The sin of ministers who stir up strife 1/2

           Use Second.  Is the gospel a gospel of peace in this sense as taken for unity and love?—this dips their sin into a deep die, who abuse the gospel to a quite contrary end, and make it their instrument to promote strife and contention withal.  Such the apos­tle speaks of, ‘Some indeed preach Christ even of en­vy and strife,’ Php. 1:15.  The gospel of peace is a strange text, one would think, to preach division and raise strife from; and the pulpit as strange a mount for to plant the battering pieces of contention on.  O how strangely do these men forget their Lord that sent them, who is a Prince of peace! and their work, which is not to blow a trumpet of sedition and confusion, or sound an alarm to battle, but rather a joyful retreat from the bloody fight wherein their lusts had engaged them against God and one another.  Indeed there is a war they are to proclaim, but it is only against sin and Satan; and I am sure we are not fit to march out against them till we can agree among our­selves.  What would the prince think of that captain who, instead of encouraging his soldiers to fall on with united forces as one man against a common ene­my, should make a speech to set his soldiers together by the ears among themselves? surely he would hang him up for a traitor.  Good was Luther’s prayer, A doctore glorioso, à pastore contentioso, et inutilibus quæstionibus liberet ecclesiam Deus—from a vainglorious doctor, a contentious pastor, and nice questions, the Lord deliver his church.  And we, in these sad times, have reason to say as hearty an amen to it as any since his age.  Do we not live in a time when the church is turned into a sophister’s school? where such a wrangling and jangling hath been that the most precious truths of the gospel are lost already to many. Their eyes are put out with the dust these contentions have raised, and they have at last fairly disputed themselves out of all their sober principles; as some ill husbands that light among cunning gamesters, and play all their money out of their purses.  O woe to such vile men, who have prostituted the gospel to such devilish ends!  God may have mercy on the cheated souls to bring them back to the love of the truth, but for the cheaters, they are gone too far towards hell that we can look for their return.

          This gives us the reason why there is no more peace and unity among the saints themselves.  The gospel cannot be faulted that breathes peace.  No! it is not because they are gospellers, but because they are but imperfectly gospelized, that they are no more peaceful.  the more they partake of the spirit of the gospel, the less will they be haunted with the evil spirit of contention and strife.  The best of saints are in part unevangelical in two particulars, from which come all the unkind quarrellings and unbrotherly contests among them.

USE AND APPLICATION. Difference between the peace among saints and that of the wicked

           Use First. What we have now learned of gospel peace as a peace of love and unity, helps us what to think of that peace and love which sometimes is to be found among the wicked of the world.  It is not true peace and solid love, because they are strangers to the gospel that alone can unite hearts together.  What then shall we call this their peace?  In some, it is a mere conspiracy.  ‘Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy,’ Isa. 8:12.  The peace of some is rather founded in wrath to the saints that in love among themselves. They are united—but how?—no other way than Sam­son’s foxes, to do mischief to others, rather than good to themselves.  Two dogs that are worrying one another, can leave off to run both after a hare that comes by them; who, when the chase is over, can to it as fiercely as before.  ‘In the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves,’ Luke 23:12. Again, the peace and unity of others is founded upon some base lust that ties them together.  Thus shall you see a knot of ‘good fellows,’ as they miscall themselves, set over the pot with abundance of seeming content in one another.  And a pack of thieves, when upon a wicked design, jug and call one another together, as partridges their fellows, saying, ‘Come with us; cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse,’ Prov. 1:14. Here now is peace and unity, but alas! they are only ‘brethren in iniquity.’  Thirdly, where it is not thus gross; as it cannot indeed be denied but there are some that never felt the power of the gospel so as to be made new creatures by it, who yet hold very fair quarter one with another, and correspond together; and that not on so base and sordid an account, among whom such offices of love are reciprocated as do much sweeten their lives and endear them one to another; and for this they are much beholden to the gospel, which doth civilize oft, where it doth not sanctify.  But this is a peace so fundamentally defective, that it doth not deserve the name of true peace.

1. The peace of the wicked is in cortice non in corde—superficial and external,not inward and cor­dial.  We may say, rather their lusts are chained from open war than their hearts are changed into inward love.  As the beasts agreed in the ark pretty well, yet kept their hostile nature, so do unregenerate men.
2. The peace of the wicked is unsanctified peace.

(1.) Because, while they seem to have peace with one another, they have not peace with God; and it is peace with God takes away the curse.  (2.) Because it proceeds from unsanctified hearts.  It is the altar that sanctifies the gift; the heart, the unity.  Amicitia non esti inter bonos—friendship exists only between the good.  A heathen could say this—that true love and friendship can only be between good men; but alas he knew not what made a good man.  When God intends in mercy to make the hearts of men ‘one,’ he first makes them ‘new,’ ‘and I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you,’ Eze. 11:19.  The peace of the right kind is a fruit of the Spirit, and that sanctifies before it unifies.  (3.) Be­cause the end that all such propound in their love is carnal, not spiritual.  As Austin did not admire Cicero for his eloquence and oratory so much as he did un­dervalue and pity him because the name of Jesus Christ was not to be found in him; so, this draws a black line upon carnal men’s peace and unity—noth­ing of God and Christ in it.  Is it his glory they aim at?  Christ’s command that binds them to the peace? No alas! here is the ‘still voice,’ but God is not in it. Their own quiet and carnal advantage is the primum mobile—prime motive.  Peace and unity are such good guests, and pay so well for their entertainment, that this makes their men who have no grace, if they have but their wits left, desirous but to keep up an external peace among  themselves.

3. The peace of the wicked is, in a word, a peace that will not long last,because it wants a strong ce­ment.  Stones may a while lie together without mor­tar, but not long.  The only lasting cement for love is the blood of Christ; as Austin sayeth of his friend Alypius and himself, they were sanguine Christi glutinati—cemented in their friendship by the blood of Christ.

How the gospel knits the hearts of men in peace, and why it alone can do so 2/2

2. The internal cause of all the hostility and feud that is to be found amongst men is lust that dwells in their own bosoms.This is the principle and root that bears all the bitter fruit of strife and contention in the world: ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?’ James. 4:1.  This breaks the peace with God, ourselves, and others.  If there be a fiery exhalation wrapped up in the cloud, we must look for thunder and lightning to follow; if lust in the heart, it will vent itself, though it rends peace of family, church, and kingdom.  Now, before there can be a foundation for a firm, solid peace, these unruly lusts of men must be taken to.  What peace and quiet can there be while pride, envy, ambition, malice, and such like lusts, continue to sit in throne and hurry men at their pleasure?  Neither will it be enough for the pro­curing peace, to restrain these unruly passions, and bind them up, forcibly.  If peace be not made between the hearts of men, it is worth nothing.  The chain that ties up the mad dog will in time wear; and so with all cords break, by which men seem at present so strong­ly bound together, if they be not tied by the heart-strings, and the grounds of the quarrel be there taken away.  Now the gospel, and only the gospel, can help us to a plaster, that can draw out of the heart the very core of contention and strife.  Hear the apostle telling us how himself and others his fellow-saints got cure of that malicious heart which once they were in bondage to.  ‘For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another,’ Titus 3:3.  Well, what was the physic that recovered them?  See ver. 4, 5, ‘But after that the kind­ness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.’  As if he had said, Had not this love of God to us in Christ appeared, and we been thus washed by his regenerating Spirit, we might have lain to this day under the power of those lusts, for all the help that any other could afford us.  Mortification is a work of the Spirit.  ‘If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live,’ Rom. 8:13.  And the gospel is the sacrificing knife in the hand of the Spirit.  The word is called ‘the sword of the Spirit,’ as that which he useth to kill and slay sin within the hearts of his people.

1. As the gospel lays the axe to the root of bit­terness and strife, to stub that up; so it fills the hearts of those that embrace it with such gracious principles as to incline to peace and unity.  Such are self-denial —that prefers another in honour before himself, and will not jostle for the wall; long-suffering—a grace which is not easily moved and provoked; gentleness —which, if moved by any wrong, keeps the doors open for peace to come in at again, and makes him easy to be entreated.  See a whole bundle of these sweet herbs growing in one bed, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness,’ Gal. 5:22.  Mark, I pray, this is not fruit that grows in every hedge, but ‘fruit of the Spirit’—fruit that springs from gospel seed.  As the stones in the quarry, and cedars as they grew in the wood, would never have lain close and comely together in the temple, so neither could the one cut and polish, nor the other hew and carve themselves into that fitness and beauty which they all had in that stately fabric.  No, that was the work of men gifted of God for that purpose.  Neither can men and women, with all their skill and tools of morality, square and frame their hearts so as to fall in lovingly into one holy temple.  This is the work of the Spirit, and that also with this instrument and chisel of the gospel, to do; partly by cutting off the knottiness of our churlish natures, by his mortifying grace; as also by carving, polishing, and smoothing them, with those graces which are the emanations of his own sweet, meek, and Holy Spirit.

How the gospel knits the hearts of men in peace, and why it alone can do so 1/2

           First.  The gospel knits the hearts of men togeth­er, as it propounds powerful arguments for peace and unity; and indeed such as are found nowhere else.  It hath cords of love to draw and bind souls together that were never weaved in nature’s loom: such as we may run through all the topics of morality, and meet with [in] none of them, being all supernatural and of divine revelation, Eph. 4:3.  The apostle exhorts them ‘to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’  And how doth he persuade them ver. 4-7.  First, ‘there is one body.’  Such a one however, it is, as natural philosophy treats not of; but a mystical one, the church—which consists of several saints, as the nat­ural body of several members; and, as it were strange to see one member to fall out with another—which all are preserved in life by their union together—so much more in the mystical body.  Again there is ‘one spirit.’  That is the same holy Spirit which quickens them all that are true saints, and he is to the whole number of saints as the soul is to the whole man —informing every part. 

Now, as it were a prodigious violence to the law of nature, if the members, by an intestine war among themselves, should drive the soul out of the body, which gives life to them in union together; so much more would it be for Christians to force the Holy Spirit from them by their contentions and strifes; as indeed a wider door cannot easily be opened for them to go out at.  Again, it presseth ‘uni­ty,’ from the ‘one hope of our calling,’ where hope is put pro re speratâ—for the thing hoped for, the bliss we all hope for in heaven.  There is a day coming, and it cannot be far from us, in which we shall meet lov­ingly in heaven, and sit at one feast without grudging one to see what lies on another's trencher.  Full frui­tion of God shall be the feast, and peace and love the sweet music that shall sound to it.  What folly is it then for us to fight here, who shall feast there? draw blood of one another here, that shall so quickly lie in each other’s bosom’s?  Now the gospel invites to this feast, and calls us to this hope.  I might run through the other particulars, which are all as purely evan­gelical—as these, ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism;’ but enough to have given you a taste.

           Second.  The gospel doth this, as it takes away the cause of that feud and enmity which is among the sons and daughters of men.  They are chiefly two —the curse of God on them, and their own lusts in them.

1. The feud and hostility that is among men and women is part of that curse which lies upon mankind for his apostasy from God.  We read how the ground was cursed for man’s sake, ‘thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,’ saith God, Gen. 3:18.  But a far greater curse it was, that one man should become as a thorn and briar, to fetch blood of another. Some have a fancy that the rose grew in paradise without prickles.  To be sure man, had he not sinned, should never have been such a pricking briar as now the best of them is.  These thorns that come up so thick in man’s dogged, quarrelsome nature, what do they speak but the efficacy of God’s curse?  The first man that was born in the world proved a murderer; and the first that died, went to his grave by that bloody murderer’s hand.  May we not wonder as much at the power of God’s curse on man’s nature, that appeared so soon in Cain’s malicious heart, as the disciples did at the sudden withering of the fig tree blasted by Christ’s curse?  And truly, it was but just with God to mingle a perverse spirit among them who had expressed so false a one to him.  They de­served to be confounded in their language, and suf­fered to bite and devour one another, who durst make an attempt upon God himself, by their disobedience. Very observable is that in Zech. 11:10, compared with ver. 14.  When once ‘the staff of beauty,’ ver. 10—which represented God’s covenant with the Jews —was asunder, then presently the ‘staff of bands’ —which signified the brotherhood between Judah and Jerusalem—was cut asunder, also.  When a people break covenant with God, they must not expect peace among themselves.  It is the wisdom of a prince, if he can, to find his enemy work at home.  As soon as man fell out with God, behold there is a fire of war kindled at his own door, in his own nature.  No more bitter enemy now to mankind than itself.  One man is a wolf, yea a devil, to another.  Now, before there can be any hope of true solid peace among men, this curse must be reversed; and the gospel, and only the gospel, can do that.  There an expedient is found how the quarrel betwixt God and the sinner may be rec­onciled; which done, the curse ceaseth.  A curse is a judiciary doom, whereby God in wrath condemns his rebel creature to something that is evil.  But there is ‘no condemnation’ to him that is in Christ.  The curse is gone.  No arrow now in the bow of threatening; that was shot into Christ’s heart, and can never enter into the believer’s.  God may whip his people, by some unbrotherly unkindness they receive from one another’s hands, by way of fatherly chastisement —and indeed it is as sharp a rod as he can use in his discipline—the more to make them sensible of their falling out with him.  But the curse is gone, and his people are under a promise of enjoying peace and unity; which they shall, when best for them, have performed to them.

THIRD KIND OF PEACE - Peace of love and unity the blessing of the gospel

           We come now to the third kind of peace, which I called a peace of love and unity.  A heavenly grace this is, whereby the minds and hearts of men, that even now jarred and rang backwards are made tunable each to other; so as to chime all in to an harmonious consent and concord among themselves.  Thus peace in Scripture is frequently taken, as you may see, Mark 9:50; Heb. 12:14; I Thes. 5:13.  Now the gospel is a ‘gospel of peace,’ if taken in this notion also, which we shall briefly speak to from this note.

The gospel alone can knit the hearts of men in solid peace

           The doctrine we lay down is, that the gospel, and only the gospel, can knit the hearts and minds of men together in a solid peace and love.  This, next the reconciling us to God and ourselves, is especially de­signed by Christ in the gospel; and truly those [blessings] without this, would not fill up the saint's happi­ness; except God should make a heaven for every Christian by himself to live in.  John Baptist’s ministry, which was as it were the preface to and brief con­tents of, the gospel, was divided into these two heads, ‘To turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,’ Luke 1:16, and ‘to turn the hearts of the fa­thers to the children,’ ver. 17; that is, to make them friends with God and one another.  This is the na­tural effect of the gospel, where it is powerfully and sincerely embraced—to unite and endear the hearts of men and women in love and peace together, how contrary soever they were before.  This is the strange metamorphosis, which the prophet speaks shall be under the gospel, ‘The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,’ Isa. 11:6. That is, men and women, between whom there was a great feud and enmity as betwixt those creatures, they shall yet sweetly agree, and lie in one another’s bos­oms peaceably.  And how all this, but by the efficacy of the gospel on their hearts?  So ‘for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,’ ver. 9.  Indeed it is in the dark when men fight, and draw upon one another in wrath and fury.  If gospel light comes once savingly in, the sword will soon be put up.  The sweet spirit of love will not suffer these doings where he dwells; and so peculiar is this blessing to the gospel, that Christ appoints it for the badge and cognizance by which not only they should know one another, but [by which] even strangers should be able to know them from any other sect and sort of men in the world, John 13:35.  ‘By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.’  A nobleman's servant is known as far as he can be seen, by the coat on his back, whose man he is; so, saith Christ, shall all men know you, by your mutual love, that you retain to me and my gospel.  If we would judge curiously of wine, [as to] what is its natural rel­ish, we must taste of it, before it comes into the huck­ster’s hands, or after it is refined from its lees.  So, the best way to judge of the gospel and the fruit it bears, is to taste of it, either when it is professed and embraced, with most simplicity—and that was without doubt in the first promulgation—or, secondly, when it shall have its full effect on the hearts of men, and that is in heaven.  In both these, though chiefly the last, this peace will appear to be the natural fruit of the gospel.

           First.  When the gospel was first preached and embraced, what a sweet harmony of peace and admir­able oneness of heart was then amongst the holy pro­fessors of it, who but a while before were strangers to or bitter enemies one against another!  They lived and loved, as if each Christian’s heart had forsaken his own, to creep into his brother’s bosom.  They al­ienated their estates to keep their love entire.  They could give their bread out of their own mouths to put it into their brethren’s that were hungry; yea, when their love to their fellow-Christians was most costly and heavy, it was least grudged and felt by them.  See those blessed souls, ‘They sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need; and they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their bread with gladness and singleness of heart,’ Acts 2:46.  More, they are more merry now they have been emptying of their bags by charity, than if they had come from filling them by worldly traffic.  So notorious was the love of Christians in the primi­tive times, that the very heathens would point at them, as Tertullian saith, and say, ‘See how they love one another.’  And therefore, if less love and peace be found now amongst Christians, the blame lies not on the gospel, but on them.  The gospel is as peaceful, but they are minùs evangelici—less evangelical, as we shall further show.

           Second.  Look on the gospel, as at last, in the complement of all in heaven, when the hearts of saints shall be thoroughly gospelized, and the promises concerning the peaceable state of saints have their full accomplishment—then above all this peace of the gospel will appear.  Here it puts out and in, like a budding flower in the spring; which one warm day opens a little, and another that is cold and sharp shuts it again.  The ‘silence’ in the lower heaven—the church on earth—is but for ‘the space of half an hour,’ Rev. 8:1.  Now there is a love and peace among Christians; anon, scandals are given, and differences arise, which drive this sweet spring back; but in heav­en it is full blown, and so continues to eternity. There dissenting brethren are made thorough friends, never to fall out.  There, not only the wound of contention is cured; but the scar which is here oft left upon the place, is not to be seen on the face of heaven’s peace, to disfigure the beauty of it, which made the German divine so long to be in heaven—where, said he, Lu­ther and Zuinglius are perfectly agreed, though they could not be agreed on earth.  But I come to give some particular account how the gospel knits the hearts and minds of men in peace together, and why the gospel alone can do this.  While I clear one, I shall the other also.

Four Characters Of Gospel Peace 5/5

           (a) They differ in their causes.  This darkness, which sometimes is upon the sincere Christian's spirit in deep distress, comes from the withdrawing of God’s lightsome countenance; but the horror of the other from his own guilty conscience, that before was lullabied asleep with prosperity, but now, being awak­ened by the hand of God on him, doth accuse him to have been false with God in the whole course of his profession.  It is true, some particular guilt may be contracted by the Christian through negligence or strong temptation in his Christian course, for which his conscience may accuse him, and may further em­bitter the present desertion he is in so far, as from those particular miscarriages to fear his sincerity in the rest, though he hath no reason to do it; but his conscience cannot charge him of an hypocritical de­sign, to have been the spring that hath set him on work through the whole course of his profession.

           (b) They differ in their accompaniments.  There is something concomitant with the Christian’s present darkness of spirit, that distinguisheth it from the hypocrite’s horror; and it is the lively working of grace, which then commonly is very visible when his peace and former comfort are most questioned by him.  The less joy he hath from any present sense of the love of God, the more abounding you shall find him in sorrow for his sin that clouded his joy.  The further Christ is gone out of his sight, the more he clings in his love to Christ, and vehemently cries after him in prayer, as we see in Heman, ‘Unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee,’ Ps. 88:13.  O the fervent prayers that then are shot from his troubled spirit to heaven, the pangs of affection which are springing after God, and his face and favour!  Never did banished child more desire admittance into his angry father's presence, than he to have the light of God’s countenance shine on him, which is now veiled from him.  O how he searcheth his heart, studies the Scripture, wrestles with God for to give him that grace, the non-evidence of which at present makes him so question the com­forts he hath formerly had!  Might he but have true grace, he will not fall out with God for want of comfort, though he stays for it till the other world.  Never did any woman big with child long more to have the child in her arms that is at present in her womb, than such a soul doth to have that grace which is in his heart—but through temptation questioned by him at present—evidenced to him in the truth of it. Whereas the hypocrite in the midst of all his horror doth not, cannot—till he hath a better heart put into his bosom —cordially love or desire grace and holiness for any intrinsic excellency in itself—only as an expedient for escaping the tormentor’s hand, which he sees he is now falling into.

           (c) They differ in the issue.  The Christian—he, like a star in the heavens, wades through the cloud that, for a time, hides his comfort; but the other, like a meteor in the air, blazeth a little, and then drops into some ditch or other, where it is quenched.  Or, as the Spirit of God distinguisheth them, ‘The light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp (or candle, as in the Hebrew) of the wicked shall be put out,’ Prov. 13:9. The sincere Christian’s joy and comfort is compared there to the light of the sun, that is climbing higher, while it is muffled up with clouds from our eye; and by and by, when it breaks out more gloriously, doth rejoice over those mists and clouds that seemed to ob­scure it; but the joy of the wicked, like a candle, wastes and spends—being fed with gross fuel of out­ward prosperity, which in a short time fails—and the wretches comfort goes out in a snuff at last, past all hope of being lighted again.  The Christian’s trouble of spirit again is compared to a swooning fainting fit, which he within a while recovers.  A qualm comes over the holy man’s heart from the thought of his sins in the day of his great distress.  ‘Innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me,’ Ps. 40:12; but, before the psalm is at an end, after a few deep groans in prayer, ver. 13, 14, he comes again to himself, and acts his faith strongly on God ‘yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer,’ ver. 17.  But the hypocrite’s confidence and hope, when once it begins to sink and falter, it dies and perisheth.  ‘The eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost,’ Job 11:20.

Four Characters Of Gospel Peace 4/5

           (1.) From the worldling’s.  His peace and comfort, poor wretch, runs dregs as soon as creature-enjoyments run a tilt—when poverty, disgrace, sick­ness, or anything else, crosseth him in that which he fondly doted on, then his night is come, and day shut up in dismal darkness.  In this respect it is, that Christ, as I conceive, opposeth his peace to the world’s.  ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,’ John 14:27.  Pray mark, Christ is laying in arguments of comfort for his disciples against his departure, which he knew would go so near their hearts.  One amongst the rest is taken from the difference of that peace and comfort which he leaves them, from what the world gives.  If he had said, If the peace and comfort you have from me lay in such things as the world’s peace is made up of—plenty, ease, outward prosperity, and carnal joy—truly then you had reason to be the great­est mourners at my funeral that ever followed friend to the grave; for after my departure you are like to have none of these; nay, rather expect trouble and persecution.  But know, the peace I have with you is not in your houses, but hearts; the comfort I give you lies not in silver and gold, but in pardon of sin, hopes of glory, and inward consolations, which the Comforter that is to come from me to dwell with you, shall, upon my appointment, pay into your bosoms; and this shall outlive all the world’s joy.  This is such a legacy as never any left their children.  Many a fa­ther dying, hath in a farewell speech to his children, wished them all peace and comfort when he should be dead and gone; but who besides Jesus Christ could send a comforter into their hearts, and thrust peace and comfort into their bosoms?  Again, it distinguish­eth the true Christian’s peace,

           (2.) From the hypocrite’s.  He, though he pretends to place his comfort, not in the creatures, but in God, and seems to take joy in the interest which he lays claim to have in Christ and the precious promises of the gospel; yet, when it comes indeed to the trial, that he sees all his creature-comforts gone, and not like to return anymore—which at this time had his heart, though he would not it should be thought so —and now he sees he must in earnest into another world, to stand or fall eternally, as he shall then be found in God’s own scrutiny to have been sincere or false-hearted in his pretensions to Christ and his grace; truly, then recoil his thoughts, his conscience flies in his face, and reproacheth him for spiritual cozenage and forgery.  Now, soul, speak, is it thus with thee? does thy peace go with thee just to the prison door, and there leave thee?  Art thou confident thy sins are pardoned all the while thou art in health and strength, but as soon as ever the sergeant knocks at the door to speak with thee—as soon as death, I mean, comes in sight—do thy thoughts then alter, and thy conscience tells thee he comes to prove thee a liar in thy pretended peace and joy?  This is a sad symptom.  I know indeed that the time of affliction is a trying time to grace; that is true.  The sincere Christian for a while may, like a valiant soldier, be beat from his artillery, and the enemy Satan may seem to possess his peace and confidence; yea, so far have some precious saints been carried down the stream of violent temptations, as to question whether their former comforts were from the Holy Spirit the Comforter, or the evil spirit the deceiver; yet their is great difference between the one and the other.

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3. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel peace in the conscience is strengthening and restorative.  It makes the Christian strong to fight against sin and Sa­tan.  The Christian is revived, and finds his strength come, upon a little tasting of this honey; but O what a slaughter doth he make of his spiritual enemies, when he hath a full meal of this honey, a deep draught of this wine! now he goes like a giant re­freshed with wine into the field against them.  No lust can stand before him.  It makes him strong to work. O how Paul laid about him for Christ!  He ‘laboured more abundantly than they all.’  The good man re­membered what a wretch he once was, and what mer­cy he had obtained; the sense of this love of God lay so glowing at his heart, that it infired him with a zeal for God above his fellow-apostles.  This made holy David pray so hard to drink again of this wine, which so long had been locked up from him.  ‘Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit; then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee,’ Ps. 51:12, 13. Pray mark, it was not his lickerish palate after the sweet taste of this wine of comfort that was the only or chief reason why he so longed for it; but the admirable virtue he knew in it, to inspirit and empower him with zeal for God.  Whereas the false peace and comfort of hypocrites is more heady than hearty; it leaves them as weak as they were before; yea, it lies rotting, like unwholesome food in the stomach, and leaves a surfeit in their souls—as lus­cious summer fruits do in the bodies of men—which soon breaks out in loose practices.  Thieves common­ly spend their money as ill as they get it; and so do hypocrites and formalists their stolen comforts.  Stay but a little, and you shall find them feasting some lust or other with them.  ‘I have peace-offerings with me,’ saith the religious whore—the hypo­critical harlot —‘this day I have paid my vows, therefore I came forth to meet thee,’ Prov 7:14, 15.  She pacifies her con­science and comforts herself with this religious service she performs; and now, having, as she thought, quit scores with God, she returns to her own lustful trade; yea, emboldens herself from this, in her wickedness.  ‘Therefore came I forth to meet thee,’ as if she durst not have played the whore with man till she had played the hypocrite with God, and stopped the mouth of her conscience with her peace-offering. Look, therefore, I beseech you, very carefully, what effect your peace and comfort have in your hearts and lives.  Are you the more humble or proud for your comfort? do you walk more closely or loosely after your peace? how stand you to duties of worship? are you made more ready for communion with God in them, or do you grow strange to and infrequent in them? have you more quickening in them, or lie more formal and lifeless under them?  In a word, can you show that grace and peace grow in thee alike? or doth the one less appear, since thou doest more pretend to the other?  By this thou mayest know whether thy peace comes from the peace-maker, or peace-marrer, from the God of truth or the father of lies.

4. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel peace com­forts the soul, and that strongly, when it hath no oth­er comfort to mingle with it.  It is a cordial rich enough itself, and needs not any other ingredient to be compounded with it.  David singles out God by himself.  ‘Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee,’ Ps. 73:25. Give David but his God, and let who will take all be­sides; let him alone to live comfortably, may he but have his love and favour.  Hence it is that the Chris­tian’s peace pays him in the greatest revenues of joy and comfort, when outward enjoyments contribute least, yea nothing at all, but bring in matter of trouble.  ‘But David encouraged himself in his God,’ I Sam. 30:6.  You know when that was.  If David’s peace had not been right and sound, he would have been more troubled to think of God at such a time than of all his other disasters.  ‘Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them,’ Ps. 119:165.  This distinguishes the saint’s peace, both from the worldling’s and the hypocrite’s

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2. Character of gospel peace.Gospel peace is obtained in a gospel way, and that is twofold.

           (1.) Gospel peace is given to the soul in a way of obedience and holy walking.  ‘As many as walk ac­cording to this rule, peace be on them, Gal. 6:16.  Now this rule you may see, to be the rule of the ‘new crea­ture,’ ver. 15.  And what is that, but the holy rule of the word? to which the principles of grace planted in the soul of a believer are so fitted, that there is not a more connatural agreement betwixt the eye and light, than betwixt the disposition of this new nature in a saint, and the rule of holiness in the word.  Now, it is not enough for one to be a new creature, and to have a principle of grace in his bosom, but he must actually walk by this rule, or else he will be to seek for true peace in his conscience.  No comfort in the saints is to be found, but what the Comforter brings.  And he who commands us to ‘withdraw from them’ (though our brethren) ‘that walk disorderly,’ II Thes. 3:6, will himself surely withdraw from such, and withhold his comforts, so long as they are disorderly walkers; which they are as long as they walk beside this rule. And therefore, if thou be such a one, say not the Spirit brought thy comfort to thy hand; for he would not bid thee good speed in an evil way.  No; he hath been withdrawn as a Comforter ever since thou hast withdrawn thy foot from walking by the holy rule.  All thy peace, which thou pretendest to have in this time, is base-born; and thou hast more cause to be ashamed of it, than to glory in it.  It is little credit to the wife, that she hath a child when her husband is abroad, and cannot father it; and as little to pretend to comfort, when the Spirit of Christ will not own it.

           (2.) Gospel peace is given in the soul in a way of duty, and close attendance on God in his ordinances. ‘Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means.’ II Thes. 3:16—that is, bless all means of comforting and filling your souls with inward peace, so that he who drives no trade in ordinances, and brags of his peace and comfort, speaks enough to bring the truth of it into suspicion in the thoughts of sober Christians.  I know God can by immediate illapses of his Spirit comfort the Christian, and save him the labour of hearing, praying, meditating; but where did he say he would?  Why may we not expect a harvest as well without sowing and ploughing, as peace without using the means?  If we were like Israel in the wilderness—in such a state and posture, where­in the means is cut from us, and not by pride or sloth put from us, as sometimes it is the Christian’s condition [when] he is sick, and knocked off from ordinances, or, by some other providence as pressing, shut out from the help of this means or that—then I should not wonder to see comfort lie as thick in his soul as manna about the Israelites’ tents; but as God would not rain bread any longer, when once they had corn, of which with their labour might make bread, Joshua 5:11, 12, so neither will the Lord comfort by a miracle, when the soul may have it in an ordinance. God could have taught the eunuch, and satisfied him with light from heaven, and never have sent for Philip to preach to him.  But he chooseth to do it out of Philip’s mouth, rather than immediately out of his own, no doubt to put honour on his ordinance.

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 Use Second.  Let this doctrine be as a touchstone to try the truth of your peace and comfort; hath it a gospel stamp upon it?  The devil hath his false mint of comfort as well as of grace; put thyself therefore to the trial, while I shall lay before you some characters of the peace that Christ in his gospel speaks to his people.

1. Character of gospel peace.  Gospel comfort may be known by the vessel it is poured into, which is a broken heart.  The promise is superscribed by name to such, and such only.  ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones,’ Isa. 57:15.  Christ’s commission from his Father binds him up; he can comfort none besides.  ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,’ Isa. 61:1.  And what he receives himself from the Father, the same he gives to those he sends upon the same errand.  First, he gives his Spirit, concerning whom he tells his disciples, that ‘the Comforter, when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment,’ John 16:8.  Mark, first of sin; and as for his inferior messengers, they have direction to whom they are to apply the comforts of the gospel.  ‘Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.  Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not,’ Isa. 35:3.  And upon their peril be it, if they pour this ointment upon the head of an unhumbled sinner; to give such any comfort, by promising life to him, as he is.  God protests against it; he calls it a lie, a ‘strengthening the hands of the wicked,’ and as much as in them lies, by blowing him up with a false comfort, to make sure that he shall never have the true peace.

           Thus you see the order of the gospel in comforting souls.  As in needle-work, the sad groundwork is laid before the beautiful colours; as the statuary cuts and carves his statue before he gilds it; so doth the Spirit of Christ beginning with sadness, ends in joy; first cuts and wounds, then heals and overlays the soul with comfort and peace.  I hope that you do not think I limit the Holy One in his workings to the same degree and measure in all.  I have opened my thoughts in another place concerning this.  But so far the convincing, humbling work of the Spirit goes in every soul before peace and comfort comes, as to empty the soul of all her false comforts and confidences which she had laid up; that the heart becomes like a vessel whose bottom is beat out, and all the water it held thereby split and let out.  The sins it loved, now it hates.  The hopes and comforts it pleased itself with, they are gone, and the creature left in desolate solitary condition.  No way now it sees, but perish it must, except Christ be her friend, and interpose betwixt hell and it.  To him she therefore makes her moan, as willing to follow his counsel, and to be ordered by his direction, as every patient was by his physician, of whose skill and care he is thoroughly satisfied.  This I call ‘the broken heart,’ which if you be wholly strangers to, your acquaintance is to begin with gospel peace.  I beseech you, rest not till you have an answer from your consciences.  What is it they say? was your wine once water? doth your light arise out of darkness? is your peace the issue of a soul-conflict and trouble? did you bleed before you were healed?  You may hope it is a kindly work of God’s gracious Spirit; make much of it, and bless thy God that hath given this wine to cheer thy sad heart. But if thou commencest per saltum—by a leap, hast thy wine, before thy pots were filled with water—[if] thy morning be come, before thou hast had thy even­ing—thy peace be settled, before thy false peace is broken—thy conscience sound and whole, before it is lanced, and the putrid stuff of thy pride, carnal con­fidence, and other sins thou hast lived in, be let out —[if so,] thou mayest have some ease for a while; but know it, the Lord Jesus denies it to be his cure.  The strong man’s house kept ‘in peace,’ Luke 11:21, as well as the good man’s.  It requires more power to work true sorrow, than false joy and peace.  A happier man thou wouldst be, if mourning in the distress of a troubled conscience, than dancing about this idol peace, which the devil, thy sworn enemy, mocks thee withal.