Why We Are To Be Always Ready For Trials—REASONS FROM THE EXCELLENCY OF SUCH A SPIRIT 1/3

Second. There are reasons why Christians should always be prepared for trials, taken from the excellency of the frame of spirit which such a holy readiness would import.

           First. This readiness of heart to stoop to the cross evidenceth a gracious heart.  And a gracious spirit, I am sure, is an excellent spirit.  Flesh and blood never made any willing to suffer either for God or from God.  He that can do this, hath that ‘other spirit’ with Caleb, which proves him of a higher des­cent than this world, Num. 14:24. A carnal heart can neither act nor suffer freely; voluntas libera, in quan­tum liberata—the will is no more free than it is made free by grace (Luther).  So much flesh as is left in a saint, so much awkness and unwillingness to come to God's foot; and therefore where there is nothing but flesh, there can be nothing but unwillingness.  He that can find his heart following God in his command or providence cheerfully, may know who hath been there (as one said of the famous Grecian limner). This is a line that none but God could draw on thy soul.  The midwives said of the Israelitish women, they were not like the Egyptian in bringing forth their children, for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives could come in unto them, Ex. 1:19.  Truly thus lively and ready is the gracious heart in anything it is called to do or suffer.  It is not delivered with so much difficulty of a duty as a carnal heart, which must have the help and midwifery of some carnal arguments, or else it sticks in the birth.  But the gra­cious heart has done before these come to lend their helping hand.  Pure love to God, obedience to the call of his command, and faith on the security of his promise, facilitate the work, so that, be it never so burdensome to the flesh, yet it is not grievous to their spirit.  It is ever ready to say, ‘Thy will be done, and not mine.’  The apostle makes this free submission to the disclosure to the disposure of God’s afflicting hand to evidence a son's spirit, ‘If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons,’ Heb. 12:7. Ob­serve, he doth not say, ‘If you be chastened,’ but, ‘If ye endure chastening.’  Naked suffering doth not prove sonship, but ÛB@µ,<,4< B"4*,\"< doth—to endure it so as not to sink in our courage, or shrink from under the burden God lays on, but readily to offer our shoulder to it, and patiently carry it, looking with a cheerful eye at the reward when we come—not to throw it off, but to have it taken off by that hand which laid it on, all which the word imports.  This shows a childlike spirit.  And the evidence thereof must needs be a comfortable companion to the soul, especially at such a time, when that sophister of hell useth the afflictions which lie upon it as an argument to disprove its child's relation to God.  Now—to have this answer to stop the liar's mouth at hand—Satan, if I be not a child, how could I so readily submit to the Lord's family discipline?  This is no small mercy.

           Second. This frame of spirit makes him a free man that hath it.  Now no mean price useth to be set upon the head of liberty.  The very birds had rather be abroad in the woods with liberty—though lean with cold and care —to pick up here and there a little livelihood, than in a golden cage with all their attendance.  Now truly there is a bondage which few are sensible of, and that is a bondage to the creature —when a man is so enslaved to his enjoyments and low contentments here on earth, that they give law to him that should give law to them, and measure out his joy to him (what he shall have), little or much, as he abounds with or is cut short of them.  Thus, some are slaves to their estates; it is said, ‘Their heart goes after their covetousness’—that is, as the servant after the master, who dares not be from his back.  Their money is the master, and hath the best keeping. Their heart waits on it, shall I say as a servant after his master? yea, as a dog at his master’s foot.  Others are as great slaves to their honours, so poor-spirited that they cannot enjoy themselves if they have not the cap and knee of all they meet.  Such a slave was Haman, the great favourite of his prince.  Who but he at court?  At the expense of a few words he could get the king’s ring to seal a bloody decree for the massacring of so many thousands of innocent persons, against all sense and reason of state, merely to fulfill his lust. Had not this man honour enough put upon him to content his ambitious spirit?  No, there is a poor Jew at the king’s gate will not make a leg to him as he goes by, and so roils his proud stomach, that he has no joy of all his other greatness, ‘Yet all this availeth me nothing,’ saith the poor-spirited wretch, ‘so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate,’ Est. 5:13.

WHY We Are to Be Always Ready For Trial —REASONS IN REGARD OF CHRIST 3/3

           (2.) In the consolations he gives them then (in exceedings) above other of their brethren, that are not called out to such hard service.  That part of an army which is upon action in the field is sure to have their pay—if their masters have any money in their purse or care of them—yea, sometimes, when their fellows left in their quarters are made to stay.  I am sure, there is more gold and silver—spiritual joy I mean, and comfort—to be found in Christ’s camp, among his suffering ones, than their brethren at home, in peace and prosperity, ordinarily can show.  What are the promises, but vessels of cordial wine, tunned on purpose against a groaning hour, when God usually broacheth them?  ‘Call upon me (saith God) in the day of trouble,’ Ps. 50:15.  And may we not do so in the day of peace? yes, but he would have us most bold with him in a ‘day of trouble.’  None find such quick despatch at the throne of grace as suffering saints.  ‘In the day when I cried (saith David), thou answeredst me, and gavest me strength in my soul,’ Ps. 138:3.  He was now at a strait, and God comes in haste to him. Though we may make a well friend stay, that sends for us, yet we will give a sick friend leave to call us up at midnight.  In such extremities we usually go with the messenger that comes for us, and so doth God with the prayer.  Peter knocks at their gate, who were assembled to seek God for him, almost as soon as their prayer knocked at heaven-gate in his behalf. And truly it is no more than needs, if we consider the temptations of an afflicted condition.  We are prone then to be suspicious our best friends forget us, and to think every stay a delay and neglect of us.  Therefore God chooseth to show himself most kind at such a time: ‘As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ,’ II Cor. 1:5. As man laid on trouble, so Christ laid on consolation. Both tides rose and fell together.  When it was spring-tide with him in affliction, it was so with him in his joy.  We relieve the poor as their charge increaseth; so Christ comforts his people as their troubles multiply. And now, Christian, tell me, doth not thy dear Lord deserve a ready spirit in thee to meet any suffering with, for, or from him, who gives his sweetest comforts when his people use to expect their saddest sor­rows?  Well may the servant do his work cheerfully, when his master is so careful of him as with his own hands to bring him his breakfast into the fields.  The Christian stays not till he come to heaven for all his comfort.  There indeed shall be the full supper; but there is a breakfast, Christian, of previous joys, more or less, which Christ brings to thee in the field, and shall be eaten on the place where thou endurest thy hardship.

           (3.) In seasonable succours which Christ sends to bring them off safe.  He doth not only comfort them in, but helps them out of, all their troubles. There is ever a door more than the Christian sees in his prison, by which Christ can, with a turn of his hand, open a way for his saint's escape.  And what can we desire more?  All is well that ends well.  And what better security can we desire for this than the promise of the great God, with whom to lie is impossible? And I hope the credit which God hath in his people’s hearts is not so low, but a bill under his hand will be accepted at first sight by them in exchange of what is dearest to them—life itself not excepted.  Look to thyself when thou hast to do with others.  None so firm, but may crack under thee, if thou layest too much weight on them.  One would have thought so worthy a captain as Uriah was, might have trusted his general, yea his prince, and he so holy a man as David was.  But he was unworthily betrayed by them both into the hands of death.  Man may, the devil, to be sure, will, leave all in the lurch that do his work.  But if God sets thee on, he will bring thee off; never fear a ‘look thou to that’ from his lips, when thy faithfulness to him hath brought thee into the briers.  He that would work a wonder, rather than let a runaway prophet perish in his sinful voyage—because a good man in the main—will heap miracle upon miracle rather than thou shalt miscarry and sink in thy duty. Only, be not troubled, if thou beest cast overboard, like Jonah, before thou seest the provision which God makes for thy safety.  It is ever at hand, but sometimes lies close, and out of the creature’s sight, like Jonah’s whale—sent of God to ferry him to shore —underwater, and the prophet in its belly, before he knew where he was.  That, which thou thinkest comes to devour thee, may be the messenger that God sends to bring thee safe to land.  Is not thy shoe, Christian, yet on?  Art thou not yet ready to march?  Canst [thou] fear any stone can now hurt thy foot through so thick a sole?

WHY We Are to Be Always Ready For Trial —REASONS IN REGARD OF CHRIST 2/3

4. When the cross is on—what then? then the Christian must ‘follow Christ.’He is not [to] stand still and fret, but ‘follow;’ not be drawn and hauled after Christ, but [to] follow, as a soldier his captain, voluntarily.  Christ doth not, as some generals, drive the country before him, and make his servants fight whether they will or no; but he invites them in, ‘I will allure her...into the wilderness,’ Hosea 2:14.  Indeed a gracious heart follows Christ into the wilderness of af­fliction as willing as a lover his beloved into some sol­itary private arbour or bower, there to sit and enjoy his presence.  Christ useth arguments in his word, and by his Spirit, so satisfactory to the Christian, that he is very willing to follow him; as the patient, who at first, may be, shrinks and draws back, when the physi­cian talks of cutting or bleeding, but, when he hath heard the reasons given by him why that course must be taken, and is convinced it is the best way for his health, then he very freely puts forth his arm to the knife, and thanks the physician for his pains.

           Reason Second.  Christ deserves this frame of spirit at our hands.  Of many, take but two particulars, wherein this will appear.  1. If we consider his readiness to endure trouble and sorrow for us.  2. [If we consider] his tender care over us, when he calls us into a suffering condition.

1. Christ deserves this readiness to meet any suf­fering he lays out in his providence for us, if we con­sider his readiness to endure sorrow and trouble for us.When God called him to the work of mediator­ship, he found the way laid with sharper stones, I hope, than we do in the road that is appointed us to walk in.  He was to tread upon swords and spikes, all manner of sorrows—and those edged with the wrath of God; this was the sharpest stone of all, which he hath taken out of our way, and yet how light did he go upon the ground!  O had not his feet been well shod with love to our souls, he would soon have turned back, and said the way was unpassable; but he goes on and blinks not; never did we sin more willingly, than he went to suffer for our sin.  ‘Lo, I come,’ saith he to his Father, ‘I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart,’ Ps. 40:7, 8.  O what a full consent did the heart of Christ rebound to his Father’s call, like some echo that answers what is spo­ken twice or thrice over!  Thus, when his Father speaks to him to undertake the work of saving poor lost man, he doth not give a bare assent to the call, but trebles it; ‘I come...I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.’  He was so ready, that before his enemies laid hands on him, in the instituting of the Lord’s supper, and there did sacramentally rend the flesh of his own body, and broach his own heart to fill that cup with his precious blood, which with his own hand he gave them, that they might not look upon his death now at hand as a mere butchery from the hand of man’s violence, but rather as a sacrifice, wherein he did freely offer up himself to God for them and all believers.  And when the time was come that the sad tragedy should be acted, he, knowing the very place whither the traitor with his black guard would come, goes out, and mar­cheth into the very mouth of them.  O what a shame were it, that we should be unwilling to go a mile or two of rugged way to bear so sweet a Saviour company in his sufferings!  ‘Could ye not watch with me one hour?’ said Christ to Peter, Matt. 26:40—not with me, who am now going to meet with death itself, and ready to bid the bitterest pangs of it welcome for your sakes? not with me?
2. Christ deserves this readiness to meet any suf­fering he lays out in his providence for us, if we con­sider his tender care over his saints, when he calls them into a suffering condition.Kind masters may well expect cheerful servants.  The more tender the captain is over his soldiers, the more prodigal they are of their own lives at his command.  And it were strange, if Christ’s care, which deserves more, should meet with less ingenuity in a saint.  Now Christ’s care appears,

           (1.) In proportioning the burden to the back he lays it on.  That which overloads one ship, and would hazard to sink her, is but just ballast for another of a greater burden.  Those sufferings which one Christian cannot bear, another sails trim and even under.  The weaker shoulder is sure to have the lighter carriage.  As Paul burdened some churches, which he knew more able, to spare others; so Christ, to ease the weaker Christian, lays more weight on the stronger. ‘Paul laboured more abundantly than them all,’ he tells us, I Cor. 15:10.  But why did Christ so unequally divide the work?  Observe the place, and shall find that it was but necessary to employ that abundant grace he had given him.  ‘His grace,’ saith he, ‘which was bestowed on me, was not in vain; but I laboured more,’ &c.  There was so much grace poured into him, that some of it would have been in vain, if God had not found him more to do and suffer than the rest.  Christ hath a perfect rate by him of every saint’s spiritual estate, and according to this all are assessed, and so none are oppressed.  The rich in grace can as easily pay his pound, as the poor his penny.  Paul laid down his head on the block for the cause of Christ as freely as some—and those true, but weak Christians —would have done a few pounds out of their purse. He endured death with less trouble than some could have done reproach for Christ.  All have not a martyr’s faith, nor all the martyr’s fire.  This forlorn con­sists of a few files picked out of the whole army of the saints.

WHY We Are to Be Always Ready For Trial —REASONS IN REGARD OF CHRIST 1/3

  First. There are reasons taken from Christ, for or from whom we suffer, why we are to be always pre­pared for trials.

           Reason First.  Christ commands this frame of spirit.  Indeed, this frame of spirit is implied in every duty as the modus agendi—that qualification which, like the stamp on coin, makes it current in God’s account.  ‘Put them in mind,’ saith the apostle, ‘to be ready to every good work,’ Titus 3:1; be it active or pas­sive, they must be ready for it, or else all they do is to no purpose.  The word there is the same with this in the text, and is taken from a vessel that is fashioned and fitted for the use the master puts it to.  We do not like, when we are to use, or to mend and scour, a vessel, cup, or pot, to have them out of the way at the time we call for them; but to find them at hand, on the shelf, clean and fit for present use, or our servants shall hear of it.  Thus God expects we should keep our hearts clean from the defilements of sin, and our affections whole and entire for himself—that they be not lent out to the creature, nor broken and battered by any inordinacy of delight in them, lest we should be to seek when he calls us to do or suffer, or be found very unprepared, without much ado to set us to right, and make us willing for the work, as the same apostle, ‘If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,’ II Tim. 2:21.  Now, as God commands this readi­ness in all, so especially in suffering-work: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me,’ Luke 9:23. These words may be called the Christian's indenture. Every one that will be Christ’s servant must seal to this before he hath leave from Christ to call him Mas­ter; wherein you see the chief provision Christ makes is about suffering-work, as that which will most try the man.  If the servant can but fadge with that, no fear but he will like the other part of his work well enough.  Now, I pray observe how careful Christ is to engage the heart in this work; he will have his serv­ants not only endure the hardship of his service, but show their readiness in it also.  Four remarkable pas­sages are put in for this purpose.

1. The Christian ‘must deny himself’—that is, deliver up his own will out of his own hands; and, from that day that he enters into Christ’s service, ac­knowledge himself not to be sui juris—at his own dis­posal.  Whatever Christ bears, he cannot{,} to hear his servants, when sent by him on any business, say, ‘I will not.’
2. Christ tells his people the worst at first, and chooseth to speak of the cross they must bear, rather than[of] the crown they shall at last wear; and withal, that he expects they should not only ‘bear’ it—this the wicked do full sore against their wills—but also ‘take it up.’  Indeed he doth not bid them make the cross, run themselves into trouble of their own head, but he will have them take that up which he makes for them—that is, not step out of the way by any sinful shift to escape any trouble, but to accept of the burden God lays for them, and go cheerfully under it, yea thankfully, as if God did us a favour to employ us in any suffering for him.  We do not take so much pains as to stoop to take up that which is not worth something.  Christ will have his people take up the cross as one does to take up a pearl that lies on the ground before him.
3. This they must do every day—‘take up his cross daily.’When there is none on his back, he must carry one in his heart, that is, continually be preparing himself to stand ready for the first call, as porters stand at the merchants’ doors in London, waiting for when their masters have any burden for them to carry.  Thus Paul professeth he ‘died daily.’  How, but by a readiness of mind to die?  He set himself in a posture to bid God’s messenger welcome, whenever it came.  This indeed is to ‘take up the cross daily,’ when our present enjoyments do not make us strange to, or fall out with, the thoughts of future trials.  The Jews were to eat the passover with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand, and in all haste, Ex. 12:11.  When God is feasting the Christian with present comforts, he must have this gospel shoe on, he must not set to it as if he were feasting at home, but as at a running meal on his way in an inn, willing to be gone as soon as he is refreshed a little for his journey.

The Saints' Duty to Be ALWAYS PREPARED FOR TRIALS

  It is our duty, as Christians, to be always prepared and ready to meet with any trial, and endure any hardship, which God may lay out for us in our Christian warfare.  Saints are sure to want no trials and sufferings.  ‘These,’ as Christ saith of the poor, ‘we shall have always with us.’  The bloody sweat which Christ felt signified, saith Augustine, the suffer­ings which in his whole mystical body he should en­dure.  Christ’s whole body was lift upon the cross, and no member must now look to escape the cross.  And, when the cross comes, how must we behave ourselves towards it?  It will not speak us Christians, that we are merely passive, and make no notorious resistance against the will of God; but we must be active in our patience, if I may so speak, by showing a holy readiness and alacrity of spirit to be at God's ordering, though it were to be led down into the very chambers of death itself.  That epitaph would not become a Christian's gravestone, which I have heard was engraved upon one’s tomb, and might too truly on most that die: ‘Here lies one against his will.’  Holy Paul was of a better mind, ‘I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus,’ Acts 21:13.  But, may be, this was but a flourish of his colours, when he knew the enemy to be far enough off; he may yet live to change his thoughts, when he comes to look death in the face.  No, what he hath said he stands to: ‘I am now ready to be offer­ed, and the time of my departure is at hand,’ FBX<­*@µ"4, II Tim. 4:6.  

He speaks of it as if it were already done.  Indeed he had already laid his head on the block, and was dead before the stroke was given, not with fear (as some have been), but with a free resignation of himself to it; and, if a malefactor be civiliter mortuus—dead in a law sense, as soon as the sentence is out of the judge’s mouth, though he lives some weeks after, then I am sure in a gospel sense we may say those are dead already that are ready to die, that have freely put themselves under the sentence of it in their own willingness.  And this alacrity and ser­enity that was on Paul’s spirit was the more remarkable if we consider how close he stood to his end.  In­deed, some from the word FBX<*@µ"4—which prop­erly signifieth a libation or drink offering—conceive that Paul knew the very kind of death which he should suffer, namely, beheading; and that he alludes to the pouring out of the blood or wine, used in sacri­fice, as that kind of sacrifice which did best illustrate the nature of his death, viz. the pouring out of his blood, which he did as willingly offer up in the service of Christ and his church as they did pour out their wine in a drink-offering to the Lord.  We shall now give some rational account of the point why we are to be ready and prompt at suffering-work.  The reasons of the point shall fall under two heads.  First. [Those] taken from Christ, for or from whom we suf­fer.  Second. Those taken from the excellency of such a temper as this readiness to endure any hardship imports.

What is meant by the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace 2/2

Question Second.—But why is it called ‘the preparation of the gospel of peace?’

Because the gospel of peace is the great instrument by which God works the will and heart of man into this readiness and preparation to do or suffer what he calls to.  It is the business we are set about, when preaching the gospel, to make ‘a willing people,’ Ps. 110—‘to make ready a people prepared for the Lord,’ Luke 1:17.  As a captain is sent to beat up his drum in a city, to call in a company that will voluntarily list themselves to follow the prince’s wars, and be in a readiness to take the field and march at an hour’s warning,—thus the gospel comes to call over the hearts of men to the foot of God, to stand ready for his service, whatever it costs them.  Now this it doth, as it is a ‘gospel of peace.’  It brings the joyful tidings of peace concluded betwixt God and man by the blood of Jesus.  And this is so welcome to the trembling conscience of poor sinners, who before melted away their sorrowful days in ‘a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation from the Lord to devour them as his adversaries; that no sooner [is] the report of a peace concluded betwixt God and them, sounded in their ears by the preaching of the gospel, and certainly confirmed to be true in their own consciences by the Spirit—who is sent from heaven to seal it to them, and give them some sweet gust [taste] of it, by shedding abroad the sense of it in their souls—but instantly there appears a new life in them; to the effect that they, who before were so fearful and shy of every petty trouble as to start and boggle at the thought of it—knowing it could bring no good news to them—are now, ‘shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace,’ able to go out smilingly to meet the greatest sufferings that are, or can be, on the way towards them, and say undauntedly to them, as once Christ did to those that came with swords and staves to attack him, ‘Whom seek ye?’  ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God,’ saith the apostle, Rom. 5:1.  And this, how mightily doth it work! even to make them 'glory in tribulations.’  The words opened afford these two points or doctrines.  first. It is our duty to be always prepared and ready to meet with any trial, and endure any hardship, which God may lay out for us in our Christian warfare.  second. The peace which the gospel brings and speaks to the heart, will make the creature ready to wade through any trial or trouble that meets him in his Christian course.

What is meant by the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace 1/2

‘Shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace’  (Eph. 6:15).

           Let us now ask what is meant by this ‘preparation of the gospel of peace’ with which the Christian’s feet are to be ‘shod?’ or thus, What grace doth this ‘preparation,’ with which we are to be ‘shod,’ signify? and, Why called ‘the preparation of the gospel of peace.’

           Question First—What is meant by this prepara­tion of the gospel of peace?

           As for the grace held forth by this ‘preparation of the gospel of peace,’ I find great variety in the apprehensions of the learned, and indeed variety rather than contrariety.  I shall therefore spare the mentioning them—many of which you may find in a bunch collected by the Rev. Dr. Gouge upon the place, with his thoughts upon them—and crave the boldness to lay down with due respect to others, the apprehensions I have had thereon, which I conceive, will rather amplify than thwart their sense.  Now what this ©J@4µ"F\"—or preparation,is, will best appear by considering the part it is designed for—and that is ‘the foot,’ the only member in the body to be shod—and the piece of armour it is compared to, and that is the sol­dier’s shoe, which (if right) is to be of the strongest make, being not so much intended for finery as defence. So necessary is this piece of armour indeed, that, for want of it alone, the soldier in some cases is disabled for service, as when he is called to march far on hard ways, and those, may be, strewed with sharp stones. How long will he go, if not shod, without wounding or foundering?  Or, if the way be good, but the weather bad, and his feet not fenced from the wet and cold, they are not so far from the head but the cold, got in them, may strike up to that; yea [may] bring a disease on the whole body, which will keep him on his bed when he should be in the field.  As many almost are surfeited as slain in armies.  Now, what the foot is to the body, that the will is to the soul.  The foot carries the whole body, and the will the soul; yea, the whole man, body and soul also.  Voluntas est loco motiva facultas—we go whither our will sends us.  And what the shoe is to the foot, that ‘preparation,’ or, if you please, a readiness and alacrity, is to the will.  The man whose feet are well shod fears no ways, but goes through thick and thin, foul or fair, stones or straws; all are alike to him that is well shod; while the barefooted man, or slenderly shoed, shrinks when he feels the wet, and shrieks when he lights on a sharp stone.  Thus, when the will and heart of a man is prompt, and ready to do any work, the man is, as it were, shod and armed against all trouble and difficulty which he is to go over in the doing of it.  They say the Irish tread so light on the ground that they will run over some bogs wherein any other almost would stick or sink.  A prepared ready heart, I am sure, will do this in a spiritual sense.  None can walk where he can run.  He makes nothing of afflictions, yea persecutions, but goes singing over them.  David was never so merry as in the cave, Ps. 57.  And how came he so?  ‘My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared,’ saith he, 'I will sing and give praise,’ ver. 7.  If David’s heart had not been shod with this preparation, he would not have liked the way he was in so well.  You would have had him sing to another tune, and heard him quarrel with his destiny, or fall out with his profession, that had put him to so much trouble, and driven him from the pleasures of a prince’s court, to hide himself under ground in a cave from those that hunted for his precious life.  He would have spent his breath rather in pitying and be moaning himself than in praising of God.  An unprepared heart, that is not well satisfied with its work or condition, hangs back, and, though it may be brought to submit to it with much ado, yet it is but as a foundered horse on a stony way, which goes in pain every step, and would oft be turning out of the path, if bit and whip did not keep him in.

      

PEACE OF INDEMNITY AND SERVICE the blessing of the gospel

           

The fourth and last sort of peace which I thought to have spoken of, is a peace with all the creatures, even the most fierce and cruel.  I called it a peace of indemnity and service.  This, Adam, in his primitive state, enjoyed.  While he was innocent, all the creatures were innocent and harmless to him. The whole creation was at his service.  No mutinous prin­ciple was found in any creature that did incline it in the least to rebel against him.  When God sent the beasts of the field and fowls of the air to receive names from him, it was that they should do their homage to him and acknowledge him as their lord; and that he, by exercising that act of authority over them—in giving them names —might have an experiment of his perfect, though not absolute and indepen­dent, dominion over them.  But no sooner did man withdraw his allegiance from God; than all the crea­tures—as if they had been sensible of the wrong man by his apostasy had done his and their Maker, by whose patent he had held his lordship over them —presently forget their subjection to him, yea, take up arms in their supreme Lord’s quarrel against apos­tate man.  And thus they continue in array against him, till God and man meet together again in a happy covenant of peace; and then the commission, which God in wrath gave them against rebel man, is called in; and, in the same day that God and the believing soul are made friends, the war ends between him and them.  ‘In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven,’ Hosea 2:18.  And mark the day from whence this covenant bears date: ‘In that day,’ that is, in the day that ‘I betroth thee unto me.’ 

 So that our peace with the creatures comes in by our peace with God. And this being the blessing of the gospel, so must that also.  But as our peace with God is not so perfectly enjoyed in this life, but God hath left himself a liberty to chastise his reconciled ones, and that sharply too; so our peace with the creatures doth not hinder but that they may be, yea often are, the rod which God useth to correct them with.  The water may drown one saint, and the fire consume another to ashes, and yet these creatures at peace with these saints; because they are not sent by God in wrath against them, for any real hurt that God means them thereby.  This indeed was the commission he gave all the creatures against apos­tate man as part of his curse for his sin.  He sent the creatures against him—as a prince doth his general against a company of traitors in arms against him—with authority to take vengeance on them for their horrid rebellion against their Maker. But now the commission is altered, and runs in a more comfortable strain.  Go, fire, and be the chariot in which such a saint may be brought home from earth to me in heaven's glory. 

 Go, water, waft another; and so of all the rest.  Not a creature comes on a worse message to a saint.  It is true they are sharp corrections as to the present smart they bring; but they are ever mercies, and do a friendly office in the intention of God and happy issue to the believer.  ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,’ Rom. 8:28.  And the apostle speaks it as a common principle well known among the saints.  ‘We know that all things work,’ &c., as if he had said, ‘Where is the saint that doth not know this?’  And yet it were happy for us {if} we knew it better.  Some of us would then pass our days more comfortably than now we do.  But I intend not a discourse of this.  Let brevity here make amends for prolixity in the former. We come, however, to the third inquiry or question from these words propounded.

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 8/8

3. Argument.  O labour for peace and unity, for others’s sake, I mean those who at present are wicked and ungodly, among whom ye live.  We are not, saith Austin, to despair of the wicked, but do our utmost they may be made good and godly: quia numerus sanctorum, semper de numero impiorum auctus est —because God ever calls his number out of the heap and multitude of the ungodly world.  Now, no more winning means to work upon them, and pave a way for their conversion, than to commend the truths and ways of God to them, by the amiableness of your love and unity that profess the same.  This is the cumin-seed that would draw souls, like doves, to the window. This is the gold, to overlay the temple of God, the church, so as to make all in love with its beauty that look into it.  Every one is afraid to dwell in a house haunted with evil spirits; and hath hell a worse than the spirit of division?  O Christians, agree together and your number will increase.  It is said, ‘They, con­tinuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,’ Acts 2:46.  And mark what follows: ‘They had favour with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved,’ Acts 2:47.  The world was so great a stranger to love and peace, that it was amused, and set of considering what heavenly doctrine that was, which could so mollify men’s hearts, plane their rugged natures, and joint them so close in love togeth­er, and were the more easily persuaded to adopt themselves into the true family of love.  But alas, when this gold became dim—I mean, peace among Christians faded—then the gospel lost credit in the world, and the doctrine of it came under more suspicion in their thoughts, who, seeing such clefts gape in their walls, were more afraid to put their heads under its roof, ‘I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please,’ Song 2:7. Cotton, on the place, ‘by the roes and hinds of the field’—which are fearful creatures, easily scared away, yet otherwise willing to feed with the sheep—takes the Gentiles to be meant; inclinable to embrace the Jewish religion, but very soon scared away by the troublesome state of it, or any offensive carriage of the Jews.  And what more offensive carriage than divi­sions and strifes?  See them joined together, ‘Mark them which cause divisions and offences,’ Rom. 16:17. If divisions, then there are sure to be offences taken, and many possibly hardened in their sins thereby.  Do not your hearts tremble to lay the stumbling block for any to break his neck over? to roll the stone over any poor sinner's grave, and seal him down in it, that he never have a resurrection to grace here or glory here­after?  As you would keep yourselves free of the blood of those that die in their sins, O take heed of lending anything by your divisions to the hardening of their souls in their impenitency!

Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace 7/8

           (d) You do not only hazard the decay of grace, but growth of sin.  Indeed, it shows there is more than a little corruption got within doors already; but it opens the door to much more, ‘If ye have bitter envy­ing and strife in your hearts, glory not,’ James 3:14; that is do not think you are such good Christians.  This stains all your other excellencies.  Had ye the knowledge and gifts of the holy angels, yet this would make you look more like devils than them.  He gives the reason, ‘For where envying and strife is, there is con­fusion and every evil work,’ ver. 16.  Contention is the devil’s forge, in which if he can but give a Christian a heat or two, he will not doubt but to soften him for his hammer of temptation.  Moses himself when his spirit was a little hot ‘spake unadvisedly with his lips.’ It must needs be an occasion of much sinning, which renders it impossible for a man while in his distemper to do any one righteous action.  ‘For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,’ James 1:20. Now what a sad thing is it for Christians to stay long in that temper in which they can do no good to one another, but provoke lust?

           (e) They are prognostics of judgment coming.  A lowering sky speaks of foul weather at hand; and mar­iners look for a storm at sea, when the waves begin to swell and utter a murmuring noise.  Hath there been nothing like these among us?  What can we think but a judgment is breeding, by the lowering countenances of Christians, their swellings of heart, and discontented passions vented from their swollen spirits, like the murmuring of waters, or rumbling of thunder in the air before a tempest?  When children fight and wrangle, now is the time they may expect their father to come and part them with his rod.  ‘He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse,’ Mal. 4:6.  Strife and contention set a people next door to a curse.  God makes account he brings a heavy judgment upon a people when him­self leaves them.  If the master leaves the ship, it is near sinking indeed.  And truly no readier way to send him going, than by contentions.  These smoke him out of his own house.  ‘Be of one mind,’ saith the apostle, ‘and the God of love and peace shall be with you,’ II Cor. 13:11—implying, if they did not live in peace, they must not look to have his company long with them.  God was coming in Moses with a great salvation to the Israelites, and, as a handsel of the good services he was to do for them, he begins to make peace between two discontented brethren as they strove; but his kindness was not accepted, and this was the occasion of many years’ misery more that they endured in Egypt.  ‘Then fled Moses at this say­ing, and was a stranger in the land of Midian,’ Acts 7:29.  And there was no news of deliverance for the space of ‘forty years’ after, ver. 30.  And have not our dissensions, or rather our rejecting those overtures which God by men of healing spirits have offered for peace, been the cause why mercy hath fled so fast from us, and we left to groan under those sad miseries that are upon us at this day? and who knows how long?  O who can think what a glorious morning shone upon England in that famous Parliament be­gun 1640, and not weep and weep again to see our hopes for a glorious reformation, that opened with them, now shut up in blood and war, contention and confusion!—miseries too like the fire and brimstone that fell from heaven upon those unhappy cities of the plain.