(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?
- 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 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.
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