- Miscarriage. The saint’s prayer may miscarry from some secret grudge that is lodged in his heart against his brother. Anger and wrath are strange fire to put to our incense. It is a law writ upon every gate of God’s house—every ordinance, I mean—at which we are to enter into communion with God, that we must ‘love our brethren.’ When we go to hear the word, what is the caveat, but that we should ‘lay aside all malice, envy, and evil speaking, and as new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word?’ The gospel will not speak peace to a wrathful spirit. Anger and malice, like a salt corroding humour in the stomach, makes us puke and cast up the milk of the word, that it cannot stay with us for nourishment. Is it the gospel supper thou sittest at? This is a love-feast, and though it may be eaten with the bitter herbs of sin’s sorrow, yet not with the sour leaven of wrath and malice. ‘When ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you,’ &c., I Cor. 11:18. Now mark what follows, ‘this is not the Lord’s supper,’ ver. 20. Christ will not communicate with a wrangling jangling company. When such guests come, he riseth from his own table, as David’s children did from Absalom’s upon the murder of their brother Amnon, II Sam. 13:29. And for prayer, you know the law thereof, ‘Lift up holy hands, without wrath and doubting,’ I Tim. 2:8—implying, that it is impossible to pray in faith and wrath. Duobus modis oratio impeditur, si ad huc homo mala committit aut si committenti in se ex toto corde non dimittit—our prayer may be hindered two ways—by lying in any sin we commit against God; or, in wrath, by not forgiving our brother’s committed against us. Those two in our Lord’s prayer cannot be divorced—‘forgive us, as we forgive.’ This is that ferrum in vulnere—iron in the wound, as the same father hath it, which makes our prayers as ineffectual to us, as the plaster is to the wound in which the bullet still remains.
Now, the reason why God is so curious in this point, in because himself is so gracious; and being ‘love,’ can bid none welcome that are not ‘in love.’ The heathens had such a notion that the gods would not like the sacrifice and service of any but such as were like themselves. And therefore to the sacrifices of Hercules none were to be admitted that were dwarfs. To the sacrifice of Bacchus, a merry god, none that were sad and pensive, as not suiting their genius. An excellent truth may be drawn from this their folly. He that would like and please God must be like to God. Now our God is a God of peace, our heavenly Father merciful; and therefore to him none can have friendly access but those that are children of peace, and merciful as their Father is. O! watch then thy heart, that Satan’s fireballs—which upon every little occasion he will be throwing in at thy window —take not hold of thy spirit, to kindle any heart-burning in thee against thy brother. If at any time thou seest the least smoke, or smellest the least scent of this fire in thy bosom, sleep not till thou hast quenched it. Be more careful to lay this fire in thy heart aside, when thou goest to bed, than the other that is on thy hearth. How canst thou by prayer commit thyself into God’s hands that night wherein thou carriest a spark thereof smothered in thy breast? Irasci, hominis, iram non preficere, Christiani est (Jerome)—as a frail man thou canst not hinder but such a spark may light on thee, yet if thou wilt prove thyself a Christian, thou must quench it. Nay more, if thou wilt show thyself a Christian, and have thy prayer find God’s ear or heart open to it, thou must do thy utmost to quench it in thy brother’s heart as well as thy own. It is not enough that thou carriest peace in thy heart to him, except thou endeavourest that he may be at peace with thee also. ‘If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee,’ Matt. 5:23.
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