Use For Exhortation Of The Saints 4/4

      

         (2.) Often meditate on the holiness of man’s in­nocent state.  It is true now, if a believer, thou hast a principle of holiness planted in thee; but, alas! what is that at present to what thy nature once had?  They who saw the second temple, and remembered not the first, which Solomon built, thought it, no doubt, a glorious fabric; but others, whose eyes had seen the stately work and goodly buildings of the other, could not but rejoice with tears in their eyes.  ‘Many of the priests and Levites and chief of the fathers, who were ancient men, that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid,....wept with a loud voice,’ Ezra 3:12.  O! it revived the sad thoughts of the sacking of that glorious structure; and so may this little beginning upon a new foundation of the new covenant, remind thee, with sorrow, to think of the ruins that man, in all his glory, fell into by Satan’s policy!  It is true, in heaven thou shalt have the odds of Adam in paradise, but thou shalt have many a weary step before thou gettest up that hill.  When a man that hath had some thousands a-year hath now but a few pounds per annum allowed him, and the rest sequestered from him for thirty or forty years; it is sad, though comfortable also to think, it shall at last return, and may be, with a great overplus; but at present, he is put to many straits, and fain to make a hard shift to rub through, so as to live anything like his noble descent and family.  Thus it is joyous to the saint to think of heaven when all his means shall come into his hands; but truly his imperfect grace, and the many expenses he is at—from afflictions at God's hands, temptations at Satan’s, mutinies and intestine broils from remaining lusts within doors —do put him into so many sad straits, that the poor soul is fain oft to snap short in his comfort, yea, much ado he hath to keep shop windows open with the little stock he hath.  Hence, the Christian’s getting to heaven is set out as a business of so much difficulty. ‘If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?’ I Peter 4:18.  The wise virgins had no oil to spare.  The Christian shall hold out, and that is even all.  Think of this, and let thy plumes fall.

           (3.) Often meditate on thy own personal mis­carriages,  especially in thy unregenerate state.  This kept Paul so humble.  How oft does his unregenerate wicked conversation rise, though not in his con­science, to darken his comfort, yet in his mind, to qualify the thoughts of his gifts and grace, I Cor. 15:9, 10, where he speaks how he ‘laboured more than  them all.’  O how he waylays his pride that possibly might follow such his glorying too close at his heels! and therefore, before he dare speak a word of his present holiness, he bolts the door upon pride, and first falls upon the story of that black part of his life. O how he batters his pride, and speaks himself all to naught!  No enemy could have drawn his picture with a blacker coal, I Cor. 15:7.  He calls himself one ‘born out of time,’ ver. 9, ‘for I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.’  And now having suf­ficiently besmeared and doused himself in the puddle of his former sins, how humbly doth the holy man speak of his transcendent graces! ver. 10.  ‘By the grace of God I am what I am,....and I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God.’  O this is the way of killing this weed of pride, to break up our own hearts, and turn the inside out­ward—I mean humble and abase ourselves for our former abominations.  Pride will not easily thrive in a soul where this plough often walks.  Pride is a worm that bites and gnaws out the heart of grace.  Now you know they are bitter things that must break the bag of worms that are gathered in the stomach.  All sweet things nourish them; they are bitter that scatter and kill them.  O Christian, take some quantity of this aloes often, and with God's blessing thou shalt find ease of that which, if a Christian, thou art troubled withal.  And do not think that this worm breeds only in children—weak Christians, and young novices.  I confess that it is the most ordinary disease of that age. But aged and stronger Christians are not out of dan­ger.  Old David had this worm of pride crawling out of his mouth when he bade Joab number the people. And dost not thou too, oft take thyself in numbering the duties and good works thou hast done, and the sufferings thou hast endured for thy God, with some secret self-applauding thoughts that tickle thee for them?