Presumptuous
sins, these are the thieves that ‘break through and steal’ the saint’s
comfort away. When the Christian comes to look into his soul after such a
bold act, and thinks to entertain himself, as formerly, with the comforts of
his pardoned state, interest in Christ, and hopes of heaven through him,
alas! he finds a sad change. There is no promise that will give out its
consolations to him—the cellar-door is locked, Christ withdrawn, and the keys
carried away with him. He may even cry out with a sad complaint, as Mary
when she found not Christ’s body in the sepulchre, ‘They have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.’ Thus the Christian may, with
aching heart, bemoan his folly, ‘My pride, my uncleanness, my
earthly-mindedness, they have taken away my treasure, robbed me of my
comfort. I could never have a comfortable sight of God’s face in any duty or
promise since I fell into that foul sin.’ And therefore, Christian, have a
care of such robbers of thy peace as this. ‘The spirit of man’ is called ‘the
candle of the Lord,’
Prov. 20:27.
Hath God lighted thy candle, Christian—cheered thy spirit, I mean, with the
sense of his love? Take heed of presumptuous sins. If such a thief be
suffered in this thy candle, thy comfort will soon sweal out. Hast thou
fallen into the hands of any such presumptuous sins as have stolen thy peace
from thee? Send speedily thy hue and cry after them—I mean, take thy sad moan
to God, renew thy repentance out of hand, and raise heaven upon them by a
spirit of prayer. This is no time to delay. The farther thou lettest these
sins go without repentance, the harder thou wilt find it to recover thy lost
peace and joy out of their hands. And for thy encouragement know, God is
ready, upon thy serious and solemn return, to restore thee ‘the joy of his
salvation,’ and do justice upon these enemies of thy soul for thee by his
mortifying grace, if thou wilt prosecute the law upon them closely and
vigorously, without relenting towards them, or being bribed with the pleasure
or carnal advantage that they will not spare to offer, so their lives may be
spared.
2. Again, as
presumptuous sins are the ‘thieves’ that with a high hand rob the Christian of
his comfort; so sloth and negligence are as the ‘rust,’ that in time will
fret into his comfort and eat out the heart and strength of it. It is
impossible that the Christian who is careless and secure in his walking,
infrequent and negligent in his communion with God, should long be owner of
much peace or comfort that is true. What if thou dost not pour water of
presumptuous sins into the lap of thy joy to quench it? It is enough if thou
dost not pour oil of duty to feed and maintain it. Thou art murderer to thy
comfort by starving it, as well as by stabbing of it.
The Several Pieces of the Whole Armour of God.