Use or Application

           Use First.  To ministers.  Do ministers depend thus on God for utterance?  This speaks to you , my brethren in the Lord’s work.  Do nothing for which God may stop your mouths when you come into the pulpit.

1. Take heed of any sin smothering in your bosoms.  Canst thou believe God will assist thee in his work who canst lend thy hand to the devil’s? Mayest thou not rather fear he should hang a padlock on thy lips, and strike thee dumb, when thou goest about thy work?  You remember the story of Origen, how after his great fall he was silenced in the very pul­pit; for, at the reading of that, ‘What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?’ Ps. 50:16, the conscience of his sin would not suffer him to speak.  O it is sad when the preacher meets his own sin in his subject, and pronounceth sentence against himself while he reads his text!  If thou wouldst have God assist thee, be zealous and repent.  When the trumpet is washed, then the Holy Spirit, thou mayest hope, will again breathe through it.
2. Beware thou comest not in the confidence of thy own preparation.  God hath declared himself against this kind of pride: ‘By strength shall no man prevail,’ I Sam. 2:9.  A little bread with God’s blessing may make a meal for multitude, and great provision may soon shrink to nothing if God help not in the breaking of it.  It is not thy sermon in thy head, or notes in thy book, will enable thee to preach except God open thy mouth.  Acknowledge therefore God in all thy ways, and ‘lean not to thy own understanding.’  The swelling of the heart as well as of the wall goes before a fall.  Did the Ephraimites take it so ill that Gideon would steal a victory without calling them to his help?  How much more may it provoke God, when thou goest to the pulpit, and passest by his door in the way without calling for his assistance?

           Use Second. To the people.  Take heed you do not stop your ministers’ mouths.  This you may do,

1. By admiring their gifts and applauding their persons; especially when this is accompanied with un­thankfulness to God that gives them; when you ap­plaud the man, but do not bless God for him.  Princes have an evil eye upon those subjects that are over-popular.  God will not let his creatures stand in his light, nor have his honour suffer by the reputation of his instrument.  The mother likes not to see the child taken with the nurse more than with herself.  O how foolish are we, who cannot love, but we must dote; not honour, what we adore also!  He that would keep his posey fresh and sweet, must smell and lay it down again—not hold it too long in his hand, or breathe too much upon it; this is the way soon to welter it. To overdo is the ready way to undo.  Many fair mercies are thus overlaid and pressed to death by the excess of a fond affection; or when it is accompanied with detracting of others—the abilities of one are cried up to cry down the another.  ‘I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos.’  Thus the disciples of either advanced their preacher to hold up a faction.
2. You may provoke God to withdraw his assis­tance by expecting the benefit from man and not from God; as if it were nothing but to take up your cloak and Bible, and you are sure to get good by such a one’s ministry.  This is like them in James, that say, ‘We will go into such a city, and get gain;’ as if it were no more to hear with profit than to go to the tap and draw wine or beer in your own cellar!  It is just thou shouldst find the vessel frozen—the minister, I mean, straitened, and his abilities bound up—because thou comest to him as unto a God who is but a poor instrument.  O say not to him, Give me grace, give me comfort, as Rachel asked children of her husband; but go to thy God for these in thy attendance on man.
3. You may provoke God to withdraw his assis­tance by rebelling against the light of truth that shines forth upon you in his ministry.  God sometimes stops the minister’s mouth because the people shut their hearts.  Why should the cock run to have the water spilt upon the ground?  Christ himself did ‘not many mighty works’—‘he could not,’ saith Mark—in his own country, ‘because of their unbelief.’  Dei justitia non permittebat, ut sanctum canibus daretur, saith Brugensis upon the place—it is just God should take away the ministry, or stop the minister’s mouth, when they despise his counsel, and the word becomes a reproach to them.  I am sure it is a sad dump to the minister's spirit, that preacheth long to a gainsaying people, and no good omen to them.  The mother’s milk goes away sometimes before the child's death. God binds up the spirit of his messengers in judg­ment: ‘I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house,’ Eze. 3:26.

Use or Application

           Use First.  It reproves those into whose hearts it never yet came to beg prayers for their own souls. Surely they are great strangers to themselves, and ig­norant what a privilege they lose!  As Christ said to the woman of Samaria, If thou hadst known the gift of God, and who it is that asks, thou wouldst have asked, and he would have given.  Did poor souls know who the saints are—what favourites with God, and how prevalent their prayers are with him—they would not willingly be left out of their remembrance. I never knew any but, as soon as God began to work upon them—though it were no more than to awaken their consciences—thought this worth the desiring.  It is natural for man in straits to crave help.  A servant or a child, when master or father are displeased and blows are threatened, if they know any that have interest in their favour, and are more likely to prevail with them than others, then they entreat such to be­come suitors for them.  When hunger and want pinch the poor, then, if they have any neighbour to be their friend, to speak to the parish for them, he shall soon hear of them.  Now, were the sense of their wants or troubles of a higher nature, would they not be as earn­est to desire prayers for their souls as now they are to beg bread for their bodies?  Well, you that fear God, and live among such, do your duty, though they have not hearts to desire it at your hands, pray over their stupid souls before the Lord.  When a friend is sick, and his senses are gone, you do not stay to send for the physician till he comes to himself and is able to desire you to do it for him.  You had need make the more haste to God for such as these, lest they go away in this apoplexy of conscience, and so be past praying for.

           Use Second. It reproves those who desire prayers of God’s people, but hypocritically; and they are such as set others on work, but pray not for them­selves—a certain sign of a naughty heart.  Thus pharaoh often called for Moses to pray for him and his land; but we read not that ever he made any ad­dress himself to God, but thought it enough to send another on his errand; whereas a gracious soul will be sure to meet him he employs at the work.  ‘I beseech you,’ saith Paul, ‘to strive together with me’ in your prayers to God for me.  He did not slip the collar off his own neck to put it on another’s, but drew together with them in it; else they that pray for thee may pray the mercy away from thee.

           Use Third.  It reproves such as desire prayers of others, but it is only in some great pinch.  If their chariot is set fast in some deep slough of affliction, then they send in all haste for some to draw them out with their prayer, who, at another time, change their thoughts of the saints’ prayers, yea, and of God him­self.  The frogs once gone, and Moses hears no more of Pharaoh till another plague rubs up his memory. Moses hears not Pharaoh cry till Pharaoh hears the frogs croak.  Thus, as they say of coral, it is soft in the water where it grows, and hard when taken out; many, their consciences are soft and tender whilst sleeping in affliction, but hard and stout when that is removed. Pharaoh that so oft called Moses up to prayer, at last could not endure the sight of him, but forewarned him for ever coming in his sight.  O take heed of this! When once the wretch came to that pass, and so strangely changed his note as to drive Moses from him, that had so often bailed and rescued him out of the hands of divine vengeance, then he had not long to live, for he removed the very dam, and lift up the sluice to let in ruin upon himself.

           Use Fourth.  It reproves such as desire others to pray for them, but vaingloriously—to gain a reputa­tion for religion.  Beware of this; yet charge not all for the hypocrisy of some, neither deprive thyself of the benefit of others' prayers out of an imaginary fear lest thou shouldst play the hypocrite therein. Watch thy heart, but waive not the duty.  Because some have strangled themselves with their own garters, wilt thou therefore be afraid to wear thine?  Or because some canting beggars go about the country to show their sores, which they desire not to have cured, wilt not thou therefore, when wounded, go to the chirurgeon?

Use or Application 1/2

           Use First.  Must we pray above all for saints? Woe then to those who, instead of praying for them, had rather with those, Isa. 59:15, make ‘a prey’ of them; that, instead of praying for them, can curse them, and drink to their confusion.  Haply it is not under the plain name of saints, but as wrapped up in the bearskin of fanatic, puritan, or some other name of scorn, invented to cover their malice, so they can devour and tear them in pieces.  The saints are a sort of people that none love but those that are themselves such.  It is a good gloss of Jerome, estote sancti, ut oratis pro sanctis—be saints, and then you will pray for saints.  The righteous is an abomination to the wicked: it is a sect everywhere spoken against.  The feud began at first between Abel and Cain, and so spread over the whole world; one generation takes up the cudgel against them, as another lays it down. Hamilcar bequeathed his hatred against the Romans to his son Hannibal when he died.  So is the feud transmitted by the wicked from one generation to an­other against the saints.  Nothing can quench their wrath or take up the quarrel;—no moral perfections, which, were they in others, would be thought lovely. Let the saint be never so wise, meek, affable, and bountiful, yet this, that he is a Christian, is a ‘but’ that will blot all in the wicked world's thoughts. Bonus vir Cajus Sejus, sed malus tantum quod Christianus, was the language in Tertullian’s age —Cajus Sejus had been a good man if he had not had that without which he could not be good.  No near relation can wear off their spite.  Michal cannot bite in her scornful spirit, but jeers her husband to his face for his zeal before the Lord.

           In a word, no benefit which accrues to the wicked by the saints’ neighbourhood—and that is not a little—can make them lay down their hatred.  They are the only bail which God takes to keep a nation, when under his arrest, out of prison.  They are the cause of blessings to the families, towns, and king­doms they live in; yet the butt at which their enven­omed arrows are levelled against.  The whole city is against Lot; not a man among them to take his part, so true and constant are the wicked to their own side. Tertullian tells us of some heathen husbands that liked their wives, though loose and wanton, and lived with them, when such, before they were converted to Christianity, but when once they had embraced the faith, and thereby were made chaste, they put them away; fathers that could bear undutiful rebellious car­riages in their children, when once converted  and these amended, they turned them out of doors.  Ut quisque hoc nomine emendatur, offendit—as any were reformed in their lives by turning Christian, so he became an offender.  It were will if this were only the heathens’ sin; but by woeful experience we find that the true Christian hath not more cruel enemies in the whole world than some be that are of his own name.  The sharpest persecutions of the church have been by those that were in the church.  O what a dreadful will such have to make in the great day, who profess the name of Christ, yet hate his nature in the saints!—who call Christ Lord, yet persecute his best servants and destroy his loyalest subjects!  These are the men that above all other shall feel the utmost of the Lord’s fiery wrath in the day when he shall plead his people’s cause and avenge himself on their adversaries.

           Use Second.  Be exhorted tot his duty of praying for saints; you cannot do that which God will take more kindly at your hands.  He himself puts this petition into our mouths: ‘Ask me of things to come concerning my sons,’ Isa. 45:11. Courtiers frame their petitions according to their prince’s liking.  They are careful not to ask that which he is unwilling to give; but when they perceive he favours a person or busi­ness, then they are ambitious to present the petition. Joab knew what he did in sending the woman of Te­koah to David, with a petition wrapped up in a hand­some parable for Absalom the king’s son.  He knew the king’s heart went strongly after him, and so the motion could not but be acceptable.  And is not the Lord’s heart gone after his saints?  Thy prayer for them, therefore, must needs come in a good time, when it shall find the heart of God set upon the very thing thou askest.  This was it that God was so pleased with in Daniel, ch. 9:22, 23. Now, in your prayers for the saints, among other things that you pray for them, forget not these:

1. Pray for their lives.  They are such a blessing when they live, that they seldom fall but the earth shakes under them.  It is commonly a prognostic of an approaching evil when God takes them away by death.  Jeroboam had but one son in whom some good was found; he must die, and then the ruin of his father’s family follows, I Kings 14:7.  When Augustine died, then Hippo falls into the enemy’s hands.  If the wise man be gone that preserved the city, no wonder if its end hastens. God makes way to let his judg­ments in upon the world by taking the saints out of the world.  When God chambers his children in the grave, a storm is at hand, Isa. 26.  It is, you see, of con­cernment to do our utmost to keep them among us, especially when their number is so few and thin al­ready, that we may say, as once the prophet con­cerning Israel, ‘I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape-gleanings of the vintage,’ Micah 7:1.  Did we indeed see them come up as thick in our young ones as they fall in the old, we might say a blessing is in them.  These would be as hope‑seeds at least for the next generation.  But when a wide breach is made and few to step into it, this is omi­nous.  At Moses’ death, Joshua stood up in his place, and it went well with Israel’s affairs.  But when Joshua died, and a generation rose up that had not seen the wonders God had done for his people, and so rebelled, then they to wrack apace, Judges 2:9, 10.

Use or Application - Spiritual Pride

           Use 1. [To those that have mean gifts.]  Doth Satan thus stir up saints to the spiritual pride of gifts? Here is a word to you that have mean gifts, yet truth of grace—be content with thy condition.  Perhaps when thou hearest others, how enlargedly they pray, how able to discourse of the truths of God, and the like, thou art ready to go into a corner, and mourn to think how weak thy memory, how dull thy apprehen­sion, how straitened thy spirit, hardly able, though in secret, to utter and express thy mind to God in prayer.  O thou art ready to think those the happy men and women, and almost [to] murmur at thy con­dition.  Well, canst thou not say, though I have no words, I hope I have faith?  I cannot dispute for the truth, but I am willing to suffer for it.  I cannot re­member a sermon, but I never hear a word but I hate sin and love Christ more than ever.  Lord, thou knowest I love thee.  Truly, Christian, thou hast the better part; thou little thinkest what a mercy may be wrapt up even in the meanness of thy gifts, or what temptations their gifts expose them to, which God, for aught I know, may in mercy deny thee.  Joseph’s coat made him finer than his brethren, but this caused all his trouble—this set the archers a shooting their arrows into his side.  Thus, great gifts lift a saint up a little higher in the eyes of men, but it occasions many temptations which thou meetest not with that art kept low.  What with envy from their brethren, malice from Satan, and pride in their own hearts, I dare say, none find so hard a work to go to heaven as such, [so] much ado to bear up against those waves and winds—while thou creepest along the shore under the wind to heaven.  It is with such as with some great lord of little estate—a meaner man oft hath money in his purse, when he hath none, and can lend his lordship some at a need.  Great gifts and parts are titles of honour among men, but many such may come and borrow grace and comfort of a mean-gifted brother, possibly, the preacher of his poor neighbour.  O, poor Christians, do not murmur or envy them, but rather pity and pray for them, they need it more than others.  His gifts are thine, thy grace is for thyself.  Thou art like a merchant that hath his factor [who] goes to sea, but he hath his adventure without hazard brought home.  Thou join­est with him in the prayer, hast the help of his gifts, but not the temptation of his pride.           

 Use 2. [To those that have great gifts.]  Doth Satan labour thus to draw to pride of gifts?  This speaks a word to you to whom God hath given more gifts than ordinary.  Beware of pride, that is now your snare.  Satan is at work; if possible he will turn your artillery against yourself.  Thy safety lies in thy humility; if this lock be cut, the legions of hell are on thee.  Remember whom thou wrestlest with—spir­itual wickednesses—and their play is to lift up, that they may give the sorer fall.  Now the more to stir up thy heart against it, I shall add some soul-humbling considerations on this pride of gifts.

1. Consideration.  These spiritual gifts are not thine own; and wilt thou be proud of another’s bounty?  Is not God the founder, and can he not soon be the confounder of thy gifts?  Thou that art proud of thy gourd, what wilt thou be when it is gone?  Surely then thou wilt be peevish and angry, and truly thou takest the course to be stripped of them.  Gifts come on other terms than grace.  God gives grace as a freehold—it hath the promise of this and another world; but gifts come on liking.  Though a father will not cast off his child, yet he may take away his fine coat and ornaments, if proud of them.
2. Consideration.  Gifts are not merely for thyself.  As the light of the sun is ministerial—it shines not for itself—so all thy gifts are for others —gifts for the edifying of the body.  Suppose a man should leave a chest of money in your hands to be distributed to others, what folly is it in this man to put this into his own inventory, and applaud himself that he hath so much money?  Poor soul, thou art but God’s executor, and by that time thou hast paid all the legacies, thou wilt see little left for thee to brag and boast of.
3. Consideration.  Know, Christian, thou shalt be accountable for these talents.  Now, with what face can a proud soul look on God?  Suppose one left an executor to pay legacies, and this man should pay them, not as legacies of another, but [as] gifts of his own.  Christ at his ascension gave gifts that his chil­dren should receive.  Thou hast some in thy hand. Now a proud soul gives out all, not as the legacy of Christ, but as his own; he assumes all to himself.  O how abominable is this, to entitle ourselves to Christ’s honour!
4. Consideration.  Thy gifts commend thee not to God.  Man may be taken with thy expression and notion in prayer; but these are all pared off when thy prayer comes before God.  ‘O woman,’ saith Christ, ‘great is thy faith!’ not, compt and flourishing thy language.  It were good after our duties to sort the ingredients of which they are made up—what grace contributed, and what gifts, and what pride—and when all the heterogeneal stuff is severed, you shall see in what a little compass the actings of grace in our duties will lie.
5. Consideration.  Consider while thou art prid­ing in thy gifts, thou art dwindling and withering in thy grace.  Such are like corn that runs up much into straw, whose ear commonly is but light and thin. Grace is too much neglected where gifts are too highly prized; we are commanded to be clothed with humil­ity.  Our garments cover the shame of our bodies, humility the beauty of the soul.  And as a tender body cannot live without clothes, so neither can grace with­out this clothing of humility.  It kills the spirit of praise; when thou shouldst bless God, thou art ap­plauding thyself.  It destroys Christian love, and stabs our fellowship with the saints to the heart; a proud man hath not room enough to walk in company, be­cause the gifts of others he thinks stand in his way. Pride so distempers the palate, that it can relish nothing that is drawn from another’s vessel.
6. Consideration.  It is the forerunner of some great sin, or some great affliction.  God will not suffer such a weed as pride to grow in his garden without taking some course or other to root it up; may be he will let thee fall into some great sin, and that shall bring thee home with shame.  God useth sometimes a thorn in the flesh, to prick the bladder of pride in the spirit; or at least some great affliction, the very end whereof is to ‘hide pride from man,’ Job 33:17,19. As you do with your hot mettled horses—ride them over ploughed lands to tame them, and then you can sit safely on their back.  If God’s honour be in danger through thy pride, then expect a rod, and most likely the affliction shall be in that which shall be most grievous to thee, in the thing thou art proud of. Hezekiah boasted of his treasure.  God sends the Chaldeans to plunder him.  Jonah [is] fond of his gourd, and that is smitten.  And if thy spirit be blown up with pride of gifts, thou art in danger of having them blasted, at least in the opinion of others whose breath of applause, possibly, was a means to overset thy unballasted spirit.

Use or Application

           [A word of exhortation to all.] The application of this shall be only in a word of exhortation to all; especially you who bear the name of Christ by a more eminent profession of him.  O beware of this soul-infection, this leprosy of the head.  I hope you do not think it needless, for it is the disease of the times. This plague is begun, yea, spreads apace.  [There is] not a flock, [not] a congregation hardly, that hath not this scab among them.  Paul was a preacher the best of us all may write after, and he presseth this home upon the saints, yea, in the constant course of his preaching  it made a piece of his sermon.  He sets us preacher also upon this work; ‘Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock;—for I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves enter;—also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things,’ Acts 20:28-30; therefore watch.  And then he presents his own example, that he hardly made a sermon for several years, but this was part of it, to warn every one night and day with tears.  We need not prophesy what impostors may come upon the stage when we go off.  There are too many at present above-board of this gang drawing disciples after them.  And if it be our duty to warn you of them, surely it is yours to watch, lest you by any of them be led into temptation in this hour thereof, wherein Satan is let loose in so great a measure to deceive the nation.  May you not as easily be soured with this leaven, as the disciples whom Christ bids beware?  Are you privileged above those famous churches of Galatia and Corinth, many of which were bewitched with false teachers, and in a manner turned to another gospel?  Is Satan grown orthodox, or have his instruments lost their cunning, who hunt for souls?  In a word, is there not a sym­pathy between thy corrupt heart and error?  Hast thou not a disposition, which, like the fomes of the earth, makes it natural for these weeds to grow in thy soil?  Seest thou not many prostrated by this enemy, who sat upon the mountain of their faith, and thought it should never have been removed?  Surely they would have taken it ill to have been told, ‘you are the men and women that will decry Sabbaths, which now ye count holy; you will turn Pelagians, who now defy the name; you will despise prophecy itself, who now seem so much to honour the proph­ets; you will throw family duties out of doors, who dare not now go out of doors till you have prayed there.’  Yet these, and more than these, are come to pass; and doth it not behove thee, Christian, to take heed lest thou fallest also?  And that thou mayest not,

1. Exhortation.  Make it thy chief care to get a thorough change of thy heart.  If once the root of the matter be in thee, and thou beest bottomed by a lively faith on Christ, thou art then safe, I do not say wholly free from all error; but this I am sure, free from engulfing thy soul in damning error.  ‘They went out from us,’ saith St. John, ‘but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us,’ I John 2:19.  As if he had said, They had some outward profes­sion, and common work of the Spirit with us, which they have either lost or carried over to the devil’s quarters, but they never had the unction of the sanctifying Spirit.  By this, ver. 20, he distinguisheth them, and comforts the sincere ones, who possibly might fear their own fall by their departure: ‘But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.’  It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by unction.  An hypocrite may do the former, the saint only the latter. It is this unction which gives the soul the savour of the knowledge of Christ; those are the fit prey for impostors, who are enlightened, but not enlivened. O, it is good to have the heart established with grace! This, as an anchor, will keep us from being set adrift, and carried about with divers and strange doctrines, as the apostle teacheth us, Heb. 13:9.
2. Exhortation.  Ply the work of mortification.  Crucify the flesh daily.  Heresy, though a spiritual sin, [is] yet by the apostle reckoned among the deeds of the flesh, Gal. 5:20, because it is occasioned by fleshly motives, and nourished by carnal food and fleshly fuel.  Never [have] any turned heretic, but flesh was at the bottom; either they served their belly or a lust of pride—it was the way to court, or secured their estates and saved their lives, as sometimes the reward of truth is fire and fagot.  Some pad or other is in the straw when least seen; and therefore it is no wonder that heresies should end in the flesh, which in a manner sprang from it.  The rheum in the head as­cends in fumes from the stomach, and returns thither, or unto the lungs, which at last fret and ulcerate. Carnal affections first send up their fumes to the un­derstanding, clouding that, yea, bribing it to receive such and such principles for truths; which [when] embraced, fall down into the life, corrupting that with the ulcer of profaneness.  So that, Christian, if once thou canst take off thy engagements to the flesh, and become a free man, so as not to give thy vote to gratify thy carnal fears or hopes, thou wilt then be a sure friend to truth.
3. Exhortation.  Wait conscionably on the minis­try of the word.  Satan commonly stops the ear from hearing sound doctrine, before he opens it to embrace corrupt.  This is the method of souls [in] apostatizing from truth: ‘They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables,’ II Tim. 4:3,4. Satan, like a cunning thief, draws the soul out of the road into some lane or corner, and there robs him of the truth.  By rejecting of one ordinance, we deprive ourselves of the blessing of all others.  Say not that thou prayest to be led into truth; God will not hear thy prayer if thou turnest thine ear from hearing the law.  He that loves his child, when he sees him play the truant, will whip him to school.  If God loves a soul, he will bring him back to the word with shame and sorrow.
4. Exhortation.  When thou hearest any unusual doctrine, though never so pleasing, make not up the match hastily with it.  Have some better testimony of it, before you open your heart to it.  The apostle indeed bids us entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unawares Heb. 13:2; but he would not have us carried about with strange doctrine, ver. 9, [though] by this I am sure some have entertained devils.  I confess, it is not enough to reject a doctrine, because strange to us, but ground we have, to wait and inquire.  Paul marvelled that the Galatians were so soon removed from him, who had called them unto the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.  They might sure have stayed till they had acquainted Paul with it, and asked his judgement.  What, no sooner an impostor come into the country, and open his pack, but buy all his ware at first sight!  O friends, were it not more wisdom to pray such new notions over and over again, to search the Word, and our hearts by it, yea, not to trust our own hearts, but [to] call in counsel from others?  If your minister have not such credit with you, get the most holy, humble, and established Christians you can find.  Error is like fish, which must be eaten new or it will stink.  When those dangerous errors sprung up first in New Eng­land, O how unsettled were the churches! what an outcry was made, as if some mine of gold had been discovered!  But in a while, when those error came to their complexion, and it was perceived whither they were bound—to destroy churches, ordinances, and power of godliness—then such as feared God, who had stepped aside, returned back with shame and sorrow.