What is meant by the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace 1/2

‘Shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace’  (Eph. 6:15).

           Let us now ask what is meant by this ‘preparation of the gospel of peace’ with which the Christian’s feet are to be ‘shod?’ or thus, What grace doth this ‘preparation,’ with which we are to be ‘shod,’ signify? and, Why called ‘the preparation of the gospel of peace.’

           Question First—What is meant by this prepara­tion of the gospel of peace?

           As for the grace held forth by this ‘preparation of the gospel of peace,’ I find great variety in the apprehensions of the learned, and indeed variety rather than contrariety.  I shall therefore spare the mentioning them—many of which you may find in a bunch collected by the Rev. Dr. Gouge upon the place, with his thoughts upon them—and crave the boldness to lay down with due respect to others, the apprehensions I have had thereon, which I conceive, will rather amplify than thwart their sense.  Now what this ©J@4µ"F\"—or preparation,is, will best appear by considering the part it is designed for—and that is ‘the foot,’ the only member in the body to be shod—and the piece of armour it is compared to, and that is the sol­dier’s shoe, which (if right) is to be of the strongest make, being not so much intended for finery as defence. So necessary is this piece of armour indeed, that, for want of it alone, the soldier in some cases is disabled for service, as when he is called to march far on hard ways, and those, may be, strewed with sharp stones. How long will he go, if not shod, without wounding or foundering?  Or, if the way be good, but the weather bad, and his feet not fenced from the wet and cold, they are not so far from the head but the cold, got in them, may strike up to that; yea [may] bring a disease on the whole body, which will keep him on his bed when he should be in the field.  As many almost are surfeited as slain in armies.  Now, what the foot is to the body, that the will is to the soul.  The foot carries the whole body, and the will the soul; yea, the whole man, body and soul also.  Voluntas est loco motiva facultas—we go whither our will sends us.  And what the shoe is to the foot, that ‘preparation,’ or, if you please, a readiness and alacrity, is to the will.  The man whose feet are well shod fears no ways, but goes through thick and thin, foul or fair, stones or straws; all are alike to him that is well shod; while the barefooted man, or slenderly shoed, shrinks when he feels the wet, and shrieks when he lights on a sharp stone.  Thus, when the will and heart of a man is prompt, and ready to do any work, the man is, as it were, shod and armed against all trouble and difficulty which he is to go over in the doing of it.  They say the Irish tread so light on the ground that they will run over some bogs wherein any other almost would stick or sink.  A prepared ready heart, I am sure, will do this in a spiritual sense.  None can walk where he can run.  He makes nothing of afflictions, yea persecutions, but goes singing over them.  David was never so merry as in the cave, Ps. 57.  And how came he so?  ‘My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared,’ saith he, 'I will sing and give praise,’ ver. 7.  If David’s heart had not been shod with this preparation, he would not have liked the way he was in so well.  You would have had him sing to another tune, and heard him quarrel with his destiny, or fall out with his profession, that had put him to so much trouble, and driven him from the pleasures of a prince’s court, to hide himself under ground in a cave from those that hunted for his precious life.  He would have spent his breath rather in pitying and be moaning himself than in praising of God.  An unprepared heart, that is not well satisfied with its work or condition, hangs back, and, though it may be brought to submit to it with much ado, yet it is but as a foundered horse on a stony way, which goes in pain every step, and would oft be turning out of the path, if bit and whip did not keep him in.

      

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.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 8/8

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!

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 7/8

           (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.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 6/8

           (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.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 5/8

  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.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 4/8

           (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.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 3/8

           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.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 2/8

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.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 1/8

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.

The sin of ministers who stir up strife 2/2

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.

The sin of ministers who stir up strife 1/2

           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.

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.

How the gospel knits the hearts of men in peace, and why it alone can do so 2/2

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.

1. 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.

How the gospel knits the hearts of men in peace, and why it alone can do so 1/2

           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.

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.

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           (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.

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           (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 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.

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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

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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 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 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.