Use for reproof of several sorts of persons 4/4

           

Well, sirs, of what sort soever you are, whether atheistical mockers at holiness, or such as mock at true holiness in the disguise of a false one, take heed what you do; it is as much as your life is worth.  ‘Be not deceived, God will not be mocked,’ nor suffer his grace to be mocked in his saints.  You know how dearly that scoff did cost them, though but children, that spake it to the prophet, ‘Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head,’ II Kings 2:23, where, they did not only revile him with that nickname of bald-head, but made a mock and jeer of Elijah’s rapture into heaven.  As if they had said, ‘You would make us be­lieve your master has gone up to heaven, why do you not go up after him, that we may be rid of both your companies at once?’  And we need not wonder that these children should rise to such a height of wicked­ness so soon, if you observe the place where they lived —at Bethel—which was most infamous for idolatry, and one of the two cities where Jeroboam did set up his calves, I Kings 12:28, so that this seems but the natural language which they learned, no doubt, from their idolatrous parents.  God met with Michal also, for despising her husband, merely upon a religious ac­count, because he showed a holy zeal for God, which her proud spirit, as many others since have done, thought it too mean and base to do.  Well, what is her punishment? ‘Therefore Michal, the daughter of Saul, had no child unto the day of her death.’  The service of God was too low for a king in her thoughts, therefore shall none come out of her womb to sit on the throne or wear a crown.

           It is great wickedness to mock at the calamity of another.  ‘He that mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker,’ Prov. 17:5.  Yea, to laugh at and triumph over a saint’s sin is a heavy sin.  So did some sons of Be­lial, when David fell into that sad temptation of adul­tery and murder!  And they are upon that account indicted for blaspheming God.  What then is it to mock one for his holiness?  Sin carries some cause of shame, and gives naughty hearts an occasion to re­proach him they see besmeared with that, which is so inglorious and unbecoming, especially a saint.  But holiness, this is honourable, and stamps dignity on the person that hath it.  It is not only the nobility of the creature, but the honour of the most high God himself.  So runs his title of honour, ‘Who is like thee, glorious in holiness?’ Ex. 15:11, so that none can mock that, but, upon the same account, he must mock God infinitely more, because there is infinitely more of that holiness which he jeers at in the crea­ture, to be found in God, than all the creatures, men and angels in both worlds, have among them.  If you would contrive a way how to cast the greatest dis­honour upon God possible, you could not hit upon the like to this.  The Romans, when they would put contempt upon any, and degrade them of their nobil­ity, commanded that those, their statues and por­traitures, which were set up in the city or temples to their memory, should all be broken down.  Every saint is a lively image of God, and the more holy, the more like God; when thou therefore puttest scorn on them, and that for their holiness, now thou touchest God’s honour nearly indeed.  Will nothing less con­tent thee but thou must deface that image of his, which he hath erected, with so much cost, in his saints, on purpose that they might be a praise to him in the earth?  Was it such horrible wickedness in those heathens to ‘cast fire into the sanctuary,’ and to ‘break down the carved work thereof,....with axes and hammers,’ Ps. 74:6, 7, of which the church makes her moan, ‘O God, how long shall the adversary re­proach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?’ ver. 10.  What then is thy devilish malice, whose rage is spent, not on wood and stones, but on the carved work of his Spirit—the grace and holiness of his living temples?

Use for reproof of several sorts of persons 3/4

1. What was the ground of the quarrel.  It was this.  His brother ‘was born after the Spirit,’ and this, he, being ‘born after the flesh,’ hated.
2. Observe how the Spirit of God phraseth this his scorn­ful carriage to his brother—it is called perse­cuting him.  To aggravate the evil of a scornful spirit, and a mocking tongue, which stands for so little a sin in the world’s account-book—who count none perse­cutors but those that draw blood for religion—God would have the jeerer and scoffer know among what sort of men he shall be ranked and tried at Christ’s bar—no less sinners than persecutors.  But this I con­ceive is not all.  This mocking of holiness is called persecuting, because there is the seed of bloody perse­cutions in it.  They who are so free of their tongue to jeer, and show their teeth in fleering at holiness, would fasten their teeth also on it, if they had power to use their cheek-bone.
3. Observe this was not barely the cross disposi­tion of Ishmael’s personal, peevish, and froward tem­per, so to abuse his brother, but it is laid as the charge of all wicked men.  As he did persecute his brother, because born after the Spirit, ‘even so it is now.’  This mocking spirit runs in the blood.  The whole litter are alike, and if any seem more ingenuous and favourable to the holy ones of God, we must fetch the reason from some other head than their sinful natures.  God rides some of them with a curb bit, who, though they open not their hearts to Christ savingly, yet truth is got so far into them by a powerful conviction, that it makes conscience say to them concerning their holy neighbours, what Pilate’s wife by message said to her husband of Christ, Matt. 27:19, ‘Have thou nothing to do with these just men, for I have suffered much con­cerning them.’  But though there were ever mockers of holiness among the saints, because there were ever wicked to be their neighbours, yet the Spirit of God prophesieth of a sort of mockers to come upon the stage in the last days, that should differ from the ordinary scoffers that the people of God have been exercised with.  And still the last is the worst.  You know those who mock and jeer at holiness used to be men and women that pretended nothing to religion themselves—such as walk in an open defiance to God, and wallow in all manner of wickedness—but the Spirit of God tells us of a new gang that shall mock at holiness under a colour of holiness.  They shall be as horribly wicked, some of them, as the worst of the former sort were, but wicked in a mys­tery.  ‘But, beloved, remem­ber ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts,’ Jude 17, 18.  But mark! lest we should expect them at the wrong door, and so mis­take, thinking they should arise as formerly from among the common swearers, drunkards, and other notorious sinners among us, he in the next words gives you as clear a character of them as if they carried their name on their forehead, ‘these be they who sep­arate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit,’ ver. 19.

Learned Master Perkins reads these words thus, ‘These be sect-makers, fleshly,’ not having the Spirit. Sect-makers! those that separate themselves!  Do not our hearts tremble to see the mockers arrows shot out at this window?  These are they who pretend more to purity of worship than others, and profess they separ­ate on account of their conscience, because they can­not suffer themselves so much as touch them that are unclean by joining with them in holy ordinances. And they mockers? they fleshly?  Truly, if the Spirit of God had not told us this, we should have gone last into their tent, as Laban did into Rachel’s, as least suspecting that any mocker of holiness could stay there.  Yea, God forbid that we should lay it in gen­eral as the charge of all who have separated from communion in the public, many of whom, my con­science tells me, are lovers of holiness, and led, though out of their way, by the tenderness of their consciences, which, when God hath better enlight­ened, will bring them as fast back to their brethren, as now it carrieth them from them.  And truly I think it might give a great lift to the making of them think of a return, if they would but, in their sad and serious thoughts, consider how far many of those who went from us with them, are gone—even to mock at the holiness of those from whom once they parted, be­cause they were not holy enough for their company (God the searcher of hearts knows that I speak this with a sad heart), so that were they to come and join with us again in some ordinances, such scandal hath been given by them, that they who durst not join with us, ought not, as they are, to be admitted by us.  How many of those have you heard of, that began with a separation from our assemblies, who mock at Sab­baths, cast off family duties, indeed all prayer in se­cret by themselves, yea, drink in those cursed opin­ions that make them speak scornfully of Christ the Son of God himself, and the great truths of the gos­pel, which are the foundation of all true holiness, so that now, none are so great an object of their scorn as those who walk most close to the holy rule of the gospel.

Use for reproof of several sorts of persons 2/4

  

        

 O friends! be serious.  If you will trade for holi­ness, let it be for ‘true holiness,’ as it is phrased, ‘Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,’ Eph. 4:24.  Two phrases are here observable.  Holiness is called the ‘new man after God,’ that is, according to the likeness of God—such a sculpture on the soul or image as is drawn after God, as the picture after the face of a man.  Again, ‘true holiness,’ or holiness of truth, either respecting the word, which is the rule of holi­ness, and then it means a Scripture holiness, not pharisaical and traditional; or else it respects the heart, which is the seat of truth or falsehood.  True holiness in this sense is holiness and righteousness in the heart. 

There must be truth of holiness in the inner parts.  Many a man’s beauty of holiness is but like the beauty of his body, skin deep, all on the outside.  Rip the most beautiful body, and that which was so fair without will be found within, when opened, to have little besides blood, filth, and stench; so this counterfeit holiness, when unbowelled and inside exposed to view, will appear to have hid within it nothing but abundance of spiritual impurities and abominations.  ‘God,’ said Paul to the high priest, ‘shall smite thee, thou whited wall,’ Acts 23:3.  Thus say I to thee, O hypocrite! God shall also smite thee, thou whited wall, or rather painted sepulchre, that thy paint without in thy profession doth not now more dazzle the eyes of others into admiration of thy sanc­tity, than thy rottenness within, which then shall ap­pear without, will make thee abhorred and loathed of all that see thee.

3. Those who are so far from being holy them­selves, that they mock and jeer others for being so. This breastplate of righteousness is of so base an ac­count with them, that they who wear it in their daily conversation do make themselves no less ridiculous to them than if they came forth in a fool's coat, or were clad in a dress contrived on purpose to move laughter.  When some wretches would set a saint most at naught, and represent him as an object of greatest scorn, what is the language he wraps him up in but ‘there goes a holy brother, one of the pure ones!’  His very holiness is that which he thinks to disgrace him with.  This shows a heart extremely wicked.  There is a further degree of wickedness appears in mocking holiness in another, than har­bouring unholiness in a man’s own bosom.  That man hath a great antipathy indeed against a dish of meat who not only himself refuseth to eat of it, but cannot bear the sight of it on another’s trencher without vomiting.  O how desperately wicked is that man with whom the very scent and sight of holiness, at such a distance, works so strange an effect as to make him cast up the gall and bitterness of his spirit against it! The Spirit of God bestows the chair upon this sort of sinners, and sets them above all their brethren in iniquity, as most deserving the place.  ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful,’  Ps. 1:1.  The scorner here is set as chairman at the counsel-table of sinners.  Some read the word for scornful, ‘rhetorical mockers.’ There is indeed a devilish wit that some show in their mocks at holiness; they take a kind of pride in polish­ing those darts which they shoot against the saints.  The Septuagint read it ‘the chair of pestilent ones.’ Indeed, as the plague is the most mortal among dis­eases, so is the spirit of scorning among sins.  As few recover out of this sin as any whatever besides.  The Scripture speaks of this sort of sinners as almost free among the dead.  [There is] as little hope of doing them good for their souls, as of those for their bodies who cannot keep the physic administered to them, but presently cast it up before it hath any operation on them; and therefore we are even bid to save our physic, and not so much as bestow a reproof on them, lest we have it cast on our faces: ‘Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee,’ Prov. 9:8.  All we can do is write ‘Lord, have mercy on them,’ upon their door—I mean, rather pray for them than speak to them.

           There hath of old been this sort of mocking sin­ners min­gled amongst the godly.  A mocking Ishmael was in Abraham’s family, Gen. 21:9.  And observable it is, what interpretation the Spirit of God makes of his scornful car­riage towards his brother: ‘As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now,’ Gal. 4:29.  Pray, mark,

Use for reproof of several sorts of persons 1/4

 

Use Second.  The improvement of the preceding doctrine for reproof of several sorts of persons.

1. All those who content themselves with their unholy state wherein they are.  Such is the state of ev­ery one by nature.  These, alas! are so far from main­taining the power of holiness, that they are under the power of their lusts.  These give law to them, and cut out all their work for them, which they bestow all their time to make up.  And is not that a sad life, sirs, which is spent about such filthy, beastly work as sin and unrighteousness is?  Well may the ‘bond of ini­quity’ and ‘the gall of bitterness’ be joined together, Acts 8:23.  The apostle is thought to allude to Deut. 29:18, where all sin and unrighteousness is called ‘a root that beareth gall and wormwood.’  He that plants sin and unholiness, and then thinks to gather any other than bitter fruit for all his labour, pretends to a knowledge beyond God himself, who tells the natural fruit which grows from this root is ‘gall and worm­wood.’  Who would look for musk in a dog’s kennel?  That thou mayest sooner find there than any true sweetness and comfort in unholiness.  The devil may possibly for a time sophisticate, with his cookery and art, this bitter morsel, so that thou shalt not have the natural taste of it upon thy palate; but, as Abner said to Joab, ‘knowest thou not that it will be bitterness in the latter end?’ II Sam. 2:26.  In hell all the sugar will be melted wherein this bitter pill was wrapped.  Then, if not before, thou wilt have the true relish of that which goes down now so sweetly.  O how many are they now in hell cursing their feast and feast‑maker too!  Do you think it gives any ease to the damned to think what they had for their money?  I mean what pleasures, profits, and carnal enjoyments they once had on earth, for which they now pay those unspeak­able torments that are upon them, and shall continue for ever without any hope or help?  No, it increaseth their pain beyond all our conceit, that they should sell their precious souls so cheap, in a manner for a song, and lose heaven and blessedness, because they would not be holy, which now they learn too late, was itself —however once they thought otherwise—a great part of that blessedness, and now torments them to consider they put it from them under the notion of a burden and a bondage.  But alas! alas! how few thoughts do unholy wretches spend with themselves, in considering what is doing in another world!  They see sinners die daily in the prosecution of their lusts, but do not more think what is become of them—that they are in hell burning and roaring for their sin—than the fish in the river do think what is become of their fellows that were twitched up by their gills from them even now with the angler’s hook, and cast into the seething-pot or frying-pan alive.  No, as those silly creatures are ready still to nibble and bite at the same hook that struck their fellows, even so are men and women forward to catch at those baits still of sinful pleasures, and wages of unrighteousness, by which so many millions of souls before them have been hooked into hell and damnation.
2. Those who are as unholy as others, naked to God’s eye and Satan's malice, but to save their credit in the world, wear something like a breastplate—a counterfeit holiness, which does them this service for the present, that they are thought to be what they are not.  ‘Verily they have their reward,’ and a poor one it is.  For the Lord's sake consider what you do, and tremble at it.  You do the devil, God’s great enemy, double service, and God double disservice, just as he comes into the field and brings deceitful arms with him, he draws his prince’s expectation towards him as one that would do some exploit for him, but means nothing so, yea, he hinders some other that would be faithful to his prince in that place where he, a traitor, now stands.  Such a one may do his prince more mis­chief than many who cowardly stay at home, or rebelliously run over to the enemy's side, and tell him plainly what they mean to do.