PART 3-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

  

  Second.  It reproves those who seem to wrestle against sin, but not according to the word of com­mand that Christ gives.  There is a law in wrestling which must be observed.  If a man also strive for mas­teries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully, II Tim. 2:5.  He alludes to the Roman games, to which there were judges appointed to see that no foul play were offered contrary to the law of wrestling; the prize being denied to such though they did foil their adver­sary; which the apostle improves to make the Chris­tian careful in his war, as being under a stricter law and discipline, that requires not only valour to fight, but obedience to fight by order and according to the word of command.  Now few do this that go for great wrestlers.

1. Some while they wrestle against one sin, em­brace another,and in this case it is not [that] the per­son wrestles against sin, but one sin wrestles against another, and it is no wonder to see thieves fall out when they come to divide the spoil.  Lusts are di­verse, Titus 3:3, and it is hard to please many masters, especially when their commands are so contrary. When pride bids lay on in bravery, lavish out in entertainment, covetousness bids lay up; when malice bids revenge, carnal policy saith, Conceal thy wrath, though not forgive.  When lust sends to his whores, hypocrisy pulls him back for shame of the world.  Now is he God's champion that resist one sin at the command of another, it may be a worse?

2. Some wrestle, but they are pressed into the field, not volunteers.Their slavish fears scare them at present from their lust, so that the combat is rather betwixt their conscience and will, than them and your lust.  Give me such a sin, saith will.  No, saith con­science, it will scald; and throws it away.  A man may love the wine, though he is loath to have his lips burned.  Hypocrites themselves are afraid to burn.  In such combats the will at last prevails, either by bribing the understanding to present the lust it desires in a more pleasing dress, that conscience may not be scared with such hideous apparitions of wrath; or by pacifying conscience with some promise of repentance for the future; or by forbearing some sin for the pre­sent, which it can best spare, thereby to gain the reputation of something like a reformation.  Or if all this will not do, then, prompted by the fury of its lust, the will proclaims open war against conscience, sinning in the face of it, like some wild horse, [which] impatient of the spur which pricks him and bridle that curbs him, gets the bit between his teeth, and runs with full speed, till at last he easeth himself of his rider; and then where he sees fattest pasture, no hedge or ditch can withhold him, till in the end you find him starving in some pound for his trespass. Thus, many sin at such rate, that conscience can no longer hold the reins nor sit the saddle, but is thrown down and laid for dead; and then the wretches range where their lusts can have the fullest meal, till at last they pay for their stolen pleasures most dearly, when conscience comes to itself, pursues them, and takes them more surely by the throat than ever, never to let them go till it brings them before God's tribunal.
3. Others wrestle with sin, but they do not hate it,and therefore they are favourable to it, and seek not the life of sin as their deadly enemy.  These wres­tle in jest, and not in earnest; the wounds they give sin one day, are healed by the next.  Let men resolve never so strongly against sin, yet will it creep again into their favour, till the love of sin be quenched in the heart; and this fire will never die of itself, the love of Christ must quench the love of sin, as Jerome [saith] excellently [one love extinguishes another.] This heavenly fire will indeed put out the flame of hell; which he illustrates by Ahasuerus’ carriage to Vashti his queen, who in the first chapter makes a de­cree in all haste that she comes no more before him; but when his passion is a little down, Est. 2:1, he be­gins to relent towards her; which his council perceiv­ing, presently seek out for a beautiful virgin, on whom the king might place his love, and take into his royal bed; which done, we hear no more of Vashti.  Then and not till then will the soul's decree stand against sin, when the soul hath taken Christ into his bosom.

PART 2-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

  (2.) The Spirit strives with men more imme­diately, when he makes his inward approaches to the consciences of men, debating in their own bosoms the case with them.  One while he shows them their sins in their bloody colours, and whither they shall surely bring them, if not looked to timely, which he doth so convincingly, that the creature smells sometimes the very fire and brimstone about him, and is at present in a temporary hell; another while he falls a parleying and treating with them, making gracious overtures to the sinner, if he will return at his reproof, presents the grace of the gospel, and opens a door of hope for his recovery, yea, falls a wooing and beseeching of him to throw down his rebellious arms, and come to Christ for life, whose heart is in a present disposition to receive and embrace the first motion the returning sinner makes for mercy.  Now when the Spirit of God follows the sinner from place to place, and time to time, suggesting such motions, and renewing his old suit, and the creature shall fling out of the Spirit's hands, thus striving with him, [the thing being unac­complished], as far from renouncing his lusts, or tak­ing any liking to Christ as ever.  This is to resist the Spirit to his face, and it carries so much malignity in it, that even where it hath not been final, poor hum­bled souls [so] over-set with the horror of it, that they could not for a long time be persuaded but that it was the unpardonable sin.  Take heed therefore, sinners, how you use the Spirit when he comes knocking at the door of your hearts.  Open at his knock, and he will be your guest; you shall have his sweet company. Repulse him, and you have not a promise he will knock again.  And if once he leave striving with thee, unhappy man, thou art lost for ever; thou liest like a ship cast up by the waves upon some high rock, where the tide [will] never come to fetch it off.  Thou may­est come to the Word, converse with other ordin­ances, but in vain.  It is the Spirit in them, which is both tide and wind, to set the soul afloat, and carry it on, or else it lies like a ship on dry ground which stirs not.

2. We wrestle against God when we wrestle with is providence;and that in two ways.

           (1.) When we are discontented with his provi­dential disposure of us.  God's carving for us doth not please us so, but that we are objecting against his dealings towards us, at least muttering something with the fool in our hearts, which God hears as lightly as man our words.  God counts then we begin to quarrel with him, when we do not acquiesce in, and say amen to his providence, whatever it is.  He calls it a contending with the Almighty, Job 40:2, yea, a re­proving of God.  And he is a bold man sure that dare find fault with God, and article against heaven.  God challengeth him, whoever he is, that doth this, to ans­wer it at his peril.  ‘He that reproveth God, let him answer it,’ ver. 2 of the chapter forementioned.  It was high time for Job to have done, when he hears what a sense God puts upon those unwary words which dropped from him in the anguish of his spirit and paroxysm of his sufferings.  Contend with the Almighty?  Reprove God?  Good man, how blank he is, and cries out, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.  Let God but par­don what is past, and he shall hear such language no more.  O, sirs, Take heed of this wrestling above all other.  Contention is uncomfortable, with whomso­ever it is we fall out—Neighbours or friends, wife or husband, children or servants, but worst of all with God.  If God cannot please thee, but thy heart riseth against him, what hopes are there of thy pleasing him, who will take nothing kindly from that man who is angry with him?  And how can love to God be pre­served in a discontented heart, that is always mut­tering against him?  Love cannot think any evil of God, nor endure to hear any speak evil of him, but it must take God's part, as Jonathan David’s, when Saul spake basely of him; and when it cannot be heard, will like him arise and be gone.  When afflicted, love can allow thee to groan, but not to grumble.  If thou wilt ease thy encumbered spirit into God's bosom by prayer, and humbly wrestle with God on thy knees, love is for thee, and will help thee to the best argu­ments thou canst use to God; but if thou wilt vent thy distempered passions, and show a mutinous spirit against God, this stabs it to the heart.
           (2.) We wrestle against providence, when incor­rigible under the various dispensations of God toward us.  Providence has a voice if we had an ear.  Mercies should draw, afflictions drive.  Now when neither fair means nor foul do is good, but we are impenitent under both; this is to wrestle against God with both hands.  Either of these have their peculiar aggrava­tions: one is against love, and so disingenuous; the other is against the smart of his rod, and therein we slight his anger, and are cruel to ourselves in kicking against the pricks.  Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin.  He that is not ashamed, has not the spirit of a man. He that is not afraid when smit­ten, is worse than the beast who stands in awe of whip and spur.  Sometimes mercy, especially these outward mercies, which have a pleasing relish to the carnal part in a Christian, hath proved a snare to the best of men, but then affliction useth to recover them.  But when affliction makes men worse, and they harden themselves against God, to sin more and more while the rod is on them; what is like to reclaim them?  Few are made better by prosperity, whom af­flictions make worse.  He that will sin, though he goes in pain, will much more, if that once be gone. But take heed of this contesting with God.  There is nothing got by scuffling with God, but blows, or worse.  If he say he will afflict thee no more, it is even the worst he can say; it is as much as if he should say he will be in thy debt till another world, and there pay thee altogether.  But if he means thee mercy, thou shalt hear from him in some sharper affliction than ever.  He hath wedges that can rive thee, wert thou a more knotty piece than thou art.  Are there yet the treasures of wickedness, and the scant measure that is abominable? saith god to Israel.  What! incorrig­ible, though the Lord's voice crieth unto the city, Micah 6:9, bidding you hear the rod, and him that hath appointed it?  See what course God resolves on. Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting of thee, ver. 13.  As if he had said, My other physic, I see, was too weak, it did not work or turn your stomach, but I will prepare a potion that shall make you sick at heart.
        

PART 1-Reproof To Such As Are Not True Wrestlers

  First.  This may reprove such as wrestle; but against whom? against God, not against sin and Satan.  These are bold men indeed, who dare try a fall with the Almighty; yet such there are, and a woe [is] pronounced against them, Isa. 45:9 ‘Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker.’  It is easy to tell which of these will be worsted.  What can he do but break his shins that dasheth them against a rock?  A goodly battle there is like to be, when thorns contest with fire, and stubble with flame.  But where live those giants that dare enter the list with the great God? What are their names, that we may know them, and brand them for creatures above all other unworthy to live?  Take heed, O thou who askest, that the wretched man whom thou seekest so to defy, be not found in thy own clothes itself.  Judas was the traitor, though he would not answer to his name, but put it off with a ‘Master, is it I?’  And so mayest thou be the fighter against God.  The heart is deceitful.  Even holy David, for all his anger, was so hot against the rich man, that took away the poor man’s ewe-lamb, that he bound it with an oath, [that] the man should not live who had done it, yet proves at last to be himself the man, as the prophet told him, II Sam. 12. Now there are two ways wherein men wrestle against God.  1. When they wrestle against his Spirit,  2. When they wrestle against his providence.

1. When the wrestle against his Spirit.  We read of the Spirit striving against the creature, ‘My spirit shall not always strive with man,’ Gen. 6:3, where the striving is not in anger and wrath to destroy them —that God could do without any stir or scuffle—but a loving strife and contest with man.  The old world was running with such a career headlong into their ruin, [that] he sends his Spirit to interpose, and by his counsels and reproofs to offer, as it were, to stop them and reclaim them; as if one seeing another ready to offer violence on himself, should strive to get the knife out of his hand, with which he would do the mischief; or one that hath a purse of gold in his hand to give, should follow another by all manner of en­treaties, striving with him to accept and take it.  Such a kind of strife is this of the Spirit's with men.  They are the lusts of men—those bloody instruments of death, with which sinners are mischieving themselves —that the Holy Spirit strives by his sweet counsels and entreaties to get out of our hands.  They are Christ's grace and eternal life [that] he strives to make us accept at the hands of God's mercy; and for repulsing the Spirit thus striving with them, sinners are justly counted fighters against God.  ‘Ye stiff­necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost,’ Acts 7:51.  Now there is a twofold striving of the Spirit, and so of our wrestling against it.

   (1.) The Spirit strives in his messengers with sinners.  They coming on his errand, and not their own, he voucheth the faithful counsels, reproofs, and exhortations which they give us as his own act. [What] Noah, that preacher of righteousness, said to the old world is called the preaching of the Spirit, I Peter 3:19.  The pains that Moses, Aaron, and other servants of God took in instructing Israel, is called the instruction of the Spirit, Neh. 9:20; so that when the word, which God's ministers bring in his name, is rejected, the faithful counsels they give are thrown at sinners' heels and made light of; then do they strive with the Spirit, and wrestle against Christ as really, as if he visibly in his own person had been in the pulpit, and preached the same sermon to them.  When God comes to reckon with sinners, it will prove so.  Then God will rub up your memories, and mind you of his striving with you, and your unkind resisting him.  They, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, shall know here hath been a prophet among them, Eze. 2:5.  Now men soon forget whom and what they hear.  Ask them what was pressed upon their consciences in such a sermon.  They have forgot.  What were the precious truths laid out in another? —and they are lost.  And well were it for them if their memories were no better in another world; it would ease their torments more than a little.  But then they shall know they had a prophet among them, and what a price they had with them in their hands, though it was in fools’ keeping.  They shall know what he was, and what he said, though a thousand years past, as fresh as if it were done but last night.  The more zealous and compassionate, the more painful and powerful he was in his place, the greater shall their sin be found, to break from such holy violence of­fered to do them good.  Surely God will have some­thing for their sweat, yea, lives of his servants which were worn out in striving with such rebellious ones. May be yet, sinners, your firmament is clear, no cloud to be seen that portends a storm; but know, as you use to say, winter does not rot in the clouds; you shall have it at last.  Every threatening which your faithful ministers have denounced against you out of the Word, God is bound to make good.  He con­firmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers, Isa. 44:26, and that in judgment against sinners, confirming the threatenings, as well as in mercy performing the promises, which they declare as the portion of his children.  But it will be time enough to ask such on a sick-bed, or a dying hour, whether the words of the Lord delivered by their faithful preachers have not taken hold of them.  Some have confessed with horror [that] they have; as the Jews—‘Like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, so hath he dealt with us,’ Zech. 1:6.