======================================================================== WRITINGS OF WILLIAM GURNALL by William Gurnall ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by William Gurnall, compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 01 - Volume 1 2. 01.01 - A Sweet and Powerful Encouragment to the War 3. 01.02 - Directions for Managing This War Succesfully 4. 01.03 - The Reason Why the Christian Must be Armed, "That Ye May Be Able to Stand' 5. 01.04 - The Nature of the War, and Character of the Assailants 6. 01.05 - The Assailants Described Positively 7. 01.06 - A Second Exhortation to Arm, and an Argument Urging the Exhortation 8. 01.07 - First Piece - The Christian's Spiritual Girdle 9. 01.08 - Sincerity Strengthens the Christian's Spirit 10. 01.09 - Second Piece - The Christian's Breastplate 11. 01.10 - Third Piece - The Christian's Spiritual Shoe 12. 02 - Volume 2 13. 02.01 - Fourth Piece - The Christian's Spiritual Shield 14. 02.02 - The Saint's Enemy Described 15. 02.03 - Fifth Piece - The Christian's Helmet 16. 02.04 - Sixth Piece - The Christian's Sword 17. 02.05 - The Necessary Duty of the Christian, as Clothed in the Whole Armour of God 18. 02.06 - How to Perform the Duty Commanded - A Directory for Prayer 19. 02.07 - The Inward Principle of Prayer 20. 02.08 - The Duty of Every Christian In Complete Armour to Aid by Prayer 21. S. A Basket of Fragments 22. S. Choice Gems 23. S. Prayer and Thanksgiving ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 01 - VOLUME 1 ======================================================================== The Christian In Complete Armour Volume One A Treatise of The Whole Armour of God Volume 1 1. A Sweet and Powerful Encouragement to the War 2. Directions for managing this War successfully, 3. The reason why the Christian must be armed, ‘That ye may be able to stand’ 4. The nature of the War, and character of the Assailants. 5. The Assailants described Positively 6. A Second Exhortation to Arm, and an Argument urging the Exhortation. 7. First Piece—The Christian’s Spiritual Girdle. 8. Sincerity strengthens the Christian’s Spirit. 9. Second Piece—The Christian’s Breastplate. 10. Third Piece—The Christian’s Spiritual Shoe. A treatise of The Whole Armour of God "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. "Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” — Ephesians 6:10-20. The Introduction Paul was now in bonds, yet not so close kept as to be denied pen and paper; God, it seems, gave him some favour in the sight of his enemies: Paul was Nero’s prisoner, but Nero was much more God’s. And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn. But how does this great apostle spend his time in prison? Not in publishing invectives against those, though the worst of men, who had laid him in; a piece of zeal which the holy sufferers of those times were little acquainted with: nor in politic counsels, how he might wind himself out of his trouble, by sordid flattery of, or sinful compliance with, the great ones of the times. Some would have used any picklock to have opened a passage to their liberty and not scrupled, so escape they might, whether they got out at the door or window. But this holy man was not so fond of liberty or life, as to purchase them at the least hazard to the gospel. He knew too much of another world, to bid so high for the enjoying of this; and therefore he is regardless what his enemies can do with him, well knowing he should go to heaven whether they would or no. No, the great care which lay upon him, was for the churches of Christ; as a faithful steward he labors to set the house of God in order before his departure. We read of no despatches sent to court to procure his liberty; but many to the churches, to help them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. There is no such way to be even with the devil and his instruments, for all their spite against us, as by doing what good we can wherever we be come. The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan’s prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth. Happy for Onesimus that Paul was sent to jail; God had an errand for Paul to do to him and others, which the devil never dreamed of. Nay he doth not only preach in prison, but that he may do the devil all the mischief he can, he sends his epistles to the churches, that tasting his spirit in his afflictions, and reading his faith, now ready to be offered up, they might much more be confirmed; amongst which Ephesus was not least in his thoughts, as you may perceive by his abode with them two years together, Acts 19:10; as also by his sending for the elders of this church as far as Miletus, in his last journey to Jerusalem, Acts 20:17, to take his farewell of them as never to see their faces in this world more. And surely the sad impression which that heart-breaking departure left on the spirits of these elders, yea, the whole church, by them acquainted with this mournful news, might stir up Paul, now in prison, to write unto this church, that having so much of his spirit, yea, of the spirit of the gospel, left in their hands to converse with, they might more patiently take the news of his death. In the former part of this epistle, he soars high in the mysteries of faith. In the latter, according to his usual method, he descends to application; where we find him contracting all those truths, as beams together, in a powerful exhortation, the more to enkindle their hearts, and powerfully persuade them to ’walk worthy of their vocation,’ Ephesians 4:1, which then is done, when the Christian’s life is so transparent that the grace of the gospel shines forth in the power of holiness on every side, and from all his relations, as a candle in a crystal glass, not in a dark lantern, lightsome one way and dark another: and therefore he runs over the several relations of husband, wife, parents, children, masters, and servants, and presseth the same in all these. Now having set every one in his proper place, about his particular duty; as a wise general after he has ranged his army, and drawn them forth into rank and file, he makes the following speech at the head of the Ephesian camp, all in martial phrase, as best suiting the Christian’s calling, which is a continued warfare with the world, and the prince of the world. The speech itself contains two parts. First, A short but sweet and powerful encouragement, Ephesians 6:10. Secondly, The other part is spent in several directions for their managing this war the more successfully, with some motives here and there sprinkled among them, Ephesians 6:11-20. We begin with the first. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.01 - A SWEET AND POWERFUL ENCOURAGMENT TO THE WAR ======================================================================== Part First A Sweet and Powerful Encouragement to the War "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.’ — Ephesians 6:10 The apostle begins his speech with the word of encouragement to battle: ’Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord;’ the best way indeed to prepare them for the following directions. A soul deeply possessed with fear, and dispirited with strong apprehensions of danger, is in no posture for counsel. As we see in any army when put to flight by some sudden alarm, or apprehension of danger, it is hard rallying them into order until the fright occasioned thereby is over; therefore the apostle first raiseth up their spirits, ’be strong in the Lord.’ As if he should say, Perhaps some drooping souls find their hearts fail them, while they see their enemies so strong, and they so weak; so numerous, and they so few; so well appointed, and they so naked and unarmed; so skilful and expert at arms, but they green and raw soldiers. Let not these or any other thoughts dismay you; but with undaunted courage march on, and be strong in the Lord, on whose per­formance lies the stress of battle, and not on your skill or strength. It is not the least of a minister’s care and skill in dividing the word, so to press the Christian’s duty, as not to oppress his spirit with the weight of it, by laying it on the creature’s own shoulders, and not on the Lord’s strength, as here our apostle teacheth us. In this verse (under four heads or branches), We have first, A familiar appellation, ’my brethren.’ second, An exhortation, ’be strong.’ third, A cautionary direction annexed to the exhortation, ’in the Lord.’ fourth, An encouraging amplification of the direction, ’and in the power of his might,’ or in his mighty power. BRANCHES FIRST AND SECOND. The appellation, ’my brethren.’— The exhortation, ’be strong.’ We have, Branch First, a familiar appellation, ’my brethren.’ This we shall waive, and begin with, Branch Second, the exhortation—’be strong;’ that is, be of good courage, so commonly used in scripture phrase: ’Be strong and courageous,’ 2 Chronicles 32:7; ’Say to them that are of a fearful heart, ’Be strong,’ Isaiah 35:4. Or, unite all the powers of your souls, and muster up your whole force, for you will have use for all you can make or get. From whence the point is this. [Christian courage and resolution —wherefore necessary.] Doctrine, The Christian of all men needs courage and resolution. Indeed there is nothing that he does as a Christian, or can do, but is an act of valour. A cowardly spirit is beneath the lowest duty of a Christian, ’be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest’—What? stand in battle against those warlike nations? No, but that thou mayest ’observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee,’ Joshua 1:7. It requires more prowess and greatness of spirit to obey God faithfully, than to command an army of men; to be a Christian than a captain. What seems less, than for a Christian to pray? yet this cannot be performed aright without a princely spirit: as Jacob is said to behave himself like a prince, when he did but pray; for which he came out of the field God’s banneret. Indeed if you call that prayer, which a carnal person performs, nothing is more poor and dastard-like. Such an one is as great a stranger to this enterprise, as the craven soldier to the exploits of a valiant chieftain. The Christian in prayer comes up close to God, with a humble boldness of faith, and takes hold of him, wrestles with him; yea, will not let him go with­out a blessing, and all this in the face of his own sins, and divine justice, which let fly upon him from the fiery mouth of the law; while the other’s boldness in prayer is but the child, either of ignorance in his mind, or hardness in his heart; whereby not feeling his sins, and not knowing his danger, he rushes upon duty with a blind confidence, which soon quails when conscience awakes, and gives him the alarm, that his sins are upon him, as the Philistines on Samson: alas, then in a fright the poor-spirited wretch throws down his weapon, flies the presence of God with guilty Adam, and dares not look him in the face. Indeed there is no duty in the Christian’s whole course of walking with God, or acting for God but is lined with many difficulties, which shoot like enemies through the hedges at him, while he is marching towards heaven: so that he is put to dispute every inch of ground as he goes. They are only a few noble-spirited souls, who dare take heaven by force, that are fit for this calling. For the further proof of this point, see some few pieces of service that every Christian engageth in. First.—The Christian is to proclaim and prosecute an irreconcilable war against his bosom sins; those sins which have lain nearest his heart, must now be trampled under his feet. So David, ’I have kept myself from my iniquity.’ Now what courage and resolution does this require? You think Abraham was tried to purpose, when called to take his ’son, his son Isaac, his only son whom he loved,’ Genesis 22:2, and offer him up with his own hands, and no other; yet what was that to this? Soul, take thy lust, thy only lust, which is the child of thy dearest love, thy Isaac, the sin which has caused the most joy and laughter, from which thou hast promised thyself the greatest return of pleasure or profit; as ever thou lookest to see my face with comfort, lay hands on it and offer it up: pour out the blood of it before me; run the sacrificing knife of mortification into the very heart of it; and this freely, joyfully, for it is no pleasing sacrifice that is offered with a countenance cast down —and all this now, before thou hast one embrace more from it. Truly this is a hard chapter, flesh and blood cannot bear this saying; our lust will not lie so patiently on the altar, as Isaac, or as a ’Lamb that is brought to the slaughter which was dumb,’ but will roar and shriek; yea, even shake and rend the heart with its hideous outcries. Who is able to express the conflicts, the wres­tlings, the convulsions of spirit the Christian feels, before he can bring his heart to this work? Or who can fully set forth the art, the rhetorical insinua­tions, with which such a lust will plead for itself? One while Satan will extenuate and mince the matter: It is but a little one, O spare it, and thy soul shall live for all that. Another while he flatters the soul with the secrecy of it: Thou mayest keep me and thy credit also; I will not be seen abroad in thy company to shame thee among thy neighbours; shut me up in the most retired room thou hast in thy heart, from the hearing of others, if thou wilt only let me now and then have the wanton embraces of thy thoughts and affections in secret. If that cannot be granted, then Satan will seem only to desire execution may be stayed awhile, as Jephthah’s daughter of her father: ’let me alone a month or two, and then do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth,’ Judges 11:36-37, well knowing few such reprieved lusts but at last obtain their full pardon; yea, recover their favour with the soul. Now what resolution doth it require to break through such violence and importunity, and notwithstanding all this to do present execution? Here the valiant swordsmen of the world have showed themselves mere cowards, who have come out of the field with victorious banners, and then lived, yea, died slaves to a base lust at home. As one could say of a great Roman captain who, as he rode in his triumphant chariot through Rome, had his eye never off a courtesan that walked along the street: Behold, how this goodly captain, that had conquered such potent armies, is himself conquered by one silly woman. Second.—The Christian is to walk singularly, not after the world’s guise, Romans 12:2. We are com­manded not to be conformed to this world, that is, not to accommodate ourselves to the corrupt customs of the world. The Christian must not be of such a complying nature as to cut the coat of his profession according to the fashion of the times, or the humor of the company he falls into; like that courtier, who being asked how he could keep his preferment in such changing times, which one while had a prince for Popery, another while against Popery, answered, he was e salice, non ex quercu ortus—he was not a stubborn oak, but bending osier, that could yield to the wind. No, the Christian must stand fixed to his principles, and not change his habit; but freely show what countryman he is by his holy constancy in the truth. Now what an odium, what snares, what dan­gers doth this singularity expose the Christian to? Some will hoot and mock him, as one in a Spanish fashion would be laughed at in your streets. Thus Michal flouted David. Indeed, the world counts the Christian for his singularity of life the only fool; which I have thought gave the first occasion to that nick-name, whereby men commonly express a silly man or a fool. Such a one, say they, is a mere Abraham; that is, in the world’s account, a fool. But why an Abraham? Because Abraham did that which car­nal reason, the world’s idol, laugh’s at as mere folly; he left a present estate in his father’s house to go he knew not whither, to receive an inheritance he knew not when. And truly such fools all the saints are branded for by the wise world. ’You know the man and his communication,’ said Jehu to his companions, asking what that mad fellow came for, who was no other than a prophet, 2 Kings 9:11. Now it requires courage to despise the shame which the Christian must expect to meet withal for his singularity. Shame is that which proud nature most disdains, to avoid which many durst not ’confess Christ openly,’ John 7:13. Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool’s coat thither. Again, as some will mock, so others will persecute to death, merely for this nonconformity in the Christian’s principles and prac­tices to them. This was the trap laid for the three children; they must dance before Nebuchadnezzar’s pipe, or burn. This was the plot laid to ensnare Daniel, who walked so unblameably, that his very enemies gave him this testimony, that he had no fault but his singularity in his religion, Daniel 6:5. It is a great honour to a Christian, yea, to religion itself, when all their enemies can say is, They are precise, and will not do as we do. Now in such a case as this, when the Christian must turn or burn, leave praying, or become a prey to the cruel teeth of bloody men; how many politic retreats and self-preserving distinctions would a cowardly unresolved heart invent? The Christian that hath so great opposition had need be well locked into the saddle of his profession, or else he will soon be dismounted. Third.—The Christian must keep on his way to heaven in the midst of all the scandals that are cast upon the ways of God by the apostasy and foul falls of false professors. There were ever such in the church, who by their sad miscarriages in judgement and practice have laid a stone of offence in the way of profession, at which weak Christians are ready to make a stand, as they at the bloody body of Asahel, 2 Samuel 2:22, not knowing whether they may venture any further in their profession, seeing such, whose gifts they so much admired, lie before them, wallowing in the blood of their slain profession: [from being] zealous professors, to prove perhaps fiery persecutors; [from being] strict performers of religious duties, [to prove] irreligious atheists: no more like the men they were some years past, than the vale of Sodom (now a bog and a quagmire) is, to what it was, when for fruitfulness compared to the garden of the Lord. We had need of a holy resolution to bear up against such discouragements, and not to faint; as Joshua, who lived to see the whole camp of Israel, a very few excepted, revolting, and in their hearts turning back to Egypt, and yet with an undaunted spirit maintained his integrity, yea, resolved though not a man beside would bear him company, yet he would serve the Lord. Fourth.—The Christian must trust in a with­draw­ing God, Isaiah 50:10. Let him that walks in darkness, and sees no light, trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. This requires a holy boldness of faith indeed, to venture into God’s presence, as Esther into Ahasuerus’, when no smile is to be seen on his face, no golden sceptre of the promise per­ceived by the soul, as held forth to embolden it to come near, then to press in with this noble resolution, ’If I perish, I per­ish,’ Esther 4:16. Nay, more, to trust not only in a with­drawing but a ’killing God,’ Job 13:15; not when his love is hid, but when his wrath breaks forth. Now for a soul to make its approaches to God by a recumbency of faith, while God seems to fire upon it, and shoot his frowns like envenomed arrows into it, is hard work, and will try the Christian’s mettle to purpose. Yet such a masculine spirit we find in the poor woman of Canaan, who takes up the bullets of Christ shot at her, and with a humble boldness of faith sends them back again in her prayer. Fifth.—The believer is to persevere in his Christian course to the end of his life: his work and his life must go off the stage together. This adds weight to every other difficulty of the Christian’s calling. We have known many who have gone into the field, and liked the work of a soldier for a battle or two, but soon have had enough, and come running home again, but few can bear it as a constant trade. Many are soon engaged in holy duties, easily persuaded to take up a profession of religion, and as easily persuaded to lay it down, like the new moon, which shines a little in the first part of the night, but is down before half the night is gone—lightsome professors in their youth, whose old age is wrapped up in thick darkness of sin and wickedness. O, this persevering is a hard word! this taking up the cross daily, this praying always, this watching night and day, and never laying aside our clothes and armour, I mean indulging ourselves, to remit and unbend in our holy waiting on God, and walking with God. This sends many sorrowful away from Christ, yet this is a saint’s duty, to make religion his every-day work, without any vacation from one end of the year to the other. These few instances are enough to show what need the Christian hath of resolution. The application follows. [Use or Application] Use First.—This gives us reason why there are so many professors and so few Christians indeed; so many that run and so few obtain; so many go into the field against Satan, and so few come out conquerors; because all have a desire to be happy, but few have courage and resolution to grapple with the difficulties that meet them in the way to their happiness. All Israel came joyfully out of Egypt under Moses’ con­duct, yea, and a mixed multitude with them, but when their bellies were pinched with a little hunger, and the greedy desires of a present Canaan deferred, yea, instead of peace and plenty, war and penury, they, like white‑livered soldiers, are ready to fly from their colours, and make a dishonorable retreat into Egypt. Thus the greatest part of those who profess the gospel, when they come to push of pike, to be tried what they will do, deny to endure for Christ, grow sick of their enterprise. Alas! their hearts fail them, they are like the waters of Bethlehem. But if they must dispute their passage with so many enemies, they will even content themselves with their own cistern, and leave heaven to others who will venture more for it. O how many part with Christ at this cross-way! Like Orpah, they go a furlong or two with Christ, while he goes to take them off from their worldly hopes, and bids them prepare for hardship, and then they fairly kiss and leave him, loath indeed to lose heaven, but more loath to buy it at so dear a rate. Like some green heads, that childishly make choice at some sweet trade, such as is the confectioner’s, from a liquorish tooth they have to the junkets[i] it affords, but meeting with sour sauce of labour and toil that goes with them, they give in, and are weary of their service. So the sweet bait of religion hath drawn many to nibble at it, who are offended with the hard service it calls to. It requires another spirit than the world can give or receive to follow Christ fully. Use Second.—Let this then exhort you, Christians, to labour for this holy resolution and prowess, which is so needful for your Christian profession, that without it you cannot be what you profess. The fearful are in the forlorn of those that march for hell, Revelation 21:1-27; the violent and valiant are they which take heaven by force: cowards never won heaven. Say not that thou hast royal blood running in thy veins, and art begotten of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by this heroic spirit, to dare to be holy despite men and devils. The eagle tries her young ones by the sun; Christ tries his children by their courage, that dare to look on the face of death and danger for his sake, Mark 8:34-35. O how uncomely a sight is it to see, a bold sinner and a fearful saint, one resolved to be wicked, and a Christian wavering in his holy course; to see guilt put innocence to flight, and hell keep the field, impudently braving it with displayed banners of open profaneness; [to see] saints hide their colours for shame, or run from them for fear, who should rather wrap themselves in them, and die upon the place, than thus betray the glorious name of God, which is called upon by them to the scorn of the uncircumcised. Take heart therefore, O ye saints, and be strong; your cause is good, God him­self espouseth your quarrel, who hath appointed you his own Son, General of the field, called ’the Captain of our salvation,’ Hebrews 2:10. He shall lead you on with courage, and bring you off with honour. He lived and died for you; he will live and die with you; for mercy and tenderness to his soldiers, none like him. Trajan, it is said, rent his clothes to bind up his soldiers’ wounds: Christ poured out his blood as balm to heal his saints’ wounds; tears off his flesh to bind them up. For prowess, none to compare with him: he never turned his head from danger: no, not when hell’s malice and heaven’s justice appeared in field against him; knowing all that should come upon him, [he] went forth and said, ’Whom seek ye?’ John 18:4. For success insuperable: he never lost battle even when he lost his life: he won the field, carrying the spoils thereof in the triumphant chariot of his ascension, to heaven with him: where he makes an open show of them to the unspeakable joy of saints and angels. You march in the midst of gallant spirits, your fellow-soldiers every one the son of a Prince. Behold, some, enduring with you here below a great flight of afflictions and temptation, take heaven by storm and force. Others you may see after many assaults, repulses, and rallyings of their faith and patience, got upon the walls of heaven, conquerors, from whence they do, as it were, look down, and call you, their fellow-brethren on earth, to march up the hill after them, crying aloud: ’Fall on, and the city is your own, as now it is ours, who for a few days’ conflict are now crowned with heaven’s glory, one moment’s enjoyment of which hath dried up all our tears, healed all our wounds, and made us forget the sharpness of the fight, with the joy of our present victory.’ In a word, Christians, God and angels are spectators, observing how you quit yourselves like children of the Most High; every exploit your faith doth against sin and Satan causeth a shout in heaven; while you valiantly prostrate this temptation, scale that difficulty, regain the other ground, you even now lost out of your enemies’ hands. Your dear Saviour, who stands by with a reserve for your relief at a pinch, his very heart leaps within him for joy to see the proof of your love to him and zeal for him in all your combats; and will not forget all the faithful service you have done in his wars on earth; but when thou comest out of the field, will receive thee with the like joy as he was entertained himself at his return to heaven of his Father. [Christian courage and resolution —how obtained.] Now, Christian, if thou meanest thus courageously to bear up against all opposition, in the march to heaven, as thou shouldst do well to raise thy spirit with such generous and soul-ennobling thoughts, so in an especial manner look thy principles be well fixed, or else thy heart will be unstable, and an unstable heart is weak as water, it cannot excel in courage. Two things are required to fix our principles. First. An established judgement in this truth of God. He that knows not well what or whom he fights for [may] soon be persuaded to change his side, or at least stand neuter. Such may be found that go for professors, that can hardly give an account what they hope for, or whom they hope in; yet Christians they must be thought, though they run before they know their errand; or if or if they have some principles they go upon, they are so unsettled that every wind blows them down, like loose tiles from the house top. Blind zeal is soon put to a shameful retreat, while holy resolution, built on fast principles, lifts up its head like a rock in the midst of waves. ’The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits,’ Daniel 11:32. The angel told Daniel who were the men that would stand to their tackling, and bear up for God in that hour, both of temptation and persecution, which should be brought upon them by Antiochus; [that] not all the Jews, but some of them, should be corrupted basely by flatteries, others scared by threats out of their profession; only a few of fixed principles, who knew their God whom they served, and were grounded in their religion, these should be strong, and do exploits: that is, to flatteries they should be incorruptible, and to power and force unconquerable. Second. A sincere aim at the right end of our profession. Let a man be never so knowing in the things of Christ, if his aim is not right in his profession, that man’s principles will hang loose; he will not venture much or far for Christ, no more, no further than he can save his own stake. A hypocrite may show some mettle at hand, some courage for a spurt in conquering some difficulties; but he will show himself a jade at length. He that hath a false end in his profession, will soon come to an end of his pro­fession when he is pinched on that toe where his corn is—I mean, called to deny that [which] his naughty heart aimed at all this while. Now his heart fails him, he can go no farther. O take heed of this squint eye to our profit, pleasure, honour, or anything beneath Christ and heaven; for they will take away your heart, as the prophet saith of wine and women, that is, our love, and if our love be taken away, there will be little courage left for Christ. How courageous was Jehu at first, and he tells the world it is zeal for God! But why doth his heart fail him then, before half his work is done? His heart was never right set; that very thing that stirred up his zeal at first, at last quenched and cowed it, and that was ambition. His desire of a kingdom made him zealous against Ahab’s house, to cut off them who might in time jostle him besides the throne: which done, and he quietly settled, he dare not go through stitch with God’s work, lest he should lose what he got by provoking the people with a thorough reformation. Like some soldiers [who] when once they meet with a rich booty at the sacking of some town, are spoiled for fighting ever after. BRANCH THIRD A cautionary direction, ’be strong in the Lord.’ In this we have a cautionary direction. Having exhorted the saints at Ephesus, and in them all believers, to a holy resolution and courage in their warfare, lest this should be mistaken, and beget in them an opinion of their own strength for the battle, the apostle leads them out of themselves for this strength, even to the Lord: ’be strong in the Lord.’ From whence we observe. [The saint’s strength lies in the Lord.] Doctrine. That the Christian’s strength lies in the Lord, not in himself. The strength of the general in other hosts lies in his troops. He flies, as a great commander once said to his soldiers, upon their wings; if their feathers be clipped, their power broken, he is lost; but in the army of saints, the strength of every saint, yea, of the whole host of saints, lies in the Lord of hosts. God can overcome his enemies without their hands, but they cannot so much as defend themselves without his arm. It is one of God’s names, ’the Strength of Israel,’ 1 Samuel 15:29. He was the strength of David’s heart; without him this valiant worthy (that could, when held up in his arms, defy him that defied a whole army) behaves himself strangely for fear, at a word or two that dropped from the Philistine’s mouth. He was the strength of his hands, ’He taught his fingers to fight,’ and so is the strength of all his saints in their war against sin and Satan. Some propound a question, whether there be a sin committed in the world in which Satan hath not a part? But if the question were, whether there be any holy action performed without the special assistance of God concurring, that is resolved, ’Without me ye can do nothing,’ John 15:5. Thinking strength of God, ’Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God,’ 2 Corinthians 3:5. We apostles, we saints that have habitual grace, yet this lies like water at the bottom of a well, which will not ascend with all our pumping till God pour in his exciting grace, and then it comes. To will is more than to think, to exert our will into action more than both. These are of God: ’For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,’ Php 2:13. He makes the heart new, and having made it fit for heavenly motion, setting every wheel, as it were, in its right place, then he winds it up by his actuating grace, and sets it on going, the thoughts to stir, the will to move and make towards the holy object presented; yet here the chariot is set, and cannot ascend the hill of action till God puts his shoulder to the wheel: ’to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not,’ Romans 7:18. God is at the bottom of the ladder, and at the top also, the Author and Finisher, yea, helping and lifting the soul at every round, in his ascent to any holy action. Well, now the Christian is set on work, how long will he keep close to it? Alas, poor soul, no longer than he is held up by the same hand that empowered him at first. He hath soon wrought out the strength received, and therefore to maintain the tenure of a holy course, there must be renewing strength from heaven every moment, which David knew, and therefore when his heart was in as holy a frame as ever he felt it, and his people by their free-will offering declared the same, yet even then he prays, that God would ’keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of his people, and prepare their heart unto him,’ 1 Chronicles 29:18. He adored the mercy that made them willing, and then he implores his further grace to strengthen them, and tie a knot, that these precious pearls newly strung on hearts might not slip off. The Christian, when fullest of divine communications, is but a glass without a foot, he cannot stand, or hold what he hath received, any longer than God holds him in his strong hand. Therefore, Christ, when bound for heaven, and ready to take his leave of his children, bespeaks his Father’s care of them in his absence. ’Father, keep them,’ John 17:11; as if he had said, they must not be left alone, they are poor shiftless children, that can neither stand nor go without help; they will lose the grace I have given them, and fall into those temptations which I kept them from while I was with them, if they be out of thy eye or arms but one moment; and therefore, ’Father, keep them.’ Again, consider the Christian as addressing himself to any duty of God’s worship, still his strength is in the Lord. [1. Prayer.] Would he pray? Where will he find materials for his prayer? Alas, he ’knows not what he should pray for as we ought,’ Romans 8:26. Let him alone, and he will soon pray himself into some temptations or other, and cry for that which [it] were cruelty in God to give; and therefore God puts words in our mouths: ’Take with you words and say,’ Hosea 14:2. Well, now he hath words put into his mouth. Alas, they will freeze in his very lips, if he hath not some heart-heating affections to thaw the tap. And where shall this fire be had? Not a spark to found on his own hearth, except it be some strange fire of natural desires, which will not serve. Whence then must the fire come to thaw the iciness of the heart, but from heaven? The Spirit, he must stretch himself upon the soul, as the prophet on the child, and then the soul will come to some kindly warmth and heavenly heat in its affections. The Spirit must groan, and then the soul will groan. He helps us to these sighs and groans which turn the sails of prayer. He dissolves the heart and then it [i.e. prayer] bursts out of the heart by groans of the lips by heavenly rhetoric, out of the eyes as from a flood-gate with tears. Yet further, now the creature is enabled to wrestle with God in prayer, what will he get by all this? Suppose he be weak in grace, is he able to pray himself strong, or corruption weak? No, this is not to be found in prayer, as an act of the creature; this drops from heaven also: ’In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul,’ Psalms 138:3. David received it in duty, but had it not from his duty, but from his God. He did not pray himself strong, but God strengthened him in his prayer. [2. Hearing the Word.] Well, cast your eyes once more upon the Christian, as engaging in another ordinance of hearing the word preached. The soul’s strength to hear the Word is from God. He opens the heart to attend, Acts 16:14, yea, he opens the un­derstanding of the saint to receive the Word, so as to conceive what it means. It is like Samson’s riddle, which we cannot unfold without his heifer. He opens the womb of the soul to conceive by it, as the understanding to conceive of it, that the barren soul becomes a ’joyful mother of children.’ David sat for half a year under the public lectures of the law, and the womb of his heart shut up, till Nathan comes, and God with him, and now is the time of life. He conceives presently, yea, and brings forth the same day, falls presently into the bitter pangs of sorrow for his sins, which went not over till he had cast them forth in that sweet 51st Psalm. Why should this one word work more than all the former, but that now God struck in with his word, which he did not before? He is therefore said to ’teach his people to profit,’ Isaiah 48:17. He sits in heaven that teacheth hearts. When God’s Spirit, who is the headmaster, shall call a soul from his usher to himself, and say, —Soul, you have not gone the way to receive by hearing the word. Thus and thus conceive of such a truth, improve such a promise —presently the eyes of his understanding open, and his heart burns within him while he speaks to him. Thus you see the truth of this point, ’That the Christian’s strength is in the Lord.’ Now we shall give some demonstrations [or reasons]. [Why the saint’s strength is laid up in God.] Reason First. The first reason may be taken from the nature of the saints and their grace. Both are creatures, they and their grace also. Now[ii], ’it is in the very nature of the creature to depend on God its Maker,’ both for being and operation. Can you con­ceive and accident to be out of its subject, whiteness out of the wall, or some other subject? It is impos­sible that the creature should be, or act without strength from God. This to be, act in and of himself, is so incommunicable a property of the Deity, that he cannot impart it to his creature. God is, and there is none besides him. When God made the world, it is said indeed he ended his work, that is, of creation: he made no new species and kinds of creatures more; but to this day he hath not ended his work of providence: ’My Father worketh hitherto,’ saith Christ, John 5:17, that is, in preserving and empowering what he hath made with strength to be and act, that therefore he is said to hold our souls in life. Works of art, which man makes, when finished, may stand some time without the workman’s help, as the house, when the carpenter that made it is dead; but God’s works, both of nature and grace, are never off his hand, and therefore as the Father is said to work hitherto for the preservation of the works of nature, so the Son, to whom is committed the work of redemption, he tells us, worketh also. Neither ended he his work when he rose again, any otherwise than his Father did in the work of creation. God made an end of making, so Christ made an end of purchasing mercy, grace, and glory for believers, by once dying; and as God rested at the end of creation, so he, when he had wrought eternal redemption, and ’by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,’ Hebrews 1:3. But he ceaseth not to work by his intercession with God for us, and by his Spirit in us for God, whereby he upholds his saints, their graces, and comforts his life, without which they would run to ruin. Thus we see as grace is a creature, the Christian depends on God for his strength. But further, Reason Second. The Christian’s grace is not only a creature, but a weak creature, conflicting with enemies stronger than itself, and therefore cannot keep the field without an auxiliary strength from heaven. The weakest goes to the wall, if no succour comes in. Grace in this life is but weak, like a king in the cradle, which gives advantage to Satan to carry on his plots more strongly to the disturbance of this young king’s reign in the soul, yea, he would soon make an end of the war in the ruin of the believer’s grace, did not Heaven take the Christian into protection. It is true indeed, grace, wherever it is, hath a principle in itself that makes it desire and endeavour to preserve itself according to its strength, but being overpowered must perish, except assisted by God, as fire in green wood, which deads and damps the part kindled, will in time go out, except blown up, or more fire put to that little; so will grace in the heart. God brings his grace into the heart by conquest. Now, as in a conquered city, though some yield and become true subjects to the conqueror, yet others plot how they may shake off this yoke; and therefore it requires the same power to keep, as was to win it at first. The Christian hath an unregenerate part, that is discounted at this new change in the heart, and disdains as much to come under the sweet government of Christ’s sceptre, as the Sodomites that Lot should judge them. What, this fellow, a stranger, control us! And Satan heads this mutinous rout against the Christian, so that if God should not continually reinforce this new planted colony in the heart, the very natives (I mean corruptions) that are left, would come out of their dens and holes where they lie lur­king, and eat up the little grace the holiest on earth hath; it would be as bread to these devourers. Reason Third. A third demonstration may be taken from the grand design which God propounds to himself in the saint’s salvation; yea, in the transaction of it from first to last. And that is twofold. 1. God would bring his saints to heaven in such a way as might be most expressive of his dear love and mercy to them. 2. He would so express his mercy and love to them, as might rebound back to him in the highest advance of his own glory possible. Now how becoming this is to both, that saints should have all their ability for every step they take in the way to heaven, will soon appear. 1. Design. God would bring his saints to heaven in such a way as might be most expressive of his dear love and mercy to them. This way of communicating strength to saints, gives a double accent to God’s love and mercy. (1.) It distills a sweetness into all the believer hath or doth, when he finds any comfort in his bosom, any enlargement of heart in duty, any support under temptations, to consider whence came all these, what friend sends them in. They came not from my own cistern, or any creature’s. O it is my God that hath been here, and left his sweet perfume of comfort behind him in my bosom! my God that hath unaware to me filled my sails with the gales of his Spirit, and brought me off the flats of my own deadness, where I lay aground. O, it is his sweet Spirit that held my head, stayed my heart in such an affliction and temptation, or else I had gone away in a fainting fit of unbelief. How can this choose but to endear God to a gracious soul? His succors coming so immediately from heaven, which would be lost, if the Christian had any strength to help himself (though this stock of strength came at first from God). Which, think you, speaks more love and condescent: for a prince to give a pension to a favorite, on which he may live by his own care, or for this prince to take the chief care upon himself, and come from day to day to this man’s house, and look into his cupboard, and see what provision he hath, what expense he is at, and so constantly to provide for the man from time to time? Possibly some proud spirit that likes to be his own man, or loves his means better than his prince, would prefer the former, but one that is ambitious to have the heart and love of his prince would be ravished with the latter. Thus God doth with his saints. The great God comes and looks into their cupboard, and sees how they are laid in, and sends in accordingly as he finds them. ‘Your heavenly Father knows you have need of these things,’ and you shall have them. He knows you need strength to pray, [to] hear, [to] suffer for him, and, in ipsâ horâ dabitur, ‘in the very hour it will be given.’ (2.) This way of God’s dealing with his saints adds to the fulness and stability of their strength. Were the stock in our own hands, we should soon prove broken merchants. God knows we are but leak­ing vessels, when fullest we could not hold it long; and therefore to make all sure, he sets us under the streaming forth of his strength, and a leaking vessel under a cock gets what it loseth. Thus we have our leakage supplied continually. This is the provision God made for Israel in the wilderness: He clave the rock, and the rock followed them. They had not only a draught at present, but it ran in a stream after them, so that you hear no more of their complaints for water. This rock was Christ. Every believer hath Christ at his back, following him with strength as he goes, for every condition and trial. One flower with the root is worth many in a posie, which though sweet yet doth not grow, but wither as we wear them in our bosoms. God’s strength as the root keeps our grace lively, without which, though as orient as Adam’s was, it would die. 2. Design. The second design that God hath in his saints’ happiness is, that he may so express his mercy and love to them as may rebound back to him in the highest advance of his own glory therein, Ephesians 1:4, Ephesians 1:12, which is fully attained in this way of empowering saints, by a strength not of their own, but of their God his sending, as they are put to expense. Had God given his saints a stock of grace to have set up with and left them to the improvement of it, he had been magnified indeed, because it was more than God did owe the creature; but he had not been omnified as now, when not only the Christian’s first strength to close with Christ is from God, but he is beholden still to God for the exercise of that strength, in every ac­tion of his Christian course. As a child that travels in his father’s company, all is paid for, but his father carries the purse, not himself, so the Christian’s shot is discharged in every condition; but he cannot say this I did, or that I suffered, but God wrought all in me and for me. The very comb of pride is cut here; no room [is left] for any self-exalting thoughts. The Christian cannot say, that I am a saint is mercy; but being a saint, that my faith is strong, this is the child of my own care and watchfulness. Alas, poor Christian! who kept thine eye waking, and stirred up thy care? Was not this the offspring of God as well as thy faith at first? No saint shall say of heaven when he comes there, ‘This is heaven, which I have built by the power of my might.’ No, ‘Jerusalem above is a city whose builder and maker is God.’ Every grace, yea, degree of grace, is a stone in that building, the topstone whereof is laid in glory, where saints shall more plainly see, how God was not only Founder to begin, but Benefactor also to finish the same. The glory of the work shall not be crumbled and piece-mealed out, some to God and some to the creature, but all entirely paid in to God, and he acknowledged all in all. [Use or Application] Use First. Is it the Christian’s strength in the Lord, not in himself? Surely then the Christless person must needs be a poor impotent creature, void of all strength and ability of doing anything of itself towards its own salvation. If the ship launched, rigged, and with her sails spread cannot stir, till the wind come fair and fill them, much less the timber that lies in the carpenter’s yard hew and frame itself into a ship. If the living tree cannot grow except the root communicate its sap, much less can a dead rot­ten stake in the hedge, which hath no root, live of its own accord. In a word, if a Christian, that hath his spiritual life of grace, cannot exercise this life without strength from above, then surely one void of this new life, dead in sins and trespasses, can never be able to beget this in himself, or concur to the production of it. The state of unregeneracy is a state of impotency. ’When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly,’ Romans 5:6. And as Christ found the lump of mankind covered with the ruins of their lapsed estate (no more able to raise themselves from under the weight of God’s wrath which lay upon them, than one buried under the rubbish of a fallen house is to free himself of that weight without help), so the Spirit finds sinners in as helpless a condition, as unable to repent, or believe on Christ for salvation, as they were of themselves to purchase it. Confounded therefore for ever be the language of those sons of pride, who cry up the power of nature, as if man with his own brick and slime of natural abilities were able to rear up such a building, whose top may reach heaven itself. ’It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but God that sheweth mercy,’ Romans 9:16. God himself hath scattered such Babel-builders in the imagination of their hearts, who raiseth this spiritual temple in the souls of men, ’not by might, nor by a power,’ of their own, ’but by his Spirit,’ that so ’grace, grace,’ might be proclaimed be­fore it forever. And therefore, if any yet in their natural estate would become wise to salvation, let them first become fools in their own eyes, and renounce their carnal wisdom, which perceives the things of God, and beg wisdom of God, who giveth and upbraideth not. If any man would have strength to believe, let them become weak, and die to their own, for, ’by strength shall no man prevail,’ 1 Samuel 2:9. Use Second. Doth the Christian’s strength lie in God, not in himself? This may for ever keep the Christian humble, when most engaged in duty, most assisted in his Christian course. Remember, Christian, when thou hast thy best suit on, who made it, who paid for it. Thy grace, thy comfort is neither the work of thy own hands, nor the price of thy own desert; be not, for shame, proud of another’s cost. That assistance will not long stay which becomes a nurse to thy pride; thou art not lord of that assistance thou hast. Thy Father is wise, who when he alloweth thee most for thy spiritual maintenance, even then keeps the law in his own hands, and can soon curb thee, if thou growest wanton with his grace. Walk humbly therefore before thy God, and husband well that strength thou hast, remembering that it is borrowed strength. Who will waste what he begs?[iii] or who will give that beggar that spends idly his alms? when thou hast most, thou canst not be long from thy God’s door. And how canst thou look him on the face for more, who hast embezzled what thou hast received? BRANCH FOURTH. An amplification of the direction, ‘and in the power of his might.’ In this branch we have an encouraging amplification annexed to the exhortation, in these words ’and in the power of his might,’ where a twofold inquiry is requisite for the explication of the phrase. First, What these words import, ’the pow­er of his might.’ Second, What it is to ’be strong in the power of his might.’ First. What these words import, ’the power of his might.’ It is an Hebraism, and imports nothing but his mighty power, like that phrase, ’to the praise of the glory of his grace,’ Ephesians 1:6 that is, to the praise of his glorious grace. And his mighty power imports no less than his almighty power; sometimes the Lord is styled ‘strong and mighty,’ Psalms 24:8, sometimes ’most mighty,’ sometimes ‘almighty,’ no less is meant in all than God’s infinite almighty power. Second. What it is to ‘be strong in the power of his might.’ To be strong in the power of the Lord’s might, implies two acts of faith. First, a settled firm persuasion that the Lord is almighty on power. ‘Be strong in the power of his might,’ that is, be strongly rooted in your faith, concerning this one foundation truth, that God is almighty. Second, It implies a further act of faith, not only to believe that God is almighty, but also that this almighty power of God is engaged for its defence; so as to bear up in the midst of all trials and temptations undauntedly, leaning on the arm of God Almighty, as it were his own strength. For that is the apostle’s drift, as to beat us off from leaning on our own strength, so to encourage the Christian to make use of God’s almighty power, as freely as if it were his own, whenever assaulted by Satan in any kind. As a man set upon by a thief stirs up all the force and strength he hath in his whole body to defend himself and offend his adversary; so the apostle bids the Christian ’be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might,’ that is, Soul, away to thy God, whose mighty power is all intended and devoted by God himself for thy succor and defence. Go strengthen and entrench thyself in it by a steadfast faith, as that which shall be laid out to the utmost for thy good. From whence these two notes [or doctrines], I conceive, will draw out the fatness of the words. Doctrine First, That it should be the Christian’s great care and endeavour in all temptations and trials to strengthen his faith on the almighty power of God. Doctrine Second, The Christian’s duty and care is not only to believe that God is al­mighty, but strongly by faith to rest on this almighty power of God, as engaged for his help and succour in all his trials and temptations. [Of acting our faith on the almighty power of God.] Doctrine First. It should be the Christian’s great care in all temptations and trials to strengthen his faith on the almighty power of God. When God holds forth himself as an object of the soul’s trust and confidence in any great strait or undertaking, commonly this attribute of his almighty power is presented in the promise, as the surest holdfast for faith to lay hold on. As a father in rugged way gives his child his arm to lay hold by, so doth God usually reach forth his almighty power for his saints to ex­ercise their faith on, [as He did for] Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose faith God tried above most of his saints before or since, for not one of those great things which were promised to them did they live to see performed in their days. And how doth God make known himself to them for their support, but by displaying this attribute? ’I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty,’ Exodus 6:3. This was all they had to keep house with all their days: with which they lived comfortably, and died triumphantly, bequeathing the promise to their children, not doubting, because God Almighty had promised, of the performance. Thus, Isaiah 26:1-21, where great mercies are promised to Judah, and a song penned beforehand to be sung on that gaudy day of their salvation; yet because there was a sharp winter of captivity to come between the promise and the spring-time of the promise, therefore, to keep their faith alive in this space, the prophet calls them up to act their faith on God Almighty. ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength,’ Isaiah 26:4. So when his saints are going to the furnace of persecution, what now doth he direct their faith to carry to prison, to stake, with them but this almighty power? ‘Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator,’ 1 Peter 4:19. Creator is a name of almighty power; we shall now give some reasons of the point. Reason First. Because it is no easy work to make use of this truth, how plain and clear soever it now appears, in great plunges of temptation, that God is almighty. To vindicate this name of God from those evil reports which Satan and carnal reason raise against it, requires a strong faith indeed. I confess this principle is a piece of natural divinity. That light which finds out a Deity will evince, if followed close, this God to be almighty; yet in a carnal heart, it is like a rusty sword, hardly drawn out of the scabbard, and so of little or no use. Such truths are so imprisoned in natural conscience, that they seldom get a fair hearing in the sinner’s bosom, till God gives them a jail-delivery, and brings them out of their house of bondage, where they are shut up in unrighteousness with a high hand of his convincing Spirit. Then, and not till then, the soul will believe [that] God is holy, merciful, almighty; nay, some of God’s peculiar people, and not the meanest for grace amongst them, have had their faith for a time set in this slough, [and] much ado to get over these difficulties and improbabilities which sense and reason have objected, so as to rely on the almighty power of God, with a notwithstanding. Moses himself [was] a star of the first magnitude for grace, yet see how his faith blinks and twinkles till he wades out the temptation: ‘The people, among whom I am, are six hundred thousand footmen; and thou hast said, I will give them flesh, that they may eat a whole month. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them?’ Numbers 11:21-22. This holy man had lost the sight for a time of the almighty power of God, and now he projecting how this should be done; as if he had said in plain terms, How can this be accom­plished? For so God interprets his rea­soning: ‘And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?’ Numbers 11:23. So Mary, ’Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,’ John 11:32. And her sister Martha, ’Lord, by this time he stinketh,’ John 11:39. Both [were] gracious women, yet both betrayed the weakness of their faith on the almighty power of Christ; one limiting him to place—‘f thou hadst been here,’ he had not died; as if Christ could not have saved his life absent as well as present—sent his health to him as well as brought it with him;—the other to time —‘now he stinketh;’ as if Christ had brought his physic too late, and the grave would not deliver up its prisoner at Christ’s command. And thou hast such a high opinion of thyself, Christian, that thy faith needs not thy utmost care and endeavour for further establishment on the almighty power of God, when thou seest such as these dash their foot against this kind of temptation? Reason Second. The second reason may be taken from the absolute necessity of this act of faith above others, to support the Christian in the hour of temptation. All the Christian’s strength and comfort is fetched without doors, and he hath none to send of his errand but faith; this goes to heaven and knocks God up, as he in the parable his neighbour at midnight for bread: therefore, when faith fails, and the soul hath none to go to market for supplies, there must needs be a poor house kept in the meantime. Now faith is never quite laid up till the soul denies, or at least questions, the power of God. Indeed, when the Christian disputes the will of God, whispering within its own bosom, will he pardon? will he save? this may make faith go haltingly to the throne of grace, but not knock the soul off from seeking the face of God. Even then faith on the power of God will bear it company thither: ’If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean;’ if thou wilt, thou canst pardon, thou canst purge. But when the soul concludes he cannot pardon, cannot save, this shoots faith to the heart, so that the soul falls at the foot of Satan, not able more to resist; now it grows more listless to duty, indifferent whether it pray or not, as one that sees the well dry breaks or throws away his pitcher. Reason Third. Because God is very tender of this flower of his crown, this part of his name: indeed we cannot spell it right and leave out this letter, for that is God’s name, whereby he is known by all his creatures. Now man may be called wise, merciful, mighty: God only, all-wise, all-merciful, almighty; so that when we leave out this syllable all, we nickname God, and call him by his creature’s name, which he will not answer to. Now the tenderness that God shows to this prerogative of his appears in three particulars. 1. In the strict command he lays on his people to give him the glory of his power. ‘Neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid,’ but ‘sanctify the Lord of hosts himself,’ Isaiah 8:12-13; that is, in this sad posture of your affairs, when your enemies associate, and you seem a lost people to the eye of reason, not able to contest with [those] united powers which beset you on every side, I charge you, sanctify me in giving me the glory of my almighty power. Believe that your God is able of himself, without any other, to defend you, and destroy them. 2. In his severity to his dearest children, when they stagger in their faith, and come not off roundly, without reasoning and disputing the case, to rely on his almighty power. Zacharias did but ask the angel, ‘whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years?’ yet for bewraying therein his unbelief, had a sign indeed given him, but such a one as did not only strengthen his faith, but severely punish his unbelief, for he was struck dumb upon the place. God loves his children should be­lieve his word, not dispute his power; so true is that of Luther: ’God loves the obedient, not the cavil­ling.’[iv] That which gave accent to Abraham’s faith was that he was ’fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform,’ Romans 4:21. 3. In the way God takes of giving his choicest mercies and greatest salvations to his people, wherein he lays the scene of his providence, so that when he hath done it may be said, Almighty power was here. And therefore, God commonly puts down those means and second causes, which if they stood about his work would blind and hinder the full prospect thereof in effecting the same. ‘We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead,’ 2 Corinthians 1:9. Christ stayed while [until] Lazarus was dead, that he might draw the eyes of their faith more singly to look on his power, by raising his dead friend, rather than curing him being sick, which would not have carried so full a conviction of almightiness with it. Yea, he suffers a contrary power many times to arise, in that very juncture of time, when he intends the mercy to his people, that he may rear up more magnificent pillar of remembrance to his own power, in the ruin of that which contests with him. Had God brought Israel out of the Egypt in the time of those kings which knew Joseph, most likely they might have had a friendly departure and an easy deliverance, but God reserves this for the reign of that proud Pharaoh, who shall cruelly oppress them, and venture his kingdom, but will satisfy his lust upon them. And why must this be the time, but that God would bring them forth with a stretched-out arm? The magnifying of his power was God’s great design. ’In very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power, and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth,’ Exodus 9:16. 4. In the prevalency which an argument that is pressed from his almighty power hath with God. It was the last string Moses had to his bow, when he begged the life of Israel: ‘The nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able,’ &c., Numbers 14:15-16. And ‘Let the power of my Lord be great,’ Numbers 14:17; and with this he hath their pardon thrown him. The application of this point will fall in under the next, which is [Of acting our faith on the almighty power of God, as engaged for our help.] Doctrine Second. That it is the saint’s duty, and should be their care, not only to believe God Almighty, but also strongly to believe that this almighty power of God is theirs, that is, [is] engaged for their defence and help, so as to make use of it in all straits and temptations. First, I shall prove that the almighty power of God is engaged for the Christian’s defence, with the grounds of it. Second, [I shall prove] why the Christian should strongly act his faith on this. First. I shall prove that the almighty power of God is engaged for the Christian’s defence, with the grounds of it. God brought Israel out of Egypt with an high hand, but did he set them down on the other side of the Red Sea, to find and force their way to Canaan, by their own policy or power? When he had opened the gate of their iron house of bondage, and brought them into the open fields, did he vanish as the angel from Peter, when out of prison? No, ‘The Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went,’ Deuteronomy 1:31. This doth lively set forth the saint’s march to heaven; God brings a soul out of spiritual Egypt by his converting grace, that is, the ‘day of his power,’ wherein he makes the soul willing to come out of Satan’s clut­ches. Now when the saint is upon his march, all the country riseth upon him. How shall this creature pass the pikes, and get safely by all his enemies’ borders? God himself enfolds him in the arm of his everlasting strength. ‘We are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.’ 1 Peter 1:5. The power of God is that shoulder on which Christ carries his sheep home, rejoicing all the way he goes, Luke 15:5. These everlasting arms of his strength are those eagles’ wings, upon which the saints are both tenderly and securely conveyed to glory, Exodus 19:4. There is a five-fold tie or engagement that lies upon God’s power to be the saints’ life-guard. First Tie. The near relation he hath to his saints. They are his own dear children; every one takes care of his own—the silly hen, how doth she bustle and bestir herself to gather her brood under her wing when the kite appears? no care like that which nature teacheth. How much more will God, who is the Father of such dispositions in his creature, stir up his whole strength to defend his children? ‘He said, They are my people, so he became their Saviour,’ Isaiah 63:8. As if God had said, Shall I sit still with my hand in my bosom, while my own people are thus misused before my face? I cannot bear it. The mother as she sits in her house hears one shriek, and knowing the voice, cries out, ‘O it is my child.’ Away she throws all, and runs to him. Thus God takes the alarm of his children’s cry: ‘I heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, saith the Lord;’ his cry pierced his ear, and his ear affected his bowels, and his bowels called up his power to the rescue of him. Second Tie. The dear love he beareth to his saints engageth his power. He that hath God’s heart cannot want his arm. Love in the creature commands all the other affections, sets all the powers of the whole man on work; thus in God, love sets all his other attributes on work. When once God pitched his thoughts of doing good to lost man, then wisdom fell on projecting the way, almighty power that undertook to raise the fabric according to wisdom’s model. All are ready to effect what God saith he likes. Now the believing soul is an object of God’s choicest love, even the same with which he loves his Son, John 17:26. 1. God loves the believer as the birth of his everlasting counsel. When a soul believes, then God’s eternal purpose and counsel concerning him, whom he chose in Christ before the foundation of the world, and with whom his thoughts went so long big, brings forth. And how must God needs love that creature whom he carried so long in the womb of his eternal purpose? This goodly fabric of heaven and earth had not been built, but as a stage whereon he would in time act what he decreed in heaven of old, concerning the saving of thee, and a few more his elect. And therefore according to the same rate of delight, with which God pleased and entertained him­self in the thoughts of this before the world was, must he needs rejoice over the soul now believing, with love and complacency inconceivable; and God having brought his counsel thus far towards its issue, surely will raise all the power he hath, rather than be disappointed of his glory within a few steps of home; I mean, his whole design in the believer’s salvation. The Lord who hath chosen his saints Zechariah 3:1-10, as Christ prays for Joshua their representative, will rebuke Satan and all their enemies. 2. God loves the saints as the purchase of his Son’s blood. They cost him dear, and that which is so hardly got shall not be easily lost. He that was willing to expend his Son’s blood to gain them, will not deny his power to keep them. 3. God loves the saints for their likeness to himself, so that if he loves himself, he cannot but love himself appearing in them; and as he loves him­self in them, so he defends himself in defending them. What is it in a saint that enrageth hell but the image of God, without which the war would soon be at an end? It is the hatred that the panther hath to man that makes him fly at his picture. ‘For thy sake we are slain all the day long:’ and if the quarrel be God’s, surely the saint will not go forth to war at his own cost. Third Tie. The covenant engageth God’s al­mighty power, ‘I am the Almighty God; walk before me,’ Genesis 17:1. There is a league offensive and defensive between God and his saints; he gives it under his hand that he will put forth the whole power of his godhead for them, ‘The Lord of hosts is the God of Israel, even a God to Israel,’ 1 Chronicles 17:24. God doth not parcel himself out by retail, but gives his saints leave to challenge whatever a God hath, as theirs; and let him, whoever he is, sit in God’s throne and take away his crown, that can fasten any untruth on the Holy One; as his name is, so is his nature, a God keeping covenant for ever. The promises stand as the mountains about Jerusalem, never to be removed; the weak as well as the strong Christian is within this line of communication. Were saints to fight it out in open field by the strength of their own grace, then the strong were more likely to stand, and the weak to fall in battle; but both castled in the covenant, are alike safe. Fourth Tie. The saints’ dependence on God, and expectation from God in all their straits, oblige his power for their succour. Whither doth a gracious soul fly in any want or danger from sin, Satan, or his instruments, but to his God? As naturally as the cony to her burrow. ‘What time I am afraid,’ saith David, ‘I will trust in thee,’ Psalms 56:3. He tells God he will make bold of his house to step into when taken in any storm, and doth not question his welcome. Thus when Saul hunted him, he left a city of gates and bars to trust God in open field. Indeed all the saints are taught the same lesson, to renounce their own strength, and rely on the power of God; their own policy, and cast themselves on the wisdom of God; their own righteousness, and expect all from the pure mercy of God in Christ, which act of faith is so pleasing to God, that such a soul shall never be ashamed, ‘The expectation of the poor shall not perish,’ Psalms 9:18. A heathen could say, when a bird scared by a hawk flew into his bosom, I will not betray thee unto thy enemy, seeing thou comest for sanctuary unto me. How much less will God yield up a soul unto its enemy when it takes sanctuary in his name, saying, ‘Lord, I am hunted with such a temptation, dogged with such a lust, either thou must par­don it, or I am damned; mortify it, or I shall be a slave to it; take me into the bosom of thy love, for Christ’s sake; castle me in the arms of thy everlasting strength, it is in thy power to save me from, or give me up into, the hands of my enemy. I have no con­fidence in myself or any other: into thy hands I commit my cause, my life, and rely on thee.’ This dependence of a soul undoubtedly will awaken the almighty power of God for such an one’s defence. He hath sworn the greatest oath that can come out of his blessed lips, even by himself, that such as thus fly for refuge to hope in him, shall have strong consolation, Hebrews 6:17. This indeed may give the saints the greater boldness of faith to expect kindly entertainment when he repair to God for refuge, because he cannot come before he is looked for. God having set up his name and promises as a strong tower, both calls his people into these chambers, and expects they should betake themselves thither. Fifth Tie. Christ’s presence and employment in heaven lays a strong engagement on God to bring his whole force and power into the field upon all occasions for his saints’ defence. One special end of his journey to heaven, and abode there, is that he might, as the saints’ solicitor, be ever interceding for such supplies and succours of his Father as their exigencies call for; and the more to assure us of the same before he went, he did, as it were, tell us what heads he meant to go upon his intercession when he should come there; one of which was this, that his Father should keep his children while they were to stay in the world from the evil thereof, John 17:15. Neither doth Christ take upon him this work of his own head, but hath the same appointment of his Father for what he now prays in heaven, as he did for what he suffered on earth. He that ordained him a Priest to die for sinners, did not then strip him of his priestly gar­ments, as Aaron, but appoints him to ascend in them to heaven, where he sits a Priest for ever by God’s oath. And this office of intercession was erected purely in mercy to believers, that they might have full content given them for the performance of all that God had promised; so that Jesus Christ lies lieger at court as our ambassador, to see all carried fairly between God and us according to agreement; and if Christ follows his business close, and be faithful in his place to believers, all is well. And doth it not behove him to be so, who intercedes for such dear relations? Suppose a king’s son should get out of a besieged city, where he hath left his wife and children, whom he loves as his own soul, and these all ready to die by sword or famine; if supply come not sooner, could this prince, when arrived at his father’s house, please himself with the delights of the court, and forget the distress of his family? Or rather would he not come post to his father, having their cries and groans always in his ears, and before he eat or drink, do his errand to his father, and entreat him if ever he loved him, that he would send all the force of his kingdom to raise the siege, rather than any of his dear relations should perish? Surely, sirs, though Christ be in the top of his preferment, and out of the storm in regard of his own person, yet his children left behind in the midst of sins, Satan, and the world’s batteries, are in his heart, and shall not be forgotten a moment by him. The care he takes in our business appeared in the speedy despatch he made of his Spirit to his apostles’ supply, when he ascended, which as soon almost as he was warm in his seat, at his Father’s right hand, he sent, to the incomparable comfort of his apostles and us, that to this day, yea, to the end of the world, do or shall believe on him. Second. [I shall prove why the Christian should strongly act his faith on this almighty power as engaged for his help.] —The second branch of the point follows [namely], that saints should eye this power of God as engaged for them, and press it home upon their souls till they silence all doubts and fears about the matter; which is the importance of this ex­hortation, ‘Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.’ Fortify and entrench your souls within the breastwork of this attribute of God’s mighty power made over to you by God himself. First. As it is the end of all promises to be se­curity to our faith, so [it is] of those in particular where his almighty power is expressly engaged, that we may count this attribute our portion, and reap the comfort it yields as freely as one may the crop of his own field. ‘Walk before me,’ saith God to Abraham, ‘I am God Almighty;’ set on this as thy portion, and live upon it. The apostle teacheth us what use to make of promises, ‘I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,’ Hebrews 13:5; there is the promise, and the inference which he teacheth us from this, follows, ‘So we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper,’ Hebrews 13:6. We, that is, every believer, may boldly say, that is, we may conclude, God will help, not sneakingly, timorously, perhaps he will; but we may boldly assert it in the face of men and devils, because He that is almighty hath said it. Now for a Christian not to strengthen his faith on this incomparably sweet attribute, but to sit down with a few weak unsettled hopes, when he may, yea, ought to be strong in the faith of such promises, what is it but to undervalue the blessing of such promises? As if one should promise another house and land, and bid him make them as sure to himself as the law can bind, and he should take no care to effect this: would it not be interpreted as a slighting of his friend’s kindness? Is it a small matter that God passeth over his almighty power by promise to us, and bids us make it as sure to ourselves as we can by faith, and we neglect this, leaving the writings of the promises unsealed on our hearts? Second. Our obedience and comfort are strong or weak, as our faith is on this principle. 1. Our obedience, that being a child of faith, partakes of its parent’s strength or weakness. Abraham being strong on faith, what an heroic act of obedience did he perform in offering up his son! His faith being well set on the power of God, he carries that without staggering which would have laid a weak faith on the ground. No act of faith more strengthens for duty, than that which eyes God’s almighty power engaged for its assistance. ‘Go in this thy might,’ said God to Gideon, ‘have not I called thee?’ As if he had said, Can I not, will I not carry thee through thy work? Away goes Gideon in the faith of this, and doth wonders. This brought the righteous man from the East to God’s foot, though he knew not whither he went, yet he knew with whom he went, God Almighty. But take a soul not persuaded of this, how uneven and unstable is he in his obediential course! Every threat from man, if mighty, dismays him, because his faith [is] not fixed on the Almighty, and therefore sometimes he will shift off a duty to comply with man, and betray his trust into the hands of a sorry creature, because he hath fleshly eyes to behold the power of a man, but wants a spiritual eye to see God at his back, to protect him with his almighty power; which, were his eyes open to see, he would not be so routed in his thoughts at the approach of a weak creature. ‘Should such a man as I flee?’ said good Nehemiah, Nehemiah 6:11. He was newly come from the throne of grace, where he had called in the help of the Almighty, ‘O God, strengthen my hands,’ Nehemiah 6:9. And truly, now, he will rather die upon the place, than disparage his God with a dishonorable retreat. 2. The Christian’s comfort increaseth or wanes, as the aspect of his faith is to the power of God. Let the soul question that, or his interest in it, and his joy gusheth out, even as blood out of a broken vein. It is true, a soul may scramble to heaven with much ado, by a faith of recumbency, relying on God as able to save, without this persuasion of its interest in God; but such a soul goes with a scant side-wind, or like a ship whose masts are laid by the board, exposed to wind and weather, if others better appointed did not tow it along with them. Many fears like waves ever and anon [so] cover such a soul, that it is more under water than above; whereas one that sees itself folded in the arms of almighty power, O how such a soul goes mounting afore the wind, with her sails filled with joy and peace! Let affliction come, storms arise, this blessed soul knows where it shall land and be welcome. The name of God is his harbor, where he puts in as boldly, as a man steps into his own house, when taken in a shower. He hears God calling him into this, and other his attributes, as chambers taken up for him. ‘Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers,’ Isaiah 26:20. God calls them his, and it were foolish modesty not to own what God gives. ‘Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength,’ Isaiah 45:24; that is, I have righteousness in God’s righteousness, strength in his strength, so that in this respect Christ can no more say that his strength is his own, and not the believer’s, than the husband can say, My body is my own and not my wife’s. A soul persuaded of this may sing merrily with the sharpest thorn at his breast; so David, ‘My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise,’ Psalms 57:7. What makes him so merry in so sad a place as the cave where now he was? he will tell you Psalms 57:1, where you have him nestling himself under the shadow of God’s wings, and now well may he sing care and fear away. A soul thus provided may lie at ease on a hard bed. Do you not think they sleep as soundly who dwell on London-bridge, as they who live at Whitehall or Cheapside, knowing that the waves that roar under them cannot hurt them? even so may the saints rest quietly over the floods of death itself, and fear no ill. [Use or Application.] Use First. Is the almighty power of God engaged for the saints’ defence? surely then they will have a hard pull, the saints’ enemies, who meddle with them who are so far above their match. The devil was so cunning, he would have Job out of his trench, his hedge down before he could fall on. But so desperate are men, they will try the field with the saints, though encircled with the almighty power of God. What folly were it to attempt or sit down be­fore such a city, which cannot be blocked up so as no relief can get in? the way to heaven cannot. In the church’s straitest siege, ‘there is a river which shall make glad this city of God,’ with seasonable succours from heaven. The saints’ fresh-springs are all from God, and it is as feasible for sorry man to stop the water-courses of the clouds, as to dam up those streams, which invisibly glide like veins of water in the earth, from the fountain-head of his mercy into the bosom of his people. The Egyptians thought they had Israel in a trap, when they saw them march into such a nook by the sea-side. ‘They are entangled, they are entangled;’ and truly so they had been irrecoverably, had not that almighty power which led them on, engaged to bring them off with honor and safety. Well, when they are out of this danger; behold they are in a wilderness where nothing is to be had for back and belly, and yet here they shall live for forty years, without trade or tillage, without begging or robbing of any of the neighbor nations; they shall not be beholden to them for a penny in their way. What cannot almighty power do to provide for his people? what can it not do to protect them against the power and wrath of their enemies? Almighty power stood between the Israelites and the Egyptians, so that, poor creatures, they could not so much as come to see their enemies. God sets up a dark cloud as a blind before their eyes, and all the while his eye through the cloud is looking them into disorder and confusion. And is the Almighty grown weaker now-a-days, or his enemies stronger, that they promise themselves better success? No, neither; but men are blinder than the saints’ enemies of old, who sometimes have fled at the appearances of God among his people, crying out, ‘Let us flee, for the Lord fighteth for them.’ Whereas there be many now-a-days will rather give the honor of their discomfitures to Satan himself, than acknowledge God in the business; more ready to say that the devil fought against them, than God. O you that have not yet worn off the impressions which the almighty power of God hath at any time made upon your spirits, beware of having anything to do with that generation of men, whoever they are. Come not near their tabernacle, cast not thy lot in amongst them, who are enemies to the saints’ of the most High; for they are men devoted to destruction. He ripped open the very womb of Egypt, to save the life of Israel his child, Isaiah 43:3. Use Second. This shows the dismal, deplorable condition of all you who are yet in a Christless state. You have seen a rich mine opened, but not a penny of this treasure comes to your share; a truth laden with incomparable comfort, but it is bound for another coast, it belongs to the saints, into whose bosom this truth unlades all her comfort. See God shutting the door upon you, when he sets his children to feast themselves with such dainties. ‘Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty,’ Isaiah 65:13. God hath set his number which he provides for. He knows how many he hath in his family: these and no more shall sit down. One chief dish at the saints’ board is the almighty power of God. This was set be­fore Abraham, and stands before all his saints, that they may eat to fulness of comfort on it; but thou shalt be hungry. He is almighty to pardon, but he will not use it for thee, an impenitent sinner. Thou hast not a friend on the bench, not an attribute in all God’s name, will speak for thee: mercy itself will sit and vote with the rest of its fellow-attributes for thy damnation. God is able to save and help in a time of need; but upon what acquaintance is it that thou art so bold with God, as to expect his saving arm to be stretched forth for thee? Though a man will rise at midnight to let in a child that cries and knocks at his door, yet he will not take so much pains for a dog that lies howling there. This presents thy condition, sinner, sad enough, yet this is to tell thy story fairest; for that almighty power of God which is engaged for the believer’s salvation, is as deeply obliged to bring thee to thy execution and damnation. What greater tie than an oath? God himself is under an oath to be the destruction of every impenitent soul. That oath which God sware in his wrath against the unbelieving Israelites, that they should not enter his rest, concerns every unbeliever to the end of the world. In the name of God consider, were it but the oath of a man, or a company of men, that like those in the Acts, should swear to be the death of such a one, and thou wert the man, would it not fill thee with fear and trembling night and day, and take away the quiet of thy life, till they were made friends? What then are their pillows stuffed with, who can sleep so soundly without any horror or amazement, though they be told that the Almighty God is under an oath of damning them, body and soul, without timely repen­tance? O bethink yourselves, sinners, is it wisdom or valor to refuse terms of mercy from God’s hands, whose almighty power, if rejected, will soon bring you into the hands of justice? And how fearful a thing that is, to fall into the hands of Almighty God, no tongue can express, no, not they who feel the weight of it. Use Third. This speaks to you, who are saints indeed. Be strong in the faith of this truth, make it an article of your creed; with the same faith you believe that there is a God, believe also this God’s almighty power is thy sure friend, and then improve it to thy best and advantage. As, 1. In agonies of conscience that arise from the greatness of thy sins, fly for refuge into the almighty power of God. Truly, sirs, when a man’s sins are displayed in all their bloody colors, and spread forth in all their killing aggravations, and the eye of conscience awakened to behold them through the multiplying or magnifying glass of a temptation, they must needs surprise the creature with horror and amazement, till the soul can say with the prophet, For all this huge host, there is yet more with me than against me. One Almighty is more than many mighties. All these mighty sins and devils, make not one almighty sin, or an almighty devil. Oppose to all the hideous charges brought against thee by them this only attri­bute. As the French ambassador once silenced the Spaniard’s pride in repeating his master many titles, with one that drowned them all, God himself, when he had aggravated his people’s sins to the height, then to show what a God can do, breaks out into a sweet promise: ‘I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger;’ and why not? ’I am God, and not man,’ Hosea 11:9. I will show the almightiness of my mercy. Something like our usual phrase when a child or a woman strikes us, I am a man, and not a child or a woman, therefore I will not strike again. The very considering God to be God, supposeth him almighty to pardon as well as to avenge. And this is some relief. But then to consider it is almighty power in bond and covenant to pardon, this is more. As none can bind God but himself, so none can break the bond himself makes: and are they not his own words, that ‘he will abundantly pardon?’ Isaiah 55:7. He will multiply to pardon, as if he had said, ‘I will drop mercy with your sin, and spend all I have, rather than let it be said my good is overcome of your evil.’ It fares with the gracious soul in this case as with a captain, that yields his castle upon gracious terms of having his life spared, and he safely conveyed to his house, there to be settles peaceably in his estate and possessions, for all which he hath the general’s hand and seal, on which he marches forth; but the rude soldiers assaulting him, and putting him in fear of his life, he appeals to the general, whose honor is now engaged for him, and is presently relieved, and his enemies punished. Thou mayest, poor soul, when accused by Satan, molested by his terrors, say, It is God that justifies; I have his hand to it, that I should have my life given me as soon as I laid down my arms and submitted to him, which I desire to do. Behold, the gates of my heart are open to let the Prince of peace in, and is not the Almighty able to perform his promise? I commit myself to him as unto a faithful Creator. 2. Improve this almighty power of God, and thy interest therein, in temptations to sin, when thou art overpowered, and fliest before the face of thy strong corruption, or fearest thou shalt one day fall by it; make bold to take hold of this attribute, and rein­force thyself from it again to resist, and in resisting, to believe a timely victory over it. The Almighty God stands in sight of thee while thou art in the valley fighting, and stays but for a call from thee when distressed in battle, and then he will come to thy rescue. Jehoshaphat cried when in the throng of his enemies, and the Lord helped him; much more may­est thou promise thyself his succor in thy soul combats. Betake thyself to the throne of grace with that promise, ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you;’ and before thou urgest it, the more to help thy faith, comfort thyself with this, that though the word almighty is not expressed, yet it is implied in this and every promise, and thou mayest without adding a tittle to the Word of God, read it in thy soul; sin shall not have dominion over you, saith the Almighty God, for this and all his attributes are the constant seal to all his promises. Now, soul, put the bond in suit, fear not the recovery, it is debt, and so due. He is able whom thou suest, and so there is no fear of losing the charge of the suit; and he that was so gracious to bind himself when he was free, will be so faithful, being able, to perform now he is bound; only, while thou expectest the performance of the promise, and the assistance of the almighty power against thy corruptions, take heed that thou keep under the shadow of this attribute, and condition of this promise, Psalms 91:1. The shadow will not cool except in it. What good to have the shadow, though of a mighty rock, when we sit in the open sun? to have almighty power engaged for us, and we throw ourselves out of the protection thereof by bold sallies into the mouth of temptation? The saints’ falls have been when they run out of their trench and hold; for, like the conies, they are a weak people in themselves, and their strength lies in the rock of God’s almightiness, which is their habitation. 3. Christian, improve this, when oppressed with the weight of any duty and service, which in thy place and calling lies upon thee. Perhaps thou findest thy duty of thy calling too heavy for thy weak shoulders, make bold by faith to lay the heaviest end of thy burden on God’s shoulder, which is thine (if a believer) as sure as God can make it by promise. When at any time thou art sick of thy work, and ready to think with Jonas to run from it, encourage thyself with that of God to Gideon, whom he called from the flail to thrash the mountains, ‘Go in this thy might,’ hath not God called thee? Fall to the work God sets thee about, and thou engagest his strength for thee. The way of the Lord is strength. Run from thy work, and thou engagest God’s strength against thee; he will send some storm or other after thee to bring home his runaway servant. How oft hath the coward been killed in a ditch, or under some hedge, when the valiant soldier stood his ground and kept his place got off with safety and honor? Art thou called to suffer? flinch not because thou art afraid, thou shalt never be able to bear the cross; God can lay it so even, thou shalt not feel it, though thou shouldst find no succor till thou comest to the prison door, yea, till thou hast one foot on the ladder, or thy neck on the block, despair not. ‘In the mount will the Lord be seen.’ And in that hour he can give thee such a look of his sweet face, as shall make the blood come in the ghast­ly face of a cruel death, and appear lovely in thy eye for his sake. He can give thee so much comfort in hand, as thou shalt acknowledge God is aforehand with thee, for all thy shame and pain thou canst endure for him; and if it should not amount to this, yet so much as it will bear all the charges thou canst be put to in the way, lies ready told in the promise, 1 Corinthians 10:13. Thou shalt have it at sight, and this may satisfy a Christian, especially if he considers, though he doth not carry so much of heaven’s joy about him to heaven as others, yet he shall meet it as soon as he comes to his Father’s house, where it is reserved for him. In a word, Christian, rely upon thy God, and make thy daily applications to the throne of grace for continual supplies of strength; you little think how kindly he takes it, that you will make use of him, the oftener the better, and the more you come for, the more welcome. Else why would Christ have told his disciples, ‘Hitherto you have asked nothing,’ but to express his large heart in giving? loath to put his hand to his purse for a little, and therefore by a familiar kind of rhetoric puts them to rise higher in asking, as Naaman when Gehazi asks one talent, entreats him to take two. Such a bountiful heart thy God hath, while thou art asking a little peace and joy, he bids thee open thy mouth wide and he will fill it. Go and ransack thy heart, Christian, from one end to the other, find out thy wants, acquaint thyself with all thy weaknesses, and set them before the Almighty, as the widow her empty vessels before the prophet; hadst thou more than thou canst bring, thou mayest have them all filled. God hath strength enough to give, but he hath no strength to deny. Here the Almighty him­self (with reverence be it spoken) is weak; even a child, the weakest in grace of his family that can but say father, is able to overcome him; and therefore let not the weakness of thy faith discourage thee. No greater motive to the bowels of mercy to stir almighty power to relieve thee than thy weakness, when pleaded in the sense of it. The pale face and thin cheeks, I hope, move more with us, than the canting language of a stout sturdy beggar; thus [with] that soul that comes laden in the sense of his weak faith, love, patience, the very weakness of them carries an argument along with them for succor. Objection Answered [A grand objection that some disconsolate souls may raise against the former discourse, answered.] Objection. O but, saith some disconsolate Christian, I have prayed again and again for strength against such a corruption, and to this day my hands are weak, and these sons of Zeruiah are so strong, that I am ready to say, All the preachers do but flatter me, that do pour their oil of comfort upon my head, and tell me I shall at last get the conquest of these mine enemies, and see that joyful day wherein with David, I shall sing to the Lord, for delivering me out of the hands of all mine enemies. I have prayed for strength for such a duty, and find it come off as weakly and dead-heartedly as before. If God be with me by his mighty power to help me, why then is all this befallen me? Answer First. Look once again, poor heart, into thy own bosom, and see whether thou findest not some strength sent unto thee, which thou didst overlook before; this may be, yea, is very ordinary in this case, when God answers our prayer no in the letter, or when the thing itself is sent, but it comes in at the back-door, while we are expecting it at the fore; and truly thus the friend thou art looking for may be in thine house and thou not know it. Is not this thy case, poor soul? Thou hast been praying for strength against such a lust, and now thou wouldst have God presently put forth his power to knock it on the head and lay it for dead, that it should never stir more in thy bosom. Is not this the door thou hast stood looking for God to come in at? And [yet there is] no sight or news of thy God’s coming that way. Thy corruption yet stirs, it may be is now more troublesome than before. Now thou askest where is the strength promised to thy relief? Let me entreat thee before thou layest down this sad conclusion against thy God or self, [to] see whether he hath not con­veyed in some strength by another door. Perhaps thou hast not strength to conquer it so soon as thou desirest; but hath he not given further praying strength against it? Thou prayest before, but now more earnestly, all the powers of thy soul are up to plead with God. Before, thou wast more favorable and moderate in thy request, now thou hast a zeal, thou canst take no denial, yea, [will] welcome anything in the room of corruption. Would God but take thy sin and send a cross, thou wouldst bless him. Now, poor soul, is this nothing? [Is this] no strength? Had not thy God reinforced thee, thy sin would have weakened thy spirit of prayer, and not increased it. David began to recover himself when he began to recover his spirit of prayer. The stronger the cry, the stronger the child, I warrant you. Jacob wrestled, and this is called his strength, Hosea 12:3. It appeared, there was much of God in him when he could take such hold of the Almighty as to keep it, though God seemed to shake him off. If thus thou art enabled, soul, to deal with the God of heaven, no fear but thou shalt be much more able to deal with sin and Satan. If God hath given thee so much strength to wrestle with him above and against denials, thou hast prevailed with the stronger of the two. Overcome God, and he will overcome the other for thee. Again, perhaps thou hast been praying for further strength to be communicated to thee in duty, that thou might be more spiritual, vigorous, united, sincere, and the like, therein, and yet thou findest thy old distempers hanging about thee, as if thou hadst never acquainted God with thy ail. Well, soul, look once again into thy bosom with an unprejudiced eye, though thou dost not find the assisting strength thou prayed for, yet hast thou no more self-abasing strength? perhaps the annoyance thou hast from these remaining distempers in duty, occasion thee to have a meaner opinion of all thy duties than ever, yea, they make thee abhor thyself in the sense of these, as if thou hadst so many loathsome vermin around thee. Job’s condition on the dunghill, with all his botches and running sores on his body, appears desirable to thee, in comparison of thine, whose soul, thou complainest, is worse than his body. O this af­flicts my soul deeply, that thou shouldst appear before the Lord with such a dead divided heart, and do his work worst that deserves best at thy hands. And is all this nothing? Surely, Christian, thine eyes are held as much as Hagar’s, or else thou wouldst see the streamings forth of divine grace in this frame of thy heart; surely others will think God hath done a mighty work in thy soul. What harder and more against the hair than to bring our proud hearts to take shame for that whereof they naturally boast and glory? And is it nothing for thee to tread on the very neck of thy duties, and count them matter of thy humiliation and abasing, which others make the matter of their confidence and self-rejoicing? Good store of virtue hath gone from Christ to dry this issue of pride in thy heart, which sometimes in gracious ones [so] runs through and through their duties, that it is seen, or may be, by those that have less grace than themselves. Answer Second. Christian, candidly interpret God’s dealings with thee. Suppose it be as thou say­est; thou hast pleaded the promise, and waited on the means, and yet findest no strength from all these receipts, either in thy grace or comfort. Now take heed of charging God foolishly, as if God were not what he promiseth; this were to give that to Satan which he is all this while gaping for. It is more becoming the dutiful disposition of a child, when he hath not presently what he writes for to his father, to say, My father is wiser than I. His wisdom will prompt him what and when to send to me, and his fatherly affections to me his child will neither suffer him to deny anything that is good, or slip the time that is seasonable. Christian, thy heavenly Father hath gracious ends that hold his hand at present, or else thou hadst ere this heard from him. 1. God may deny further degrees of strength to put thee on the exercise of that thou hast more carefully. As a mother doth by her child that is learning to go, she sets it down, and stands some distance from it, and bids it come to her. The child feels its legs weak and cries for the mother’s help, but the mother steps back on purpose that the child should put forth all its little strength in making after her. When a poor soul comes and prays against such a sin, God seems to step back and stand at a distance, the temptation increaseth, and no visible succour appears, on purpose that the Christian, though weak, should exercise that strength he hath. Indeed, we shall find the sense of a soul’s weakness, is an especial means to excite into a further care and diligence. One that knows his weakness, how prone he is in company to forget himself, in passion how apt he is to fly out; if there be a principle of true grace, this will excite him to be more fearful and watchful, than another that hath obtained greater strength against such great temptations. As a child that writes for money to his father. None comes presently. This makes him husband that little that he hath the better, not a penny now shall be laid out idly. Thus, when a Christian hath prayed against such a sin again and again, and yet finds himself weak, prone to be worsted, O how careful will this, should this make such a one of every company, of every occasion! Such a one had not need give his enemy any advantage. 2. God may deny the Christian such assisting strength in duty, or mortifying the strength of corruption, as he desires, purely on a gracious design that he may thereby have an advantage of expressing his love in such a way, as shall most kindly work upon the ingenuity of the soul to love God again. Perhaps, Christian, thou prayest for a mercy thou wantest, or for deliverance out of some great affliction, and in the duty thou findest not more assistance than ordinary, yea, many distractions of spirit in it, and misgiving thoughts with unbelieving fears after it. Well, notwithstanding those defects in thy duty, yet God hears thy prayer, and sends in the mercy on purpose that he may greaten his love in thine eye, and make it more luscious and sweet to thy taste, from his accepting thy weak services, and passing by the distempers of thy spirit. Here is less strength for the duty, that thou mayest have more love in the mercy; nothing will affect a gracious heart more than such a consideration. See it in David, ‘I said in my haste, All men are liars. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?’ Psalms 116:11-12. As if David had said, Notwithstanding all the comfortable messages I had from God by his prophets concerning this matter, my own prayers, and those remarkable providences, which carried in them a partial answer to them, and performance of what was promised, yet I betrayed much unbelief, questioning the truth of the one, and the return of the other; and hath God, notwithstanding all my infirmities, fulfilled my desire, and performed his promise? O what shall I render unto the Lord? Thus David reads God’s mercy through the spectacles of his own weakness and infirmity, and it appears great; whereas if a mercy should come in, as an answer to a duty managed with such strength of faith, and height of other graces, as might free him and his duty from usual infirmities, this might prove a snare, and occasion some self-applauding, rather than mercy-admiring thoughts in the creature. 3. God may communicate the less of his assis­ting strength, that he may show the more of his sup­porting strength, in upholding weak grace. We do not wonder to see a man of strong constitution that eats his bread heartily and sleep soundly, live. But for a crazy body, full of ails and infirmities, to be so patched and shored up by the physician’s art that he stands to old age, this begets some wonder in the beholders. It may be thou art a poor trembling soul, thy faith is weak, and thy assaults from Satan strong, thy corruptions stirring and active, and thy mortifying strength little, so that in thy opinion they rather gain ground on thy grace, than give ground to it. Ever and anon thou art ready to think thou shalt be cast as a wreck upon the devil’s shore; and yet to this day thy grace lives, though full of leaks. Now is it not worth the stepping aside to see this strange sight? A broken ship with masts and hull rent and torn, thus towed along by almighty power through an angry sea, and armadas of sins and devils, safely into its harbor. To see a poor dilling or rush-candle in the face of the boisterous wind, and not blown out! In a word, to see a weak stripling in grace held up in God’s arms till he beats the devil craven! This God is doing in up­holding thee. Thou art one of those babes, out of whose mouth God is perfecting his praise, by ordaining such strength for thee, that thou, a babe in grace, shalt yet foil a giant in wrath and power. Answer Third. If after long waiting for strength from God, it be as thou complainest, inquire whether the JÎ 6"J"XP@4H, that which hinders, be not found in thyself. The head is the seat of animal spirits, yet there may be such obstructions in the body as the other members may for a time be deprived of them; till the passage be free between Christ thy head and thee, thy strength will not come, and therefore be willing to inquire, 1. Hast thou come indeed to God for strength to perform duty, to mortify corruption and the like? Perhaps thou wilt say, Yes, I have waited on those ordinances which are the way in which he hath promised to give out strength. But is this all? Thou mayest come to them, and not wait on God in them. Hast thou not carnally expected strength from them, and so put the ordinances in God’s stead? Hath not the frame of thy spirit some affinity with theirs, ’We will go into such a city, and buy and sell, and get gain?’ James 4:13. Hath not thy heart said, I will go and hear such a man, and get comfort, and strength? And dost thou wonder thou art weak, barren and un­fruitful? Are ordinances God, that they should make you strong or comfortable? Thou mayest hear them answer thee, poor soul, as the king to the woman in the siege of Samaria. Help, O prayer, sayest thou, or, O minister; how can they help except the Lord help? These are but Christ’s servants. Christ keeps the key of his wine cellar; they cannot so much as make you drink when you come to their master’s house; and therefore, poor soul, stay not short of Christ, but press through all the crowd of ordinances, and ask to speak with Jesus, to see Jesus, and touch him, and virtue will come forth. 2. Ask thy soul whether thou hast been thankful for that little strength thou hast. Though thou art not of that strength in grace to run with the foremost and hold pace with the tallest of thy brethren, yet thou art thankful that thou hast any strength at all, though it be but to cry after them whom thou seest outstrip thee in grace, this is worth thy thanks. All in David’s army attained not to be equal with his few worthies in prowess and honor, and yet did not cashier themselves: thou hast reason to be thankful for the meanest place in the army of saints, the least communications of gospel-mercy and grace must not be overlooked. As soon as ever Moses with his army was through the sea, they strike up before they stir from the bank side, and acknowledge the wonderful appearance of God’s power and mercy for them, though this was but one step in their way; [for] a howling wilderness presented itself to them, and [though] they [were] not able to subsist a few days with all their provision, for all their great victory, yet Moses will praise God for this handsel of mercy. This holy man knew the only way to keep credit with God, so as to have more, was to keep touch, and pay down his praise for what was received. If thou wouldst have fuller communications of divine strength, own God in what he hath done. Art thou weak? Bless God thou hast life. Dost thou through feebleness often fail in duty, and fall into temptation? Mourn in the sense of these; yet bless God in that thou dost not live in a total neglect of duty, out of a profane contempt thereof, and instead of falling through weakness, thou dost not lie in the mire of sin through the wickedness of thy heart. The unthankful soul may thank itself it thrives no better. 3. Art thou humble under the assistance and strength God hath given thee? Pride stops the con­duit. If the heart begin to swell, it is time for God to hold his hand, and turn the cock, for all that is poured on such a soul runs over into self-applauding, and so it is as water spilt, in regard of any good it doth the creature, or any glory it brings to God. A proud heart and a lofty mountain are never fruitful. Now beside the common ways that pride discovers itself, as by undervaluing others, and overvaluing itself, and such like, you shall observe two other symptoms of it. (1.) It appears in bold adventures, when a person runs into the mouth of temptation, bearing himself up on the confidence of his grace re­ceived. This was Peter’s sin, by which he was drawn to engage further than became an humble faith, running into devil’s quarters, and so became his prisoner for a while. The good man, when in his right temper, had thoughts low enough of himself, as when he asked his Master, Is it I? But he that feared at one time lest he might be the traitor, at another cannot think so ill of himself, as to suspect he should be the denier of his Master. What, he? No, though all the rest should forsake him, yet he would stand to his colors. Is this thy case, Christian? Possibly God hath given thee much of his mind; art thou skilful in the Word of life, and therefore thou darest venture to breathe in corrupt air, as if only the weak spirits of less knowing Christians exposed them to be infected with the contagion of error and heresy. Thou hast a large portion of grace, or at least thou thinkest so, and venturest to go where an humble-minded Christian would fear his heels should slip under him. Truly, now thou temptest God to suffer thy lock to be cut, when thou art so bold to lay thy head in the lap of a temptation. (2.) Pride appears in the neglect of those means whereby the saints’ graces and comforts are to be fed when strongest. Maybe, Christian, when thou art under fears and doubts, then God hath thy company, thou art oft with thy pitcher at his door; but when thou hast got any measure of peace, there grows presently some strangeness between God and thee; thy pitcher walks not as it was wont to these wells of salvation. No wonder if thou, though rich in grace and comfort, goest behind-hand, seeing thou spendest on the old stock, and drivest no trade at present to bring in more. Or if thou dost not thus neglect duty, yet maybe thou dost not perform with that humility which formerly beautified the same: then thou prayed in the sense of thy weakness to get strength, now thou prayest to show thy strength, that others may admire thee. And if once, like Hezekiah, we call in spectators to see our treasure, and applaud us for our gifts and comfort, then it is high time for God, if he indeed love us, to send some messengers, to carry these away from us, which carry our hearts from him. Answer Fourth. If thy heart doth not smite thee from what hath been said, but thou hast sincerely waited on God, and yet hast not received the strength thou desirest, yet let it be thy resolution to live and die waiting on him. God doth not tell us his time of coming, and it were boldness to set on of our own heads. Go, saith Christ, to his disciples, ‘tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high,’ Luke 24:49. Thus he saith to thee, Stay at Jerusalem, wait on him in the means he hath appointed, till thou beest endued with further power to mortify thy corruptions, &c. And for thy comfort know, 1. Thy thus persevering to wait on God will be an evidence of strong grace in thee. The less encouragement thou hast to duty, the more [is] thy faith and obedience to bear thee up in duty. He that can trade when times are so dead, that all his ware lies upon his hand, and yet draws not in his hand, but rather trades more and more, sure his stock is great. What! no comfort in hearing, no ease to thy spirit in praying, and yet more greedy to hear, and more frequent in prayer. O soul, great is thy faith and patience! 2. Assure thyself when thou art at the greatest pinch [that] strength shall come. They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength: when the last handful of meal was dressing, then is the prophet sent to keep the widow’s house. When temptation is strong, thy little strength is even spent, and thou ready to yield into the hands of thine enemies, then expect succors from heaven, to enable thee to hold out under the temptation. Thus with Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee,’ i.e. there is power from heaven to raise the siege, and drive away the tempter. Thus with Job, when Satan had him at an advantage, then God takes him off, like a wise moderator [who], when the respondent is hard put to it by a subtle opponent, takes him off, when he would else run him down. ‘Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. James 5:11. [i]. Junkets, an old word, which generally, as here, means sweetmeats.—Ed. [ii]. Inesse est de esse creaturæ. [iii]. Nemo prodiget quod mendicat—no one will squander what he begs. [iv]. Deus amat curristas non quœristas. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.02 - DIRECTIONS FOR MANAGING THIS WAR SUCCESFULLY ======================================================================== Part Second. Directions for managing this War successfully, with some Motives sprinkled among them. Direction First. The Christian must be armed, and the Reason why. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. (Ephesians 6:11). This verse is a key to the former, wherein the apostle had exhorted believers to encourage and bear up their fainting spirits on the Lord, and the power of his might. Now in these words he explains himself, and shows how he would have them do this, not presumptuously [to] come into the field without that armour which God hath appointed to be worn by all his soldiers, and yet with a bravado, to trust to the power of God to save them. That soul is sure to fall short of home (heaven I mean), who hath nothing but a carnal confidence on the name of God, blown up by its ignorance of God and himself. No, he that would have his confidence duly placed on the power of God, must conscientiously use the means appointed for his defence, and not rush naked into the battle, like that fanatic spirit at Munster, who would needs go forth, and chase away the whole army then besieging that city, with no other cannon than a few words charged with the name of the Lord of hosts, which he blasphemously made bold to use, saying, In the name of the Lord of hosts depart. But himself soon perisheth, to learn others wisdom by what he paid for his folly. What foolish braving language shall ye hear drop from the lips of the most profane and ignorant among us! They trust in God, hope in his mercy, defy the devil and all his works, and such like stuff, who are yet poor naked creatures without the least piece of God’s armour upon their souls. To cashier such presumption from the saints’ camp, he annexeth this directory to his exhortation, ‘Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.’ So that the words fall into these two general parts. FIRST, A direction annexed to the former exhortation, showing how we may in a regular way come to be strong in the Lord, that is, by putting on the whole ‘armour of God.’ SECOND, A reason or argument strengthening this direction, ‘that ye may be able to stand against the wile of the devil.’ DIRECTION I.—FIRST GENERAL PART. [The Christian must be armed for the War, ‘Put on the whole armour of God.’] In this part we have a direction annexed to the former exhortation, showing how we may in a regular way come to be strong in the Lord, that is, by putting on the whole ‘armour of God.’ In this observe, first, The furniture he directs, and that is ‘armour.’ second, The kind or quality of this armour—‘armour of God.’ third, The quantity or entireness of the armour—the ‘whole’ armour of God. fourth, The use of this armour—‘put on’ the whole armour of God. BRANCH FIRST. [The furniture or armour needful —what it is.] To begin with the first, the furniture which every one must get that would fight Christ’s battles, [and that is ‘armour.’] The question here will be, What is this armour? First. By armour is meant Christ. We read of putting on the ‘Lord Jesus,’ Romans 13:14, where Christ is set forth under the notion of armour. The apostle doth not exhort them for rioting and drunkenness to put on sobriety and temperance, for chambering and wanton­ness [to] put on chastity, as the philosopher would have done, but bids, ‘put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ;’ implying thus much [that] till Christ be put on, the creature is unarmed. It is not a man’s morality and philosophical virtues that will repel a temptation, sent with a full charge from Satan’s cannon, though possibly it may the pistol-shot of some less solicitation; so that he is the man in armour, that is in Christ. Again, Second. The graces of Christ, these are armour, as ‘the girdle of truth, the breast-plate of righteousness,’ and the rest. Hence we are bid also [to] ‘put on the new man,’ Ephesians 4:24, which is made up of all the several graces, as its parts and members. And he is the unarmed soul, that is the unregenerate soul, not excluding those duties and means which God hath appointed the Christian to use for his de­fence. The phrase thus opened, the point is, to show that to be without Christ is to be without armour. [The Christless and graceless soul is without armour, and therein his misery.] Observe. That a person in a Christless graceless state is naked and unarmed, and so unfit to fight Christ’s battles against sin and Satan. Or thus, A soul out of Christ is naked and destitute of all armour to defend him against sin and Satan. God at first sent man forth in complete armour, ‘being created in true righteousness and holiness,’ but by a wile the devil stripped him, and therefore as soon as the first sin was completed, it is written, ‘they were naked,’ Genesis 3:7, that is, [they were] poor weak creatures, at the will of Satan, a subdued people disarmed by their proud conqueror, and unable to make head against him. Indeed it cost Satan some dispute to make the first breach, but after that he hath once the gates opened to let him in as conqueror into the heart of man, he plays rex [or king]. Behold, a troop of other sins crowd in after him, without any stroke or strife; instead of confessing their sins, they run their head in a bush, and by their good-will would not come where God is, and when they cannot fly from him, how do they prevaricate before him? They peal one of another, shifting the sin rather than suing for mercy. So quickly were their hearts hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. And this is the woeful condition of every son and daughter of Adam; naked he finds us, and slaves he makes us, till God by his effectual call delivers us from the power of Satan into the kingdom of his dear Son, which will further appear, if we consider this Christless state in a fourfold notion. First. It is a state of alienation from God: ‘Ye were without Christ, being aliens from the com­monwealth of Israel, and strangers from the coven­ants of promise,’ &c. Ephesians 2:12. Such an one hath no more to do with any covenant-promise, than he that lives at Rome hath to do with the charter of London, which is the birthright of its own denizens, not [of] strangers. He is without God in the world; he can claim no more protection from God, than an out-lawed subject from his prince. If any mischief befalls him, the mends is in his own hands; whereas God hath his hedge of special protection about his saints, and the devil, though his spite be most at them, dares not come upon God’s ground to touch any of them, without particular leave. Now what a deplored con­dition is that wherein a soul is left to the wide world, in the midst of legions of lusts and devils, to be rent and torn like a silly hare among a pack of hounds, and no God to call them off! Let God leave a people, though never so warlike, presently they lose their wits, cannot find their hands. A company of children or wounded men may rise up, and chase them out of their fenced cities, because God is not with them; which made Caleb and Joshua pacify the mutinous Israelites at the tidings of giants and walled cities with this, ‘They are bread for us, their defence is departed from them.’ How much more must that soul be as bread to Satan, that hath no defence from the Almighty? Take men of the greatest parts, natural or acquired accomplishments, who only want an union with Christ, and renewing grace from Christ. O what fools doth the devil make of them, leading them at his pleasure, some to one lust, some to another! The proudest of them all is slave to one or other, though it be to the ruining of body and soul for ever. Where lies the mystery, that men of such parts and wisdom should debase themselves to such drudgery work of hell? Even here. They are in a state of alienation from God, and no more able of themselves to break the devil’s prison, than a slave to run from his chain. Second. The Christless state is a state of ignor­ance, and such must needs be naked and unarmed. He that cannot see his enemy, how can he ward off the blow he sends? One seeing prophet leads a whole army of blind men whither he pleaseth. The imperfect knowledge saints have here, is Satan’s advantage against them. He often takes them on the blind side. How easily then may he with a parcel of good words carry the blind soul out of his way, who knows not a step of the right! Now that the Christless state is a state of ignorance, see Ephesians 5:8: ‘For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.’ Ye were darkness, not in the dark, so one that hath an eye may be. A child of light is often in the dark con­cerning some truth or promise, but then hath a spir­itual eye, which the Christless person wants, and so is darkness. And this darkness cannot be enlight­ened, but by its union with Christ, which is expressed in the following phrase: ‘But now are ye light in the Lord.’ As the eye of the body once put out, can never be restored by the creature’s art, so neither can the spiritual eye—lost by Adam’s sin—be restored by the teaching of men or angels. It is one of the diseases Christ came to cure, Luke 4:18. It is true, there is a light of reason, which is imparted to every man by nature, but this light is darkness compared with the saints’, as the night is dark to the day, even when the moon is in its full glory. This night-light of reason may save a person from some ditch or pond—great and broad sins—but it will never help him to escape the more secret corruptions, which the saint sees like atoms in the beams of spiritual knowledge. There is such curious work the creature is to do, which cannot be wrought by candle-light of natural knowledge. Nay more, where the common illumination of the Spirit is superadded to this light of nature, yet there is darkness compared with the sanctifying knowledge of a renewed soul, which doth both discover spiritual truths, and warm the heart at the same time with the love of truth, having like the sun a prolific and quickening virtue, which the other wants; so that the heart lies under such common illuminations, cold and dead. He hath no more strength to resist Satan, than if he knew not the command; whereas the Christian’s knowledge, even when taken prisoner by a temptation, pursues and brings back the soul, as Abraham his nephew, out of the enemies’ hands. This hints the third notion, Third. The Christless state is a state of impotency: ‘For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly,’ Romans 5:6. What can a disarmed people that have not sword or gun do to shake off the yoke of a conquering enemy? Such a power hath Satan over the soul [as that], Luke 11:21, he is called the strong man that keeps the soul as his palace. If he hath no disturbance from heaven, he need fear no mutiny within; he keeps all in peace there. What the Spirit of God doth in a saint, that in a manner doth Satan in a sinner. The Spirit fills his heart with love, joy, holy desires, fears; so Satan fills the sinner’s heart with pride, lust, lying. ‘Why hath Satan filled thy heart?’ saith Peter. And thus filled with Satan (as the drunkard with wine), he is not his own man, but Satan’s slave. Fourth. The state of unregeneracy is a state friendship with sin and Satan. If it be enmity against God, as it is, then friendship with Satan. Now it will be hard to make that soul fight in earnest against his friend. Is Satan divided? Will the devil within fight against the devil without?—Satan in the heart shut out Satan at the door? Sometimes indeed there ap­pears a scuffle between Satan and a carnal heart, but it is a mere cheat, like the fighting of two fencers on a stage. You would think at first they were in earnest, but observing how wary they are, [and] where they hit one another, you may soon know they do not mean to kill; and that which puts all out of doubt, when the prize is done you shall see them making merry to­gether with what they have got of their spectators, which was all they fought for. When a carnal heart makes the greatest bustle against sin by complaining of it, or praying against it, follow him but off the stage of duty, where he hath gained the reputation of a saint—the prize he fights for—and you shall see them sit as friendly together in a corner as ever. [Use and Application.] Use First. This takes away the wonder of Satan’s great conquests in the world. When you look abroad and see his vast empire, and what a little spot of ground contains Christ’s subjects, what heaps of precious souls lie prostrate under this foot of pride, and what a little regiment of saints march under Christ’s banner, perhaps the strangeness of the thing may make you ask, I shell stronger than heaven? —the arms of Satan more victorious than the cross of Christ? No such matters. Consider but this one thing, and you will wonder that Christ hath any to follow him, rather than that he hath so few. Satan finds the world unarmed; when the prince of the world comes, he finds nothing to oppose; the whole soul is in a disposition to yield at first summons. And if conscience, governor for God in the creature, stands out a while, all the other powers, as will and affections, are in a discontent, like mutinous soldiers in a garrison, who never rest till they have brought over conscience to yield, or against its command set open the city gate to the enemy, and so deliver traitorously their conscience prisoner to their lusts. But when Christ comes to demand the soul, he meets a scornful answer. ‘Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of the Most High. We will not have this man to reign over us.’ With one consent they vote against him, and rise up as the Philistines against Samson, whom they called the destroyer of the coun­try. ‘Ye will not come unto me,’ saith Christ. O how true are poor sinners to the devil’s trust! They will not deliver the castle they hold for Satan till fired over their heads. Pharaoh opposeth Moses on one hand, and Israel cry out upon him on the other. Such measure hath Christ both at Satan’s hand and the sinner’s. That which lessened Alexander’s conquests was, [that] he overcame a people buried in barbarism, without arms and discipline of war; and that which heightened Caesar’s, though not so many, he overcame a people more warlike and furnished. Satan’s victories are of poor ignorant graceless souls, who have neither arms, nor hands, nor hearts to op­pose. But when he assaults a saint, then he sits down before a city with gates and bars, and ever riseth with shame, unable to take the weakest hold, to pluck the weakest saint out of Christ’s hands; but Christ brings souls out of his dominion with a high hand, in spite of all the force and fury of hell, which like Pharaoh and his host pursue them. Use Second. This gives a reason why the devil hath so great a spite against the gospel. Why? Because this opens a magazine of arms and furniture for the soul. The word is that tower of David, ‘Builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand buck­lers, all shields of mighty men,’ Song of Solomon 4:4. Hence the saints have ever had their armour, and the preaching of the gospel unlocks it. As gospel-light ascends, so Satan’s shady kingdom of darkness vanisheth, Revelation 14:6; there one angel comes forth to preach the everlasting gospel, and another angel follows at his back, Revelation 14:8, crying Victory, ‘Babylon is fallen, is fallen.’ The very first charge the gospel gave to the kingdom of darkness, shook the foundations thereof, and put the legions of hell to the run. The seventy whom Christ sent out, bring this speedy account of their ambassage, ‘Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name;’ and Christ answers, ‘I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.’ As if he had said, It is no news you tell me, I beheld Satan falling when I sent you: I knew the gospel would make work where it came: and therefore no wonder Satan labors to dispossess the gospel, which dispos­sesseth him; he knows that army is near lost, whose magazine is blown up. It is true indeed, under the very gospel the devil rageth more in such swinish sinners, as are given over of God to be possessed of that fiend, for rejecting of his grace; but he is cast out of others, who ‘before the loving-kindness of God to man appeared in the gospel,’ were commanded by him, ‘serving divers lusts and pleasures;’ but now by the light of the gospel they see their folly, and by the grace it brings are enabled to renounce him. This, this is that which torments the foul spirit, to see himself forsaken of his old friends and servants, and this new Lord to come and take his subjects from him: and therefore he labours either by persecution to drive the gospel away, or by policy to persuade a people to send it away from their coasts. And was he ever more likely to effect it among us? What a low esteem hath he brought the preaching of the gospel unto? the price is fallen half and half to what it was some years past, even among those that have been counted the greatest merchants upon the saints’ ex­change. Some that have thought it worth crossing the seas, even to the Indies—almost as far as others fetch their gold—to enjoy the gospel, are loathe now to cross the street to hear it, at so cheap a rate; and some that come, who formerly trembled at it, make it most of their errand to mock at, or quarrel wit it. Nay, it is come to such a pass, that the Word is so heavy a charge to the squeamish stomachs of many professors, that it comes up again presently, and abundance of choler with it, against the preacher, especially if it fall foul of the sins and errors of the times, the very naming of which is enough to offend, though the nation be sinking under their weight. What reproaches are the faithful ministers of the gospel laden withal! I call heaven and earth to wit­ness, whether ever they suffered a hotter persecution of the tongue, than in this apostatizing age. A new generation of professors are started up, that will not know them to be the ministers of Christ, though those before them (as well in grace as time, [and] more able to derive their spiritual pedigree than themselves), have to their death owned them for their spiritual fathers. And must not the ark needs shake, when they that carry it are thus struck at, both in their person and office? What are these men doing? Alas, they know not. ‘Father, forgive them.’ They are cutting off their right hand with their left; they are making themselves and the nation naked, by despi­sing the gospel, and those that bring it. Use Third. Consider your deplored estate, [you] who are wholly naked and unarmed. Can you pity the beggar at your door (when you see such in a winter day, shivering with naked backs, exposed to the fury of the cold), and not pity your own far more dismal soul-nakedness, by which thou liest open to heaven’s wrath and hell’s malice? Shall their naked­ness cover them with shame, fill them with fear of perishing, which makes them with pitiful moans knock and cry for relief, as it is reported of Russia, where their poor, through extreme necessity, have this desperate manner of begging in their streets: ‘Give me and cut me, give me and kill me.’ And canst thou let Satan come and cut thy throat in thy bed of sloth, rather than accept of clothes to cover, yea, armour to defend thee?—I mean Christ and his grace, which in the gospel is tendered to you. Do not lightly believe your own flattering hearts, if they shall tell you, You are provided of these already. I am afraid many a gaudy professor will be found as naked in regard of Christ, and truth of grace, as drunkards and swearers themselves. Such there are, who content themselves with a Christ in profession, in gifts, and in duties, but seek not a Christ in solid grace, and so perish. Those indeed are an ornament to the Christian, as the scarf and feather to the soldier, but these quench not the bullet in battle; it is Christ and his grace [that] doth that. Therefore labour to be sound rather than brave Christians. Grace embel­lished with gifts, is more beautiful, but these without grace are only the richer spoil for Satan. BRANCH SECOND. [The kind or quality of armour needful —Armour of God.] The subject of this branch is the quality or kind of that armour, the Christian is here directed to pro­vide. It is not any trash will serve the turn; better none than not armour of proof, and none [is] such ‘but the armour of God.’ In a twofold respect it must be of God. First, In institution and appointment. Second, In constitution. [The armour we use against Satan must be divine in the institution, and only as God appoints.] Observe First. The Christian’s armour which he wears must be of divine institution and appointment. The soldier comes into the field with no arms but what his general commands. It is not left to every one’s fancy to bring what weapons he please; this will breed confusion. The Christian soldier is bound up to God’s order; though the army be on earth, yet the council of war sits in heaven; this duty ye shall do; these means ye shall use. And [those who] do more, or use other, than God commands, though with some seeming success against sin, shall surely be called to account for this boldness. The discipline of war among men is strict in this case. Some have suffered death by a council of war even when they have beaten the enemy, because out of their place, or beside their order. God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: ‘Who hath required this at your hands?’ This is truly to be ‘righteous over-much,’ as Solomon speaks, when he will pretend to correct God’s law, and add supplements of our own to his rule. Who will pay that man his wages that is not set on work by God? God tells Israel the false prophets shall do them no good, because they come not of his errand, Jeremiah 23:32; so neither will those ways and means help, which are not of God’s appointing. God’s thoughts are not as man’s, nor his ways as ours, which he useth to attain his ends by. If man had been to set forth the Israelitish army, now to march out of Egypt, surely this wisdom would have directed rather to have plundered the Egyptians of their horses and arms, as more necessary for such an expedition, than to bor­row their jewels and ear-rings. But God will have them come out naked and on foot, and Moses keeps close to his order; yea, when any horses were taken in battle, because God commanded that they should be houghed, they obeyed, though to their seeming dis­advantage. It was God’s war they waged, and there­fore but reasonable they should be under his command. They encamped and marched by his order, as the ark moved or rested. They fight by his command. The number is appointed by him—the means and weapons they should use—all are prescribed by God, as in the assault of Jericho. And what is the gospel of all this—for surely God hath an eye in that our marching to heaven, and our fighting with these cursed spirits and lusts that stand in our way—but that we should fight lawfully, using those means which we have from his mouth in his Word? This reproveth two sorts: Reproveth First, Those that fight Satan in ar­mour that hath no divine institution. 1. The Papist. Look into his armour, and hardly a piece will be found armour of God. They fight in the pope’s armour. His authority is the shop wherein their weapons are forged. It were a kind of penance to your patience, to repeat all the several pieces of armour with which they load silly souls —too heavy indeed for the broadest shoulders among them to bear—yea, more than the wiser sort of them mean to use. Their masses, matins, vigils, pilgrimages, Lent-fasts, whippings, vows of chastity, poverty, with a world of such trash!—where is a word of God for these? Who hath required these things at their hands? A thousand woes will one day fall upon those impostors, who have stripped the people of their true armour of God, and put these reeds and bulrushes in their hands. This may justify us in the sight of God and men for our departure from them who will force us to venture the life of our souls in such paper-armour, when God hath provided better. 2. The Carnal Protestant, who fights in fleshly armour, 2 Corinthians 10:3. The apostle speaks there of ‘war­ring after the flesh,’ that is, with weapons or means which man’s carnal wisdom prompts to, and not God’s com­mands, and [which] so are weak. How few are clad with other in the day of battle! (1.) When Satan tempts to sin, if he hath not presently a peaceable entrance, yet the resistance commonly made is carnal; the strength carnal they rest on, their own, not God’s; the motive’s carnal, as the fear of man more than of God; [as to which] one saith, ‘How shall I do this and sin against God?’ Many in their hearts say, How shall I do this and anger man, displease my master, provoke my parents, and lose the good opinion of my minister? Herod feared John, and did many things. Had he feared God, he would have labored to have done everything. The like may be said of all other motives, which have their spring in the creature, not in God; they are armour which will not out-stand shot. If thy strength lie in a creature-lock, it may be soon cut off; if in God it will hold, as his command: It is written. I cannot do it, but I must set my foot on the law of my Maker, or on the love of Christ. I cannot come at my lust, but I must go over my bleeding Savior, and therefore away, foul tempter, I hate thee and thy motion. This foundation is rock, and will stand; but if it be some carnal respect that balanceth thee, another more weighty may be found of the same kind, which will cast the scales another way. She that likes not the man because of his dress only, may soon be gained when he comes in another habit. Satan can change his suit, and then thy mouth will be stopped when thy carnal argument is taken off. (2.) When the Word or conscience rebukes for sin, what is the armour that men commonly cover their guilty souls withal? Truly no other than carnal. If they cannot evade the charge that these bring, then they labor to mitigate it, by extenuating the fact. It is true, they will say, I did (I confess) commit such a fault, but I was drawn in. ‘The woman gave me, and I did eat,’ was Adam’s fig-leaf armour. It is but once or twice, and I hope that breaks no such squares. Was this such a great business? I know jolly Christians will do as much as this comes to. I thank God, I cannot be charged with whore or thief. This is the armour that must keep off the blow. But if conscience will not be thus taken off, then they labor to divert their thoughts, by striking up the loud music of carnal delights, that the noise of one may drown the other; or with Cain, they will go from the presence of the Lord, and come no more at those ordinances which make their head ache, and hinder the rest of their raving consciences. If yet the ghost haunts them, then they labor to pacify it with some good work or other, which they set against their bad; their alms and charity in their old age, must expiate the oppression and violence of their former days; as if this little frankincense were enough to air and take away the plague of God’s curse, which is in their ill-gotten goods. Thus poor creatures catch at any sorry covering, which will not so much as hide their shame, much less choke the bullet of God’s wrath, when God shall fire upon them. There must be armour of God’s appointing. Adam was naked for all his fig-leaves, while God taught him to make ’coats of skins,’ Genesis 3:21, covertly (as some think) shadowing out Christ the true Lamb of God, whose righteousness alone was appointed by him to cover our shame, and arm our naked souls from the sight and stroke of his justice. Reproveth Second. Those who use the armor of God, but not as God hath appointed; which appears in three sorts. 1. When a person useth a duty appointed by God, not as armor of defence, but as a cover for sin. Who would think him an enemy that wears Christ’s colors in his hat, and marcheth after Christ in his exercise of all the duties of his worship? Such a one may pass all the courts of guard, without so much as being bid [to] stand. All take him for a friend. And yet some such there are, who are fighting against Christ all the while. The hypocrite is the man; he learns his postures, gets the Word, hath his tongue tipped with Scripture language, and walks in the habit of a Christian, merely on a design to drive his trade the more closely, like some highwayman in our days, who rob in the habit of soldiers, that they may be the less suspected. This is desperate wickedness indeed, to take up God’s arms and use them in the devil’s service; of all sinners such shall find least mercy, false friends shall speed worse than open enemies. 2. They use not the armour of God, as God hath appointed, who put a carnal confidence therein. We must not confide in the armour of God, but in the God of this armour, because all our weapons are only ‘mighty through God,’ 2 Corinthians 10:4. The ark was the means of the Jews safety, but [being] carnally applauded and gloried in, hastened their overthrow: so duties and ordinances, gifts and graces in their place, are means for the soul’s defence. Satan trembles as much as the Philistines at the ark, to see a soul diligent in the use of duty and exercise of grace; but when the creature confides in them, this is dangerous. As some, when they have prayed, think they please God for all day, though they take little heed to their steps. Other have so good an opinion of their faith, sincerity, knowledge, that you may as soon make them believe they are dogs, as that they may ever be taken in such error or sinful practice. Others, when assisted in duty, are prone to stroke their own head with a bene fecisti Bernarde, and so promise themselves to speed, because they have done their errand so well. What speak such passages in the hearts of men, but a carnal confidence in their armour to their ruin? Many souls, we may safely say, do not only perish praying, repenting, and believing after a sort, but they perish by their praying and repenting, &c., while they carnally trust in these. As it falls out sometimes, that the soldier in battle loseth his life by means of his own armour, [because] it is so heavy he cannot flee with it, and so close buckled to him that he cannot get it off, to flee for his life without it. If we be saved, we must come naked to Christ for all our duties; we will not flee to Christ while confiding in them. Some are so locked into them, that they cannot come without them, and so in a day of temptation are trampled under the feet of God’s wrath and Satan’s fury. The poor publican throws down his arms, that is, all confidence in himself, cries for quarter at the hands of mercy, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ He comes off with his life—he went away justified; but the Pharisee, laden with his righteousness, and conceited of it, stands to it, and is lost. 3. They do not use the armour of God as such, who in the performing of divine duties, eye not God through them, and this makes them all weak and ineffectual. Then the Word is mighty, when read as the Word of God; then the gospel preached, powerful to convince the conscience, and revive the drooping spirit, when heard as the appointment of the great God, and not the exercise of a mean creature. Now it will appear in three things, whether we eye divine appointment in the means. (1.) When we engage in a duty, and look not up to God for his blessing. Didst thou eye God’s appointment in the means, thou wouldst say, Soul, if there come any good of thy present service it must drop from heaven, for it is God’s appointment, not man’s. And can I profit whether God will or no, or think to find, and bring away, any soul-enriching treasure from his ordinance, without his leave? Had I not best look up to him, by whose blessing I live more than by my bread? (2.) It appears we look not at God’s appointment, when we have low thoughts of the means. What is Jordan that I should wash in it? What is this preaching that I should attend on it, where I hear nothing but I knew before? what these beggarly elements of water, and bread, and wine! Are not these the reasonings of a soul that forgets who appoints them? Didst thou remember who commands, thou wouldst not question what the command is. What though it be clay, let Christ use it and it shall open the eyes, though in itself more like to put them out. Hadst thou thy eye on God, thou wouldst silence thy carnal reason with this, It is God sends me to such a duty; whatsoever he saith unto me I will do it, though he should send me, as Christ to them, to draw wine out of pots filled with water. (3.) When a soul leaves off a duty, because he hath not in it what he expected from it. Oh, saith the soul, I see it is vain to follow the means as I have done; still Satan foils me, I will even give over. Dost thou remember, soul, it is God’s appointment? Sure­ly then thou wouldst persevere in the midst of discouragements. He that bids thee pray without ceasing; he that bids thee hear, bids thee wait at the posts of wisdom. Thou wouldst reason thus, God hath set me on duty, and here I will stand, till God takes me off and bids me leave praying. [The armour we use against Satan must be divine by constitution.] Observe Second. The Christian’s armour must be of God in regard of its make and constitution. My meaning is, it is not only that God must appoint the weapons and arms the Christian useth for his defence: but he must also be the efficient of them, he must work in them and for them. Prayer is an appointment of God, yet this is not armour of proof, except it be a prayer of God flowing from his Spirit, Jude 1:20. Hope, that is the helmet the saint by command is to wear, but this hope must be God’s creature; ‘who hath begotten us to a lively hope,’ 1 Peter 1:3. Faith, that is another principal piece in the Christian’s furniture, but it must be faith of God’s elect, Titus 1:1. He is to take righteousness and holiness for his breastplate, but it must be true holiness: ‘Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,’ Ephesians 4:24. Thus you see that it is not armour as armour, but as armour of God, that makes the soul impregnable. That which is born of God overcometh the world—a faith born of God, a hope born of God. But the spurious adulterous brood of duties and graces, being begot of mortal seed, cannot be immortal. Must the soul’s armour be of God’s make? Be exhorted then to look narrowly whether the armour ye wear be the workmanship of God or no. There is abundance of false ware put off now-a-days; little good armour worn by the multitude of professors. It is Satan’s after-game he plays, if he cannot please the sinner with his naked state of profaneness, to put him off with something like grace, some flighty stuff, that shall neither do him good, nor Satan hurt. Thus many [are] like children, that cry for a knife or dagger, and are pleased as well with a bone knife and wooden dagger, as with the best of all. So they have some armour, it matters not what. Pray they must, but little care how it be performed. Believe in God? yes, they hope they are not infidels. But what [the armour] is, how they came by it, or whether it will hold in an evil day, this never was put to the question in their hearts. Thus thousands perish with a vain conceit [that] they are armed against Satan, death, and judgment, when they are miserable and naked, yea, worse on it [their conceit] than those who are more naked, those I mean who have not a rag of ci­vility to hide their shame from the world’s eye; and that in a double respect, First. It is harder to work on such a soul savingly, because he hath a form, though not the power, and this affords him a plea. A soul purely naked, nothing like the wedding garment on, he is speechless. The drunkard hath nothing to say for himself, when you ask him why he lives so swinishly; you may come up to him, and get within him, and turn the very mouth of his conscience upon him, which will shoot into him. But come to deal with one who prays and hears, one that is a pretender to faith and hope in God; here is a man in glittering armour, he hath his weapon in his hand, with which he will keep the preacher, and the word he chargeth him with, at arm’s length. Who can say I am not a saint? What duty do I neglect? Here is a breastwork he lies under, which makes him not so fair a mark either to the observation or reproof of another; his chief defect being within, where man’s eye comes not. Again, it is harder to work on him, because he hath been tampered with already, and miscarried in the essay. How comes such a one to be acquainted with such duties—to make such a profession? Was it ever thus? No, the word hath been at work upon him, his conscience hath scared him from his trade of wickedness, into a form of profession, but, taking in short of Christ, for want of a thorough change, it is harder to remove him than the other. He is like a lock whose wards have been troubled; which makes it harder to turn the key than if never pottered with. It is better dealing with a wild ragged colt, never backed, than one that in breaking hath took a wrong stroke; [with] a bone quite out of joint than false set. In a word, such a one hath more to deny than a profane person. The one hath but his lusts, his whores, his swill, and dross, but the other hath his duties, his seeming graces. O how hard it is to persuade such a one to light, and hold Christ’s stirrup, while he and his duties are made Christ’s footstool. Second. Such an one is in deepest condemna­tion. None sink so far into hell as those that come nearest heaven, because they fall from the greatest height. As it aggravates the torments of the damned souls in this respect above devils, [because] they had a cord of mercy thrown out to them, which devils had not so, by how much God by his Spirit waits on, pleads with, and by both gains on [one] soul more than others, by so much such a one, if he perish, will find hell the hotter. These add to his sin, and the remembrance of his sin in hell thus accented will add to his torment. None will have such a sad parting from Christ as those who went half-way with him and then left him. Therefore, I beseech you, look to your armour. David would not fight in armour he had not tried, though it was a king’s. Perhaps some thought him too nice. What! is not the king’s armour good enough for David? Thus many will say, Art thou so curious and precise? Such a great man doth thus and thus, and hopes to come to heaven at last, and darest not thou venture thy soul in this armour? No, Chris­tian, follow not the example of the greatest on earth; it is thy own soul thou venturest in battle, therefore thou canst not be too choice of thy armour. Bring thy heart to the Word, as the only touch-stone of thy grace and furniture; the Word, I told you, is the tower of David, from whence thy armour must be fetched; if thou canst find this tower stamp on it, then it is of God, else, not. Try it therefore by this one scripture-stamp. Those weapons are mighty which God gives his saints to fight his battles withal. ‘For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God,’ 2 Corinthians 10:4. The sword of the Spirit hath its point and edge, whereby it makes its way into the heart and conscience, through the im­penitency of the one and stupidity of the other (wherewith Satan, as with buff and coat of mail, arms the sinner against God) and there cuts and slashes, kills and mortifies lust in its own castle, where Satan thinks himself impregnable. The breastplate which is of God, doth not bend and break at every pat of temptation, but is of such a divine temperament, that it repels Satan’s motions with scorn on Satan’s teeth. Should such an one as I sin, as Nehemiah in another case; and such are all the rest. Now try whether your weapons be mighty or weak; what can you do or suffer more for God than an hypocrite that is clad in fleshly armour? I will tell you what the world saith, and if you be Christians, clear yourselves, and wipe off that dirt which they throw upon your glittering armour. They say, These professors indeed have God more in their talk than we; but when they come down into their shops, re­lations and worldly employment, then the best of them all is but like one of us. They can throw the tables of God’s commandments out of their hands as well as we; [can] come from a sermon, and be as covetous and gripping, as peevish and passionate, as the worst. They show as little love to Christ as others, when it is matter of cost, as to relieve a poor saint or maintain the gospel; you may get more from a stranger, an enemy, than from a professing brother. O Christians, either vindicate the name of Christ, whose ensign you seem to march after, or throw away your seeming armour, by which you have drawn the eyes of the world upon you. If you will not, Christ himself will cashier you, and that with shame enough ere long. Never call that the armour of God which defends thee not against the power of Satan. Take, therefore, the several pieces of your armour and try them, as the soldier before he fights will set his helmet or head-piece as a mark, at which he lets fly a brace of bullets, and as he finds them so will wear them or leave them. But be sure thou shootest scripture-bullets. Thou boastest of a breastplate of righteousness. Ask thy soul, Didst thou ever in thy life perform a duty to please God, and not to accommodate thyself? Thou hast prayed often against thy sin, a great noise of the pieces have been heard coming from thee by others, as if there were some hot fight between thee and thy corruption, but canst thou indeed show one sin thou hast slain by all thy praying? Joseph was alive, though his coat was brought bloody to Jacob; and so may thy sin be, for all thy mortified look in duty, and outcry thou makest against them. If thou wouldst thus try every piece, thy credulous heart would not so easily be cheated with Satan’s false ware. Objection. But is all armour that is of God thus mighty? We read of weak grace, little faith; how can this then be a trial of our armour whether of God or not? Answer. I answer, the weakness of grace is in respect of stronger grace, but the weak grace is strong and mighty in comparison of counterfeit grace. Now, I do not bid thee try the truth of thy grace by such a power as is peculiar to stronger grace, but by that power which will distinguish it from false. True grace, when weakest, is stronger than false when strongest. There is a principle of divine life in it which the other hath not. Now life, as it gives excel­lency—a flea or a fly by reason of its life, is more excellent than the sun in all his glory—so it give strength. The slow motion of a living man, though so feeble that he cannot go a furlong in a single day, yet coming from life, imports more strength than is in a ship, which though it sails swiftly, hath its motion from without. Thus possibly an hypocrite may ex­ceed the true Christian in the bulk and outside of a duty, yet because his strength is not from life, but from some wind and tide abroad that carries him, and the Christian’s is from an inward principle, therefore the Christian’s weakness is stronger than the hypocrite in his greatest enlargements. I shall name but two acts of grace whereby the Christian, when weakest, exceeds the hypocrite in all his best array. You will say, then grace is a weak stay indeed, when the Christian is persuaded to commit a sin, a great sin, such a one as possibly a carnal person would not have it said of him for a great matter. So low may the tide of grace fall, yet true grace at such an ebb will appear of greater strength and force than the other. 1. This principle of grace will never leave till the soul weeps bitterly with Peter, that it hath offended so good a God. Speak, O ye hypocrites can ye show one tear that ever you shed in earnest for a wrong done to God? Possibly you may weep to see the bed of sorrow which your sins are making for you in hell, but ye never loved God so well as to mourn for the injury ye have done the name of God. It is a good gloss Augustine hath upon Esau’s tears Hebrews 12:16-17. —Flevet quòd perdidit, non quòd vendidit —he wept that he lost the blessing, not that he sold it. Thus we see an excellency of the saint’s sorrow above the hypocrite’s. The Christian by his sorrow shows him­self a conqueror of that sin which even now overcame him; while the hypocrite by his pride shows himself a slave to a worse lust than that he resists. While the Christian commits a sin he hates; whereas the other loves it while he forbears it. 2. When true grace is under the foot of a temptation, yet then it will stir up in the heart a vehement desire of revenge. [It is] like a prisoner in his enemies’ hand, who is thinking and plotting how to get out, and what he will do when out, waiting and longing every minute for his delivery, that he again may take up arms. ‘O Lord God, remember me,’ saith Samson, ‘I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. Jude 1:16. Thus prays the gracious soul, that God would but spare him a little, and strengthen him but once before he dies, that he may be avenged on his pride, unbelief, and those sins whereby he hath most dishonoured God. But a false heart is so far from studying revenge, that he rather swells like the sea against the law which banks his lust in, and is angry with God who hath made sin such a leap, that he must hazard his soul if he will have it. BRANCH THIRD. [The entireness of our armour. It must be the whole armour of God.] In this branch observe the quantity or entireness of the saints’ furniture or armour, ‘the whole armour of God.’ The Christian’s armour must be complete, and that in a threefold respect. First. He must be armed in every part cap-à-pie, soul and body, the powers of the one, and the senses of the other, not any part left naked. A dart may fly in at a little hole, like that which brought a message of death to Ahab, through the joints of his harness, and Satan is such an archer as can shoot at a penny breadth. If all the man be armed, and only the eye left without, Satan can soon shoot his fireballs of lust in at that loophole, which shall set the whole house on flame. Eve looked but on the tree, and a poisonous dart struck her to the heart. If the eye be shut, and the ear be open to corrupt communi­cation, Satan will soon wriggle in at this hole. If all the outward senses [of a man] be guarded, and the heart not kept with all diligence, he will soon by his own thoughts be betrayed into Satan’s hands. Our enemies are on every side, and so must our armour be, ‘on the right hand and on the left,’ 2 Corinthians 6:7. The apostle calls sin µ"D\"< ,ÛB,D\FJ"J@<, an enemy that surrounds us, Hebrews 12:1. If there be any part of the line unguarded or weakly provided, there Satan falls on; [as] we see the enemy often enter the city at one side, while he is beat back on the other, for want of care to keep the whole line. Satan divides his temptations into several squadrons, one he employs to assault here, another to storm there. We read of fleshly wickedness and spiritual wickedness; while thou repellest Satan tempting thee to fleshly wickedness, he may be entering thy city at the other gate of spiritual wickedness. Perhaps thou hast kept thy integrity in the practical part of thy life; but what armour hast thou to defend thy head, thy judgment? If he surprise thee here, corrupting that with some error, then thou wilt not long hold out in thy practice. He that could not get thee to profane the Sabbath among sensualists and atheists, will under the disguise of such a corrupt principle as Christian liberty prevail. Thus we see what need we have of universal armour, in regard of every part. Second. The Christian must be in complete armour, in regard of the several pieces and weapons, that make up the whole armour of God. Indeed there is a concatenation of graces; they hang together like links in a chain, stones in an arch, members in the body. Prick one vein, and the blood of the whole body may run out at the sluice; neglect one duty, and no other will do us as good. The apostle Peter, in his second epistle, 2 Peter 1:5-7, presseth the Christians to a joint endeavour to increase the whole body of grace; indeed, that is health when the whole body thrives. ‘Add,’ saith he, ‘to your faith virtue.’ Faith is the file-leading grace. Well, hast thou faith, add virtue. True faith is of a working stirring nature, without good works it is dead or dying. Fides pinguescit operibus—‘faith fattens or becomes strong on works,’ Luther. It is kept in plight and heart by a holy life, as the flesh which plasters over the frame of man’s body, though it receives its heat from the vitals within, yet helps to preserve the very life of those vitals. Thus good works and gracious actions have their life from faith, [and] yet are necessary helps to preserve the life of faith; thus we see sometimes the child nursing the parents that bare it, and therein [he] performs but his duty. Thou are fruitful in good works, yet thou art not out of the devil’s shoot, except thou addest to thy virtue, knowledge. This is the candle without which faith cannot see to do its work. Art thou going to give an alms? If it be not oculata charitas, if charity hath not this eye of knowledge to direct when, how, what, and to whom thou art to give, thou mayest at once wrong God, the person thou relievest, and thyself. Art thou humbling thyself for thy sin? For want of knowledge in the tenor of the gospel, Satan may play upon thy ignorance, and either persuade thee thou art not humbled enough, when, God knows, thou art almost quackled[i] with thy tears, and even carried down by the impetuous torrent of thy sorrow into despair, or else showing thee thy blubbered face, may flatter thee into a carnal confidence of thy humiliation. Perhaps thou seest the name of God dishonoured in the place where thou livest, and thy spirit is stirred within thee, as Paul’s at Athens; now if knowledge sits not in the saddle to rein and bridle in thy zeal, thou wilt be soon carried over hedge and ditch, till thou fallest into some precipice or other by thy irregular acting. Neither is knowledge enough, except thou beest armed with temperance, which here, I conceive, is that grace, whereby the Christian, as mas­ter of his own house, so orders his affections, like servants, to reason and faith, that they do not regularly move, or inordinately lash out into desires of, cares for, or joy in the creature comforts of this life, without which Satan will be too hard for thee. The historian tells us, that in one of the famous battles between the English and French, that which lost the French the day was a shower of English arrows, which did so gall their horse, as put the whole army into disorder, [for] their horse knowing no ranks, did tread down their own men. The affections are but as the horse to the rider, on which knowledge should be mounted; if Satan’s barbed arrows light on them, so that thy desires of the creature prove unruly, and justle with thy desires of Christ, [if] thy care to keep thy credit or estate put thy care to keep a good conscience to disorder, and thy carnal joy in wife and child trample down or get before thy joy in the Lord, judge on which side victory is like to fall. Well, suppose thou marchest provided thus far in goodly array towards heaven, while thou art swimming in prosperity, must thou not also prepare for foul way and weather—I mean in an afflicted estate? Satan will line the hedges with a thousand temptations, when thou comest into the narrow lanes of ad­versity, where thou canst not run from this sort of temptation, as in the campaign of prosperity. Possibly, thou that didst escape the snare of an alluring world, mayest be dismounted by the same when it frowns; though temperance kept thee from being drunk with sweet wines of those pleasures, yet for want of patience thou mayest be drunk with the wine of astonishment, which is in affliction’s hands; therefore, saith the apostle, ‘to temperance, add patience.’ Either possess thyself in patience, or else some raving devil of discontent will possess thee. An impatient soul in affliction is a bedlam in chains, yea, too like the devil in his chains, [who] rageth against God, while he is fettered by him. Well, hast thou patience?—an excellent grace indeed, but not enough. Thou must be a pious man as well as patient. Therefore, saith the apostle, ‘to patience, add godliness.’ There is an atheistical patience, and there is a godly Christian patience. Satan numbs the conscience of one, and [so] no wonder he complains not, that feels not; but the Spirit of Christ sweetly calms the other, not by taking away the sense of pain, but by overcoming it with the sense of his love. Now godliness comprehends the whole worship of God, inward and outward. If thou beest never so exact in thy morals, and not a worshipper of God, then thou art an atheist. If thou dost worship God, and that devoutly, but not by Scripture rule, thou art but an idolater. If according to the rule, but not in spirit and truth, then thou art an hypocrite, and so fallest into the devil’s mouth. Or if thou dost give God one piece of his worship, and deniest another, still Satan comes to his market. ‘He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination,’ Proverbs 28:9. Yet, Christian, all thy armour is not on. Thy godliness indeed would suffice, wert thou to live in a world by thyself, or hadst nothing to do but immediate communion with God. But, Christian, thou must not always dwell on this mount of immediate worship, and [since] when thou descendest, thou hast many brethren and servants of thy Father, who live with thee in the same family, thou must deport thyself becomingly, or else thy Father will be angry. Thou hast brethren, heirs of the same promise with thee, therefore you must add to godliness ‘brotherly-kindness.’ If Satan can set you at odds, he gives a deep wound to your godliness. You will hardly join hearts in a duty, that cannot join hands in love. In the family there are not only brethren, but servants, a multitude of profane carnal ones, who though they never had the names of sons and daughters, yet retain to God’s family. And thy heavenly Father will have thee walk unblameably, yea winningly, to those that are without, which thou mayest do, thou must add to brotherly-kindness, ‘charity;’ by which grace thou shalt be willing to do good to the worst of men. When they curse thee, thou must pray for them, yea, pray for no less than a Christ, a heaven, for them. ‘Father, forgive them,’ said Christ, while they were raking in his side for his heart-blood. And truly, I am persuaded this last piece of armour hath given Satan great advantage in these our times, we are so afraid our charity should be too broad. Whereas in this sense, if it be not wide as the world, it is too strait for the command which bids us ‘do good to all.’ May not we ministers be charged with the want of this, when the strain of our preaching is solely directed to the saints, and no pains taken in rescuing poor captive souls, yet uncalled, out of the devil’s clutches? He may haul them to hell without disturbance, while we are comforting the saints, and preaching their privileges; but in the meantime, let the ignorant be ignorant still, and the profane profane still, for want of a compassionate charity to their souls, which would excite us to the reproving and exhorting of them, that they might also be brought into the way of life, as well as the saints encouraged, who are walking therein. We are stewards to provide bread for the Lord’s house. The greatest part of our hearers cannot, must not, have the children’s bread, and shall we therefore give them no portion at all? Christ’s charity pitied the multitude, to whom in his public preaching he made special application, as in that famous sermon, most part of which is spent in rousing up the sleepy consciences of the hypocritical Pharisees, by those thunderclaps of woes and curses so often denounced against them, Matthew 23:1-39. Again, how great advantage hath Satan from the want of this charity in our families? Is it not observed how little care is taken by professing governors of such societies for the instructing their youth? Nay, it is a principle which some have drunk in, that it is not their duty. O where is their charity in the meantime, when they can see Satan come within their own walls, and let them drive a child, a servant, in their ignorance and profaneness, to hell, and not so much as sally out upon this enemy by a word of reproof or instruction, to rescue these silly souls out of the murder’s hand? We must leave them to their liberty forsooth, and that is as fair play as we can give the devil. Give but corrupt nature enough of this rope, and it will soon strangle the very principles of God and religion in their tender years. Third. The entireness of the saint’s armour may be taken not only for every part and piece of the saint’s furniture, but for the completeness and perfection of every piece. As the Christian is to endeavour after every grace, so is he to press after the advance and increase of every grace, even to perfection itself. As he is to add to his faith virtue, so he is to add faith to faith—he is ever to be completing of his grace. It is that which is frequently pressed upon believers. ‘Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,’ Matthew 5:48. ‘And purify yourselves, as God is pure.’ There we have an exact copy set, not as if we could equalize that purity and perfection which is in God, but to make us strive the more, when we shall see how infinitely short we fall of our copy, when we write the fairest hand; so ‘Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing,’ James 1:3-4, or [be] wanting in nothing. Thou who makest a hard shift to carry a little burden with thy little patience, wouldst sink under a greater, therefore there is need that patience should be ever perfecting, lest at last we meet a burden too heavy for our weak shoulders. Take a few reasons why the Christian should thus be completing of his grace. First. Because grace is subject to decays, and therefore ever needs completing. [It is] as in an army, especially [one] which often engagest in battle; their arms are battered and broken, one man hath his helmet bent, another his sword gaped, a third his pistol unfixed, and therefore recruits are ever necessary. In one temptation the Christian hath his hel­met of hope beaten off his head, in another his patience hard put to it. The Christian had need have an armourer’s shop at hand to make up his loss, and that speedily, for Satan is most like to fall on when the Christian is least prepared to receive the charge. ‘Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to sift you;’ he knew they were at that time weakly provided—(Christ their captain now to be taken from the head of their troop; discontents among themselves, striving who should be greatest; and their recruits of stronger grace, which the Spirit was to bring, not yet come). Now he hath a design to surprise them; and therefore Christ, carefully to prevent him, promiseth speedily to despatch his Spirit for their supply, Acts 1:4, and in the meantime sends them to Jerusalem, to stand as it were in a body in their joint supplications upon their guard, while he comes to their relief; showing us in the weakness of our grace what to do, and whither to go for supply. Second. Because Satan is completing his skill and wrath. It is not for nought that he is called the old serpent—subtle by nature, but more by experience, wrathful by nature, yet every day more and more enraged; like a bull, the longer he is baited, the more fury he shows. And therefore we who are to grapple with him, now his time is so short, had need come well appointed into the field. Third. It is the end of all God’s dispensations, to complete his saints in their graces and comforts. Wherefore doth he lop and prune by afflictions, but to purge, that they may bring forth more fruit, that is, fuller and fairer? John 15:2. Tribulation works patience, Romans 5:3; it is God’s appointment for that end. It works, that is, it increaseth the saints. Patience enrageth indeed the wicked, but meekens the saints. It is his design in the gospel; he preacheth to carry on his saints from ‘faith to faith,’ Romans 1:17, and accordingly he hath furnished his church with instruments, and those with gifts, ‘For the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ,’ Ephesians 4:12. Wherefore doth the scaffold stand, and the workman on it, if the building go not up? For us not to advance under such means is to make void the counsel of God. Therefore the apostle blames the Christian Jews for their non-proficiency in the school of Christ: ‘When for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God,’ Hebrews 5:12. [Use and Application.] Use. O how few are there endeavour thus to promove in their spiritual state, and labour to perfect what is yet lacking in their knowledge, patience, and the rest. 1. Tell some of adding faith to faith, one degree of grace to another, and you shall find they have more mind to join house to house, and lay field to field. Their souls are athirst, ever gaping for more. But of what? not of Christ or of heaven. It is earth. Earth they never think they have enough of, till death comes and stops their mouth with a shovel-full, dig­ged out of their own grave. What a tormenting life must they needs have, who are always crying for more weight, and yet cannot press their covetous desires to death? O sirs, the only way—if men would believe it—to quench this thirst to the creature, were to en­kindle another after Christ and heaven. Get but a large heart vehemently thirsting after these, and the other will die alone, as the feverish thirst doth when nature comes to her temper. 2. Others labour not thus to perfect grace, be­cause they have a conceit they are perfect already, and upon this fancy throw away praying, hearing, and all other ordinances, as strings for those babes in grace to be carried by, who are not arrived to their high attainments. O what fools does pride make men! Truly heaven were no such desirable place, if we should be no more perfect than thus—a sort of people that are too high for this world, and too low for another. The way by which God cures this frenzy of pride, we have in these days seen to be something like that of Nebuchadnezzar; to give them the heart of a beast, I mean, for a time, to suffer them to fall into beastly practices, by which he shows them how far they are from that perfection they dreamed of so vainly. 3. Others who have true grace, and desire the advancement of it, yet are discouraged in their en­deavour for more, from too deep a sense of their present penury. Bid some such labour to get more power over corruption, more faith on, and love to God, that they may be able to do the will of God cheerfully, and suffer it in the greatest afflictions pa­tiently, yea, thankfully, and they will never believe, that they whose faith is so weak, love so chill, and stock so little in hand, should ever attain to anything like such a pitch. You may as well persuade a beggar with one poor penny in his purse, that if he shall go and trade with that, he shall come to be lord-Mayor of London before he die. But why, poor hearts, should you thus despise the day of small things? Do you not see a little grain of mustard-seed spread into a tree, and weak grace compared to it, for its growth at last as well as littleness at first? Darest thou say thou hast no grace at all? If thou hast but any, though the least that ever any had to begin with, I dare tell thee, that he hath done more for thee in that, than he should in making that which is now so weak, as perfect as the saint’s grace is now in heaven. (1.) He hath done more, considering it as an act of power. There is a greater gulf between no grace and grace, than between weak grace and strong, between a chaos and nothing, than between a chaos and this beautiful frame of heaven and earth. The first day’s work of both creations is the greatest. (2.) Consider it as an act of grace. It is greater mercy to give the first grace of conversion, than to crown that with glory. It is more grace and condescension in a prince to marry a poor damsel, than having married her, to clothe her like a princess; he was free to do the first or not, but his relation to her pleads strongly for the other. God might have chosen whether he would have given thee grace or no, but having done this, thy relation to him, and his covenant also, do oblige him to add more and more, till he hath fitted thee as a bride for himself in glory. BRANCH FOURTH. [The use of our spiritual armour —put on the whole armour of God.] The fourth and last branch in the saints’ furniture is, the use they are to make thereof[ii], ‘put on the whole armour of God.’ Briefly, what is this duty, put on? These being saints, many of them at least, whom he writes to, it is not only putting on by conversation, what some of them might not yet have, but also, he means they should exercise what they have. It is one thing to have armour in the house, and another thing to have it buckled on; to have grace in the principle, and grace in the act. So that our instruction will be, [Our armour or grace must be kept in exercise.] Doctrine. It is not enough to have grace, but this grace must be kept in exercise. The Christian’s armour is made to be worn; no laying down, or put­ting off our armour, till we have done our warfare, and finished our course. Our armour and our garment of flesh go off together; then, indeed, will be no need of watch and ward; shield or helmet. Those military duties and field-graces—as I may call faith, hope, and the rest—shall be honourably discharged. In heaven we shall appear, not in armour, but in robes of glory. But here these are to be worn night and day; we must walk, work, and sleep in them, or else we are not true soldiers of Christ. This Paul professeth to endeavour. ‘Herein do I exercise my­self, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men,’ Acts 24:16. Here we have this holy man at his arms, training and exer­cising himself in his postures, like some soldier by himself handling his pike, and inuring himself before the battle. Now the reason of this is, First. Christ commands us to have our armour on, our grace in exercise. ‘Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning,’ Luke 12:35. Christ speaks either in a martial phrase, as to soldiers, or in a domestic, as to servants. If as to soldiers, then let your loins be girded and your lights burning, that is, we should be ready for a march, having our armour on—for the belt goes over all—and our match lighted, ready to give fire at the first alarm of temp­tation. If as to servants, which seems more natural, then he bids us, as our master that is gone abroad, not through sloth or sleep [to] put off our clothes, and put out our lights; but [to] stand ready to open when he shall come, though at midnight. It is not fit the Master should stand at the door knocking, and the servant within sleeping. Indeed there is no duty the Christian hath in charge, but implies this daily exercise: ‘pray’ he must—but how?—‘without ceasing;’ ‘rejoice’—but when?—‘evermore;’ ‘give thanks’ —for what? ‘in everything,’ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18. The shield of faith, and helmet of hope, we must hold them to the end, 1 Peter 1:13. The sum of all which is, that we should walk in the constant exercise of these duties and graces. Where the soldier is placed, there he stands, and must neither stir nor sleep till he be brought off. When Christ comes, that soul shall only have his blessing whom he finds so doing. Second. Satan’s advantage is great when grace is not in exercise. When the devil found Christ so ready to receive his charge, and repel his temptation, he soon had enough. It is sad ‘he departed for a season,’ Luke 4:13; as if in his shameful retreat he had comforted himself with hopes of surprising Christ unawares, at another season more advantageous to his design; and we find him coming again, in the most likely time indeed to have attained his end, had his enemy been man, and not God. Now if this bold fiend did thus watch and observe Christ from time to time, doth it not behove thee to look about thee, lest he take thy grace at one time or other napping? what he hath missed now by thy watchfulness, he may gain anon by thy negligence. Indeed he hopes thou wilt be tired out with continual duty. Surely, saith Satan, when he sees the Christian up and fervent in duty, this will not hold long. When he finds him tender of conscience, and scrupulous of occasion to sin, [he saith,] This is but for a while, ere long I shall have him unbend his bow, and unbuckle his armour, and then have at him. Satan knows what orders thou keepest in thy house and closet, and though he hath not a key to thy heart, yet he can stand in the next room to it, and lightly hear what is whispered there. He hunts the Christian by the scent of his own feet, and if once he doth but smell which way thy heart inclines, he knows how to take the hint; if but one door be unbolted, one work unmanned, one grace off its cárriage, here is advantage enough. Third. Because it is so awky[iii] a business, and hard a work, to recover the activity once lost, and to revive a duty in disuse. ‘I have put off my coat,’ saith the spouse, Song of Solomon 5:3. She had given way to a lazy dis­temper, was laid upon her bed of sloth, and how hard is it to raise her! Her Beloved is at the door, beseeching her by all the names of love which might bring her to remembrance the near relation between them; [he crieth], ‘My sister, my love, my dove, open to me,’ and yet she riseth not. He tells her ‘his locks are filled with the drops of the night,’ yet she stirs not. What is the matter? Her coat was off, and she is loath to put it on. She had given way to her sloth, and now she knows not how to shake it off; she could have been glad to have her Beloved’s company, if himself would have opened the door; and he desired as much hers, if she would rise to let him in, and upon these terms they part. The longer a soul hath neglected a duty, the more ado there is to get it taken up; partly, through shame, the soul having played the truant, now knows not how to look God in the face; and partly, from the difficulty of the work, being double to what another finds that walks in the exercise of his grace. Here is all out of order. It requires more time and pains for him to tune his instrument, than for another to play the lesson. He goes to duty as to a new work, as a scholar that hath not looked on his book some while; his lesson is almost out of his head, whereas another that was even now but conning it over, hath it[iv] [at his finger ends]. Perhaps it is an affliction thou art called to bear, and thy patience [is] unexercised. Little or no thoughts thou hast had for such a time—while thou wert frisking in a full pasture—and now thou kickest and flingest, even as a bullock unac­customed to the yoke, Jeremiah 31:18; whereas another goes meekly and patiently under the like cross, because he had been stirring up his patience, and fitting the yoke to his neck. You know what a confusion there is in a town at some sudden alarm in the dead of the night, the enemy at the gates, and they asleep within. O what a cry is there heard! One wants his clothes, another his sword, a third knows not what to do for powder. Thus in a fright they run up and down, which would not be if the enemy did find them upon their guard, orderly waiting for his approach. Such a hubbub there is in a soul that keeps not his armour on; this piece and that will be to seek when he should use it. Fourth. We must keep grace in exercise in re­spect of others our fellow-soldiers. Paul had this in his eye when he was exercising himself to keep a good conscience, that he might not be a scandal to others. The cowardice of one may make others run. The ignorance of one soldier that hath not skill to handle his arms, may do mischief to his fellow-soldiers about him. Some have shot their friends for their enemies. The unwise walking of one professor makes many others fare the worse. But say thou dost not fall so far as to become a scandal, yet thou canst not be so helpful to thy fellow‑brethren as thou shouldst. God commanded the Reubenites and Gadites to go before their brethren ready armed, until the land was conquered. Thus, Christian, thou art to be helpful to thy fellow-brethren, who have not, it may be, that settlement of peace in their spirit as thyself, not that measure of grace or comfort. Thou art to help such weak ones, and go before them, as it were, armed for their defence; now if thy grace be not exercised, thou art so far unserviceable to thy weak brother. Perhaps thou art a master, or a parent, who hast a family under thy wing. They fare as thou thrivest; if thy heart be in a holy frame, they fare the better in the duties thou performest; if thy heart be dead and down, they are losers by the hand. So that as the nurse eats the more for the babe’s sake she suckles, so shouldst thou for their sake who are under thy tuition, be more careful to exercise thy own grace, and cherish it. Objection. O but, may some say, this is hard work indeed, our armour never off, our grace always in exercise. Did God ever mean religion should be such a toilsome business as this world make it? Answer First. Thou speakest like one of the foolish world, and showest thyself a mere stranger to the Christian’s life that speakest thus. A burden to exercise grace! Why, it is no burden to exercise the acts of nature, to eat, to drink, to walk, all are delightful to us in our right temper. [But] if any of these be otherwise, nature is oppressed, as, if stuffed, then [it is] difficult to breathe; if sick, then the meat [is] offensive we eat. So take a saint in his right temper, [and] it is his joy to be employed in the exercise of his grace in this or that duty: ‘I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord,’ Psalms 122:1. His heart leaped at the motion. When any occasion diverts him from communion with God, though he likes it never so well, yet it is unwelcome and unpleasing to him. As [for] you, who are used to be in your shops from morning to night, how tedious is it to be abroad some days, though among good friends, because you are not where your work and calling lies! A Christian in duty is one in his calling—as it were in his shop, where he should be, and therefore far from being tedious. Religion is [so] burdensome to none, as to those who are infrequent in the exercise of it. Use makes heavy things light. We hardly feel the weight of our clothes, because fitted to us, and worn daily by us, whereas the same weight on our shoulder troubles us. Thus the grievousness of religious duties to carnal ones, is taken away in the saints, partly by the fitness of them to the saints’ principles, as also by their daily exercise in them. The disciples, when newly entered into the ways of Christ, could not pray much or fast long; the bottles were new, and that wine too strong, but by the time they had walked a few years, they grew mighty in both. Dost thou complain that [the] heaven-way is rugged? Be the oftener walking in it, and that will make it smooth. Answer Second. Were this constant exercise of grace more troublesome to the flesh, which is the only complainer, the sweet advantage that accrues by this to the Christian, will abundantly recompense all his labour and pains. 1. The exercise of thy grace will increase thy grace. ‘The hand of the diligent maketh rich.’ The provident man counts that lost which might have been got; not only when his money is stole out of his chest, but when it lies there unimproved. Such a commodity, saith the tradesman, if I had bought with that money in my bags, would have brought me in so much gain, which is now lost. So the Christian may say, My dawning knowledge, had I followed on to know the Lord, might have spread to broad day. ‘I have more understanding,’ saith David, ‘than all my teachers.’ How came he by it? He will tell you in the next words—‘for thy testimonies are my meditation,’ Psalms 119:99. He was more in the exercise of duty and grace. The best wits are not always the greatest schol­ars, because their study is not suitable to their parts; neither always proves he the richest man that sets up with the greatest stock. A little grace well husbanded by daily exercise will increase, when greater [grace] neglected shall decay. 2. As exercise increaseth, so it evidenceth grace. Would a man know whether he be lame or no, let him rise; he will sooner be satisfied by one turn in a room, than by a long dispute, and he sitting still. Wouldst thou know whether thou lovest God? Be frequent in exhorting acts of love; the more the fire is blown up, the sooner it is seen, and so of all other graces. Sometimes the soul is questioning whether it hath any patience, any faith, till God comes and puts him into an afflicted estate, where he must either exercise this grace or perish. Then it [the soul] appears like one that thinks he cannot swim, yet be­ing thrown into the river, then uniting all his strength, he makes a shift to swim to land, and sees what he can do. How oft have we heard Christians say, I thought I could never have endured such a pain, trusted God in such a strait? But now God hath taught me what he can do for me, what he hath wrought in me. And this thou mightest have known before, if thou wouldst have oftener stirred up and exercised thy grace. 3. Exercise of grace doth invite God to communicate himself to such a soul. God sets the Christian at work, and then meets him in it. Up and doing, and the Lord be with you. He sets a soul reading as the eunuch, and then joins to his chariot a praying, and then comes the messenger from heaven—‘O Daniel, greatly beloved.’ The spouse, who lost her beloved on her bed, finds him as she comes from the sermon. ‘It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth,’ Song of Solomon 3:4. [Use and Application.] Use First. This falls heavy on their heads, who are so far from exercising grace, that they walk in the exercise of their lusts. Their hearts are like a glass house, the fire is never out, the shop-windows never shut, they are always at work, hammering some wicked project or other upon the anvil of their hearts. There are some who give full scope to their lusts; when their wicked hearts will, they shall have; they cocker[v] their lusts as some their children, [and] deny them nothing; as it is recorded of David to Adonijah, [they] do not so much as say to their souls, Why doest thou so? why art thou so proud, so covetous, profane? They spend their days in making provision for these guests; as at some inns, the house never cools, but as one guest goes out another comes in—as one lust is served, another is calling for attendance; as some exercise grace more than others, so there are greater traders in sin, that set more at work than others, and return more wrath in a day than others in a month. Happy are such, in comparison of these, who are chained up by God’s restraint upon their outward man or inward, that they cannot drive on so furiously as those who, by health of body, power and greatness in place, riches and treasures in their coffers, numbness and dedolency[vi] in their con­sciences, are hurried on to fill up the measure of their sins. We read of the Assyrian, that he ‘enlarged his heart as hell,’ stretching out his desires as men do their bags that are thracked[vii] full with money to hold more, Habakkuk 2:5. Thus the adulterer, as if his body were not quick enough to execute the commands of his lust, stirs it up by sending forth his amorous glances, which come home laden with adultery, blows up his fire with unchaste sonnets and belly-cheer, proper fuel for the devil’s kitchen; and the malicious man, who that he may lose no time from his lust, is a tearing his neighbour in pieces as he lies on his bed, [and] cannot sleep unless some such bloody sacrifice be offered to his ravening lust. O how may this shame the saints! How oft is your zeal so hot that you cannot sleep till your hearts have been in heaven, as you are on your beds, and there pacified with the sight of your dear Saviour, and some embraces of love from him! Use Second. It reproves those who flout and mock at the saints, while exercising their graces. None jeered as the saint in his calling. Men may work in their shops, and every one follows his calling as diligently as they please; and no wonder made of this by those that pass by in the streets; but let the Christian be seen at work for God, in the exercise of any duty or grace, and he is hooted at, despised, yea, hated. Few so bad indeed, but seem to like religion in the notion; they commend a sermon of holiness like a discourse of God or Christ in the pulpit, but when these are really set before their eyes, as they sparkle in a saint’s conversation, they are very contemptible and hateful to them. This living and walking holiness bites, and though they like the preacher’s art in painting forth the same in his discourse, yet now they run from them, and spit at them. This exercise of grace offends the profane heart, and stirs up the enmity that lies within; as Michal, she could not but flout David to see him dancing before the ark. He that commended the preacher for making a learned discourse of zeal, will rail on a saint expressing an act of zeal in his place and calling; now grace comes too near him. A naughty heart must stand some distance from holiness, that the beams thereof may not beat too strong­ly on his conscience, and so he likes it. Thus the Pharisees the prophets of old; these were holy men in their account, and they can lavish out their money on their tombs, in honour of them; but Christ, who was more worth than all of them, he is scorned and hated. What is the mystery of this? The reason was, these prophets are off the stage, and Christ on. Pascitur in vivis livor, post fata quiescit—envy feeds on the living, but after death it ceases. Use Third. Try by this whether you have grace or no. Dost thou walk in the exercise of thy grace? He that hath clothes, surely will wear them, and not be seen naked. Men talk of their faith, repentance, love to God; these are precious graces, but why do they not let us see these walking abroad in their daily conversation? Surely if such guests were in thy soul, they would look out sometimes at the window, and be seen abroad in this duty and that holy action. Grace is of a stirring nature, and not such a dead thing, like an image, which you may lock up in a chest, and none shall know what God you worship. No, grace will show itself; it will walk with you into all places and companies; it will buy with you, and sell for you; it will have a hand in all your enterprises; it will comfort you when you are sincere and faithful for God, and it will complain and chide you when you are otherwise. Go to, stop its mouth, and Heaven will hear its voice, it will groan, mourn and strive, even as a living man when you would smother him. I will as soon believe a man to be alive, that lies peaceably as he is nailed up in his coffin, without strife or bustle, as that thou hast grace, and never exercise it in any act of spiritual life. What! man, hast thou grace, and carried as peaceably as a fool to the stocks by thy lust? Why hangest thou there nailed to thy lust? If thou hast grace, come down and we will believe it; but if thou beest such a tame slave as to sit still inder the command of lust, thou deceivest thyself. Hast thou grace, and show none of it in the condition thou art placed in? May be thou art rich; dost thou show thy humility towards those that are beneath thee? dost thou show a heavenly mind, breathing after heaven more than earth? It may be thy heart is puf­fed with thy estate, that thou lookest on the pooras creatures of some lower species than thyself, and disdainest them, and as for heaven thou thinkest not of it. Like that wicked prince that said, He would lose his part in paradise rather than in Paris. Art thou poor? why dost [thou] not exercise grace in that condition? Art thou contented, diligent? May be instead of contention thou repinest, canst not see a fair lace on thy rich brother’s cloth, but grudgest it; instead of concurring with providence by diligence to supply thy wants, thou art ready to break through the hedge into thy neighbour’s fat pasture; thus serving thy own turn by a sin, rather than waiting for God’s blessing on thy honest diligence. If so, be not angry we call thee by thy right name, or at least question whether we may style thee Christian, whose carriage is so cross to that sacred name, which is too holy to be written on a rotten post. Use Fourth. Be exhorted, O ye saints of God, to walk in the exercise of grace. It is the minister’s duty, with the continual breath of exhortation, and if need be, reproof, to keep this heavenly fire clean on the saints’ altar. Peter saw it necessary to have the bellows always in his hands, ‘I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the pre­sent truth,’ 2 Peter 1:12. That shall not take him off; as long as he is in this tabernacle, he saith he will stir them up, and be putting them in remembrance, 2 Peter 1:13. There is a sleepy disease we are subject to tin this life; Christ though he had roused up his disciples twice, yet takes them napping the third time. Either exercise thy grace, or Satan will act hy corruption; as one bucket goes down the other riseth; there is a body of sin within, which likely a malignant party watcheth for such a time to step into the saddle, and it is easier to keep them down than to pull them down. Thy time is short, and thy way long, thou hadst best put on, lest thou meanest to be overtaken with the night before thou gettest within sight of thy Father’s house. How uncomfortable it is for a traveller in heaven’s road, above all other, to go potching in the dark, many can with aching hearts tell thee. And what hast thou here to mind like this? Are they worldly cares and pleasures? Is it wisdom to lay out so much cost on thy tenement, which thou art leaving, and forget what thou must carry with thee? Before the fruit of these be ripe which thou art now planting, thyself may be rotting in the grave. ‘Time is short,’[viii] saith the apostle, 1 Corinthians 7:29. The world is near its port, and therefore God hath contracted the sails of man’s life; but a while, and there will not be a point to choose whether we had wives or not, riches or not; but there will be a vast difference between those that had grace and those that had not; yea, between those that did drive a quick trade in the exercise thereof, and those that were more remiss. The one shall have an ‘abundant entrance into glory,’ 2 Peter 1:2; while the other shall suffer loss in much of his lading, which shall be cast overboard, as merchandise that will bear no price in that heavenly country. Yea, while thou art here others shall fare the better by thy lively graces. Thy cheerfulness and activity in thy heavenly course will help others that travel with thee; he is dull indeed that will not put on, when he sees so much metal for God in thee who leadest the way. Yea, thy grace will give a check to the sins of others, who never stand in such awe, as when grace comes forth and sits like a ruler in the gate, to be seen of all that pass by. The swearer knows not [that] such majesty is present, when the Christian is mealy-mouthed, and so goes on and fears no colours, whose grace, had it but her dagger of zeal ready, and courage to draw it forth in a wise reproof, would make sin quit the place, and with shame run into its hole: ‘The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up. The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth,’ Job 29:8, 9. And doth not God deserve the best service thou canst do him in thy generation? Did he give thee grace to lay it up in a dead stock, and none to be the better? or can you say that he is wanting to you in his love and mercy? Are they not ever in exercise for your good? Is the eye of providence ever shut? No, he slumbers not that keeps thee. Is it one moment off thee? No, ‘the eye of the Lord is upon the righteous;’ he hath fixed it for ever, and with infinite delight pleaseth himself in the object. When was his ear shut, or his hand, either from receiving thy cries, or supplying thy wants? Nay, doth not thy condition take up the thoughts of God? And are they any other than thoughts of peace which he entertains? A few drops of this oil will keep the wheel in motion. [i]. Quackle is an old word meaning to choke or suffocate.—Ed. [ii]. ¦<*F"Fb2, J¬< B"<@B8\"< J@Ø 2,@Ø. [iii]. Awky conveys the meaning of being odd or out of order. [iv]. Ad unguem. [v]. Note: Cocker means to coddle or pamper; indulge. — SDB [vi]. Dedolency, absence of, or want of compunction. [vii]. To Thrack means generally to load or burden. [viii]. Ð 6"4D@H FL<0FJ"8µ0<@H ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.03 - THE REASON WHY THE CHRISTIAN MUST BE ARMED, "THAT YE MAY BE ABLE TO STAND' ======================================================================== DIRECTION I.—SECOND GENERAL PART [The reason why the Christian must be armed, ‘That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.’] These words present us with the reason why the Christian soldier is to be thus completely armed, ‘That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.’ The strength of this argument lies in these two particulars [or branches]. First, The danger, if unarmed. The enemy is no mean contemptible one, no less than the devil, set out as a cunning engineer by his wiles and stratagems. Second, The certainty of standing against all his wits and wiles, if we be thus armed. As [there is] no standing without armour, so [there is] no fear of falling into the fiend’s hands if armed. BRANCH FIRST. [The danger, if unarmed.] The saint’s enemy is the devil, described by his wiles, properly, the methods of Satan. [The Greek word[1]] signi­fies, the art and order one observes in handling a point; we say such a one is methodical. Now because it shows ingenuity and acuteness of wit so to compose a discourse, therefore it is transferred to express the subtlety of Satan, in laying off his plots and stratagems, in his warlike preparations against the Christian. Indeed the expert soldier hath his order as well as the scholar; there is method in forming of an army, as well as framing an argument. The note which lies before us is— Doctrine, That the devil is a very subtle enemy. The Christian is endangered most by his pol­icy and craft. He is called the old serpent—the serpent subtle above other creatures; an old serpent above other serpents. Satan was too crafty for man in his perfection, much more now in his maimed estate, having never recovered that first crack he got in his understanding, by the fall of Adam. And as man hath lost, so Satan hath gained more and more experience; he lost his wisdom, indeed, as soon as he became a devil, but, ever since, he hath increased his craft; though he hath not wisdom enough to do himself good, yet [he hath] subtlety enough to do others hurt. God shows us where his strength lies, when he prom­iseth he will bruise the head of the serpent; his head crushed, and he dies presently. Now in handling this point of Satan’s subtlety, we shall consider him in his two Mal. designs, and therein show you his wiles and policies. His first Mal. design is to draw into sin. The second Mal. design is to accuse, vex, and trouble the saint for sin. [Satan’s first Mal. design is to draw into sin.] First. Let us consider the devil as a tempter to sin, and there he shows us his wily subtlety in three things. First. In choosing the most advantageous sea­son for temptation. Second. In managing the temptations, laying them in such a method and form as shows his craft. Third. In pitching on fit instruments for his turn, to carry on his design. [Satan’s subtlety in choosing the most advantageous seasons for tempting.] First. Satan shows his subtlety in choosing the most proper and advantageous seasons for tempting. ‘To every thing there is a season,’ Solomon saith, Ecclesiastes 3:1, that is, a nick of time, which taken, gives facility and speedy despatch to a business; and therefore the same wise man gives this reason why man miscarries so frequently, and is disappointed in his enterprises, ‘because he knows not his time,’ Ecclesiastes 9:12. He comes when the bird is flown. A hundred soldiers at one time may turn a battle, save an army, when thousands will not do [it] at another. Satan knows when to make his approaches, when (if at any time) he is most likely to be entertained. As Christ hath the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season of counsel and comfort, to a doubting dropping soul, so Satan knows his black heart, and hellish skill, in speaking words of seduction and temptation in season; and a word in season is a words on its wheels. I shall give you a view of his subtlety in special seasons, which he chooseth to tempt in. These special seasons are: 1. Season. When the Christian is newly converted. No sooner is this child of grace, the new crea­ture, born, but this dragon pours a flood of temptation after it. He learned the Egyptians but some of his own craft, when he taught them that bloody and cruel baptism, which they exercised upon the Israel­itish babes, in throwing them into the river as soon as they were born. The first cry of the new creature gives all the legions of hell an alarm. They are as much troubled at it as Herod and Jerusalem were when Christ was born; and now they sit in council to take away the life of this new-born king. The apostles met with opposition and persecution in their latter days when endued with larger portions of the Spirit, but with temptations from Satan in their former, when young converts; as you may observe in the sev­eral passages recorded of them. Satan knew grace within was but weak, and the supplies promised at the Spirit’s coming not landed. And when is an enemy more like to carry the town than in such a low condition? And therefore he tries them all. Indeed the advantages are so many, that we may wonder how the young convert escapes with his life; knowledge [being] weak, and [he] so soon let him into an error, especially in divided times, when many ways are held forth one saying, Here is Christ, another There is Christ. And the Christian [is] ready to think every one means honestly that comes with good words, as a little child that hath lost his way to his father’s house, is prone to follow any that offer their conduct [or] experience of what he knows little. And if Adam, whose knowledge [was] so perfect, yet was soon cheated—being assaulted before he was well warm in his new possessions—how much more advantage hath Satan of the new convert! In him he finds every grace in a great indisposition to make resistance, both from its own weakness, and the strength of contrary corruption, which commonly in such is unmortified. [This] makes it act with more difficulty and mixture, as in a fire newly kindled, where the smoke is more than the flame, or like beer newly tunned which runs thick. So that though there appear more strength of affection in such, that it works over into greater abundance of duty than in others, yet [it is] with more dregs of carnal passions, which Satan knows, and therefore chooseth to stir what he sees troubled already. 2. Season. When the Christian is beset with some great affliction, this is as blind lane or solitary place, fit for this thief to call for his purse in. An expert captain first labours to make a breach in the wall, and then falls on in storming the city. Satan first got power from God to weaken Job in his estate, children, health and other comforts he had, and now tempts him to impatience, and what not; he lets Christ fast forty days before he comes, and then he falls to his work; as an army stays till a castle be pinched for provision within, and then sends a parley, never more likely to be embraced than in such a strait. A temptation comes strong when the way to relief seems to lie through the sin that Satan is woo­ing to; when one is poor and Satan comes, What! wilt starve rather than step over the hedge and steal for thy supply? this is enough to put flesh and blood to the stand. 3. Season. When the Christian is about some notable enterprise for God’s glory, then Satan will lie like a serpent in the way, ‘an adder in the path, that biteth his horse-heels, so that his rider shall fall back­ward.’ Thus he stood at Joshua’s right hand ‘to resist him.’ The right hand is the working hand, and his standing there implies the desire to hinder him in his enterprise. Indeed the devil was never friend to temple-work, and therefore that work is so long a doing. What a handsome excuse doth he help the Jews unto—The time is not come! God’s time was come, but not the devil’s, and therefore he helps them to this poor shift, Ezra 1:1-11; Ezra 2:1-70, Ezra 6:1-22, Ezra 8:1-35, perverting the sense of providence as if it were not time, because they were so poor; whereas they thrive no better because they went no sooner about the work, as God tells them plainly. Paul and Barnabas had a holy design in their thoughts, to [go] visit the brethren in every city, and strengthen their faith. The devil knew what a blow this might give to his kingdom; their visiting might hinder him in his circuit, and he stirs up an unhappy difference between these two holy men, who grow so hot that they part in this storm, Acts 15:36-39. There were two remarkable periods of Christ’s life, his intrat and exit, his entrance into his public ministry at his baptism, and his finishing it at his passion, and at both we have the devil fiercely encountering him. The more public thy place, Christian, and the more em­inent thy service for God, the more thou must look that the devil [will have] some more dangerous design or other against thee; and therefore if every private soldier needs armour against Satan’s bullets of temptation, then the commanders and officers, who stand in the front of the battle, much more. 4. Season. When he hath the presence of some object to enforce his temptation. Thus he takes Eve when she is near the tree, and had it in her eye while he should make the motion, [so] that [by] assaulting two ports at once, it might be the harder for her to hinder the landing of his temptation; and if Eve’s eye did so soon affect her heart with an inordinate desire, then much more now is it easy for him, by the presence of the object, to excite and actuate that lust which lies dormant in the heart. As Naomi sent her daughter to lie at the feet of Boaz, knowing well, if he endured her there, there were hope he might take her into his bed at last. If the Christian can let the object come so near, Satan will promise himself [that] his suit may in time be granted. Therefore it should be our care, if we would not yield to the sin, not to walk by, or sit at, the door of the occasion. Look not on that beauty with a wandering eye, by which thou wouldst not be taken prisoner. Parley not with that in thy thoughts, which thou meanest not to let into thy heart. Conversation begets affection: some by this have been brought to marry those, whom at first they thought they could not have liked. 5. Season. After great manifestations of God’s love, then the tempter comes. Such is the weak con­stitution of grace, that it can neither well bear smiles or frowns from God without a snare; as one said of our English nation,[2] it cannot well bear liberty nor bondage in the height. So neither can the soul. If God smile and open himself a little familiar to us, then we are prone to grow high and wanton; if the frown, then we sink as much in our faith. Thus the one, like fair weather and warm gleams, brings up the weeds of corruption; and the other, like sharp frosts, nips and even kills the flowers of grace. The Christian is in danger on both hands; therefore Satan takes the advantage, when the Christian is flush of comfort, even as a cheater, who strikes in with some young heir, when he hath newly received his rents, and never leaves till he hath eased him of his money. Thus Satan lies upon the catch, then to inveigle a saint into one sin or other, which he knows will soon leak out his joy. Had ever any a larger testimony from heaven than Peter? Matthew 16:17, where Christ pronounceth him blessed, and puts a singular honour upon him, making him the representative of all his saints. No doubt this favour to Peter stirred up the envious spirit the sooner to fall upon him. If Joseph’s parti-coloured coat made the patriarchs to plot against him their brother, no wonder malice should prompt Satan to show his spite, where Christ had set such a mark of love and honour; and therefore we find him soon at Peter’s elbow, making him his ins­trument to tempt his Master, who rebukes Peter with a ‘get thee behind me, Satan.’ He that seemed a rock even now, through Satan’s policy is laid as a stone of offence for Christ to stumble at. So [with] David, when he had received such wonderful mercies, settled in his throne with the ruin of his enemies, yea, par­doned for his bloody sin, and now ready to lay down his head with peace in the dust, Satan chops in to cloud his clear evening, and tempts him to number the people; so ambitious is Satan then chiefly to throw the saint into the mire of sin, when his coat is cleanest. 6. Season. At the hour of death, when the saint is down and prostrate in his bodily strength, now this coward falls upon him. It is the last indeed he hath for the game; now or never; overcome him now and ever. As they say of the natural serpent[3], he is never seen at his length till dying; so this mystical serpent never strains his wits and wiles more, than when his time is short. The saint is even stepping into eternity, and now he treads upon his heel, which he cannot trip up so as to hinder his arrival in heaven, yet at least to bruise it, that he may go with more pain thither. [Satan’s subtlety in managing his temptations, where several stratagems used by him to deceive the Christian are laid down.] Second. The second way wherein Satan shows his tempting subtlety, is in those stratagems he useth to deceive the Christian, managing his temptations, laying them in such a method and form, as shows his craft. 1. Stratagem. He hangs out false colours, and comes up to the Christian in the disguise of a friend, so that the gates are opened to him, and his motions received with applause, before either be discovered. Therefore he is said to ‘transform himself into an angel of light,’ 2 Corinthians 11:14. Of all plots it is most dangerous, when he appears in Samuel’s mantle, and silvers his foul tongue with fair language. Thus in point of error he corrupts some in their judgement, by commending his notions for special gospel-truths, and like a cunning chapman[4] puts off his old ware (errors I mean that have lain long upon his hand), only turning them a little after the mode of the times, and they go for new light, under the skirt of Christian liberty. He conveys in libertinism, by crying up the Spirit. He decries and vilifies the Scripture, by mag­nifying faith. He labours to undermine repentance, and blow up good works. By bewailing the corruption of the church in its administrations, he draws unstable souls from it, and amuseth them, till at last they fall into a giddiness[5], and can see no church at all in being. And he prevails no less on the hearts and lives of men by this wile, than on their judgements. Under the notion of zeal, he kindles sometimes a dangerous flame of passion and wrath in the heart, which like a rash fire makes the Christian’s spirit boil over into unchristian desires of, and prayers for, revenge where he should forgive. Of this we have an instance of the disciples, Luke 9:54, where two holy men are desiring that ‘fire may come down from heaven.’ Little did they think from whence they had their coal that did so heat them, till Christ told them, ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of,’ Luke 9:55. Sometimes he pretends pity and natural affection, which in some cases may be good counsel, and all the while he de­sires to promote cowardice and sinful self-love, whereby the Christian may be brought to fly from his colours, shrink from the truth, or decline some ne­cessary duty of his calling. This wile of his, when he got Peter to be his spokesman, saying, Master, pity thyself, Christ soon spied, and stopped his mouth with that sharp rebuke, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ O what need have we to study the Scriptures, our hearts, and Satan’s wiles, that we may not bid this enemy welcome, and all the while think it is Christ that is our guest! 2. Stratagem. Is to get intelligence of the saint’s affairs. This is one great wheel in the politician’s clock, to have spies in all places, by whom they are acquainted with the counsels and motions of their enemies, and [as] this gives them advantage to disappoint their designs, so also more safely to compass their own. It is no hard matter for him to play this game well, that sees his enemies’ hands. David knew how the squares went at court, Jonathan’s arrows carried him the news; and accordingly he removed his quarters, and was too hard for his great enemy Saul. Satan is the greatest intelligencer in the world; he makes it his business to inquire into the inclinations, thoughts, affections, purposes of the creature, that finding which humour abounds, he may apply himself accordingly,—[finding] which way the stream goes, that he may open the passage of temptation, and cut the channel to fall of the creature’s affections, and not force it against the torrent of nature. Now if we consider but the piercing apprehension of the angelic nature, how quick he is to take the scent which way the game goes, by a word dropped, the cast of an eye, or such a small matter—signal enough to give him the alarm; if we consider his experience in heart-anatomy, having inspected, and as it were dissected, so many in his long practice, whereby his knowledge is much perfected, as also his great diligence to add to both these, being as close a student as ever, considering the saints, and studying how he may do them a mischief, as we see in Job’s case, whom he had so observed, that he was able to give an answer ex tempore to God, [as to] what Job’s state and present posture was, and what might be the most probable means of obtaining his will of him; and besides all this, the correspondence that he hath with those in and about the Christian, from whom he learns much of his estate, as David [did] by Hushai in Absalom’s counsel;—all these considered, it is almost impossible for the creature to stir out of the closet of his heart, but it will be known whither he inclines. Some corrupt passion or other will bewray the soul to him, as they did [bewray] David to Saul, who told him where he might find him, in the wilderness of Engedi, 1 Samuel 24:4. Thus will these give intelligence to Satan, and say [to him], If thou wouldst surprise such a one, he is gone that way, you will have him in the wood of worldly employments, over head and ears in the de­sires of this life. See where another sits under a bower, delighting himself in this child, or that gift, endowment of mind, or the like; lay but the lime-twig[6] there, and you shall soon have him in it. Now Satan having thus intelligence, lets him alone to act his part. He sure cannot be at a loss himself, when his scholars, the Jesuits I mean, have such agility of mind, to wreathe and cast themselves into any form becoming the persons they would seduce. Is ambition the lust the heart favours? O the pleasing proj­ects that he will put such upon! How easily, having first blown them up with vain hopes, doth he draw them into horrid sins. Thus Haman, that he may have a monopoly of his prince’s favour, is hurried into that bloody plot, fatal at last to himself against the Jews. Is uncleanness the lust after which the creature’s eye wanders? Now he will be the pander, to bring him and his minion together. Thus he, finding Amnon sick of this disease, sends Jonadab, a deep-pated fellow, 2 Samuel 13:3, to put this fine device into his head of feigning himself sick, whereby his sister fell into his snare. 3. Stratagem. In his gradual approaches to the soul. When he comes to tempt, he is modest, and asks but a little; he know that he may get that at many times, which he should be denied if he asked all at once. A few are let into a city, when an army coming in a body would be shut out; and therefore that he may beget no suspicion, he presents may be a few general propositions, which do not discover the depth of his plot. These like scouts go before, while his whole body lies hid as it were in some swamp at hand. Thus he wriggled into Eve’s bosom, whom he doth not, at first dash, bid take and eat. No, he is more mannerly than do so. This would have been so hideous, that as the fish with some sudden noise, by a stone cast into the river, is scared from the bait, so she would have been affrighted from holding parley with such a one. No, he propounds a question which shall make way for this. Hath God said? art [thou] not mistaken? Could this be his meaning, whose bounty lets thee eat of the rest, to deny thee the best of all? Thus he digs about and loosens the root of her faith, and then the tree falls the easier the next gust of temptation. This is a dangerous policy indeed. Many have yielded to go a mile with Satan, that never intended to go two; but when once on the way, they have been allured farther and farther, till at last they know not how to leave his company. Thus Satan leads poor creatures down into the depths of sin by winding stairs, that let them not see the bottom whither they are going. He first presents an object that occasions some thoughts; these set on fire the affections, and they fume up into the brain, and cloud the understanding, which being thus dis­abled, Satan now dares a little more declare himself, and boldly solicit the creature to that it even now have defied. Many who at this day lie in open pro­faneness, never thought they should have rolled so far from their profession; but Satan beguiled them, poor souls, with their modest beginnings. O Christian, give not place to Satan, no, not an inch, in his first motions. He that is a beggar and a modest one with­out doors, will command the house if let in. Yield at first, and thou givest away thy strength to resist him in the rest; when the hem is worn, the whole garment will ravel out, if it be not mended by timely repentance. 4. Stratagem. The fourth way, wherein Satan shows his subtlety in managing his temptations, is in his reserves. A wise captain hath ever some fresh troops at hand, to fall in at a pinch when others are worsted. Satan is seldom at a loss in this respect; when one temptation is beat back, he soon hath another to fill up the gap, and make good the line. Thus he tempts Christ to diffidence and distrust, by bidding him turn stones into bread, as if it were now time to carve for himself, being so long neglected of his Father, as to fast forty days, and no supplies heard of. No sooner had Christ quenched this dart with these words, ‘It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,’ Matthew 4:4, but he hath another on the string, which he let fly to him, tempting him to presumption. ‘Then the devil taketh him up and setteth him on a pinnacle,’ and bids, ‘Cast thyself down headlong; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee,’ &c., Matthew 4:5-6. As if he had said, If thou hast such confidence on God and his Word, as thou pretendest, show it by casting thyself down, for thou hast a word between thee and the ground, if thou darest trust God. And truly, though Christ had his answer ready, and was prepared to receive his charge on the right hand and on the left, being so completely armed that no temptation could come amiss, yet note we, [that] Satan’s temptations on Christ were like the serpents motion on a rock, of which Solomon speaks, Proverbs 30:19. They make no impression, no dint at all; but on us they are as a serpent on sand, or dust, that leaves a print, when not in the heart yet in the fancy—colours that which is next door to it, and so the object there is ready to slip in, if great care be not observed. Especially in this case when he doth thus change his hand, as when we have resisted one way, falls afresh in another, yea, plants his succeeding temptation upon our very resistance in the former. Now it requires some readiness in our postures, and skill at all our weapons, to make our defence; like a disputant, when he is put out of his road, and hath a new question started, or argument unusual brought, now he is tried to purpose. And truly this is Satan’s way when he tempts the Christian to neglect of [the] duties of God’s worship (from his worldly occasions, the multitude of them, or necessity of fol­lowing them); and this takes not, then he is on the other side, and is drawing the Christian to the neglect of his worldly calling, out of a seeming zeal to promote his other in the worship of God. Or first, he comes and labours to deaden the heart in duty, but the Christian too watchful for him there, then he is puffing of him up with an opinion of his enlargement in it, and ever he keep his sliest and most sublimated temptations for the last. 5. Stratagem. In his politic retreats. You shall have an enemy fly as [if] overcome, when it is on a design of overcoming. This was Joshua’s wile, by which he caught the men of Ai in a trap, Joshua 8:1-35. We read not only of Satan’s being cast out, but of the un­clean spirit going out voluntarily, yet with a purpose to come again, and bring worse company with him, Matthew 12:43. Satan is not always beat back by the dint and power of conquering grace, but sometimes he draws off, and raiseth his own siege, the more handsomely to get the Christian out of his fastnesses and trenches, that so he may snap him on the plains, whom he cannot come at in his works and fortifi­cations. Temptations send the saint to his castle, as the sight of the dog doth the coney to her burrow. Now the soul walks the rounds, stands upon its guard, dares not neglect duty, because the enemy is under its very walls, shutting in his temptations continually; but when Satan seems to give the soul over, and the Christian finds he is not haunted, with such motions as formerly, truly now he is prone to remit in his diligence, fail in his duty, and grow either unfrequent or formal therein; as the Romans, whose valour decayed for want of the Carthaginian troops to alarm them. Let Satan tempt or not tempt, assault or retreat, keep thou in order, stand in a fighting posture, let his flight strengthen thy faith, but not weak­en thy care. The Parthians do their enemy most hurt in their flight, shooting their darts as they run, and so may Satan do thee, if thy seeming victory makes thee secure. [Satan’s subtlety in choosing fitting instruments for his purpose.] Third. Satan shows his subtlety in pitching on fit instruments for his turn to carry on his designs. He, as the master-workman, cuts out the temptation, and gives it the shape, but sometime he hath his jour­neymen to make it up; he knows his work may be carried on better by others, when he appears not aboveboard himself. Indeed there is not such a suitableness between the angelical nature and man’s, as there is between one man and another; and therefore he cannot make his approaches so familiarly with us, as man can do to man. And here, as in other things, he is God’s ape. You know this very reason was given, why the Israelites desired God might not speak to them, but Moses, and God liked the motion: ‘they have well said,’ saith God, ‘I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee,’ Deuteronomy 18:17-18. Thus Satan useth the ministry of men like ourselves, by which as he becomes more famil­iar, so he is less suspected, while Joab-like, he gets another to do his errand. Now it is not any [one that] will serve his turn for this employment; he is very choice in his instruments he pitcheth on. It is not every soldier [that] is fit for an embassage, to treat with an enemy, to betray a town, and the like. Satan considers who can do his work to his greatest advantage. And in this he is unlike God, who is not at all choice in his instruments, because he needs none, and is able to do as well with one as another; but Satan’s power being finite, he must patch up the defect of the lion’s skin with the fox’s. Now the persons Satan aims at for his instruments are chiefly of four sorts. 1. Persons of place and power. 2. Persons of parts and policy. 3. Persons of holiness, or at least reputed so. 4. Persons of relation and interest. 1. Instrument. Satan makes choice of persons of place and power. These are either in the commonwealth or church. If he can, he will secure the throne and the pulpit, as the two forts that command the whole line. (1.) Men of power in the commonwealth; it is his old trick to be tampering with such. A prince or a ruler may stand for a thousand; therefore saith Paul to Elymas, when he would have turned the deputy from the faith, ‘O full of all subtilty thou child of the devil!’ Acts 13:10. As if he had said, You have learned this of your father the devil—to haunt the courts of princes, wind into the favour of great ones. There is a double policy that Satan hath in gaining such to his side. (a) None have such advantage to draw others to their way. Corrupt the captain, and it is hard if he bring not off his troop with him. When the princes—men of renown in their tribes—stood up with Korah, presently a multitude are drawn into the conspiracy, Numbers 16:2, Numbers 16:19. Let Jeroboam set up idolatry, and Israel is soon in a snare. It is said [that] the people willingly walked after his commandment, Hosea 5:11. (b) Should the sin stay at court, and the infection go no farther, yet the sin of such a one, though a good man, may cost a whole kingdom dear. ‘Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to num­ber Israel,’ 1 Chronicles 21:1. He owed Israel a spite, and he pays them home in their king’s sin, which dropped in a fearful plague upon their heads. (2.) Such as are in place and office in the church. No such way to in­fect the whole town, as to poison the cistern at which they draw their water. Who shall persuade Ahab that he may go to Ramoth-Gilead and fall? Satan can tell: ‘I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets,’ 1 Kings 22:22. How shall the profane be hardened in their sins? Let the preacher sew pillows under their elbows, and cry Peace, peace, and it is done. How may the worship of God come to be neglected? Let Hophni and Phin­ehas be but scandalous in their lives, and many both good and bad will ‘abhor the sacrifice of the Lord.’ 2. Instrument. He employeth persons of parts and policy. If any hath more pregnancy of wit and depth of reason than other, he is the man Satan looks upon for his service, and so far does he prevail, that very few of his rank are found among Christ’s disciples, ‘Not many wise.’ Indeed, God will not have his kingdom, either in the heart or in the world, main­tained by carnal policy, [for] it is a gospel command that we walk in godly simplicity[7]. Though the serpent can shrink up into his folds, and appear what he is not, yet it doth not become the saints to juggle or shuffle with God or men; and truly when any of them have made use of the serpent’s subtlety, it hath not followed their hand. Jacob got the blessing by a wile, but he might have had it cheaper with plain dealing. Abraham and Sarah both dissemble to Abimelech; God discovers their sin, and reproves them for it by the mouth of a heathen. Asa, out of state-policy, joins league with Syria, yea, pawns the vessels of the sanctuary and all for help. And what comes of all this? ‘Herein thou hast done foolishly,’ saith God, ‘from henceforth thou shalt have wars.’ Sinful policy shall not long thrive in the saints’ hands well. But Satan will not out of his way; he inquires for the subtlest-pated men, a Balaam, Ahithophel, Haman, Sanballat, men admired for their counsel and deep plots; these are for his turn. A wicked cause needs a smooth orator; bad ware, a pleasing chapman. As in particular, the instruments he useth to seduce and corrupt the minds of men are commonly subtle-pated men, such ‘that if it were possible should deceive the very elect.’ This made the apostle so jealous of the Corinthians, whom he had espoused to Christ, lest, as Eve by the serpent, so their ‘minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.’ He must be a cunning devil indeed that can draw off the spouse’s love from he Beloved; yet there is such a witchery in Satan’s instruments, that many have been brought to fly on the face of those truths and ordin­ances, yea, [of] Christ himself, to whom they have seemed espoused formerly. Now in three particulars this sort of Satan’s instruments show their master’s subtlety. (1.) In aspersing the good name of the sincere messengers of Christ—Satan’s old trick to raise his credit upon the ruined reputation of Christ’s faithful servants. Thus he taught Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to charge Moses and Aaron: ‘Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation is holy,’ Numbers 16:3. They would make the people believe that it was the pride of their heart to claim a monopoly to them­selves, as if none but Aaron and his fraternity were holy enough to offer incense, and by this subtle practice they seduced for a while, in a manner, the whole congregation to their side. So the lying prophets, that were Satan’s knights of the post to Ahab, fell foul on good Micaiah. Our Saviour himself was no better handled by the Pharisees and their confederates; and Paul, the chief of the apostles, [had] his ministry undermined, and his reputation blasted, by false teachers, as if he had been some weak sorry preacher. ‘but his bodily presence is weak,’ say they, ‘and his speech contemptible,’ 2 Corinthians 10:10. And is this your admired man? (2.) In covering their impostures and errors with choice notions and excellent truths. Arius himself, and other dangerous instruments of Satan, were too wise to stuff their discourses with nothing but heterodox matter. Precious truths dropped from them, with which they sprinkled their corrupt principles, yet with such art as should not easily be discerned. This, as one observes, our Saviour warns his disciples of, when he bids them ‘beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,’ that is, of their errors. But why leaven? [Just] for the secret mixture of it with the wholesome bread. You do not make your bread all of leaven, for none would then eat it, but crumble a little into a whole batch, which sours all. Thus Christ doth tell the disciples, that the Pharisees among many truths mix their er­rors; and therefore it behoves them to beware, lest with the truth the errors go down also. Again, leaven is very much like the dough, of the same grain with it, [and] only differs in age and sourness. Thus Christ intimates the resemblance of their errors to the truth, as it were, out of the Scriptures, but soured with their own false glosses. This indeed makes it easy for Christ’s sheep to be infected with the scab of error, because that weed which breeds the rot is so like the grass that nourisheth them. (3.) Their subtlety appears in holding forth such principles as are indulgent to the flesh. This brings in whole shoals of silly souls into their net. The heart of man loves a life to shape a religion according to his own humour, and is easy to believe that to be a truth that favours his own inclination. Now there are three lusts that Satan’s instruments labour to gratify in their doctrine—carnal reason, pride, and fleshly liberty. (a) Carnal reason. This is the great idol which the more intelligent part of the world worship, making it the very standard of their faith, and from this bitter root have sprung those Arian and Socinian heresies. And truly he that will go no farther than reason will carry him, may hold out in the plain way of the moral law, but when he comes to the depths of the gospel, must either go back, or be content that faith should help reason over. (b) Another lust that Satan cockers is pride. Man naturally would be a god to himself, though for clambering so high he got his fall; and whatever doctrine nourisheth a good opinion of man in his own eye, this is acceptable to him; and this hath spawned another fry of dangerous errors—the Pela­gian and Semi-pelagian, which set nature upon its legs, and persuade man he got alone to Christ, or at least with a little external help, of a hand to lead, or argument to excite, without any creating work in the soul. O, we cannot conceive how glib such stuff goes down. If one workman should tell you your house is rotten, and must be pulled down, and all new materials prepared; and another should say, No such mat­ter; such a beam is good, and such a spar may stand —a little cost will serve the turn: it were no wonder that you should listen to him that would put you to least cost and trouble. The faithful servants of Christ tell sinners from the Word, that man in his natural state is corrupt and rotten, that nothing of the old frame will serve, and there must needs be all new; but in comes an Arminian, and blows up the sinner’s pride, and tells him he is not so weak or wicked as the other represents him. If thou wilt, thou mayest repent and believe; or, at least, by exerting thy natural abilities, oblige God to superadd what thou hast not. This is the workman that will please proud man best. (c) Satan by his instruments nourisheth that desire of fleshly liberty, which is in man by nature, who is a son of Belial, without yoke; and if he must wear any, that will please best which hath the softest lining, and pincheth the flesh least; and therefore when the sincere teachers of the Word will not abate of the strictness of the command, but press sincere obedience to it, then come Satan’s instruments and say, These are hard task-masters, who will not allow one play-day in a year to the Christian, but tie him to continual duty; we will show you an easier way to heaven. Come, saith the Papist, confess but once a year to the priest, pay him well for his pains, and be an obedient son of the church, and we will dispense with all the rest. Come, saith the Familist[8]Quoted from the Funk and Wagnalls online Encyclopedia —L. B. W., the gos­pel charter allows more liberty than these legal preachers tell you of. They bid you repent and be­lieve, when Christ hath done all these to your hand. What have you left to do but to nourish the flesh? Something sure is in it, that impostors find such quick return for their ware, while truth hangs upon the log. And is it not this, that they are content to afford heaven cheaper to their disciples than Christ will to his? He that sells cheapest shall have most customers, though, at last, best will be best cheap; truth with self-denial [is] a better pennyworth, than error with all its flesh-pleasing. 3. Instrument. Satan makes choice of such as have a great name for holiness. None so good as a live bird to draw other birds into the net. But is it possible that such should do this work for the devil? Yes, such is the policy of Satan, and the frailty of the best, that the most holy men have been his instruments to seduce others. ‘Abraham’ he tempts his wife to lie, ‘Say thou art my sister.’ The old prophet leads the man of God out of his way, 1 Kings 13:11; the holi­ness of the man, and the reverence of his age, it is like, gave authority to his counsel. O, how should this make you watchful, whose long travel and great progress in the ways of God, have gained you a name of eminency in the church, what you say, do, or hold, because you are file-leading men, and others look more on you than their way! 4. Instrument. Satan chooseth persons of relation and interest, such as by relation or affection have deep interest in the persons he would gain. Some will kiss the child for the nurse’s sake, and like the present for the hand that brings it. It is like David would not have received that from Nabal, which he took from Abigail, and thanks her. Satan sent the apple by Eve’s hand to Adam. Delilah doth more with Samson than all the Philistines’ bands. Job’s wife brings him the poison, ‘Curse God and die.’ Some think Satan spared her life, when he slew his children and servants—(though she was also within his commission)—as the most likely instrument, by reason of her relation and his affection, to lead him into temptation. Satan employs Peter, a disciple, to tempt Christ, at another time his friends and kinsfolk. Some martyrs have confessed, the hardest work they met withal, was to overcome the prayers and tears of their friends and relations. Paul himself could not get off his snare without heart-breaking. ‘What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart?’Acts 21:13. [Satan’s subtlety as a tempter to sin briefly applied.] Use First. Affect not sinful policy and subtlety, it makes you but like the devil. There is the wisdom of the serpent, which is commended, and that is his perfection as a creature, in which both the literal and the mystical excel, the one in an ingenious observing nature above the beast of the field, and the other in knowledge as an angel above men; but as the subtlety of the one and knowledge of the other is degenerate, and makes them more able to do mischief, the one of the bodies, the others to the souls of men, this kind of wisdom and subtlety is to be abhorred by us. The serpent’s eye, as one saith, does well only in the dove’s head. 1. Affect not subtlety in contriving any sin. Some are wise to do evil, Jeremiah 4:22. Masters of this craft, who can as they lie on their beds, cast their wicked designs into an artificial method, showing a kind of devilish wit therein, as the Egyptians who dealt wisely, as they thought, with the Israelites, and Jezebel, who had printed her bloody design in so fair a letter, that some might read her saint while she was playing the devil. This is the black art indeed, and make the soul as black as hell that practiseth it. It is not hard for any, though a fool, to learn. Be but wicked, and the devil will help thee to be witty. Come but a while to his school, and thou mayest soon be a cunning man. No sins speak a higher attainment in wickedness, than those which are of deliberate counsel and deep plottings. Creatures, as they go longer with their young, so their birth is more strong and perfect, as the elephant above all others. The longer a sin is a forming and forging within, and the oftener the head and heart meet about it, the completer the sin. Here are many litters of unformed sins in one, such, I mean, as are conceived and cast forth in the hurry of extemporary passion. Those sudden acts show weakness, these other deep wickedness. 2. Take heed of hiding sin when thou hast com­mitted it. This is one of the devices that are in man’s heart; and as much art and cunning is shown in this, as in any one part of the sinner’s trade. What a trick had the patriarchs to blind their father’s eye with a bloody coat? Joseph’s mistress, to prevent a charge from Joseph, accuseth him for what she is guilty, like the robber who escaped by crying ‘stop the thief.’ God taught man to make coats to cover his naked body, but the devil learnt him to weave these coverings to hide the nakedness of his soul. The more subtle thou seemest in concealing thy sin, the more egregiously thou playest the fool. None so shamed as the liar when found out, and that thou art sure to be. Thy covering is too short to hide thee from God’s eye, and what God sees, if thou dost not put thyself to shame, he will tell all the world hereafter, however thou escapest in this life. 3. Take heed of subtlety and sinful policy, in compassing that which is lawful in itself; it is lawful to improve thy estate and husband it well for thy posterity but take not the devil’s counsel, who will be putting thee upon some tricks in thy trade and sleights in thy dealing. Such may go for wise men for a while, but the prophet reads their destiny, ‘At his end he shall be a fool,’ Jeremiah 17:11. It is lawful to love our estate, life, liberty; but beware of sinful policy to save them. It is no wisdom to shuffle with God, by denying his truth, or shifting off our duty to keep correspondence with men. He is a weak fencer that lays his soul at open guard to be stabbed and woun­ded with guilt, while he is lifting up his hands to save a broken head. Our fear commonly meets us at that door by which we think to run from it. He that ‘will save his life shall lose it.’ As you love your peace, Christians, be plain-hearted with God and man, and keep the king’s highway. Go the plain way of command to obtain thy desire, and not leap over hedge and ditch to come a little sooner to the journey’s end; such commonly either meet with some stop that makes them come back with shame, or else put to venture their necks in some desperate leap. He is sure to come faster, if not sooner, home, that is wil­ling to go a little about to keep God company. The historian’s observation is worth the Christian’s remembrance: ‘Crafty counsels promise fair at first, but prove more difficult in the managing, and in the end do pay the undertaker home with desperate sorrow.’[9] Use Second. Is Satan so subtle? O then, think not to be too cunning for the devil, he will be too hard for thee at last. Sin not with thoughts of an after-repentance; it is possible thou meanest this at present, but dost thou think, who sits down to play with this cheater, to draw out thy stock when thou pleasest? Alas, poor wretch! he has a thousand devices to carry thee on, and engage thee deeper, till he hath not left thee any tenderness in thy conscience. As some have been served at play, intending to venture only a shilling or two, yet have by the secret witchery in gaming, played the very clothes off their back before they had done,—O how many have thus sinned away all their principles, yea, profession itself, that they have not so much as this cloak left, but walk naked to their shame! [They are] like chil­dren, who, got into a boat, think to play near the shore, but are unawares by a violent gust carried down to the wide sea. O how know you that dally with Satan, but that at last you may (who begin mod­estly) be carried down to the broad sea of profane­ness? Some men are so subtle to over-reach, and so cruel when they get men into their hands, that a man had better beg his bread than borrow of them. Such a merchant is Satan, cunning to insinuate, and get the creature into his books, and when he hath him on the hip, [there is] no more mercy to be had at his hand than the lamb may expect from the ravenous wolf. Use Third. Study his wiles, and acquaint thyself with Satan’s policy. Paul takes it for granted, that every saint doth in some measure understand them; ‘We are not ignorant of his devices,’ 2 Corinthians 2:11. He is but an ill fencer that knows and observes noth­ing of his enemy’s play. Many particular stratagems I have laid down already which may help a little, and for thy direction in this study of, and inquiry into, Satan’s wiles, take the threefold counsel. 1. Take God into thy counsel. Heaven overlooks hell. God at any time can tell thee what plots are hatching there against thee. Consider Satan as he is God’s creature; so God cannot but know him. He that makes the watch, knows every pin in it. He formed this crooked serpent, though not the crookedness of this serpent; and though Satan’s way in tempting is as wonderful as the way of a serpent on a rock, yet God traceth him, yea, knows all his thoughts together. Hell itself is naked before him; and this destroyer hath no covering. Again, consider him as God’s prisoner, who hath him fast in chains, and so the Lord, who is his keeper, must needs know whither his prisoner goes, who cannot stir without his leave. Lastly, consider him as his messenger, for so he is. An evil spirit from the Lord vexed Saul, and he that gives him his errand, is able to tell thee what it is. Go then and plough with God’s heifer; improve thy interest with Christ, who knows what his Father knows, and is ready to reveal all that concerns thee to thee, John 15:15. It was he who de­scribed the devil coming against Peter and the rest of the apostles, and faithfully revealed it to them, before they thought of any such matter, Luke 22:1-71. Through Christ’s hands passes all that is transacted in heaven hell. We live in days of great actions, deep counsels, and plots on all sides, and only a few that stand on the upper end of the world know these mysteries of state; all the rest know little more than pamphlet intelligence. Thus it is in regard of those plots which Satan in his infernal conclave is laying against the souls of men; they are but a few that know anything to purpose of Satan’s designs against them; and those are the saints, from whom God cannot hide his own counsels of love, but sends his Spirit to reveal unto them here, what he hath prepared for them in heaven, 1 Corinthians 2:10, and therefore much less will he conceal any destructive plot of Satan from them. 2. Be intimately acquainted with thy own heart, and thou wilt the better know his design against thee, who takes his method of tempting from the inclination and posture of thy heart. As a general walks about the city, and views it well, and then raiseth his batteries where he hath the greatest advantage, so doth Satan compass and consider the Christian in every part before he tempts. 3. Be careful to read the word of God with obs­ervation. In it thou hast the history of the most remarkable battles that have been fought by the most eminent worthies in Christ’s army of saints with this great warrior Satan. Here thou mayest see how Satan hath foiled them, and how they have recovered their lost ground. Here you have his cabinet‑counsels opened. There is not a lust which you are in danger of, but you have it described; not a temptation which the Word doth not arm you against. It is reported that a certain Jew should have poisoned Luther, but was happily prevented by his picture which was sent to Luther, with a warning from a faithful friend that he should take heed of such a man when he saw him, by which he knew the murderer, and escaped his hands. The Word shows thee, O Christian, the face of those lusts which Satan employs to butcher thy precious soul. ‘By them thy servant is warned,’ saith David, Psalms 19:11. [Satan’s second Mal. design is to accuse, vex, and trouble the saint for sin.] The second Mal. design in which Satan appears such a subtle enemy is as a troubler and an accuser for sin, molesting the saint’s peace, and disquieting the saint’s spirit. As the Holy Spirit’s work is not only to be a sanctifier, but also a comforter, whose fruits are righteousness and peace, so the evil spirit Satan is both a seducer unto sin, and an accuser for sin, a tempter and a troubler, and indeed in the same order. As the Holy Ghost is first a sanctifier, and then a comforter, so Satan [is] first a tempter, then a troubler. Joseph’s mistress first tries to draw him to gratify her lust, [but] that string breaking, she hath another to trounce him and charge him, and, for a plea, she hath his coat to cover her malice; nor is it hard for Satan to pick some hole in the saint’s coat, when he walks most circumspectly. The proper seat of sin is the will, of comfort the conscience. Satan hath not absolute knowledge of or power over these, [they] being locked up from any other but God, and therefore what he doth, either in defiling temptations, or disquieting, is by wiles more than by open force; and he is not inferior in troubling, to himself in tempting. Satan hath, as the serpent, a way by himself. Other beasts [have] their motion direct, right on, but the serpent goes askew, as we say, winding and writhing its body; [so] that when you see a serpent creeping along, you can hardly discern which way its tends. Thus Satan in his vexing temptations hath many intricate policies, turning this way and that way, the better to conceal his design from the saint, which will appear in these following methods: First Wile. He vexeth the Christian by laying his brats at the saint’s door, and charging him with that which is his own creature. And here he hath such a notable art, that many dear saints of God are woefully hampered and dejected, as if they were the vilest blasphemers and veriest atheists in the world: whereas indeed the cup is of his own putting into the sack. But so slyly is it conveyed into the saint’s bosom, that the Christian, though amazed and frighted at the sight of them, yet being jealous of his own heart, and unacquainted with Satan’s tricks of this kind, cannot conceive how such notions should come there, if not bred in, and vomited out by his own naughty heart. So he bears the blame of the sin himself, because he cannot find the right father, mourning as one that is forlorn and cast off by God, or else, saith he, I should never have such vermin of hell creeping in my bosom. And here Satan hath the end he proposeth, for he is not so silly as to hope he should have welcome with such a horrid crew of blas­phemous and atheistical thoughts in that soul, where he hath been denied when he came in an enticing way. No, but his design is by way of revenge, because the soul will not prostitute itself to his lust, otherwise therefore to haunt it and scare it with those imps of blasphemy. So he served Luther, to whom he appeared, and when repulsed by him, went away and left a noisome stench behind him in the room. Thus when the Christian hath worsted Satan in his more pleasing temptations, being maddened, he belcheth forth this stench of blasphemous motions to annoy and affright him, that from them the Christian may draw some sad conclusion or other, and indeed the Christian’s sin lies commonly more in the conclusion which he draws from them—as that he is not a child of God—than in the motions themselves. All the counsel therefore I shall give thee in this case, is to do with these motions, as you use to serve those vagrants and rogues that come about the country, whom, though you cannot keep from passing through your town, yet you look they settle not there, but whip them and send them to their own home. Thus give these motions the law, in mourning for them, resisting of them, and they shall not be your charge. Yea, it is like you shall seldomer be troubled with such guests; but if once you come to entertain them, and be Satan’s nurse to them, then the law of God will cast them upon you. Second Wile. Another wile of Satan as a troubler, is in aggravating the saint’s sins, against which he hath a notable declamatory faculty—not that he hates sin, but the saint. Now in this, his chief subtlety is so to lay his charge, that it may seem to be the act of the Holy Spirit. He knows an arrow out of God’s quiver wounds deep; and therefore, when he accuseth, he comes in God’s name. As suppose a child were conscious to himself of displeasing his father, and one that owes him a spite, to trouble him, should counterfeit a letter from his father, and cun­ningly convey it into the son’s hand, who receives it as from his father. Therein he chargeth him with many heavy crimes, disowns him, and threatens he shall never come in his sight, or have penny portion from him; [and] the poor son, conscious to himself of many undutiful carriages, and not knowing the plot, takes on heavily, and can neither eat nor sleep from grief. Here is a real trouble begot from a false and imaginary ground. Thus Satan observes how the squares go between God and his children. Such a saint he sees tardy in his duty, faulty in that service, and he knows the Christian is conscious of this, and that the Spirit of God will also show his distaste for these; both which [reasons] prompt Satan to draw a charge at length, raking up all the aggravations he can think of, and give it into the saint as sent from God. Thus he taught Job’s friends to pick up those infirmities which dropped from him in his distress, and shoot them back in his face, as if indeed they had been sent from God to declare him an hypocrite, and denounce his wrath for the same. But how shall we know the false accusation of Satan from the rebukes of God and his Spirit? 1. If they cross any former act or work of the Spirit in thy soul, they are Satan’s, not the Holy Spirit’s. Now you shall observe Satan’s scope in accusing the Christian, and aggravating his sin, is to unsaint him, and persuade him he is but an hypocrite. Oh, saith Satan, now thou hast shown what thou art. See what a foul spot is on thy coat. This is not the spot of a child. Whoever, that was a saint, committed such a sin after such a sort? All thy comforts and confidence which thou hast bragged of, were false, I warrant you. Thus you see Satan at one blow dasheth all in pieces. The whole fabric of grace which God hath been rearing up many years in the soul, must now at one puff of his malicious mouth be blown down, and all the sweet comforts with which the Holy Spirit hath sealed up God’s love, must be defaced with this one blot, which Satan draws over the fair copy of the saint’s evidence. Well, soul, for thy comfort know, if ever the Spirit of God hath begun sanctifying or comforting work, causing thee to hope in his mercy, he never is, will, can be the messenger to bring contrary news to thy soul; His language is not yea and nay, but yea and amen for ever. Indeed, when the saint plays the wanton, he can chide, yea, will frown and tell the soul roundly of its sin, as he did David by Nathan. ‘Thou art the man’ —this thou hast done. He paints out his sin with such bloody colours, as made David’s heart melt, as it were, into so many drops of water. But that shall not serve his turn; he tells him what a rod is steeping for him, that shall smart to purpose—one of his own house, no other than his darling son, shall rise up against him. [This happens in order] that he may the more fully conceive how ill God took the sin of him, a child, a saint, when he shall know what it is to have his beloved child traitorously invade his crown, and unnaturally hunt for his precious life; yet not a word all this while is heard from Nathan teaching David to unsaint himself, and call in question the work of God in his soul. No, he had no such commission from God; he was sent to make him mourn for his sin, not from his sin to question his state which God had so oft put out of doubt. 2. When they asperse the riches of God’s grace, and so charge the Christian, that withal they reflect upon the good name of God, they are not of the Holy Spirit but from Satan. When you find your sins so represented and aggravated to you, as exceeding either the mercy of God’s nature, or the grace of his covenant[10], this comes from that foul liar. The Holy Spir­it is Christ’s spokesman to commend him to souls, and to woo sinners to embrace the grace of the gospel; and can such words drop from his sacred lips, as should break the match and sink Christ’s esteem in the thoughts of the creature? You may know where this is mined. When you hear one commend another for a wise or good man, and at last come in with a but that dasheth all, you will easily think he is no friend to the man, but some sly enemy that by seeming to commend, desires to disgrace the more. Thus you find God represented to you as merciful and gracious, but not to such a great sinner as you. to have power and strength, but not able to save thee; you may say, Avaunt, Satan, thy speech bewrayeth thee. Third Wile. Another wile of Satan lies in cavilling at the Christian’s duties and performances, by which he puts him to much toil and trouble. He is at church as soon as thou canst be, Christian, for thy heart; yea, he stands under thy closet-window, and hears what thou sayest to God in secret, all the while studying how he may commence a suit against thee from thy duty. [He is] like those who come to sermons to carp and catch at what the preacher saith, that they make him an offender for some word or other misplaced; or like a cunning opponent in the schools, while his adversary is busy in reading his position, he is studying to confute it. And truly Satan hath such an art as this, that he is able to take our duties in pieces, and so disfigure them that they shall appear formal, though never so zealous; hypocritical, though enriched with much sincerity. When thou hast done thy duty, Christian, then stands up this sophist to ravel out thy work; there, will he say, thou playedst the hypocrite, zealous, but serving thyself, here wandering, there nodding, a little further puffed up with pride. And what wages canst thou hope for at God’s hands, now thou hast spoiled his work, and cut it all out into chips? Thus he makes many poor souls lead a weary life; nothing they do but he hath a fling at, that they know not whether [it be] best to pray or not, to hear or not; and when they have prayed and heard, whether it be to any purpose or not. Thus their souls hang in doubt, and their days pass in sorrow; while their enemy stands in a corner, and laughs at the cheat he hath put upon them; as one, who by putting a counterfeit spider into the dish, makes those that sit at table either out of conceit with the meat, that they dare not eat, or afraid of themselves if they have eaten, lest they should be poisoned with their meat. Question. But you will say, What will you have us do in this case to withstand the cavils of Satan, in refer­ence to our duties? Answer 1. Let this make thee more accurate in all thou doest. It is the very end God aims at in suffering Satan thus to watch you, that you his chil­dren might be the more circumspect, because you have one [who] overlooks you, that will be sure to tell tales of you to God, and accuse thee to thy own self. Doth it not behove thee to write thy copy fair, when such a critic reads and scans it over? Doth it not con­cern thee to know thy heart well, to turn over the Scriptures diligently, that thou mayest know the state of thy soul-controversy in all the cases of conscience thereof, when thou hast such a subtle opponent to reply upon thee? Answer 2. Let it make thee more humble. If Satan can charge thee with so much in thy best duties, O what then can thy God do! God suffers sometimes the infirmities of his people to be known by the wicked, who are ready to check and frump them for them, for the end of humbling his people. How much more low should these accusations of Satan, which are in a great part too true, lay us before God? Answer 3. Observe the fallacy of Satan’s argument, which discovered, will help thee to answer his cavil. The fallacy is double. (1.) He will persuade thee that thy duty and thyself are hypocritical, proud, formal, &c., because something of these sins are to be found in thy duty. Now, Christian, learn to distinguish between pride in a duty, and a proud duty; hypocrisy in a person, and a hypocrite; wine in a man, and a man in wine. The best of saints have the stirrings of such corruptions in them and in their services. These birds will light on an Abraham’s sacrifice, but comfort thyself with this, that if thou findest a party within thy bosom pleading for God, and entering its protest against thee, thou and thy services are evangelically perfect. God beholds these as the weaknesses of thy sickly state here below, and pities thee, as thou wouldst do thy lame child. How odious is he to us that mocks one for natural defects, a blear eye, or a stammering tongue! such are these in thy new nature. Observable is that in Christ’s prayer against Satan, ‘And the Lord said unto Satan, Zechariah 3:2, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire,’. As if Christ had said, Lord, wilt thou suffer this envious spirit to twit thy poor child with, and charge him for, those infirmities that cleave to his perfect state? He is but new plucked out of the fire. No wonder there are some sparks unquenched, some corruptions un­mortified, some disorders unreformed in his place and calling; and what Christ did for Joshua, he doth incessantly for all his saints, for apologizing for their infirmities with his Father. (2.) His other fallacy is in arguing from the sin that is in our duty, to the non-acceptance of them. Will God, saith he, thinkest thou, take such broken groats at thy hand? Is he not a holy God? Now here, Christian, learn to distinguish and answer Satan. There is a double acceptance. There is an acceptance of a thing by way of payment of a debt, and there is an acceptance of a thing offered as a token of love and testimony of gratitude. He that will not accept of broken money, or half the sum for payment of a debt; the same man, if his friend sends him through but a bent sixpence, in token of his love, will take it kindly. It is true, Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money, but for thy comfort, here Christ is thy paymaster. Send Satan to him, bid him bring his charge against Christ, who is ready at God’s right hand to clear his accounts, and show his discharge for the whole debt. But now thy performances and obedience come under another no­tion, as tokens of thy love and thankfulness to God, and such is the gracious disposition of thy heavenly Father, that he accepts thy mite. Love refuseth nothing that love sends. It is not the weight or worth of the gift, but ‘the desire of a man in his kindness,’ Proverbs 19:22. Fourth Wile. A fourth wile of Satan as a troubler, is to draw the saint into the depths of despair, under a specious pretence of not being humbled enough for sin. This we find singled out by the apostle for one of the devil’s fetches. ‘We are not ignorant,’ saith he, ‘of his devices,’[11] 2 Corinthians 2:11, his sophistical reasonings. Satan sets much by this sleight; no weapon [is] oftener in his hand. Where is the Christian that hath not met him at this door? Here Satan finds the Christian easy to be wrought on —the humours being stirred to his hand—while the Christian of his own accord complains of the hardness of his heart, and is very prone to believe any who comply with his musing thoughts; yea, thinks every flatters him that would persuade him otherwise. It is easier to dye that soul into black, which is of a sad colour already, than to make such a one take the lightsome tincture of joy and comfort. Question. But how shall I answer this subtle enemy, when he perplexeth my spirit with not being humbled enough for sin, &c.? Answer. I answer as to the former, Labour to spy the fallacy of his argument, and his mouth is soon stopped. Argument 1. Satan argues thus. There ought to be a proportion between sin and sorrow. But there is no proportion between thy sins and thy sorrow. Therefore thou art not humbled enough. What a plausible argument is here at first blush? For the ma­jor, that there ought to be a proportion between sin and sorrow, this Satan will show you scripture for. Manasseh was a great sinner, and an ordinary sorrow will not serve his turn; ‘He humbled himself greatly before the Lord,’ 2 Chronicles 33:12. Now, saith Satan, weigh thy sin the balance with thy sorrow; art thou as great a mourner as thou hast been a sinner? So many years thou hast waged war against the Almighty, making havoc of his laws,, loading his patience till it groaned again, raking in the sides of Christ with thy bloody dagger—while thou didst grieve his Spirit, and reject his grace—and dost [thou] think a little remorse, like a rolling cloud letting fall a few drops of sorrow, will be accepted? No, thou must steep in sorrow as thou hast soaked in sin. Now to show you the fallacy, we must distinguish of a twofold proportion of sorrow. (1.) An exact proportion of sorrow to the inherent nature and demerit of sin. (2.) There is a proportion to the law and rule of the gospel. Now the first is not a thing feasible, be­cause the injury done in the least sin is infinite, because done to an infinite God. And if it could be feasible, yet according to the tenor of the first coven­ant it would not be acceptable, because it had no clause to give any hope for an after-game by repentance: but the other, which is a gospel sorrow, is indeed repentance unto life, both given by the Spirit of the gospel, and to be tried by the rule of the gospel. This is given for thy relief. As you see some­times in the highway, where the waters are too deep for travellers, you have a foot-bridge or causey, by which they may escape the flood, and safely pass on; so that none but such as have not eyes, or are drunk, will venture to go through the waters, when they may avoid the danger. Thou art a dead man if thou think to answer thy sin with proportionable sorrow; thou wilt soon be above thy depth, and quackle[12] thyself with thy own tears, but never get over the least sin thou committedst. Go not on therefore as thou lov­est thy life, but turn aside to this gospel path, and thou escapest the danger. O you tempted souls, when Satan saith you are not humbled enough, see where you may be relieved. I am a Roman, saith Paul, I appeal to Cæsar. I am a Christian, say, I appeal to Christ’s law. And what is the law of the gospel concerning this? Heart-sorrow is gospel sorrow: ‘they were pricked in their heart,’ Acts 2:37. And Peter, like an honest chirugeon[13], will not keep these bleeding patients longer in pain with their wounds open, but presently claps on the healing plas­ter of the gospel—‘Believe on the Lord Jesus.’ Now a prick to the heart is more than a wound to the con­science. The heart is the seat of life. Sin wounded there lies a dying. To do anything from the heart makes it acceptable, Ephesians 6:6; 2 Corinthians 5:11. Now, poor soul, hadst thou sat thus long in the devil’s stocks if thou hadst understood this aright? Doth thy heart clear or condemn thee, when in secret thou art be­moaning thy sin before God? If thy heart be false, I cannot help you, no, not the gospel itself; but if sincere, thou hast boldness with God, 1 John 3:21. Argument 2. A second argument Satan useth, is this, He whose sorrow falls short of theirs that never truly repented, he is not humbled enough. But, soul, thy sorrow falls short of some that never truly repented; ergo. Well, the first proposition is true, but how will Satan prove his minor? Thus: Ahab, he took for his sin, and went in sackcloth. Judas, he made bitter complaint. O, says Satan, didst thou not know such a one that lay under terror of conscience, walking in a sad mournful condition so many months, and every one took him for the greatest convert [in] the country? And yet he at last fell foully, and proved an apostate. But thou never didst feel such smart, pass so many weary nights and days in mourning and bitter lamentation as he hath done, [and] therefore thou fallest short of one that fell short of repentance. And truly this is a sad stumbling-block to a soul in an hour of temptation. Like a ship sunk in the mouth of the harbour, which is more dangerous to others than if it had perished in the open sea; there is less scandal by the sins of the wicked, who sink, as it were, in the broad sea of profaneness, than in those who are convinced of sin, troubled in conscience, and miscarry so near the harbour, within sight, as it were, of saving grace. Tempted souls can hardly get over these without dashing. Am I better than such a one that proved nought at last? Now to help thee a little to find out the fallacy of this argument, we must distinguish between the terrors that accompany sor­row, and the intrinsical nature of this grace. The first, which are accessory, may be separated from the other, as the raging of the sea, which is caused by the wind, from the sea when the wind is down. From this distinction take two conclusions. (1.) One may fall short of an hypocrite in the terrors that sometimes accompany sorrow, and yet have the truth of this grace, which the other with all his terrors wants. Christians run into many mistakes, by judging rather according to that which is accessory, than that which is essential to the nature of duties and graces. Sometimes thou hearest one pray with a moving expression, while thou canst hardly get out a few broken words in duty, and thou art ready to accuse thyself and to admire him, as if the gilt of the key made it open the door the better. Thou seest another abound with joy which thou wantest, and art ready to conclude his grace more, and thine less; whereas thou mayest have more real grace, only thou wantest a light to show thee where it lies. Take heed of judging by accessories. Perhaps thou hast not heard so much of the rattling chains of hell, nor in thy conscience the outcries of the damned to make thy flesh tremble; but hast not seen that in a bleeding Christ which hath made thy heart melt and mourn, yea, loathe and hate thy lusts more than the devil himself? Truly, Christian, it is strange to hear a pa­tient complain of his physician, when he finds his physic work effectually to the evacuating his distempered humours, and the restoring his health, merely because he was not so sick as some others with the working of it. Soul, thou hast more reason to be bles­sing God that the convictions of his Spirit wrought so kindly on thee, to effect that in thee without those errors which have cost others so dear. (2.) This is so weak an argument, that contrariwise, the more the terrors are, the less the sorrow is for sin while they remain. These are indeed preparatory sometimes to sorrow; they go before this grace as austere John before meek Jesus. But as John went down when Christ went up, his increase was John’s decrease, so as truly godly sorrow goes up, these terrors go down. As the wind gathers the clouds, but those clouds seldom melt into a set rain, until the wind falls that gathered them; so these terrors raise the clouds of our sins in our consciences , but when these sins melt into godly sorrow, this lays the storm presently. Indeed, as the loud winds blow away the rain, so these terrors keep off the soul from this gospel sorrow. While the creature is making an out­cry, ‘it is damned, it is damned,’ it is taken up so much with the fear of hell, that sin as sin, which is the proper object of godly sorrow, is little looked on or mourned for. A murderer condemned to die is so possessed with the fear of death and thought of the gallows, that there lies the slain body, it may be, before him, unlamented by him: but when his pardon is brought, then he can bestow his tears freely on his murdered friend. ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn.’ Faith is the eye. This eye, beholding its sin piercing Christ, and Christ pardoning its sin, affects the heart. The heart affected sighs. These inward clouds melt, and run from the eye of faith with in tears; and all this is done when there is no tempest of terror upon the spirit, but a sweet serenity of love and peace; and therefore, Christian, see how Satan abuseth thee, when he would persuade thee thou art not humbled enough, because thy sorrow is not attended with these legal terrors. [Brief application of Satan’s subtlety as a troubler and accuser for sin.] Use First. Is Satan so subtle to trouble the saint’s peace? This proves them to be the children of Satan, who show the same art and subtlety in vexing the spirits of the saints, as doth their infernal father; not to speak of bloody persecutors, who are the devil’s slaughter-slaves to butcher the saints, but of those who more slyly trouble and molest the saint’s peace. 1. Such as rake up the saint’s old sins, which God hath forgiven and forgotten, merely to grieve their spirits and bespatter their names. These show their devilish malice indeed, who can take such pains to travel many years back, that they may find a hand­ful of dirt to throw on the saint’s face. Thus Shimei twitted David, ‘Come out, thou bloody man,’ 2 Samuel 16:7. When you that fear God meet with such reproaches, answer them as Beza did the Papists, who for want of other matter charged him for some wanton poems penned by him in his youth.[14]. These men, saith he, grudge me the pardoning mercy of God. 2. Such as watch for the saints’ halting, and catch at every infirmity to make them odious, and themselves merry. It is a dreadful curse such bring upon themselves, though they think little of it; no less than Amalek’s, the remembrance of whose name God threatened to blot out from under heaven, Deuteronomy 25:19. Why what had Amalek done to deserve this? They smote the hindermost, those that were feeble, and could not march with the rest. And was it so great a cruelty to do this? Much more to smite with the edge of a mocking tongue the feeble in grace. 3. Such who father their sins upon the saints. Thus Ahab calls the prophet the troubler of Israel, when it was himself and his father’s house. What a grief was it, think you, to Moses’ spirit, for the Israelites to lay the blood of those that died in the wilderness at his door? Whereas, God knows, he was their constant bail, when at any time God’s hand is up to destroy them. And this was the charge which the best of God’s servants in this crooked generation of ours lie under. We may thank them, say the profane, for all our late miseries in the nation; we were well enough till they would reform us. O for shame, blame not the good physic that was administered, but the corrupt body of the nation that could not bear it. 4. Such as will themselves sin, merely to trouble the saint’s spirit. Thus Rabshakeh blasphemed, and when desired to speak in another language, he goes on the more to grieve them. Sometimes you shall have a profane wretch, knowing one to be conscientious, and cannot brook to hear the name of God taken in vain, or the ways of God flouted, will on pur­pose fall upon such discourse as shall grate his chaste ears and trouble his gracious spirit. Such a one strikes father and child in one blow; [he] thinks it not enough to dishonour God, except the saint stands by to see and hear the wrong done to his heavenly Father. Use Second. This may afford matter of admiration and thankfulness to any of you, O ye saints who are not at this day under Satan’s hatches. Is he so subtle to disquiet, and hast thou any peace in thy conscience? To whom art thou beholden for that serenity that is on thy spirit? To none but thy God, under whose wing thou sittest so warm and safe. Is there not combustible matter enough in thy conscience for his sparks to kindle? Perhaps thou hast not committed such bloody sins as others. That is not the reason for thy peace, for the least is big enough to damn, much more to trouble thee. Thou hast not grossly fallen, may be, since conversion, that is rare, if thou beest of long standing, yet the ghosts of thy unregenerate sins might walk in thy conscience. Thou hast had many testimonies of God’s favour, hast thou not? Who more than David? Psalms 77:1-20. Yet he [was] at a loss, sometimes learning to spell his evidences, as if he could never have read them. The sense of God’s love comes and goes with the present taste. He that is in the dark, while there, sees not the more for former light. O bless God for that light which shines in at thy window; Satan is plotting to undermine thy comfort every day. This thief sees thy pleasant fruits as they hang, and his teeth water at them, but the wall is too high for him to climb; thy God keeps this serpent out of thy paradise. It is not the grace of God in thee, but the favour of God, as a shield about thee, [that] defends thee from the wicked one. Use Third. Let Satan’s subtlety to molest your peace, make thee, O Christian, more wise and wary. Thou hast no a fool to deal with, but one that hath wit enough to spill thy comfort and spoil thy joy, if not narrowly watched. This is the dainty bit he gapes for. It is not harder to keep the flies out of your cupboards in summer from tainting your provision, than Satan out of your consciences. Many a sweet meal hath he robbed the saints of, and sent them supperless to bed; take heed, therefore, that he roams not thine away also. [Directions tending to entrench and fortify the Christian against the assaults of Satan, as a troub­ler and accuser.] Question. How shall I stand in a defensive posture, may the Christian say, against these wiles of Satan as a troubler? Answer First. If thou wouldst be guarded from him as a troubler, take heed of him as a seducer. The haft of Satan’s hatchet, with which he lies chopping at the root of the Christian’s comfort, is commonly made of the Christian’s wood. First he tempts to sin, and then for it. Satan is but a creature, and cannot work without tools; he can indeed make much of a little, but not anything of nothing, as we see in his assaulting of Christ, where he troubled himself to little purpose, because he came and found nothing in him, John 14:30. Though the devil throws the stone, yet it is the mud in us which royles our comforts. It is in vain for the Philistines to fall on Samson till his lock was cut. Take heed, therefore, of yielding to his enticing motions. These are the stumbling-blocks at which he hopes thou [wilt] break thy shins, bruise thy conscience; which once done, let him alone to spin out the cure. Indeed, a saint’s flesh heals not so easily as others: drink not of the devil’s wassel[15]; there is poison in the cup, his wine is a mocker; look not on it as it sparkles in the temptation. What thou drinkest down with sweetness, thou wilt be sure to bring up again as gall and wormwood. Above all sins, take heed of presumptuous ones; thou art not out of the danger of such. Sad stories we have of saints’ falls, and what follows then? Psalms 19:13. Take him, jailor, saith God, deliver such a one unto Satan. And if a saint be the prisoner, and the devil the keeper, you may guess how he shall be used. O how he will tear and rend thy conscience! Though that dreadful ordinance is not used as it should be in the church, yet God’s court sits, and if he excommunicate a soul from his presence, he falls presently into Satan’s clutches. Well, if through his subtlety thou hast been overtaken, take heed thou art yet not in the devil’s quarters. Shake the viper off thy hand; ply thee to thy chirurgeon. Green wounds cure best. If thou neglectest and the wind get to it, thy conscience will soon fester. Ahab, we read, was wounded in battle, and was loath to yield to it; it is said, he was held up in his chariot, but he died for it, 1 Kings 22:35. When a soul hath received a wound—committed a sin —Satan labours to bolster him up with flattering hopes, holds him up, as it were, in his chariot against God. What, yield for this! Afraid for a little scratch, and lose the spoil of thy future, pleasure for this? O take heed of listening to such counsel; the sooner thou yieldest, the fairer quarter thou shalt have. Every step in this way gets thee further from thy peace. A rent garment is catched by every nail, and the rent made wider. Renew therefore thy repentance speedily, whereby this breach may be made up, and worse prevented, which else will befall thee. Answer Second. Study that grand gospel truth of a soul’s justification before God. Acquaint thyself with this in all its causes; the moving cause, the free mercy of God, being justified freely by his grace; the meritorious, which is the blood of Christ; and the ins­trumental, faith; with all the sweet privileges that flow from it, Romans 3:24. An effectual door once opened to let the soul into this truth, would not only spoil the pope’s market, as Gardner said, but the devil’s also. When Satan comes to disquiet the Christian’s peace, for want of a right understanding here, he is soon worsted by his enemy; as the silly hare which might escape the dogs in some covert or burrow that is at hand, but trusting to her heels is by the print of her own feet and scent, which she leaves behind, followed, till at last, weary and spent, she falls into the mouth of them. In all that a Christian doth, there is a print of sinful infirmity, and a scent by which Satan is enabled to trace and pursue him over hedge and ditch; this grace and that duty, till the soul, not able to stand before the accusation of Satan, is ready to fall down in despair at his feet. Whereas, here is a hiding place whither the enemy durst not come, ‘the clefts of the rock,’ the hole ‘of the stairs,’ which this truth leads unto. When Satan chargeth thee for a sinner, perhaps thou interposest thy repentance and reformation, but soon art beaten out of those works, when thou art shown the sinful mix­tures that are in them: whereas this truth would choke all his bullets, that thou believest on him who hath said, Not unto him that worketh, but unto him that believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is imputed for righteousness, Romans 4:5. Get therefore into this tower of the gospel covenant, and roll this truth (as she that stone on the head of Abimelech) on the head of Satan. Answer Third. Be sure, Christian, thou keep­est the plains. Take heed that Satan coop thee not up in some straits, where thou canst neither well fight nor fly. Such a trap the Egyptians hoped they had the Israelites in, when they cried, They are entangled, they are entangled. There are three kinds of straits wherein he labours to entrap the Christian —nice questions, obscure scriptures, and dark providences. 1. He labours to puzzle him with nice and scrupulous questions, on purpose to retard the work, and clog him in his notion, that meeting with such intricacies in his Christian course, which he cannot easily resolve, thereby he may be made either to give over, or go on heavily. Therefore we have particular charge not to trouble the weak heads of young converts with ‘doubtful disputations,’ Romans 14:1. Sometimes Satan will be asking the soul, How it knows its election. And where he finds one not so fully resolved, as to dare to own the same, he frames his argument against such a one’s closing with Christ and the promise, as if it were presumption to assume that, which is the only portion of the elect, before we know ourselves of that number. Now, Christian, keep the plains and thou art safe. It is plain, we are not to make election a ground for our faith, but our faith and calling a medium or argument to prove our election. Election indeed is first in order of divine acting, God chooseth before we believe; yet faith is first in our acting. We must believe before we can know we are elected, yea, by believing we know it. The husbandman knows it is spring by the sprouting of the grass, though he hath no astrology to know the position of the heavens. Thou mayest know thou art elect, as surely by a work of grace in thee, as if thou hadst stood by God’s elbow when he writ thy name in the book of life. It had been presumption for David to have thought he should have been king, till Sam­uel anointed him, but then none at all. When thou believest first, and closest with Christ, then is the Spirit of God sent to anoint thee to the kingdom of heaven; this is that holy oil which is poured upon none but heirs of glory; and it is no presumption to read what God’s gracious purpose was towards thee of old, when prints those his thoughts, and makes them legible in thy effectual calling. Here thou dost not go up to heaven, and pry into God’s secrets, but heaven comes down to thee, and reveals them. Again, he will ask the Christian what was the time of his conversion. Art thou a Christian, will he say, and dost thou not know when thou commencedst? Now keep the plains, and content thyself with this, that thou seest the streams of grace, though the time of thy conversion be like the head of Nylus, not to be found. God oft betimes, before gross sins have de­flowered the soul, and steals into the creature’s bosom without much noise. In such a case Satan doth but abuse thee when he sends thee in this errand; you may know the sun is up, though you did not observe when it rose. Again, what will become of thee, saith Satan, if God should bring thee into such an affliction or trial, when thou must burn or turn, or when all thy outward estate shall be rent from thee, no meal in the barrel, no money in the purse? Darest thou have so good an opinion of thyself, as to think that thy faith will hold out in such an hour of temptation? If thou hast but half an eye, Christian, thou mayest see what Satan drives at. This is an ensnaring question; by the fear of future troubles he labours to bring thee into a neglect of thy duty, and indispose thee also for such a state whenever it falls. If a man hath much business to do on the morrow, it is his wisdom to discharge his mind thereof, when composing to sleep, lest the thoughts thereof break his rest, and make him the more unfit in the morning. The less rest the soul hath in God and his promise concerning future events, the less strength it will find to bear them when the pinch comes. When therefore thou art molested with such fears, pacify thy heart with these three plain conclusions. (1.) Every event is the product of God’s providence; not a sparrow, much less a saint, falls to the ground by poverty, sickness, persecution, &c., but the hand of God is in it. (2.) God hath put in caution he ‘will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,’ Hebrews 13:5. He that enables thee in one condition, will in another. God learns his servants their whole trade. Grace is a universal prin­ciple. At the first moment of thy spiritual life, suffering grace was infused as well as praying grace. (3.) God is wise to conceal the succours he intends in the several changes of thy life, that so he may draw thy heart into an entire dependence on his faithful promise. Thus to try the metal of Abraham’s faith, he let him go on, till his hand was stretched forth, and then he comes to the rescue. Christ sends his disciples to sea, but stays behind himself, on a design to try their faith, and show his love. Comfort thyself therefore with this, though thou seest not thy God in the way, yet thou shalt find him in the end. 2. Satan perplexeth the tender consciences of doubting Christians, with obscure scriptures, whose sense lies too deep for their weak and distempered judgements readily to find out, and with these he hampers poor souls exceedingly. Indeed as melancholy men delight in melancholy walks, so doubting souls most frequent such places of Scripture in their musing thoughts, as increase their doubts. How many have I known that have looked so long on those difficult places, Hebrews 6:6; Hebrews 10:26, which pass the understanding, as a swift stream the eye, so that the sense is not perceived without great observation, till their heads have turned round, and they at last, not able to untie the difficulties, have fallen down in despairing thoughts and words of their own condition, crying out, O they have sinned against knowledge of the truth, and therefore no mercy remains for them. [Now] if they have refreshed their under­standings by looking off these places, whose engraving is too curious to be long pored on by a weak eye, they might have found that in other scriptures plainly expressed, which would have enabled them, as through a glass, more safely to have viewed these. Therefore, Christian, keep the plains; thou mayest be sure it is thine enemy that gives thee such stones to break thy teeth, when thy condition calls rather for bread and wine—such scriptures, I mean, as are most apt to nourish thy faith, and cheer thy drooping spirit. When thou meetest such plain scriptures which speak to thy case, go over where it is fordable, and do not venture beyond thy depth. Art thou afraid because thou hast sinned since the knowledge of truth, and [that] therefore no sacrifice remains for thee? See David and Peter’s case, how it patterns thine, and [is] left upon record that their recovery may be a key in thine hand to open such places as these. Mayest thou not safely conclude from these, [that] this is not their meaning, that none can be saved the sin after knowledge? Indeed in both these places, it is neither meant of the falls of such as ever had true grace, nor of a falling away in some particular acts of sin, but of a total universal falling away from the faith, the doctrine as well as seeming practice of it. Now if the root of the matter were ever in thee, other scriptures will first comfort thee against those particular apostasies into which thou hast re­lapsed, by sweet promises inviting such to return, and [giving] precedents of saints, who have had peace spoken to them after such folly, and also they will satisfy thee against the other, by giving full security to thy faith, that thy little grace shall not die, being immortal, though not in its proper essence, because but a creature, yet by covenant, as it is a child of promise. 3. Dark providences. From these Satan disputes against God’s love to, and grace in, a soul. First, he got a commission to plunder Job of his temporal estate, and bereave him of his children, and then labours to make him question his spiritual estate and sonship. His wife would have him entertain hard thoughts of God, saying, ‘Curse God and die;’ and his friends as hard thoughts of himself, as if he were an hypocrite; and both upon the same mistake, as if such an afflicted condition and a gracious state were incon­sistent. Now, Christian, keep the plains, and neither from this, charge God foolishly for thine enemy, nor thyself as his. Read the saddest providence with the comment of the Word, and thou canst not make such a harsh interpretation. As God can make a straight line with a crooked stick, be righteous when he useth wicked instruments; so also gracious when he dispen­seth harsh providences. Joseph kept his love, when he spake roughly to his brethren. I do not wonder that the wicked think they have God’s blessing, be­cause they are in the warm sun. Alas! they are strangers to God’s counsels, void of his Spirit, and sensual, judging of God and his providence, by the report their present feeling makes of them like little children, who think every one loves them that gives them plums. But it is strange that a saint should be at a loss for his afflicted state, when he hath a key to decipher God’s character. Christian, hath not God secretly instructed thee by his Spirit from the Word, how to read the shorthand of his providence? Dost not thou know that the saint’s afflictions stand for blessings? Every son whom he loves he corrects; and prosperity in a wicked state, must it not be read a curse? Doth not God damn such to be rich, honourable, victorious in this world, as well as to be tormented in another world? God gives them more of these than they seem to desire sometimes, and all to bind them faster up in a deep sleep of security, as Jael served Sisera: he shall have milk though he asked but water, that she might nail him surer to the ground—milk having a property, as some write, to incline to sleep, Jude 1:5. Answer Fourth. Be careful to keep thy old re­ceipts which thou hast had from God for the pardon of thy sins. There are some gaudy days, and jubilee-like festivals, when God comes forth clothed with the robes of his mercy, and holds forth the sceptre of his grace more familiarly to his children than ordinary, bearing witness to their faith, sincerity, &c., and then the firmament is clear, not a cloud to be seen to darken the Christian’s comfort. Love and joy are the soul’s repast and pastime, while this feast lasts. Now when God withdraws, and this cheer is taken off, Satan’s work is how he may deface and wear off the remembrance of this testimony, which the soul so triumphs in for its spiritual standing, that he may not have it as an evidence when he shall bring about the suit again, and put the soul to produce his writings for his spiritual state, or renounce his claim. It be­hoves thee therefore to lay them safely; such a testimony may serve to nonsuit thy accuser many years hence; one affirmative from God’s mouth for thy pardoned state, carries more weight, though of old date, than a thousand negatives from Satan’s. David’s songs of old spring in with a light to his soul in his midnight sorrows. Question. But what counsel would you give me, saith the distressed soul, who cannot fasten on my former comforts, nor dare to vouch those evidences which once I thought true? I find indeed there have been some treaties of old between God and my soul; some hopes I have had, but these are now so defaced and interlined with backslidings, repentances, and falls again, that now I question all my evidences, whether true or counterfeit; what should one in this case do? Answer First. Renew thy repentance, as if thou hadst never repented. Put forth fresh acts of faith, as if thou hadst never believed. This seriously done, will stop Satan’s mouth with an unexpected answer. Let him object against thy former actions as hypocritical; what can he say against thy present repenting and believing? which, if true, sets thee beyond his shot. It will be harder for Satan to disprove the present workings of God’s gracious Spirit, whilst the impression thereof are fresh, than to pick a hole in thy old deeds and evidences. Acts are transient, and as wicked men look at sins committed many years since as little or none, by reason of that breadth of time which interposeth; so the Christian upon the same account stands at great disadvantage, to take the true aspect of those acts of grace, which so long ago passed between God and him, though sometimes even these are of great use. As God can make a sinner possess the sins of his youth, as if they were newly acted, to his terror in his old age, so God can present the comforts and evidences which of old the saint received, with those very thoughts he had then of them, as if they were fresh and new. Answer Second. And therefore, if yet he haunts thee with the fears of thy spiritual estate, ply thee to the throne of grace, and beg a new copy of thy old evidence, which thou hast lost. The original is in the pardon office in heaven, whereof Christ is master, [and] if thou beest a saint, thy name is upon record in that court. Make thy moan to God, hear what news from heaven, rather than listen to the tales which are brought by thine enemy from hell. Did such reason less with Satan, and pray over their fears more to God, they might sooner be resolved. Can you expect truth from a liar, and comfort from an enemy? Did he ever prophesy well of believers? Was not Job the devil’s hypocrite, whom God vouched for a non-such in holiness, and proved him so at last? If he knew thou wert a saint, would he tell thee so? If an hypocrite, he would be as loath thou shouldst know it. Turn thy back therefore on him, and go to thy God; fear not, but sooner or later he will give his hand to thy certificate. But look thou dost not rashly pass a censure on thyself, because a satisfactory answer is not presently sent at thy desire; the messenger may stay long, and bring good news at last. Answer Third. Shun battle with thine enemy while [until] thou art in a fitter posture, and that thou mayest draw into thy trenches, and make an honourable retreat into those fastnesses and strengths which Christ hath provided for his sick and wounded soldiers. Now there are two places of advantage into which deserted souls may retire—the name of God, and the absolute promises of the gos­pel. These I may call the fair havens, which are then chiefly of use, when the storm is so great that the ship cannot live at sea. O, saith Satan, dost thou hope to see God? None but the pure in heart shall be blessed with that vision. Thinkest thou to have comfort? That is the portion of the mourners in spirit. Now, soul, though thou canst not say in the hurry of temptation [that] thou art the pure and the mourner in spirit, yet then say thou believest God is able to work these in thee; yea, hath promised such a mercy to poor sinners; it is his covenant [that] he will give a new heart, a clean heart, a soft heart; and here I wait, knowing, as there was nothing in the creature to move the great God to make such promises, so there can be nothing in the creature to hinder the Almighty his performance of them, where and when he pleaseth. This act of faith, accompanied with a longing desire after that grace thou canst not yet find, and an attendance on the means, though it will not fully satisfy all thy doubts, may be, yet will keep thy head above water, that thou despairest not; and such a shore thou needest in this case, or the house falls. Answer Fourth. If yet Satan dogs thee, call in help, and keep not the devil’s counsel. The very strength of some temptations lies in the concealing of them, and the very revealing of them to some faithful friend, like the opening and pricking of some impost­hume[16], gives the soul present ease. Satan knows this too well; and therefore, as some thieves, when they come to rob a house, either gag them in it, or hold a pistol to their breast, frightening them with death, if they cry or speak; thus Satan, that he may more freely rifle the soul of its peace and comfort, overawes it so, that it dares not disclose his temptation. O, saith Satan, if thy brethren or friends know such a thing by thee, they will cast thee off; others will hoot at thee. Thus many a poor soul hath been kept long in its pangs by biting them in. Thou losest, Christian, a double help by keeping the devil’s secret —the counsel and prayers of thy fellow-brethren. And what an invaluable loss is this! BRANCH SECOND. [The certainty of standing against all his wiles if we be thus armed.] The second branch of the apostle’s argument follows, to excite them the more vigorously to their arms; and that is from the possibility yea, certainty of standing against this subtle enemy, if thus armed, ‘That ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.’ So that this gives the apostle’s argument its due temperament; for he meant not to scare them in­to a cowardly flight, or sullen despair of victory, when he tells them that their enemy is so subtle and politic, but to excite them to a vigorous resistance, from the assured hope of strength to stand in battle, and victoriously after it; which two I perceive are comprehended in that phrase, standing against the wiles of Satan. Sometimes to stand implies a fighting posture, Galatians 6:14. sometimes a conquering posture: ‘I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth,’ Job 19:25. That earth which was the field where all the bloody battles were fought betwixt him and Satan, on it shall he stand, when not an enemy shall dare to show his head. So that taking both these in, the observation is— [Satan shall never vanquish a soul armed with true grace.] Doctrine. Satan with all his wits and wiles, shall never vanquish a soul armed with true grace; nay, he that hath this armour of God on shall vanquish him. Look into the Word; you shall not find a saint but hath been in the list with him, sifted and winnowed more or less by this enemy, yet at last we find them all coming off with an honourable victory: as in David, Job, Peter, Paul, who were the hardest put to it of any upon record; and lest some should attribute their victory to the strength of their inherent grace above other of their weaker brethren, you have the glory of their victories appropriated to God, in whom the weak are as strong as the strongest. We shall give a double reason of this truth, why the Christian who seems to be so overmatched, is yet so unconquerable, 2 Corinthians 12:9; James 5:11. First Reason. The curse that lies upon Satan and his cause. God’s curse blasts wherever it comes. The Canaanites with their neighbour nations were bread for Israel, though people famous for war; and why? They were cursed nations. The Egyptians [were] a politic people; let us deal wisely, say they; yet being cursed of God, this lay like a thorn at their heart, and at last was their ruin. Yea, let the Israelites themselves, who carry the badge of God’s covenant on their flesh, by their sins once become the people of God’s curse, and they are trampled like dirt under the Assyrian’s feet. This made Balak beg so hard for a curse upon Israel. Now there is an irrevocable curse cleaves to Satan from Genesis 3:14-15, ‘And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed,’ &c., which place, though partly meant of the literal serpent, yet chiefly of the devil and the wicked—his spiritual serpentine brood—as appears by the enmity pronounced against the serpent’s seed and the woman’s, Genesis 3:15[17], which clearly holds forth the feud between Christ with his seed, against the devil and his. Now there are two things in that curse which may comfort the saints. 1. The curse prostrates Satan under their feet: Upon thy belly shalt thou go; which is no more than is elsewhere promised, that God will subdue Satan under our feet. Now this prostrate condition of Satan assures believers that the devil shall never lift his head, that is, his wily policy, higher than the saint’s heel. He may make thee limp, but cannot bereave thee of thy life; and this bruise which he give thee shall be rewarded with the breaking of his own head, that is, the utter ruin of him and his cause. 2. His food is here limited and appointed. Satan will not devour whom he will. The dust is his food; which seems to restrain his power to the wicked, who are of the earth earthy, mere dust; but for those who are of a heavenly extraction, their graces are reserved for Christ’s food, Song of Solomon 7:13, and their soul’s are surely not a morsel for the devil’s tooth. Second Reason. The second reason is taken from the wisdom of God, who as he undertakes the ordering of the Christian’s way to heaven, Psalms 37:24, so especially this business of Satan’s temptations. We find Christ was not led of the evil spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, but of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 4:1. Satan tempts not when he will, but when God pleaseth, and the same Holy Spirit which led Christ into the field, led him off with victory. And therefore we find him marching in the power of his Spirit, after he had repulsed Satan, into Galilee, Luke 4:14. When Satan tempts a saint, he is but God’s messenger, 2 Corinthians 12:7. ‘There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.’ So our translation. But rather as Beza, who will have it in [the nominative case[18]], the messenger Satan, implying that he was sent of God to Paul; and indeed the er­rand he came about was too good and gracious to be his own, lest I should be exalted above measure. The devil never meant to do Paul such a good office, but God sends him to Paul, as David sent Uriah with let­ters to Joab; neither knew the contents of their message. The devil and his instruments, both are God’s instruments, therefore the wicked are called his sword, his axe; now let God alone to wield the one and handle the other. He is but a bungler that hurts and hackles his own legs with his own axe; which God should do, if his children should be the worse for Satan’s temptations. Let the devil choose his way, God is for him at every weapon. If he will try it by force of arms, and assault the saints by persecution, as the Lord of hosts he will oppose him. If by policy and subtilty, he is ready there also. The devil and his whole council are but fools to God. Nay, their wis­dom, foolishness, cunning, and art, commend everything but sin. The more artificial the watch, the picture, &c., the better; but the more wit and art in sin, the worse, because it is employed against an all-wise God, that cannot be outwitted, and therefore in the end but pay the workmen in greater damnation. ‘The foolishness of God is wiser than men;’ yea, than the wisdom of men and devils, that is, the means and instruments which God opposeth Satan withal. What weaker than a sermon? Who sillier than the saints in the account of the wise world? Yet God is wiser in a weak sermon, than Satan in his deep plots, wherein the state heads of a whole conclave of profound cardinals are knocked together—wiser in his simple ones, than Satan in his Ahithophels and Sanballats. And truly God chooseth on purpose to defeat the pol­icies of hell and earth by these, that he may put such to greater shame, 1 Corinthians 1:21. How is the great scholar ashamed to be baffled by a plain countryman’s argu­ment? Thus God calls forth Job to wrestle with Satan and his seconds—for such his three friends showed themselves in taking the devil’s part—and sure he is not able to hold up the cudgels against the fencing-master, who is beaten by one of the scholars. God sits laughing while hell and earth sit plotting, Psalms 2:4; ‘He disappointeth the devices of the crafty,’ Job 5:12, he breaketh their studied thoughts and plots, as the words import, in one moment pulling down the labours of many years’ policy. Indeed as great men keep wild beasts for game and sport, as the fox, the boar, &c., so doth God Satan and his instruments, to manifest his wisdom in the taking of them. It is observed, that the very hunting of some beasts af­fords not only pleasure to the hunter, but also more sweetness to the eater. Indeed God, by displaying of his wisdom in the pursuit of the saint’s enemies, doth superadd a sweet relish to their deliverance at last. He brake the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to his people. After he had hunted Pharaoh out of all his forms and burrows, now he breaks the very brains of all his plots, and serves him up to his people, with the garnishment of his wisdom and power about. [How God doth outwit the devil in his tempting of saints to sin.] Question. But how doth God defeat Satan, and outwit his wiles in tempting his saints? Answer. This God doth by accomplishing his own gracious ends for the good and comfort of his people out of those temptations from which Satan designs their ruin. This is the noblest kind of conquest, to beat back the devil’s weapon to the wounding of his own head, yea, to cut it off with the devil’s own sword. Thus God sets the devil to catch the devil, and lays, as it were, his own counsels under Satan’s wings, and makes him hatch them. Thus the patriarchs helped to fulfil Joseph’s dream, while they were thinking to rid their hands of him. To instance in a few particulars, [The ends Satan propounds.] First Particular. Satan by his temptations aims at the defiling of the Christian’s conscience, and disfiguring that beautiful face of God’s image which is engraven with holiness in the Christian’s bosom; he is an unclean spirit himself, and would have them such that he might glory in their shame; but God outwits him, for he turneth the temptations of Satan to sin, to purging them from sin; they are the black soap with which God washes his saints white. 1. God useth the temptations of Satan to one sin, as a preventive against another; so Paul’s thorn in the flesh to prevent his pride. God sends Satan to as­sault Paul on that side where he is strong, that in the meantime he may fortify him where he is weak. Thus Satan is befooled, as sometimes we see an army sit­ting down before a town, where it wastes its strength to no purpose, and in the meantime gives the enemy an advantage to recruit; and all this by the counsel of some Hushai, that is a secret friend to the contrary side. God, who is the saint’s true friend, sits in the devil’s council, and overrules proceedings there to the saint’s advantage. He suffers the devil to annoy the Christian with temptations to blasphemy, atheism, and with these, together with the troubles of spirit they produce, the soul is driven to duty, is humbled in the sense of these horrid apparitions in its imagina­tion, and secured from abundance of formality and pride, which otherwise God saw invading him. As in a family, some business falls out, which keeps the master up later than ordinary, and by this the thief, who that night intended to rob him, is disappointed. Had not such a soul had his spirit of prayer and diligence kept awake by those afflicting temptations, it is likely that Satan might have come as a seducer, and taken him napping in security. 2. God purgeth out the very sin Satan tempts to, even by his tempting. Peter never had such a con­quest over his self-confidence, never such an establishment of his faith as after his soul-fall in the high-priest’s hall. He that was so well persuaded of himself before, as to say, ‘Though all were offended with Christ, yet would not he,’ how modest and humble was he in a few days become, when he durst not say he loved Christ more than his fellow-brethren, to whom before he had preferred himself! John 21:15. What an undaunted confessor of Christ and his gos­pel doth he prove before councils and rulers, who even now was dashed out of countenance by a silly maid, and all this the product of Satan’s temptation sanctified unto him! Indeed a saint hath a discovery by his fall, what is the prevailing corruption in him, so that the temptation doth but stir the humour, which the soul having found out, hath the greater advantage to evacuate, by applying those means, and using those ingredients which do purge that malady [with a choice[19]]. Now the soul sure will call all out against this destroyer? Paul had not taken such pains to buffet his body, had he not found Satan knocking at that door. 3. God useth these temptations for the advancing the whole work of grace in the heart. One spot occasions the whole garment to be washed. David overcome with one sin, renews his repentance for all, Psalms 51:1-19. A good husband when he seeth it rain at one place, sends for the workman to look over all the house. This indeed differenceth a sincere heart from an hypocrite, whose repentance is partial, soft in one plot, and hard in another. Judas cries out of his treason, but not a word of his thievery and hypocrisy. The hole was no wider in his conscience than where the bullet went in; whereas true sorrow for one, breaks the heart into shivers for others also. [How Satan is prevented in all.] Second Particular. Satan by tempting one saint hath a mischievous design against others, either by encouraging then to sin by the example of such a one, or discouraging them in their holy course by the scandal he hath given; but God here befools him. 1. By making the miscarriages of such, a seasonable caveat to others to look to their standing. Dost thou see a meek Moses provoked to anger; what watch and ward hast thou need keep over thy unruly heart! Though loud winds do some hurt by blowing down here a loose tile, and there a turret, which was falling before—yet the common good sur­mounts the private damage of some few, these being a broom in God’s hands to sweep and cleanse the air. So, though some that are wicked are by God’s righteous judgement for the same hardened into further abominations by the saints’ falls, yet the good which sincere souls receive by having their formality and security in a further degree purged, doth abundantly countervail the other, who are but sent a little faster, whither they were going before. 2. God makes his saints’ falls an argument for comfort to distressed consciences. This hath been, and is as a feather—when the passage seems so stopped that no comfort can be got down otherwise —to drop a little hope into the soul, to keep the creature alive from falling into utter despair. Some have been revived with this, when next door to hell in their own fears. David’s sin was great, yet [he] found mercy. Peter fell foully, yet [is] now in heav­en. Why sittest thou here, O my soul, under the hatches of despair? Up and call upon thy God for mercy, who hath pardoned the same to others. 3. God hath a design in suffering Satan to trounce some of his saints by temptation, to train them up in a fitness to succour their fellow-brethren in the like condition. He sends them hither to school —where they are under Satan’s ferula and lash—that his cruel hand over them may make them study the Word and their own hearts, by which they get experience of Satan’s policies till at last they commence masters in this art of comforting tempted souls. It is an art by itself, to speak a word in season to the weary soul. It is not serving out an apprenticeship to human arts [that] will furnish a man for this. Great doctors have proved very dunces here, knowing no more how to handle a wounded conscience than a rustic the chirurgeon’s instrument in dissecting the body when an anatomy lecture is to be read. It is not the knowledge of the Scripture—though a man were as well acquainted with it, as the apothecary with his pots and glasses in his shop, and able to go directly to any promise on a sudden—[that] will suffice. No, not grace itself, except exercised with these buffetings and soul conflicts. Christ himself we find trained up at this school. ‘He wakeneth mine ear, to hear as the learned,’ Isaiah 50:4. Even as the tutor calls up his pupil to read to him. And what is the lecture which is read to Christ, that he may have the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to the weary souls? ‘The Lord hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned I away back; I gave my back to the smiters,’ &c., Isaiah 50:5-6. His sufferings (which were all along mingled with temptations), were the lecture from which Christ came out so learned, to resolve and comfort distressed souls. So that the devil had better let Christ alone, yea, and his saints also, who do him but the greater disservice in comforting others. None will handle poor souls so gently as those who remember the smart of their own heart sorrows. None [are] so skilful in applying the comforts of the Word to wounded consciences, as those who have lain bleeding themselves; such know the symptoms of soul-troubles, and feel others’ pains in their own bosoms, which some that know the Scriptures, for lack of experience do not, and therefore are like a novice physician, who perhaps can tell you every plant in the herbal, yet wanting the practical part, when a patient comes, knows not well how to make use of his skill. The saints’ experiences help him to a sovereign treacle made of the scorpion’s own flesh—which they through Christ have slain—and that hath a virtue above all other to expel the venom of Satan’s temptations from the heart. [The gracious issue God puts to Satan’s temptations.] Third Particular. Satan, in tempting the saint to sin, labours to make a breech between God and the soul. He hates both, and therefore labours to di­vide these dear friends. If I can, thinks he, get such a one to sin, God will be angry, and when angry he will whip his child soundly; this will be some sport; and when God is correcting the saint, he will be questioning the love of God to him, and cool in his love to God. So though I should not keep him from heaven at last, yet he shall have little joy thither in the way. In this case God and the soul will be like man and wife fallen out, who neither of them look kindly one upon another. Now see how God befools Satan in both these. 1. God useth his saints’ temptations, as his method by which he advanceth the communications of his love unto them. The devil thought he had got the goal when he got Adam to eat the forbidden fruit; he thought now he had man in the same predicament with himself, as unlikely ever to see the face of God, as those apostate spirits. But, alas! this was by God intended to usher in that great gospel-plot of saving man by Christ, who (as soon as this prologue of man’s fall is done) is brought upon the stage in that grand promise of the gospel made to Adam, and, at God’s command, undertakes the charge of recovering lost man out of Satan’s clutches, and reinstating him in his primitive glory, with an access of more than ever man had at first, so that the meanest lily in Christ’s field exceeds Adam in all his native royalty. And as Satan sped in his first temptation, so he is still on the losing hand. What got he by all his pains upon Job, but to let that holy man know at last how dearly God loved him? When he foiled Peter so shamefully, do we not find Christ owning Peter with as much love as ever? Peter must be the only disciple to whom by name the joyful news of the resurrection is sent. ‘Go tell my disciples and Peter;’ as if Christ had said, Be sure let his sad heart be comforted with this news, that he may know I am friends with him for all his late cowardice. But doth not this seem to countenance sin, and make Christians heedless whether they fall into temp­tation or no? If God do thus show his love to the saints after their falls and foils, why should we be so shy of sin, which ends so well at last? Two things will prevent the danger of such an inference. (1.) We must distinguish between a soul who is foiled through his own infirmity, and his enemies’ subtlety and power over-matching him; and another thorough a false heart doth voluntarily prostrate him­self to the lust of Satan, Though a general will show little pity to a soldier that should traitorously throw down his arms, and run to the enemy, yet if another in fighting receives a wound and be worsted, it will be no dishonour for him to express his pity and love, no, though he should send him out of the field in his own coach, lay him in his own bed, and appoint him his own chirurgeon. God doth not encourage wickedness in his saints, but pities weakness. Even when the saints fall into a sin, in its nature presumptuous, they do not commit it so presumptuously as others; there is a part true to God in their bosoms, though over-voted. Moses spake unadvisedly, but the devil had his instruments to provoke him, quite against the good man’s temper. David numbers the people, but see how the devil dogged and hunted him, till at last he got the better: ‘Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel,’ 1 Chronicles 21:1. How bravely did Job repel Satan’s darts! No wonder if in such a shower someone should get between the joints of his armour! And for Peter, we know—good man!—with what a loyal heart, yea, zealous, he went into the field, though when the enemy appeared his heart failed him. (2.) Consider but the way how God communicates his love after his saints’ falls, not in sinning, or for sinning, but in mourning and humbling their souls for their sins. Indeed did God smile on them while acting sinfully, this might strengthen their sin, as wine in a fever would the disease; but when the fit is off, the venom of the disease spent, and breathed out in a kindly humiliation, now the creature lies low. God’s wine of comfort is a cordial to the drooping spirit, not fuel for sin. When David was led into temptation first, he must be clad in sackcloth and mourning, and then God takes it off, and puts on the garment of joy and praise, 1 Chronicles 21:10, 1 Chronicles 21:15. Job, though he expressed so much courage and patience, yet, bewraying some infirmities after he was baited long by so many fresh dogs, men and devils, he must cry Peccavi [I have sinned], and abhor himself in dust and ashes, before God will take him into his arms, Job 42:6. And the same way God takes with all his chil­dren. Now to his saints in such a posture, God may with safety to his honour and their good, give a larger draught of love than ordinary. Their fears and sor­rows which their sin hath cost them, will serve in­stead of water to dash this strong wine of joy, and take away its headiness, that it neither fume up into pride, nor occasion them to reel backward into apostasy. But why doth God now communicate his love? (a) From his own pitiful nature; ‘You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and full of tender mercy.’ God loves not to rake in bleeding wounds; he knows a mourning soul is subject to be discouraged. A frown or an angry look from God, whom the saint so dearly loves, must needs go near the heart, therefore God declares himself at hand to revive such, Isaiah 57:15. And if he gives the reason: ‘For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me,’ Isaiah 57:16. Whose spirit is there meant? Not [that] of the presumptuous sinner; he goes on, and never blunks; but of the contrite and humble ones. As the father observes the disposition of his children; one commits a fault and goes on rebelliously, despising his father’s anger; another, when offending him, lays it to heart, refus­eth to eat, gets into some corner to lament the displeasure of his father; the father sees it, and his bowels yearn toward him. Indeed should he not put his child out of fear by discovering his love, the spirit of such a one would fail. It is not possible there should be a long breach between such a father and such a son, the one relenting over his sin, the other over his mourning son. (b) God doth thus, to pour the greater shame upon Satan, who is the great makebate[20] between God and the soul. How is the man ashamed that hath stirred up variance between husband and wife, father and son, to see the breach made up, and all set themselves against him! It went ill on Christ’s side when Herod and Pilate were made friends; and can it go well with Satan to see all well between God and his children? If Esther be in favour, Haman her enemy shall have his face covered. Indeed, this cov­ers Satan’s face with shame, to see a poor saint, even now his prisoner, whom he had leave to rob and plunder, tempt and disquiet, now sitting in the sun­shine of God’s love, while he like a ravening lion takes on for the loss of his prey. 2. Satan’s aim is to weaken the saint’s faith on God, and cool his love to God, but [he is] befooled in both. (1.) God turns their temptations, yea, their falls to the further establishment of their faith, which, like the tree, stands stronger for its shaking; or like the giant Anteus, who, in his wrestling with Hercules, is feigned to get strength by every fall to the ground. False faith, indeed, once foiled, seldom comes on again; but true faith riseth and fights more valiantly, as we see in Peter and other Scripture examples. Temptation to faith, is like fire to gold, 1 Peter 1:7. The fire doth not only discover which is true gold, but makes the true gold more pure; it comes out, may be, less in bulk and weight, because severed from that soil and dross which embased it, but more in value and worth. When Satan is bound up, and the Christian walks under the shines of divine favour, and [the] en­couragement of divine assistance, his faith may ap­pear great, if compared with another under the withdrawings of God and buffetings of Satan, but this is not equal judging. As if to try who is the bigger of two men, we should measure one naked, and the other over his clothes; or in comparing two pieces of gold, [we] weighed one with the dross and dirt it contracts in the purse, with the purged from these in the fire. Faith before temptation hath much hetero­geneal stuff that cleaves to it, and goes for faith; but when temptation comes these are discovered. Now the Christian feels corruption stir, which lay as dead before; now a cloud comes between the soul and the sweet face of God—the sense of which latter, and the little sense of the other bore up his faith before—but these bladders [being] pricked, he comes now to learn the true stroke in this heavenly art of swimming on the promise, having nothing else to bear him up but that. And a little of this carries more of the precious nature of faith in it, than all the other; yea, is, like Gideon’s handful of men, stronger when all these accessories to faith are sent away, than when they were present. And here is all the devil gets; in­stead of destroying his faith which he aims at, he is the occasion of the refining of it, and thereby adding to its strength. (2.) The love of tempted saints is enkindled to Christ by their temptations, and foils in their tempta­tions. Possibly in the fit there may seem a damp up­on their love, as when water is first sprinkled upon the fire, but when the conflict is a little over, and the Christian comes to himself, his love to Christ will break out like a vehement flame. (a) The shame and sorrow which a gracious soul must needs feel in his bosom for his sinful miscarriage while under the temptation, will provoke him to express his love to Christ above others; as is sweetly set forth in the spouse, who, when the cold fit of her distemper was off, and the temptation over, bestirs her to purpose; her lazy sickness is turned to love-sickness; she finds it as hard now to sit, as she did before to rise; she can rest in no place out of her Beloved’s sight, but runs and asks every one she meets for him. And whence came all this vehemency of her zeal? All occasioned by her undutiful carriage to her husband; she parted so unkindly with him, that bethinking what she had done, away she goes to make her peace. If sins com­mitted in unregeneracy have such a force upon a gracious soul, that the thought of them, though pardoned, will still break and melt the heart into sorrow (as we see in Magdalene), and prick on to show zeal for God above others (as in Paul), how much more will the sins of a saint, who, after sweet acquaintance with Jesus Christ, lifts up the heel against that bosom where he hath lain, affect, yea, dissolve the heart as into so many drops of water, and that sorrow provoke him to serve God at a higher rate than others? No child so dutiful in all the family as he who is returned from his rebellion. (b) Again, as his own shame, so the experience which such a one hath of Christ’s love above all others will increase his love. Christ’s love is to fuel ours[21]; as it gives its being, so it affords growth. It is both mother and nurse to our love. The more Christ puts forth his love, the more heat our love gets; and next to Christ’s dying love, none greater than his succouring love in temptation. The mother never hath such advantage to show her affection to her child as when in distress, sick, poor or imprisoned; so neither hath Christ to his children as when tempted, yea, worsted by temptation. When his children lie in Satan’s prison, bleeding under the wounds of their consciences, this is the season he takes to give an experiment of his tender heart in pitying, his faithfulness in praying for them, his mindfulness in sending succour to them, yea, his dear love in visiting them by his comforting Spirit. Now when the soul hath got off some great temptation, and reads the whole history thereof together (wherein he finds what his own weakness was to resist Satan, nay his unfaithfulness in complying with Satan, which might have provoked Christ to leave him to the fury of Satan), now to see both his folly pardoned and ruin graciously prevented, and that by no other hand but Christ’s coming unto his rescue (as Abishai to David, when that giant thought to have slain him, 2 Samuel 21:1-22.) This must needs ex­ceedingly endear Christ to the soul. At the reading of such records the Christian cannot but inquire —Ahasuerus concerning Mordecai, who by discovering a treason had saved the king’s life—What honour hath been done to his sweet Saviour for all this? And thus Jesus Christ, whom Satan thought to bring out of the soul’s favour and liking, comes in the end to sit higher and surer in the saint’s affections than ever. [Use or Application.] Use First. This affords a reason why God suffers his dear children to fall into temptation, be­cause he is able to outshoot Satan in his own bow, and in the thing wherein he thinks to outwit the Christian to be above him. God will not only be admired by his saints in glory for his love in their salvation, but for his wisdom in the way to it. The love of God in saving them will be the sweet draught at the marriage-feast, and the rare wisdom of God in effecting this, as the curious workmanship with which the cup will be enamelled. Now wisdom ap­pears most in untying knots and wading through difficulties. The more cross wards there are in a business, the more wisdom to fit a key to the lock, to make choice of such means as shall meet with the several turnings in the same. On purpose therefore doth God suffer such temptations to intervene, that his wisdom may be the more admired in opening all these, and leading his saints that way to glory, by which Satan thought to have brought them to hell. The Israelites are bid remember all the way that God led them in the wilderness for forty years, Deuteronomy 8:2. The history of these wars, Christian, will be pleasant to read in heaven, though bloody to fight on earth. Moses and Elias talked with Christ on Tabor—an emblem of the sweet communion which shall pass between Christ and his saints in glory,—and what was their talk, but of his death and sufferings? Luke 9:30. It seems a discourse of our sufferings and temp­tations is not too low a subject for that blissful state. Indeed this left out, would make a blemish in the fair face of heaven’s glory. Could the damned forget he way they went into hell, how oft the Spirit of God was wooing, and how far they were overcome by the conviction of it; in a word, how many turns and returns there were in their journey forward and backward, what possibilities, yea, probabilities they had for heaven, when on earth; were but some hand so kind as to blot these tormenting passages out of their memories, it would ease them wonderfully. So, were it possible, glorified saints could forget the way wherein they went to glory, and the several dangers that intervened from Satan and their own backsliding hearts, they and their God too would be losers by it, I mean in regard to his manifestative glory. What is the glory wherein God appears at Zion’s deliverance —those royal garments of salvation, that make so admired of men and angels—but the celebration of all his attributes, according to what every one hath done towards their salvation? Now wisdom being that which the creature chiefly glories in, and that which was chosen by Satan for his first bait, [when he] made Eve believe she should be like God in knowledge and wisdom, therefore God, to give Satan the more shameful fall, gives him leave to use his wits and wiles in tempting and troubling his children, in which lies his great advantage over the saints, that so the way to his own throne—where his wisdom shall at last, as well as his mercy, sit in all its royalty—may be paved with the skulls, as I may so speak, of devils. Use Second. This gives a strong cordial to our fainting faith, in the behalf of the church of Christ. If all the devil’s wits and wiles will not serve him to overcome one single soldier in Christ’s camp, much less shall he ever ruin the whole army. These are the days of great confusion in the Christian world, and the chief fear of a gracious heart is for the ark, lest that should fall into the enemies’ hand; and when this palladium is taken, [lest] the city of God, his church, be trod under the feet of pride. I confess Satan seems to get ground daily; he hath strangely wriggled into the bosoms and principles of many, who, by the fame of their profession and zeal, had obtained, in the opinion of others, to be reckoned among the chief of Christ’s worthies in their generation. He hath sadly corrupted the truths of Christ; brought a disesteem on ordinances, [so] that by this, and as a judgment for this, the womb of the gospel is become in a great measure barren, and her children which hang upon her breasts thrive not in love and holiness as of old, when the milk was not so much, nor that so spiritful. He hath had advantage by the divisions of the godly, to harden those that are wicked into a further disdain of religion; and by the bloody wars of late years, to boil up the wrath of the popish and profane crew to a higher pitch of rage and fury against Christ’s little remnant than ever: so that if ever God should suffer the sword to fall into their hand, they are disciplined and fitted to play the bloody butchers on Christ’s sheep above their forefathers. Neither are they so crest-fallen, but that they can hope for such a day, yea [they] take up some of those joys upon trust afore­hand, to solace themselves, while the rest follow. And now, Christian, may be their confidence, together with the distracted state of Christ’s affairs in the world, may discompose thy spirit, concerning the issue of these rolling providences that are over our heads; but be still, poor heart, and know that the contest is not between the church and Satan, but between Christ and him. These are the two champions. Stand now, O ye army of saints, still, by faith, to see the all-wise God wrestle with a subtle devil. If you live not to see the period of these great confusions, yet generations after you shall behold the Almighty smite off this Goliath’s head with his own sword, and take this cunning hunter in the toil of his own policies; that faith which ascribes greatness and wisdom to God, will shrink up Satan’s subtlety into a nigrum nihil—a thing of nothing. Unbelief fears Satan as a lion, faith treads on him as a worm[22]. Behold therefore thy God at work, and promise thyself that what he is about, is an excellent piece. None can drive him from his work. The pilot is beaten from the helm, and can do little in a storm, but lets the ship go adrift. The architect cannot work, when night draws the curtain, yea, is driven off the scaffold with a storm of rain. Such workmen are the wisest counsellors and mightest princes on earth. A pinch may come, when it is as vain to say, Help, O king; as, Help, O beggar. Man’s wisdom may be levelled with folly, but God id never interrupted. All the plots of hell and commotions on earth, have not so much as shaken God’s hand, to spoil one letter or line that he hath been drawing. The mysteriousness of his providence may hang a curtain before his work, that we cannot see what he is doing, but when darkness is about him, righteousness is the seat of his throne for ever. O, where is our faith, sirs? Let God be wise, and all men and devils fools. What though thou seest a Babel more likely to go up, than a Babylon to be pulled down; yet believe God is making his secret approaches, and will clap his ladders on a sudden to the walls thereof. Suppose truth were a prisoner with Joseph, and error the courtier, to have its head lift up by the favour of the times; yet dost [thou] not remember that the way to truth’s preferment lies through the prison? Yea, what though the church were like Jonah in the whale’s belly, swallowed up to the eye of reason by the fury of men, yet dost [thou] not remember [that] the whale had not power to digest the prophet? O be not too quick to bury the church before she be dead. Stay while Christ tries his skill before you give it over; bring Christ by your prayers to its grave, to speak a resurrection word. Admirable hath the saints’ faith been in such straits; as Joseph’s, who pawned his bones that God would visit his brethren, willing them to lay him where he believed they should be brought; Jeremiah purchaseth a field of his uncle, and pays down the money for it, and this when the Chaldean army [was] quartered about Jerusalem, ready to take the city, and [to] carry him with the rest into Babylon. And all this by God’s appoint­ment, Jeremiah 32:6-8, that he might show the Jews by this, how undoubtedly he, in that sad juncture of time, did believe the performance of the promise for their return out of captivity. Indeed God counts him­self exceedingly disparaged in the thoughts of his people, though at the lowest ebb of his church’s affairs, if his naked word, and the single bond of his promise, will not be taken as sufficient security to their faith for its deliverance. [1]µ,2@*,4"H J@Ø *4"$@8@L. [2]Totam nee pati potest libertatem nec servitutem. [3]Nunquam nisi moriens, producitur in longum. [4]Chapman: a peddlar, hawker, archaic; a trader. —SDB [5]Vertigo. [6]Lime-twig: 1) a twig smeared with birdlime to snare birds. 2) any kind of snare. — SDB [7]Sine plicis—without folds. [8]FAMILISTS, the Family of Love, followers of the Dutch merchant Hendrik Niclaes (c. 1502-c. 1580), who were communitarians in life-style and mystics in theology. The sect was established in 1540, in Emden, East Friesland. Members followed the pantheistic, antinomian teachings of Niclaes and were under his leadership. They professed Christian perfectionism influenced by Anabaptist teachings, but they renounced specific creeds, dogmas, and liturgies, calling for a mystical unity of believers inspired by divine love. Other groups sprang up where Niclaes traveled on business-in Amsterdam, Paris, London, and elsewhere. His books, especially Mirror of Justice (published anonymously), received considerable attention. In England, where the Familists were most strident, Queen Elizabeth I condemned their books in 1580 and sought to jail the believers. They persisted, however, and King James I claimed they were responsible for the rise of Puritanism . It has been thought that John Bunyan received inspiration for his Pilgrim’s Progress (1678-84) from Niclaes’s writings, many of which were reprinted in the Commonwealth period. By the time of the Restoration (1660), the Familists had all but disappeared. [9]Consilia callida prima specie læta, tractatu dura eventu tristia.—Livius [10]Hic se aperit diabolus—Here the Evil One reveals himself. [11]<@0µ"J". [12]Quackle means to suffocate or choke. [13]This is an archaic variant and form of the word surgeon. — SDB [14]Hi homunciones invident mihi gratiam Dei. [15]Wassel is an English beverage used at Christmas, and made of apples, sugar, and ale. [16]Imposthume is an archaic term meaning an abscess. — SDB [17] Citation was originally Isaiah 10:5 — SDB [18]in casu recto. [19]Cum delectu. [20]Makebate:—One that excites contentions and quarrels. — SDB [21]Ex iisdem nutrimur quibus constamus. [22]Increduli timent diabolum quasi leonem, qui fide fortes despiciunt quasi vermiculum.—Bern. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.04 - THE NATURE OF THE WAR, AND CHARACTER OF THE ASSAILANTS ======================================================================== Direction Second. The nature of the War, and character of the Assailants. ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’ (Ephesians 6:12). The Words are coupled to the precedent with the casual particle ‘for,’ which either refers to the two foregoing verses—and then they are a further reason, pressing the necessity of Christian fortitude in the tenth verse, and furniture in the eleventh—or else to the last words in the eleventh verse, where the apostle having descried the saints’ grand enemy to be Satan, and described him in one of his attributes—his wily subtlety—he in this further displays him in his proper colours, not to weaken the saints’ hands, but to waken their care, that seeing their enemy marching up in a full body, they might stand in better order to receive his charge. Here, by the way, we may observe the apostle’s simplicity and plain-dealing; he doth not undervalue the strength of the enemy, and represent him inconsiderable, as captains use to keep their soldiers together, by slighting the power of their ad­versary; no, he tells them the worst at first. If Satan had been granted to set out his own power he could have challenged no more than is here granted to him. See here, the difference between Christ dealing with his followers, and Satan with his. Satan dares not let sinners know who that God is they fight against; this were enough to breed a mutiny in the devil’s camp. Silly souls, they are drawn into the field by a false report of God and his ways, and are kept there together, with lies and fair tales; but Christ is not afraid to show his saints their enemy in all his power and principality, the weakness of God being stronger than the powers of hell. The words contain a lively description of a bloody and lasting war between the Christian and his implacable enemy. In them we may observe: FIRST, The Christian’s state in this life [is] set out by this word ‘wrestling.’ SECOND, The assailants that appear in arms against the Christian. They are described—First, Negatively, ‘not flesh and blood;’ or rather comparatively, not chiefly flesh and blood. Second, Positively, ‘but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’ DIRECTION II.—FIRST GENERAL PART. [The nature of the War is set out by this word Wrestling.] ‘For we wrestle,’ Ephesians 6:12. The Christian’s state in this life [is] set out by this word wrestling. The wrestling or conflicting state of a Christian in this life is rendered observable here by a threefold circumstance. First, The sharpness of the combat. Second, The universality of the combat. Third, the permanency of the combat. First. The sharpness of the combat. The kind of combat which the Christian’s state is here set out by, is the phrase translated ‘we wrestle’[1], which though it be used sometimes for a wrestling of sport and recreation, yet [is used] here to set out the sharp­ness of the Christian’s encounter. There are two things in wrestling that render it a sharper combat than others. First. It is a single combat. Wrestling is not properly fighting against a multitude, but when one enemy singles out another, and enters the list with him, each exerting their whole force and strength against one another; as David and Goliath, when the whole armies stood as it were in a ring to behold the bloody issue of that duel. Now this is more fierce than to fight in an army, where though the battle be sharp and long, the soldier is not always engaged, but falls off when he has discharged, and takes breath a while; yea, possibly may escape without hurt or stroke, because there the enemy’s aim is not at this or that man, but at the whole heap. In wrestling [how­ever] one cannot escape so; he being the partic­ular object of the enemy’s fury, must needs be shaken and tried to purpose. Indeed the word ‘wrestling’ signifies such a strife as makes the body shake again[2]. Satan hath not only a general malice against the army of saints, but a spite against thee John, thee Joan; he will single thee out for his enemy. We find Jacob when alone, a man wrestled with him. As God de­lights to have private communion with his single saints, so the devil [delights] to try it hand to hand with the Christian when he gets him alone. As we lose much comfort when we do not apply the promise and providence of God to our particular persons and conditions—God loves me, pardons me, takes care of me. The water at the town-conduit doth me no good, if I want a pipe to empty it into my cistern; so it ob­structs our care and watchfulness, when we conceive of Satan’s wrath and fury as bent in general against the saints, and not against me in particular. O how careful would a soul be in duty, if, as going to church or closet, he had such a serious meditation as this: Now Satan is at my heels to hinder me in my work, if my God help me not! Second. It is a close combat. Armies fight at some distance. Wrestlers grapple hand to hand. An arrow shot from afar may be seen and shunned, but when the enemy hath hold of one there is no decli­ning, but either he must resist manfully, or fall shamefully at his enemy’s foot. Satan comes close up, and gets within the Christian, takes his hold of his very flesh and corrupt nature, and by this shakes him. Second. The universality of the combat. ‘We wrestle’ comprehends all. On purpose you may per­ceive the apostle changeth the pronoun ye in the for­mer verse, into we in this, that he may include himself as well as them; as if he had said, The quarrel is with every saint. Satan neither fears to assault the minister, nor despiseth to wrestle with the meanest saint in the congregation. Great and small, minister and people, all must wrestle; not one part of Christ’s army in the field, and the other at ease in their quarters, where no enemy comes. Here are enemies enough to engage all at once. Third. The permanency or duration of this combat; and that lies in the tense we wrestle. Not, our wrestling was at first conversion, but now over, and we passed the pikes; not, we shall wrestle when sickness comes, and death comes; but our wrestling is; the enemy is ever in sight of us, yea, in fight with us. There is an evil of every day’s temptation, which, like Paul’s bonds, abides us wherever we be come. So that these particulars summed up will amount to this point. [The Christian’s life here is a continual wrestling with sin and Satan.] Doctrine. The Christian’s life is a continual wrestling. He is, as Jeremiah said of himself, born ‘a man of strife.’ Or what the prophet [said] to Asa, may be said to every Christian; ‘From hence thou shalt have wars:’ from thy spiritual birth to thy nat­ural death; from the hour when thou first didst set thy face to heaven, till thou shalt set thy foot in heaven. Israel’s march out of Egypt was, in gospel-sense, our taking the field against sin and Satan; and when had they peace?—not till they lodged their colours in Canaan. No condition wherein the Chris­tian is, here below, is quiet. Is it prosperity or adver­sity? here is work for both hands, to keep pride and security down in the one, faith and patience up in the other; no place which the Christian can call privileged ground. Lot in Sodom wrestled with the wicked in­habitants thereof; his righteous soul being vexed with their unclean conversation. And how fares he at Zoar? Do not his own daughters bring a spark of Sodom’s fire into his own bed, whereby he is inflamed with lust? Some have thought if they were but in such a family, under such a ministry, out of such occasions, O then they should never be tempted as now they are! I confess change of air is a great help to weak nature, and these forenamed as vantage-ground against Satan; but thinkest thou to fly from Satan’s presence thus? No, though thou shouldst take the wings of the morning he would fly after thee; these may make him change his method in tempting, but not lay down his designs; so long as his old friend is alive within, he will be knocking at thy door without. No duty can be performed without wres­tling. The Christian needs his sword as much as his trowel. He wrestles with a body of flesh; [and] this to the Christian in duty is as the beast to the traveller, he cannot go his journey without it, and [has] much ado to go with it. If the flesh be kept high and lusty, then it is wanton and will not obey; if low, then it is weak and soon tires. Thus the Christian rids but little ground, because he must go his weak body’s pace. He wrestles with a body of sin as well as of flesh; this mutters and murmurs when the soul is taking up any duty, so that he cannot do what he would. As Paul said, I would have come once and again, but Satan hindered me. I would have prayed, may the Christian say, at such a time, and meditated on the word I heard, the mercies I received at another [time], but this enemy hindered. It is true indeed, grace sways the sceptre in such a soul; yet, as school-boys taking their time when the master is abroad, do shut him out, and for a while lord it in misrule, though they are whipped for it afterwards, thus the unregenerate part takes advantage when grace is not on its watch to disturb its government, and shut it out from duty. Though this at last makes the soul more severe in mortifying, yet it costs some scuffle before it can recover its throne; and when it cannot shut from duty, yet is the Christian woefully yoked with it in duty. It cannot do what it doth as it would. Many a letter in its copy doth this enemy spoil, while he jogs him with impertinent thoughts. When the Chris­tian is a praying, then Satan and the flesh are a prating; he cries, and they louder to put him out or drown his cry. Thus we see the Christian is assailed on every side by his enemy; and how can it be other, when the seeds of war are laid deep in the natures of both, which can never be rooted up till the devil cease to be a devil, sin to be sin, and the saint to be a saint? Though wolves may snarl at one another, yet are soon quiet again, because the quarrel is not in their nature; but the wolf and the lamb can never be made friends. Sin will lust against grace, and grace draw upon sin, whenever they meet. [Reproof to such as are not true wrestlers.] First. This may reprove such as wrestle; but against whom? against God, not against sin and Satan. These are bold men indeed, who dare try a fall with the Almighty; yet such there are, and a woe [is] pronounced against them, Isaiah 45:9 ‘Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker.’ It is easy to tell which of these will be worsted. What can he do but break his shins that dasheth them against a rock? A goodly battle there is like to be, when thorns contest with fire, and stubble with flame. But where live those giants that dare enter the list with the great God? What are their names, that we may know them, and brand them for creatures above all other unworthy to live? Take heed, O thou who askest, that the wretched man whom thou seekest so to defy, be not found in thy own clothes itself. Judas was the traitor, though he would not answer to his name, but put it off with a ‘Master, is it I?’ And so mayest thou be the fighter against God. The heart is deceitful. Even holy David, for all his anger, was so hot against the rich man, that took away the poor man’s ewe-lamb, that he bound it with an oath, [that] the man should not live who had done it, yet proves at last to be himself the man, as the prophet told him, 2 Samuel 12:1-31. Now there are two ways wherein men wrestle against God. 1. When they wrestle against his Spirit, 2. When they wrestle against his providence. 1. When the wrestle against his Spirit. We read of the Spirit striving against the creature, ‘My spirit shall not always strive with man,’ Genesis 6:3, where the striving is not in anger and wrath to destroy them —that God could do without any stir or scuffle—but a loving strife and contest with man. The old world was running with such a career headlong into their ruin, [that] he sends his Spirit to interpose, and by his counsels and reproofs to offer, as it were, to stop them and reclaim them; as if one seeing another ready to offer violence on himself, should strive to get the knife out of his hand, with which he would do the mischief; or one that hath a purse of gold in his hand to give, should follow another by all manner of en­treaties, striving with him to accept and take it. Such a kind of strife is this of the Spirit’s with men. They are the lusts of men—those bloody instruments of death, with which sinners are mischieving themselves —that the Holy Spirit strives by his sweet counsels and entreaties to get out of our hands. They are Christ’s grace and eternal life [that] he strives to make us accept at the hands of God’s mercy; and for repulsing the Spirit thus striving with them, sinners are justly counted fighters against God. ‘Ye stiff­necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost,’ Acts 7:51. Now there is a twofold striving of the Spirit, and so of our wrestling against it. (1.) The Spirit strives in his messengers with sinners. They coming on his errand, and not their own, he voucheth the faithful counsels, reproofs, and exhortations which they give us as his own act. [What] Noah, that preacher of righteousness, said to the old world is called the preaching of the Spirit, 1 Peter 3:19. The pains that Moses, Aaron, and other servants of God took in instructing Israel, is called the instruction of the Spirit, Nehemiah 9:20; so that when the word, which God’s ministers bring in his name, is rejected, the faithful counsels they give are thrown at sinners’ heels and made light of; then do they strive with the Spirit, and wrestle against Christ as really, as if he visibly in his own person had been in the pulpit, and preached the same sermon to them. When God comes to reckon with sinners, it will prove so. Then God will rub up your memories, and mind you of his striving with you, and your unkind resisting him. They, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, shall know here hath been a prophet among them, Ezekiel 2:5. Now men soon forget whom and what they hear. Ask them what was pressed upon their consciences in such a sermon. They have forgot. What were the precious truths laid out in another? —and they are lost. And well were it for them if their memories were no better in another world; it would ease their torments more than a little. But then they shall know they had a prophet among them, and what a price they had with them in their hands, though it was in fools’ keeping. They shall know what he was, and what he said, though a thousand years past, as fresh as if it were done but last night. The more zealous and compassionate, the more painful and powerful he was in his place, the greater shall their sin be found, to break from such holy violence of­fered to do them good. Surely God will have some­thing for their sweat, yea, lives of his servants which were worn out in striving with such rebellious ones. May be yet, sinners, your firmament is clear, no cloud to be seen that portends a storm; but know, as you use to say, winter does not rot in the clouds; you shall have it at last. Every threatening which your faithful ministers have denounced against you out of the Word, God is bound to make good. He con­firmeth the word of his servant, and performeth the counsel of his messengers, Isaiah 44:26, and that in judgment against sinners, confirming the threatenings, as well as in mercy performing the promises, which they declare as the portion of his children. But it will be time enough to ask such on a sick-bed, or a dying hour, whether the words of the Lord delivered by their faithful preachers have not taken hold of them. Some have confessed with horror [that] they have; as the Jews—‘Like as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us, so hath he dealt with us,’ Zechariah 1:6. (2.) The Spirit strives with men more imme­diately, when he makes his inward approaches to the consciences of men, debating in their own bosoms the case with them. One while he shows them their sins in their bloody colours, and whither they shall surely bring them, if not looked to timely, which he doth so convincingly, that the creature smells sometimes the very fire and brimstone about him, and is at present in a temporary hell; another while he falls a parleying and treating with them, making gracious overtures to the sinner, if he will return at his reproof, presents the grace of the gospel, and opens a door of hope for his recovery, yea, falls a wooing and beseeching of him to throw down his rebellious arms, and come to Christ for life, whose heart is in a present disposition to receive and embrace the first motion the returning sinner makes for mercy. Now when the Spirit of God follows the sinner from place to place, and time to time, suggesting such motions, and renewing his old suit, and the creature shall fling out of the Spirit’s hands, thus striving with him,[3] [the thing being unac­complished], as far from renouncing his lusts, or tak­ing any liking to Christ as ever. This is to resist the Spirit to his face, and it carries so much malignity in it, that even where it hath not been final, poor hum­bled souls [so] over-set with the horror of it, that they could not for a long time be persuaded but that it was the unpardonable sin. Take heed therefore, sinners, how you use the Spirit when he comes knocking at the door of your hearts. Open at his knock, and he will be your guest; you shall have his sweet company. Repulse him, and you have not a promise he will knock again. And if once he leave striving with thee, unhappy man, thou art lost for ever; thou liest like a ship cast up by the waves upon some high rock, where the tide [will] never come to fetch it off. Thou may­est come to the Word, converse with other ordin­ances, but in vain. It is the Spirit in them, which is both tide and wind, to set the soul afloat, and carry it on, or else it lies like a ship on dry ground which stirs not. 2. We wrestle against God when we wrestle with is providence; and that in two ways. (1.) When we are discontented with his provi­dential disposure of us. God’s carving for us doth not please us so, but that we are objecting against his dealings towards us, at least muttering something with the fool in our hearts, which God hears as lightly as man our words. God counts then we begin to quarrel with him, when we do not acquiesce in, and say amen to his providence, whatever it is. He calls it a contending with the Almighty, Job 40:2, yea, a re­proving of God. And he is a bold man sure that dare find fault with God, and article against heaven. God challengeth him, whoever he is, that doth this, to ans­wer it at his peril. ‘He that reproveth God, let him answer it,’ Job 40:2 of the chapter forementioned. It was high time for Job to have done, when he hears what a sense God puts upon those unwary words which dropped from him in the anguish of his spirit and paroxysm of his sufferings. Contend with the Almighty? Reprove God? Good man, how blank he is, and cries out, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Let God but par­don what is past, and he shall hear such language no more. O, sirs, Take heed of this wrestling above all other. Contention is uncomfortable, with whomso­ever it is we fall out—Neighbours or friends, wife or husband, children or servants, but worst of all with God. If God cannot please thee, but thy heart riseth against him, what hopes are there of thy pleasing him, who will take nothing kindly from that man who is angry with him? And how can love to God be pre­served in a discontented heart, that is always mut­tering against him? Love cannot think any evil of God, nor endure to hear any speak evil of him, but it must take God’s part, as Jonathan David’s, when Saul spake basely of him; and when it cannot be heard, will like him arise and be gone. When afflicted, love can allow thee to groan, but not to grumble. If thou wilt ease thy encumbered spirit into God’s bosom by prayer, and humbly wrestle with God on thy knees, love is for thee, and will help thee to the best argu­ments thou canst use to God; but if thou wilt vent thy distempered passions, and show a mutinous spirit against God, this stabs it to the heart. (2.) We wrestle against providence, when incor­rigible under the various dispensations of God toward us. Providence has a voice if we had an ear. Mercies should draw, afflictions drive. Now when neither fair means nor foul do is good, but we are impenitent under both; this is to wrestle against God with both hands. Either of these have their peculiar aggrava­tions: one is against love, and so disingenuous; the other is against the smart of his rod, and therein we slight his anger, and are cruel to ourselves in kicking against the pricks. Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin. He that is not ashamed, has not the spirit of a man. He that is not afraid when smit­ten, is worse than the beast who stands in awe of whip and spur. Sometimes mercy, especially these outward mercies, which have a pleasing relish to the carnal part in a Christian, hath proved a snare to the best of men, but then affliction useth to recover them. But when affliction makes men worse, and they harden themselves against God, to sin more and more while the rod is on them; what is like to reclaim them? Few are made better by prosperity, whom af­flictions make worse. He that will sin, though he goes in pain, will much more, if that once be gone. But take heed of this contesting with God. There is nothing got by scuffling with God, but blows, or worse. If he say he will afflict thee no more, it is even the worst he can say; it is as much as if he should say he will be in thy debt till another world, and there pay thee altogether. But if he means thee mercy, thou shalt hear from him in some sharper affliction than ever. He hath wedges that can rive thee, wert thou a more knotty piece than thou art. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness, and the scant measure that is abominable? saith god to Israel. What! incorrig­ible, though the Lord’s voice crieth unto the city, Micah 6:9, bidding you hear the rod, and him that hath appointed it? See what course God resolves on. Therefore will I make thee sick in smiting of thee, Micah 6:13. As if he had said, My other physic, I see, was too weak, it did not work or turn your stomach, but I will prepare a potion that shall make you sick at heart. Second. It reproves those who seem to wrestle against sin, but not according to the word of com­mand that Christ gives. There is a law in wrestling which must be observed. If a man also strive for mas­teries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully, 2 Timothy 2:5. He alludes to the Roman games, to which there were judges appointed to see that no foul play were offered contrary to the law of wrestling; the prize being denied to such though they did foil their adver­sary; which the apostle improves to make the Chris­tian careful in his war, as being under a stricter law and discipline, that requires not only valour to fight, but obedience to fight by order and according to the word of command. Now few do this that go for great wrestlers. 1. Some while they wrestle against one sin, em­brace another, and in this case it is not [that] the per­son wrestles against sin, but one sin wrestles against another, and it is no wonder to see thieves fall out when they come to divide the spoil. Lusts are di­verse, Titus 3:3, and it is hard to please many masters, especially when their commands are so contrary. When pride bids lay on in bravery, lavish out in entertainment, covetousness bids lay up; when malice bids revenge, carnal policy saith, Conceal thy wrath, though not forgive. When lust sends to his whores, hypocrisy pulls him back for shame of the world. Now is he God’s champion that resist one sin at the command of another, it may be a worse? 2. Some wrestle, but they are pressed into the field, not volunteers. Their slavish fears scare them at present from their lust, so that the combat is rather betwixt their conscience and will, than them and your lust. Give me such a sin, saith will. No, saith con­science, it will scald; and throws it away. A man may love the wine, though he is loath to have his lips burned. Hypocrites themselves are afraid to burn. In such combats the will at last prevails, either by bribing the understanding to present the lust it desires in a more pleasing dress, that conscience may not be scared with such hideous apparitions of wrath; or by pacifying conscience with some promise of repentance for the future; or by forbearing some sin for the pre­sent, which it can best spare, thereby to gain the reputation of something like a reformation. Or if all this will not do, then, prompted by the fury of its lust, the will proclaims open war against conscience, sinning in the face of it, like some wild horse, [which] impatient of the spur which pricks him and bridle that curbs him, gets the bit between his teeth, and runs with full speed, till at last he easeth himself of his rider; and then where he sees fattest pasture, no hedge or ditch can withhold him, till in the end you find him starving in some pound for his trespass. Thus, many sin at such rate, that conscience can no longer hold the reins nor sit the saddle, but is thrown down and laid for dead; and then the wretches range where their lusts can have the fullest meal, till at last they pay for their stolen pleasures most dearly, when conscience comes to itself, pursues them, and takes them more surely by the throat than ever, never to let them go till it brings them before God’s tribunal. 3. Others wrestle with sin, but they do not hate it, and therefore they are favourable to it, and seek not the life of sin as their deadly enemy. These wres­tle in jest, and not in earnest; the wounds they give sin one day, are healed by the next. Let men resolve never so strongly against sin, yet will it creep again into their favour, till the love of sin be quenched in the heart; and this fire will never die of itself, the love of Christ must quench the love of sin, as Jerome [saith] excellently[4] [one love extinguishes another.] This heavenly fire will indeed put out the flame of hell; which he illustrates by Ahasuerus’ carriage to Vashti his queen, who in the first chapter makes a de­cree in all haste that she comes no more before him; but when his passion is a little down, Esther 2:1, he be­gins to relent towards her; which his council perceiv­ing, presently seek out for a beautiful virgin, on whom the king might place his love, and take into his royal bed; which done, we hear no more of Vashti. Then and not till then will the soul’s decree stand against sin, when the soul hath taken Christ into his bosom. [How the true wrestlers should manage their combat.] Direction to the saints. Seeing your life is a con­tinual wrestling here on earth, it is our wisdom to study how you may best manage the combat with your worst enemy; which that you may do, take these few directions. First. Look thou goest not into the field without thy second. My meaning is, engage God by prayer to stand at thy back. God is in a league offensive and defensive with thee, but he looks to be called. Did the Ephraimites take it ill, that Gideon called them not into the field, and may not God much more? as if thou meanedst to steal a victory before he should know it. Thou hast more valour than Moses, who would not stir without God, no, though he sent an angel for his lieutenant. Thou art wiser than Jacob, who to overcome Esau, now marching up, turns from him, and falls upon God; he knew if he could wrestle with God, he might trust God to deal with his brother. Engage God and the back-door is shut, no enemy can come behind thee, yea, thine enemy shall fall before thee. God turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness, saith David. Heaven saith amen to his prayer, and the wretch hangs himself. Second. Be very careful of giving thine enemy hand-hold. Wrestlers strive to fasten upon some part or other, which gives them advantage more easily to throw their adversary; to prevent which, they used—1. To lay aside their garments; 2. To anoint their bodies. 1. Christian, labour to put off the old man which is most personal, that corruption which David calls his own iniquity, Psalms 18:23. This is the skirt which Satan lays hold of; observe what it is, and mortify it daily; then Satan will retreat with shame, when he sees the head of that enemy upon the wall, which should have betrayed thee into his hands. 2. The Roman wrestlers used to anoint their bodies. So do thou; bathe thy soul with the frequent meditations of Christ’s love. Satan will find little wel­come, where Christ’s love dwells; love will kindle love, and that will be as a wall of fire to keep off Satan; it will make thee disdain the offer of a sin, and as oil, supple the joints, and make [thee] agile to offend thy enemy. Think how Christ wrestled in thy quarrel; sin, hell, and wrath had all come full mouth upon thee, had not he coped with them in the way. And canst thou find in thy heart to requite his love, by betraying his glory into the hands of sin, by cowardice or treachery. Say not thou lovest him, so long as thou canst lay those sins in thy bosom which plucked his heart out of his bosom. It were strange if a child should keep, and delight to use, no other knife, but that wherewith his father was stabbed. Third. Improve the advantage, thou gettest at any time, wisely. Sometimes, the Christian hath his enemy on the hip, yea, on the ground, can set his foot on the very neck of his pride, and throw away his unbelief, as a thing absurd and unreasonable. Now, as a wise wrestler, fall with all thy weight upon thine enemy. Though man think it foul play to strike when his adversary is down, yet do not thou so compliment with sin, as to let it breathe or rise. Take heed thou beest not charged of God, as once Ahab, for letting go this enemy now in thy hands, whom God hath ap­pointed to destruction. Learn a little wisdom of the serpent’s brood, who, when they had Christ under their foot, never thought they had him sure enough, no, not when dead; and therefore both seal and watch his grave. Thus do thou, to hinder the resurrection of thy sin, seal it down with stronger purposes, solemn covenants, and watch it by a wakeful circumspect walking. [Use or Application.] Use First. [Consolation.] This is a ground of consolation to the weak Christian, who disputes against the truth of his grace, from the inward con­flicts and fightings he hath with his lusts, and is ready to say like Gideon, in regard of outward enemies, ‘If God be with me, why is all this befallen me?’ Why do I find such strugglings in me, provoking me to sin, pulling me back from that which is good? Why dost [thou] ask? The answer is soon given; because thou art a wrestler, not a conqueror. Thou mistakest the state of a Christian in this life. When one is made a Christian, he is not presently called to triumph over his slain enemies, but carried into the field to meet and fight them. The state of grace is the commencing of a war against sin, not the ending of it; rather than thou shalt not have an enemy to wrestle with, God himself will come in a disguise into the field, and appear to be thine enemy. thus when Jacob was alone, a man wrestled with him until breaking of the day; and therefore set thy heart at rest if this be thy scruple. Thy soul may rather take comfort in this, that thou art a wrestler. This struggling within thee, if upon the right ground, and to the right end, doth evidence there are two nations within thee, two contrary natures, the one from earth, earthly, and the other from heaven, heavenly; yea, for thy further comfort, know [that] though thy corrupt nature be the elder, yet it shall serve the younger. Use Second. [Hope of triumph.] O how should this make the Christian long to be gone home, where there is none of this stir and scuffle! It is strange, that every hour seems not a day, and every day a year, till death sounds thy joyful retreat, and calls thee off the field—where the bullets fly so thick, and thou art fighting for thy life with thy deadly enemies—to come to court, where not swords, but palms are seen in the saints’ hands; not drums, but harps; not groans of bleeding soldiers and wounded consciences, but sweet and ravishing music is heard of triumphing victors carolling the praises of God and the Lamb, through whom they have overcome. Well, Christians, while you are below, comfort yourselves with these things. There is a place of rest remaining for the people of God. You do not beat the air, but wrestle for a heaven that is yonder above the clouds; you have your worst first, the best will follow. You wrestle but to win a crown, and win to wear it, yea, wear, never to lose it, which once on, none shall ever take off, or put you to the hazard of battle more. Here we overcome to fight again; the battle of one temptation may be over, but the war remains. What peace can we have as long as devils can come abroad out of their holes, or anything of sinful nature remains in ourselves unmortified? [This nature] will even fight upon its knees, and strike with one arm while the other is cut off; but when death comes, the last stroke is struck. This good physician will perfectly cure thee of thy spiritual blindness and lameness,—as the martyr told his fellow at the stake, bloody Bonner would do their bodily. What is it, Christian, which takes away the joy of thy life, but the wrestlings and combats which this bosom-enemy puts thee to? Is not this the Peninnah that, vexing and disturbing thy spirit, hath kept thee off many a sweet meal, thou mightest have had in communion with God and his saints?—or if thou hast come, hath made thee cover the altar of God with thy tears and groans? And will it not be a happy hand that cuts the knot, and sets thee loose from thy deadness, hypocrisy, pride, and what not, wherewith thou wert yoked? It is life which is thy loss, and death which is thy gain. Be but willing to endure the rending of this vail of thy flesh, and thou art where thou wouldst be, out of the reach of sin, at rest in the bosom of thy God. And why should a short evil of pain affright thee more, than the de­liverance from a continual torment of sin’s evil ravish thee? Some you know have chosen to be cut, rather than to be ground daily with the stone, and yet, may be, their pain comes again; and canst thou not quietly think of dying, to be delivered from the torment of these sins, never to return more? And yet that is not the half that death doth for thee. Peace is sweet after war, ease after pain; but what tongue can express what joy, what glory must fill the creature at the first sight of God and that blessed company? None but one that dwells there can tell. Did we know more of that blissful state, we ministers should find it as hard a work to persuade Christians to be willing to live here so long, as now it is, to persuade them to be willing to die so soon. DIRECTION II.—SECOND GENERAL PART. [Character of the Assailants or Enemies with whom the Christian is to wrestle.] ‘Not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,’ Ephesians 6:12. The assailants that appear in arms against the Christian, or the enemies with whom he is to wrestle, are described, First, Negatively, ‘not against flesh and blood,’ or rather comparatively, not chiefly against flesh and blood. Second, Positively, ‘but against principalities and powers,’ &c. Division First.—The Assailants described negatively. ‘Not against flesh and blood.’ We are not to take the negative part of the description for a pure negation, as if we had no conflict with flesh and blood, but wholly and solely to engage against Satan; but by way of comparison, not only with flesh and blood, and in some sense not chiefly. It is usual in Scripture such manner of phrase: Call not thy friends to dinner, but the poor, Luke 14:12; that is, not only those, so as to neglect the poor. Now, what is meant here by flesh and blood? There is a double interpretation of the words. [What is meant by flesh and blood.] First. By flesh and blood may be meant our own bosom corruptions; that sin which is in our corrupt nature, so oft called flesh in the Scripture —‘the flesh lusteth against the Spirit;’ and sometimes flesh and blood, ‘Flesh and blood hath not revealed this;’ Matthew 16:17, that is, this confession thou hast made comes from above; thy fleshly corrupt mind could never have found out this supernatural truth, thy sinful will could never have embraced it. ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,’ 1 Corinthians 15:50; that is, sinful mortal flesh; as it is expounded in the words following. I consulted not with flesh and blood, Galatians 1:16; that is, carnal reason. Now this bosom enemy may be called flesh, First. Partly from its derivation, and Second. Partly from its operation. First. Partly from its derivation, because it is derived and propagated to us by natural generation. Thus Adam is said to beget a son in his own likeness, sinful as he was, as well as mortal and miserable; yea, the holiest saint on earth having flesh in him, derives this corrupt and sinful nature to his child, as the circumcised Jew begat an uncircumcised child; and the wheat cleansed and fanned, being sown, comes up with a husk. ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh,’ John 3:6. Second. It is called flesh, partly from the opera­tions of this corrupt nature, which are fleshly and carnal. The reasonings of the corrupt mind [are] fleshly; therefore [it is] called the carnal mind, in­capable indeed of the things of God, which it neither doth nor can perceive. as the sun doth hide the heavens which are above it from us, while it reveals things beneath[5], so carnal reason leaves the creature in the dark concerning spiritual truths, when it is most able to conceive and discourse of creature excel­lences, and carnal interests here below. What a child­ish question for so wise a man, did Nicodemus put to Christ! though Christ to help him did wrap his speech in a carnal phrase. If fleshly reason cannot under­stand spiritual truths when thus accommodated, and the notions of the gospel translated into its own lan­guage, what skill is it like to have of them, if put to read them in their original tongue? I mean, if this garment of carnal expression were taken off, and spir­itual truths in their naked hue presented to its view. The motions of the natural will are carnal, and therefore ‘they that are after the flesh,’ Romans 8:5, are said to ‘mind the things of the flesh.’ All its desires, delights, cares, fears, are in, and of, carnal things; it favours spiritual food no more than an angel fleshly. What we cannot relish we will hardly make our daily food[6]. Every creature hath its proper diet; the lion eats not grass, nor the horse flesh; what is food to the carnal heart, is poison to the gracious; and that which is pleasing to the gracious, is distasteful to the carnal. Now according to this interpretation, the sense of the apostle is not as if the Christian had no combat with his corrupt nature, for in another place it is said, the Spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit—and this enemy is called the sin that besets the Christian round—but to aggravate his con­flict with this enemy by the access of a foreign power, Satan, who strikes in with this domestic enemy. As if while a king is fighting with his own mutinous sub­jects, some outlandish troops should join with them; now he may be said, not to fight with his subjects, but with a foreign power. The Christian wrestles not with his naked corruptions, but with Satan in them. Were there no devil, yet we should have our hands full, in resisting the corruptions of our own hearts; but the access of this enemy makes the battle more terrible, because he heads them who is a captain so skilful and experienced. Our sin is the engine, Satan is the engineer; lust the bait, Satan the angler. When a soul is enticed by his own lust, he is said to be tempted, James 1:14, because Satan and our own lust concur to the completing the sin. Use First. Let us make thee, Christian, ply the work of mortification close. It is no policy to let thy lusts have arms, which are sure to rise and declare against thee when thine enemy comes. Achish’s nobles did but wisely, in that they would not trust David in their army when to fight against Israel, lest in the battle he should be an adversary to them; and darest thou go to duty, or engage in any action, where Satan will appear against thee, and not endeavour to make sure of thy pride, unbelief, &c.,that they join not with thine enemy? Use Second. Are Satan and thy own flesh against thee—not single corruption, but edged with his policy, and backed by his power? See then what need thou hast of more help than thy own grace. Take heed of grappling with him in the strength of thy naked grace; here thou hast two to one against thee. Satan was too hard for Adam, though he went so well appointed into the field, because left to himself; much more easily will he foil thee. Cling therefore about thy God for strength; get him with thee, and then, though a worm, thou shalt be able to deal with this serpent. Second. Flesh and blood is interpreted as a periphrasis of man. ‘We wrestle not with flesh and blood,’ that is, not with man, who is here described by that part which chiefly distinguisheth him from the angelic nature. Touch me, saith Christ, and handle me, a spirit hath not flesh. Now, according to this in­terpretation, [observe these particulars]. First. How meanly the Spirit of God speaks of man. Second. Where he lays the stress of the saint’s battle; not in resisting flesh and blood, but principalities and pow­ers. Where the apostle excludes not our combat with man, for the war is against the serpent and his seed; —as wide as the world is, it cannot peaceably hold the saints and wicked together. But his intent is to show what a complicated enemy—man’s wrath and Satan’s interwoven together—we have to deal with. [How the Christian doth not wrestle with flesh and blood.] First. How meanly doth the Spirit of God speak of man, calling him flesh and blood! Man hath a heaven-born soul, which makes him akin to angels, yea, to the God of them, who is the Father of spirits; but this is passed by in silence, as if God would not own that which is tainted with sin, and not the crea­ture God at first made it; or because the soul, though of such noble extraction, yet being so immersed in sensuality, deserves no other name than flesh, which part of man levels him with the beast, and is here in­tended to express the weakness and frailty of man’s nature. It is the phrase [by] which the Holy Ghost expresseth the weakness and impotency of a creature by. ‘They are men, and their horses are flesh’, Isaiah 31:3, that is, weak; as on the contrary, when he would set out the power and strength of a thing, he opposeth it to flesh—‘Our weapons are not carnal, but mighty,’ 2 Corinthians 10:4. And so in the text, not flesh and blood, but powers. As if he should say, ‘Had you no other to fear but a weak sorry man, it were not worth the providing arms or ammunition; but you have enemies that neither are flesh, nor are resisted with flesh.’ So that here we see what a weak creature man is, not only weaker than angels, as they are spirit and he flesh—put in some sense beneath the beasts, as the flesh of man is frailer than the flesh of beasts; therefore the Spirit of God compares man to the grass, which soon withers, and his goodliness to the flower of the field, Isaiah 40:6. Yea, he is called vanity. ‘Men of low degree are vanity, and men of high de­gree are a lie,’ Psalms 62:9. Both alike vain; only the rich and the great man’s vanity is covered with honour, wealth, &c., which are here called a lie, because they are not what they seem, and so worse than plain vanity, which is known to be so, and deceives not. Use First. Is man but frail flesh? Let this hum­ble thee, O man, in all thy excellency; flesh is but one remove from filth and corruption. Thy soul is the salt that keeps thee sweet, or else thou wouldst stink above ground. Is it thy beauty thou pridest in? Flesh is grass, but beauty is the vanity of this vanity. This goodliness is like the flower, which lasts not so long as the grass, appears in its mouth and is gone; yea, like the beauty of the flower, which fades while the flower stands. How soon will time’s plough make fur­rows in thy face, yea, one fit of an ague so change thy countenance, as shall make thy doting lovers afraid to look on thee? Is it strength? Alas, it is an arm of flesh, which withers oft in the stretching forth. Ere long thy blood, which is now warm, will freeze in thy veins; thy spring crowned with May-buds will tread on December’s heel; thy marrow dry in thy bones, thy sinews shrink, thy legs bow under the weight of thy body; thy eye-strings crack; thy tongue [be] not able to call for help; yea, thy heart with thy flesh shall fail. And now thou who art such a giant, take a turn of thou canst in thy chamber, yea, raise but thy head from thy pillow if thou art able, or call back thy breath, which is making haste to be gone out of thy nostrils, never to return more; and darest thou glory in that which so soon may be prostrate? Is it wisdom? The same grave that covers thy body, shall bury all that—the wisdom of thy flesh I mean—all thy thoughts shall perish, and [thy] goodly plots come to nothing. Indeed, if a Christian, thy thoughts as such shall ascend with thee, not one holy breathing of thy soul lost. Is it thy blood and birth? Whoever thou art, thou art base-born till born again; the same blood runs in thy veins with the beggar in the street, Acts 17:26. All nations there we find made of the same blood; in two things all are alike, we come in and go out of the world alike; as one is not made of finer earth, so not resolved into purer dust. Use Second. Is man flesh? Trust not in man; ‘cursed be he that makes flesh his arm!’ not the mighty man; robes may hide and garnish, they cannot change flesh. Put not your trust in princes, Psalms 146:3; alas, they cannot keep their crowns on their own heads, their heads on their own shoulders; and look­est thou for that which they cannot give themselves? Not in wise men, whose designs recoil oft upon them­selves, that they cannot perform their enterprise[7]. Man’s carnal wisdom intends one thing, but God turns the wheel and brings forth another. Trust not in holy men, they have flesh, and so their judgment [is] not infallible, yea, their way [is] sometimes doubtful. His mistake may lead thee aside, and though he returns, thou mayest go on and perish. Trust not in any man, in all man, no not in thyself, thou art flesh. He is a fool, saith the wise man, that trusts his heart. Not in the best thou art or doest; the garment of thy righteousness is spotted with the flesh; all is counted by St. Paul confidence in the flesh, besides our rejoicing in Christ, Php 3:3. Use Third. Is man but flesh? Fear him not. This was David’s resolve: ‘I will not fear what flesh can do unto me,’ Psalms 56:4. Thou needest not, thou oughtest not to fear. Thou needest not. What, not such a great man, not such a number of men, who have the keys of all the prisons at their girdle, who can kill or save alive! no, not these. Only look they be thy enemies for righteousness’ sake. Take heed thou makest not the least child thine enemy by of­fering wrong to him; God will right the wicked even upon the saint. If he offends, he shall find no shelter under God’s wing for his sin. This made Jerome com­plain that the Christians’ sins made the arms of those barbarous nations which invaded Christendom vic­torious[8]. But if man’s wrath finds thee in God’s way, and his fury take fire at thy holiness, thou needest not fear, though thy life be the prey he hunts for. Flesh can only wound flesh; he may kill thee, but not hurt thee. Why shouldst thou fear to be stripped of that which thou hast resigned already to Christ? It is the first lesson thou learnest, if a Christian, to deny thyself, to take up thy cross, and follow thy Master; so that the enemy comes too late. Thou hast no life to lose, because thou hast given it already to Christ, nor can man take away that without God’s leave. All thou hast is insured; and though God hath not prom­ised thee immunity from suffering in this kind, yet he hath undertaken to bear thy loss, yea, to pay thee a hundredfold; and thou shalt not stay for it till another world. Again, thou oughtest not to fear flesh. Our Saviour Matthew 10:1-42, thrice in the compass of six verses, commands us not to fear man. If thy heart quail at him, how wilt thou behave thyself in the list against Satan, whose little finger is heavier than man’s loins? The Romans had[9] weapons rebated or cudgels, which they were tried at before they came to the sharp. If thou canst not bear a bruise in thy flesh from man’s cudgel and blunt weapon, what wilt thou do when thou shalt have Satan’s sword in thy side? God counts himself reproached when his children fear a sorry man; therefore we are bid, Sanctify the Lord, and not to fear the fear. Now if thou wouldst not fear man who is but flesh, labour [to do these two things], 1. Mortify thy own flesh. Flesh only fears flesh; when the soul degenerates into carnal desires and delights, no wonder he falls into carnal fears. Have a care, Christian, thou bringest not thyself into bond­age. Perhaps thy heart feeds on the applause of men, this will make thee afraid to be evil spoken of, as those who shuffled with Christ, John 12:42; owning him in private when they durst not confess him open­ly, for they loved the praise of men. David saith the mouth of the wicked is an open sepulchre; and in this grave hath many a saint’s name been buried. But if this fleshly desire were mortified, thou wouldst not pass to be judged by man; and so of all carnal af­fections. Some meat you observe is aguish; if thou settest thy heart on anything that is carnal—wife, child, estate, &c.—these will incline thee to a base fear of man, who may be God’s messenger to afflict thee in these. 2. Set faith against flesh. Faith fixeth the heart, and a fixed heart is not readily afraid. Physicians tell us we are never so subject to receive infection as when the spirits are low, and therefore the antidotes they give are all cordials. When the spirit is low through unbelief, every threatening from man makes sad im­pression. Let thy faith take but a deep draught of the promises, and thy courage will rise. Use Fourth. Is man but flesh? Comfort thyself, Christian, with this, that as thou art flesh, so thy heavenly Father knows it, and considers thee for it. 1. In point of affliction; Psalms 103:14, ‘He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.’ Not like some unskilful empiric, who hath but one receipt for all, strong or weak, young or old; but as a wise physician considers his patient, and then writes his bill. Men and devils are but God’s apothecaries, they make not our physic, but give what God prescribes. Balaam loved Balak’s fee well enough, but could not go an hair’s breadth beyond God’s commission. In­deed God is not so choice with the wicked; ‘Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him?’ Isaiah 27:7. In a saint’s cup the poison of affliction is cor­rected, not so in the wicked’s; and therefore what is medicine to the one is ruin to the other. 2. In duty. He knows you are but flesh, and therefore pities and accepts thy weak service, yea, he makes apologies for thee. The spirit is willing, saith Christ, but the flesh is weak. 3. In temptations. He considers thou art flesh and, and proportions the temptations to so weak a nature. It is called[10] such a temptation as is common to man; a moderate temptation, as in the margin, fit­ted for so frail a creature. Whenever the Christian begins to faint under the weight of it, God makes as much haste to his succour, as a tender mother would to her swooning child; there­fore he is said to be nigh, to revive such, lest their spirit should fail. [How the Christian doth wrestle with flesh and blood.] Second. Observe where he lays the stress of the saint’s battle; not in resisting flesh and blood, but principalities and powers; where the apostle excludes not our combat with man, for the war is against the serpent and his seed. As wide as the world is, it cannot peaceably hold the saints and wicked together. But his intent is to show what a complicated enemy, man’s wrath and Satan’s interwoven, we have to deal with. Observe therefore the conjuncture of the saint’s enemies. We have not to do with naked man, but with man led on by Satan; not with flesh and blood, but principalities and powers acting in them. There are two sorts of men the Christian wrestles with, good men and bad. Satan strikes in with both. 1. The Christian wrestles with good men. Many a sharp conflict there hath been betwixt saint and saint, scuffling in the dark through misunderstanding of the truth, and each other; Abraham and Lot at strife. Aaron and Miriam justled with Moses for the wall, till God interposed and ended the quarrel by his immediate stroke on Miriam. The apostles, even in the presence of their Master, were at high words, con­testing who should be the greatest. Now in these civil wars among saints, Satan is the great kindle-coal, though little seen, because, like Ahab, he fights in a disguise, playing first on the one side, and on the other, aggravating every petty injury, and thereupon provoking to wrath and revenge; therefore the apos­tle, dehorting from anger, useth this argument, Give no place to the devil; as if he had said, Fall not out among yourselves, except you long for the devil’s company, who is the true soldier of fortune, as the common phrase, living by his sword, and therefore hastes thither where there is any hope of war. Gregory compares the saints in their sad differences to two cocks, which Satan the master of the pit sets on fighting, in hope, when killed, to sup with them at night. Solomon saith, Proverbs 18:6, the mouth of the contentious man calls for strokes. Indeed we by our mutual strifes give the devil a staff to beat us with; he cannot well work without fire, and therefore blows up these coals of contention, which he useth at his forge, to heat our spirits into wrath, and then we are malleable, easily hammered as he pleaseth. Conten­tion puts the soul into disorder, and[11] [amid arms laws are silent.] The law of grace acts not freely, when the spirit is in a commotion. Meek Moses provoked, speaks unadvisedly. Methinks this, if nothing else will, should sound a retreat to our un­happy differences—that this Joab hath a hand in them—he sets his evil spirit betwixt brethren, and what folly is it for us to bite and devour one another to make hell sport? We are prone to mistake our heat for zeal, whereas commonly in strifes between saints, it is a fire-ship sent in by Satan to break their unity and order; wherein while they stand, they are an Armada invincible, and Satan knows he hath no other way but this shatter to them. When the Christian’s language, which should be one, begins to be con­founded, they are then near a scattering; it is time for God to part his children when they cannot live in peace together. 2. The Christian wrestles with wicked men. Be­cause you are not of the world, saith Christ, the world hates you. The saint’s nature and life are antipodes to the world; fire and water, heaven and hell, may as soon be reconciled as they with it. The heretic is his enemy for truth’s sake; the profane for holiness’ [sake]; to both the Christian is an abomination, as the Israelite to the Egyptian. Hence come wars; the fire of persecution never goes out in the hearts of the wicked, who say in their hearts as they once with their lips[12], [Christians to the lions.] Now in all the saint’s wars with the wicked, Satan is commander-in-chief; it is their father’s work they do; his lusts they fulfil. The Sabeans plundered Job, but went on Sa­tan’s errand. The heretic broacheth corrupt doctrine, perverts the faith of many, but in that [he is] the min­ister of Satan, 2 Corinthians 11:15; they have their call, their wiles and wages from him. Persecutors [have] their work ascribed to hell. Is it a persecution of the tongue? It is hell sets it on fire. Is it of the hand? Still they are but the devil’s instruments, Revelation 2:10. The devil shall cast some of you into prison. Use First. Do you see any driving furiously against the truths or servants of Christ? O pity them, as the most miserable wretches in the world; fear not their power, admire not their parts; they are men pos­sessed of, and acted by, the devil; they are his drudges and slaughter-slaves, as the martyr called them. Augustine, in his epistle to Lycinius, one of excellent parts but wicked, who once was his scholar, speaks thus pathetically to him: O how I would weep and mourn over thee, to see such a sparkling wit pros­tituted to the devil’s service! If thou hadst found a golden chalice, thou wouldst have given it to the church; but God hath given thee a golden head, parts and wit, and in this propinas teipsum diabolo—thou drinkest thyself to the devil. When you see men of power and parts, using them against God that gave them, weep over them; better they had lived and died, the one slaves, the other fools, than do the devil such service with them. Use Second. O ye saints, when reproached and persecuted, look farther than man, spend not your wrath upon him. Alas! they are but instruments in the devil’s hand. Save your displeasure for Satan, who is thy chief enemy. These may be won to Christ’s side, and so become thy friends at last. Now and then we see some running away from the devil’s colours, and washing thy wounds with their tears, which they have made with their cruelty. It is a notable passage in Anselm, [in which he] compares the heretic and the persecutor to the horse, and the devil to the rider. Now, saith he, in battle, when the enemy comes riding up, the valiant soldier ‘is[13] angry not with the horse, but horseman; he labours to kill the man, that he may possess the horse for his use; thus must we do with the wicked, we are not to bend our wrath against them, but [against] Satan that rides them, and spurs them on, labouring by prayer for them as Christ did on the cross, to dismount the devil, that so these miserable souls hackneyed by him may be delivered from him.’ It is more honour to take one soul alive out of the devil’s clutches, than to leave many slain upon the field. Erasmus said of Au­gustine, that he begged the lives of those heretics, at the hands of the emperor’s officers, who had been bloody persecutors of the orthodox:[14] Like a kind physician he desired their life, that if possible he might work a cure on them, and make them sound in the faith. [1],FJ4< ºµ4< º B"80. [2]quia corpus B"88,J"4. [3]Re infecta. [4]Unus amor extinguit alium. [5]Obsignare superiora dum revelat inferiora. [6]Omnis vita gustu ducitur. [7] Amphora coepit Institui; currente rota, cur urceus exit? — Horace, A.P. 22. [8]Nostris peccatis fortes sunt barbari. [9]Arma prœlusoria. [10]B,4D"FµÎH <2B4<@H. [11]Inter arma silent leges. — Cic. Mil. 4. 10. [12]Christiani ad leones. [13]Non irascitur equo, sed equiti, quantum potest agit ut equitem percutiat, equum possideat; sic contra malos homines agendum, non contra illos, sed illum qui illos instigat, ut dum diabolus vincitur, infelices quos ille possidet liberentur. [14]Cupiebat amicus medicus supresse quos arte suâ sanaret. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.05 - THE ASSAILANTS DESCRIBED POSITIVELY ======================================================================== Division Second.—The Assailants described Positively. ‘But against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12 The apostle having shown what the saint’s enemies are not, flesh and blood, frail men, who can­not come but they are seen, who may be resisted by man’s power, or escaped by flight; now he describes the positively, ‘against principalities, against powers,’ &c. Some think [that] the apostle by these divers names and titles, intends to set forth the distinct orders, whereby the devils are subordinate one to another; so they make the devil, Ephesians 6:11, to be the head or monarch, and these, Ephesians 6:12, so many inferior or­ders, as among men there are princes, dukes, earls, &c., under an emperor. That there is an order among the devils cannot be denied. The Scripture speaks of a prince of devils, Matthew 9:34, and of the devil and his angels, who with him fell from their first station, called his angels, as it is probably conceived, because one above the rest (as the head of the faction), drew with him multitudes of others into his party, who with him sinned and fell. But that there should be so many distinct orders among them, as there are several branches in this description, is not probable; too weak a notion to be the foundation of a pulpit dis­course. Therefore we shall take them as meant of the devil collectively—we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but [with] devils, who are principalities and powers, &c.—and not distributively, to make princi­palities one rank, powers another; for some of these branches cannot be meant of distinct orders, but promiscuously of all as spiritual wickedness; it being not proper to one to be spirits, or wicked, but com­mon to all. first, Then, the devil or whole pack of them are here described by their government in this world—principalities. second, By their strength and puissance, called powers. third, In their kingdom or proper territories—rulers of the darkness of this world. fourth, By their nature in its substance and degeneracy—spiritual wickedness. fifth, By the ground of the war—in the heavenly places, or about heavenly things. BRANCH FIRST. [Against principalities.] The devil or whole pack of them are here des­cribed by their government in this world —principalities. The term principalities[1] is here used in the abstract for the concrete; that is, such as have a principality. So, Titus 3:1, we are bid to be subject to principalities and powers, that is, princes and rulers; so the Vulgate reads it. We wrestle against princes, which some will have to express the eminency of their nature above man’s; that as the state and spirit of princes is more raised above others—great men have great spirits—as Zebah and Zalmunna to Gideon, asking who they were they slew at Tabor; ‘As thou art,’ say they, ‘so were they, each one resembled the children of a king,’ that is, for majesty and presence beseeming a princely race; so they think, the eminent nature of angels here to be intended, who are as far above the highest prince, as he above the basest peasant. But because they are described by their na­ture in the fourth branch, I shall subscribe to their judgment, who take this for their principality or gov­ernment, which the devil exerciseth in this lower world; and the note shall be, [What a principality Satan hath.] Doctrine. That Satan is a great prince. Christ himself styles him the ’prince of this world,’ John 14:30. Princes have their thrones where they sit in state; Satan hath his—Thou dwellest where Satan hath his throne, Revelation 2:13; and that such a one, as no earthly princes may compare [with]. Few kings are enthroned in the hearts of their subjects; they rule their bodies and command their purses, but how oft in a day are they pulled out of their thrones by the wishes of their discontented subjects. But Satan hath the heart of all his subjects. Princes have their hom­age and peculiar honour done to them. Satan is served upon the knee of his subjects; the wicked are said to worship the devil, Revelation 13:4. No prince expects such worship as he; no less than religious worship will serve him. Jeroboam is said to ordain priests for devils, 2 Chronicles 11:15; and therefore he [Satan] is called not only the prince, but the god of this world, be­cause he hath the worship of a god given him. Princes, such as are absolute, have a legislative power, nay, their own will is their law, as at this day in Turkey, where their laws are written in no other tables than in the proud sultan’s breast. Thus Satan gives law to the poor sinner, who is bound and must obey, though the law be writ with his own blood, and the creature hath nothing but damnation for fulfilling the devil’s lust. It is called a ‘law of sin,’ Romans 8:2, be­cause it comes with authority. Princes have their ministers of state, whom they employ for the safety and enlargement of their territories; so Satan his, who propagates his cursed designs, [and] therefore we read of ‘doctrines of devils,’ 1 Timothy 4:1[2]. Princes have their[3] secrets of government, which none knows but a few favourites in whom they confide. Thus the devil hath his mysteries of iniquity, and depths of Satan we read of, which all his subjects know not of, Revelation 2:24; these are imparted to a few favourites, such as Elymas, whom Paul calls ‘full of subtlety, and child of the devil;’ such, whose consciences are so debauched, that they scruple not the most horrid sins; these are his white boys. I have read of a people in America that love meat best when it is rotten and stinks. The devil is of their diet. The more corrupt and rotten the creature is in sin, the better he pleaseth his tooth. Some are more the children of the devil than others. Christ had his beloved disciple; and Satan those that lie in his very bosom, and know what is in his heart. In a word, princes have their[4] tribute and custom; so Satan his. Indeed he doth not so much share with the sinner in all, but is owner of all he hath; so that the devil is the merchant, and the sinner but the broker to trade for him, who at last puts all his gains into the devil’s purse. Time, strength, parts, yea, conscience and all, is spent to keep him in his throne. [How Satan came to be such a prince.] Question 1. But how comes Satan to this princi­pality? Answer. Not lawfully, though he can show a fair claim. As, 1. He obtained it by conquest; as he won his crown, so he wears it by power and policy. But con­quest is a cracked title. A thief is not the honester because able to force the traveller to deliver his purse; and a thief on the throne is no better than a private one on the road, or a pirate in a pinnace, as one boldly told Alexander. Neither doth that prove good with process of time which was evil at first. Satan indeed hath kept possession long, but a thief will be so as long as he keeps his stolen goods. He stole the heart of Adam from God at first, and doth no better to this day. Christ’s conquest is good, because the ground of the war is righteous—to recover what was his own; while Satan cannot say of the meanest creature, ‘It is my own.’ 2. Satan may lay claim to his principality by elec­tion. It is true he came in by a wile, but now he is a prince elect, by the unanimous voice of corrupt na­ture. ‘Ye are of your father the devil,’ saith Christ, ‘and his lusts ye will do.’ But this also hath a flaw in it, for man by law of creation is God’s subject, and cannot give away God’s right; by sin he loseth his right in God as a protector, but God loseth not his right as a sovereign. Sin disabled man to keep God’s law, but it doth not enfranchise or disoblige him that he need not keep it. 3. Satan may claim a deed of gift from God him­self, as he was bold to do to Christ himself upon this ground, persuading him to worship him as the prince of the world. He showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world, saying, ‘All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it,’ Luke 4:5-6. Here was a truth, though he spake more than the truth—as he cannot speak truth, but to gain credit to some lie at the end of it. God, indeed, hath delivered, in a sense, this world to him, but not in his sense to do what he will with it; nor by any approbatory act given him a patent to vouch him his viceroy: not Satan by the grace of God, but by permission of God, prince of this world. Question 2. But why doth God permit this apostate creature to exercise such a principality over the world? Answer 1. As a righteous act of vengeance on man, for revolting from the sweet government of his rightful Lord and Maker. It is the way God punish­eth rebellion: ‘Because ye would not serve me in gladness, in the abundance of all things, therefore ye shall serve your enemies in hunger,’ &c. Satan is a king given in God’s wrath. Ham’s curse is man’s punishment; ‘a servant of servants.’ The devil is God’s slave, man the devil’s. Sin hath set the devil on the creature’s back; and now he hurries him with­out mercy, as he did the swine, till he be choked with flames, if mercy interpose not. Answer 2. God permits this his principality, in order to the glorifying of his name in the recovery of his elect from the power of this great potentate. What a glorious name will God have when he hath finished this war, wherein, at first, he found all possessed by this enemy, and not a man of all the sons of Adam to offer himself as a volunteer in this service, till made willing by the day of his power! This, this will gain God a name above every name, not only of creatures, but of those by which himself was known to his crea­ture. The workmanship of heaven and earth gave him the name of Creator; providence of Preserver; but this of Saviour. Herein he doth both the former; preserve his creature, which else had been lost; and create a new creature—I mean the babe of grace —which, through God, shall be able to beat the devil out of the field, who was able to drive Adam, though created in his full stature, out of paradise. And may not all the other works of God empty themselves as rivers into this sea, losing their names, or rather swelling into one of redemption? Had not Satan taken God’s elect prisoners, they would not have gone to heaven with such acclamations of triumph. There are three expressions of great joy in Scripture; the joy of a woman after her travail, the joy of harvest, and the joy of him that divideth the spoil. The exultation of all these is wrought upon a sad ground, many a pain and tear it costs the travailing woman, many a fear the husbandman, perils and wounds the soldier, before they come at their joy; but at last they are paid for all, the remembrance of their past sorrows feeding their present joys. Had Christ come and entered into affinity with our nature, and returned peaceably to heaven with his spouse, finding no resistance, though that would have been admirable love, and would have afforded the joy of marriage, yet this way of carrying his saints to heaven will greaten the joy, as it adds to the nuptial song the triumph of a conqueror, who hath rescued his bride out of the hands of Satan, as he was leading her to the chambers of hell. [How we may know whether we be under Satan as our prince, or not.] First. Is Satan such a great prince? Try whose subject thou art. His empire is large; [there are] only a few privileged who are translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Even in Christ’s own territories —[the] visible church I mean—where his name is professed and the sceptre of his gospel held forth, Satan hath his subjects. As Christ had his saints in Nero’s court, so the devil his servants in the outward court of his visible church. Thou must therefore have something more to exempt thee from his government, than living within the pale, and giving an outward conformity to the ordinances of Christ; Satan will yield to this and be no loser. As a king lets his mer­chants trade to, yea, live in a foreign kingdom, and, while they are there, learn the language, and observe the customs of the place. This breaks not their al­legiance; nor all that, thy loyalty to Satan. When a statute was made in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, that all should come to church, the Papists sent to Rome to know the pope’s pleasure. He returned then this answer, as it is said, ‘Bid the Catholics in England give me their heart, and let the queen take the rest.’ His subject thou art whom thou crownest in thy heart, and not whom thou flatterest with thy lips. But to bring the trial to an issue, know that thou belongest to one of these, and but to one; Christ and satan divide the whole world. Christ will bear no equal, and Satan no superior; and therefore, hold in with both thou canst not. Now if thou sayest that Christ is thy prince, answer to these interrogatories. 1. How came he [Christ] into the throne? Satan had once the quiet possession of thy heart; thou wast by birth, as the rest of thy neighbours, Satan’s vassal; yea, hast oft vouched him in the course of thy life to be thy liege lord; how then comes this great change? Satan, surely, would not of his own accord resign his crown and sceptre to Christ; and for thyself, thou wert neither willing to renounce, nor able to resist, his power. This then must only be the fruit of Christ’s victorious arms, whom God hath exalted ‘to be a Prince and a Saviour,’ Acts 5:31. Speak therefore, Hath Christ come to thee, as once to Abraham to Lot, when prisoner to Chedorlaomer, rescuing thee out of Satan’s hands, as he was leading thee in the chains of lust to hell? Didst thou ever hear a voice from heaven in the ministry of the word calling out to thee as once to Saul, so as to lay thee at God’s foot, and make thee face about for heaven; to strike thee blind in thine own apprehension, who before hadst a good opinion of thy state; to tame and meeken thee; so as now thou art willing to be led by the hand of a child after Christ? Did ever Christ come to thee, as the angel to Peter in prison, rousing thee up, and not only causing the chains of darkness and stupidity to fall off thy mind and conscience, but make thee obe­dient also—that the iron gate of thy will hath opened to Christ before he left thee? Then thou hast some­thing to say for thy freedom. But if in all this I be a barbarian, and the language I speak be strange, thou knowest no such work to have passed upon thy spirit, then thou art yet in the old prison. Can there be a change of government in a nation by a conqueror that invades it, and the subjects not hear of this? One king unthroned and another crowned in thy soul, and thou hear no scuffle all this while? The regenerating Spirit is compared to the wind, John 3:8. His first at­tempts on the soul mat be so secret that the creature knows not whence they come, or whither they tend; but, before he hath done, the sound will be heard throughout the soul, so as it cannot but see a great change in itself, and say, ‘I that was blind, now see; I that was hard as ice, now relent for sin; now my heart gives; I can melt and mourn for it. I that was well enough without a Christ, yea, did wonder what others saw in him, to make much ado for him, now have changed my note with the daughters of Jerusalem; and for, What is your Beloved? as I scornfully have asked; I have learned to ask where he is, that I might seek him with you.’ O soul, canst thou say it thus with thee? Thou mayest know who has been here; no less than Christ, who, by his victorious Spirit, hath translated thee from Satan’s power into his own sweet kingdom. 2. Whose law dost thou freely subject thyself unto? The laws of these princes are as contrary as their natures; the one a law of sin, Romans 8:2; the other a law of holiness, Romans 7:12; and therefore if sin hath not so far bereaved thee of thy wits, as not to know sin from holiness, thou mayest, except [thou] resolve to cheat thy own soul, soon be resolved. Confess therefore and give glory to God; to which of these laws doth thy soul set its seal? When Satan sends out his proclamation, and bids the sinner go, set thy foot upon such a command of God. Observe what is thy behaviour; dost thou yield thyself, as Paul phraseth it, Romans 6:16[5]; ‘yield yourselves,’ a metaphor from princes’ servants or others, who are said to present themselves before their lord, as ready and at hand to do their pleasure; by which the apostle ele­gantly describes the forwardness of the sinner’s heart to come to Satan’s foot, when knocked or called. Now doth thy soul go out thus to meet thy lust, as Aaron his brother, glad to see its face in an occasion? Thou art not brought over to sin with much ado, but thou likest the command. Transgress at Gilgal, saith God, this liketh you well, Hosea 4:5[6]. As a courtier, who doth not only obey, but thank his prince that he will employ him. Needest thou be long in resolving whose thou art? Did ever any question, whether those were Jeroboam’s subjects, who willingly fol­lowed his command? Hosea 5:11. Alas, for thee, thou art under the power of Satan, tied by a chain stronger than brass or iron; thou lovest thy lust. A saint may be for a time under a force; sold under sin, as the apostle bemoans; and therefore glad when deliverance comes; but thou sellest thyself to work iniquity. If Christ should come to take thee from thy lusts, thou wouldst whine after them, as Micah after his gods. 3. To whom goest thou for protection? As it be­longs to the prince to protect his subjects, so princes expect their subjects should trust them with their safety. The very bramble bids, ‘If in truth you anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow,’ Judges 9:15. Now who hast thy confi­dence? Darest thou trust God with thy soul, and the affairs of it in well-doing? Good subjects follow their calling, commit state matters to the wisdom of their prince and his council. When wronged, they appeal to their prince in his laws for right; and when they do offend their prince, they submit to the penalty of the laws, and bear his displeasure patiently, till humbling themselves they recover his favour, and do not, in a discontent, fall into open rebellion. Thus a gracious soul follows his Christian calling, committing himself to God as a faithful Creator, to be ordered by his wise providence. If he meets with violence from any, he scorns to beg aid of the devil to help him, or be his own judge to right himself; no, he acquiesceth in the counsel and comfort the Word of God gives him. If himself offends, and so comes under the lash of God’s correcting hand, he doth not then take up rebellious arms against God, and refuse to receive cor­rection; but saith, ‘Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?’ whereas a naughty man dares not venture his estate, life, credit, or anything he hath, with God in well-doing; he thinks he shall be undone presently, if he sits still under the shadow of God’s promise for pro­tection; and therefore he runs from God as from under an old house that would fall on his head, and lays the weight of his confidence in wicked policy, making lies his refuge. Like Israel, he trusts in perverse­ness; when God tells him, ‘In returning and rest he shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be his strength;’ he hath not faith to take God’s word for his security in ways of obedience. And when God comes to afflict him for any disloyal carriage, instead of accepting the punishment for his sin—and so to own him for his Sovereign Lord, that may righ­teously punish the faults of his disobedient subjects —his heart is filled with rage against God, and instead of waiting quietly and humbly, like a good subject till God upon his repentance receives him into his fa­vour, his wretched heart, presenting God as an enemy to him, will not suffer any such gracious and amiable thoughts of God to dwell in his bosom, but bids him look for no good at his hand: ‘This evil is of the Lord; why should I wait on the Lord any longer?’ Whereas a gracious heart is most encouraged to wait from this very consideration that drives the other away: ‘Because it is the Lord afflicts.’ 4. Whom dost thou sympathize with? He is thy prince, whose victories and losses thou layest to heart, whether in thy own bosom or abroad in the world. What saith thy soul, when God hedgeth up thy way, and keeps thee from that sin which Satan hath been soliciting for? If on Christ’s side thou wilt rejoice when thou art delivered out of a temptation, though it be by falling into an affliction. As David said of Abigail, so wilt thou here: Blessed be the ordinance, blessed be the providence which kept me from sinning against my God; but if otherwise thou wilt harbour a secret grudge against the word which stood in thy way, and be discontented, thy design took not. A naughty heart, like Amnon, pines while his lust hath vent. Again, what music doth the achievements of Christ in the world make in thy ear? When thou hearest [that] the gospel thrives, the blind see, the lame walk, the poor gospellized, doth thy spirit rejoice in that hour? If a saint, thou wilt, as God is thy Father, rejoice [that] thou hast more brethren born; as he is thy prince, that the multitude of his subjects increase. So when thou seest the plots of Christ’s enemies discovered, powers defeated, canst thou go forth with the saints to meet King Jesus, and ring him out of the field with praises? or do thy bells ring backward, and such news make thee haste, like Haman, mourning to thine house, there to empty thy spirit, swollen with rancour against his saints and truth? Or if thy policy can master thy passion, so far as to make fair weather in thy countenance, and suffer thee to join with the people of God in their acclamations of joy, yet then art thou a close mourner within, and likest the work no better than Haman his office, in holding Mordecai’s stirrup, who had rather have held the ladder. This speaks thee a certain enemy of Christ, how handsomely soever thou mayest carry it before men. Second. Bless God, O ye saints, who upon the former trial, can say you are translated into the kingdom of Christ, and so delivered from the tyranny of this usurper. There are few but have some one gaudy day in a year, which they solemnize; some keep their birthday, others their marriage; some their man­umission from a cruel service, others their deliverance from some imminent danger. Here is a mercy where all these meet. You may call it, as Adam did his wife, Evah, the mother of all the living; every mercy riseth up and calls this blessed. This is thy birth-day; thou wert before, but beganst to live when Christ began to live in thee. The father of the prodigal dated his son’s life from his return: ‘This my son was dead, and is alive.’ Is it thy marriage day: ‘I have married you to one husband, even Christ Jesus,’ saith Paul to the Corinthians. Perhaps thou hast enjoyed this thy hus­band’s sweet company many a day, and had a nu­merous offspring of joys and comforts by thy fellow­ship with him, the thought of which cannot but en­dear him to thee, and make the day of thy espousals delightful to thy memory. It is thy manumission; then were thy indentures cancelled, wherein thou wert bound to sin and Satan. When the Son made thee free, thou becamest free indeed. Thou canst not say thou wast born free, for thy father was a slave; not that thou boughtest thy freedom with a sum. By grace ye are saved. Heaven is settled on thee in the promise, and thou not at charge so much as for the writing’s drawing. All is done at Christ’s cost, with whom God indented, and to whom he gave the prom­ise of eternal life before the world began, as a free estate to settle upon every believing soul in the day they should come to Christ, and receive him for their Prince and Saviour; so that from the hour thou didst come under Christ’s shadow, all the sweet fruit that grows on this tree of life is thine. With Christ, all that both worlds have, fall to thee; all is yours, because you are Christ’s. O Christian, look upon thyself now, and bless thy God to see what a change there is made to thy state, since that black and dismal time, when thou wert slave to the prince of darkness. How couldst thou like thy old scullion’s work again, or think of returning to thy house of bondage, now thou knowest the privileges of Christ’s kingdom? Great princes, who from baseness and beggary have ascended to kingdoms and empires—to add to the joy of their present honour—have delighted to speak often of their base birth, to go and see the mean cottages where they were first entertained, and had their birth and breeding and the like. And it is not unuseful for the Christian to look in at the grate, to see the smoky hole where once he lay, to view the chains wherewith he was laden, and so to compare Christ’s court and the devil’s prison—the felicity of the one and the horror of the other—together. But when we do our best to affect our hearts with this mercy, by all the enhancing aggravations we can find out, alas, how little a portion of it shall we know here? This is a nimium excellens—a surpassing excellence, which cannot be fully seen, unless it be by a glorified eye. How can it be fully known by us, where it cannot be fully enjoyed? Thou art translated into the kingdom of Christ, but thou art a great way from his court. That is kept in heaven, and that the Christian knows, but as we [know] far countries which we never saw only by map, or some rarities that are sent us as a taste of what grows there in abundance. Third. This, Christian, calls for thy loyalty and faithful service to Christ, who hath saved thee from Satan’s bondage. Say, O ye saints, to Christ, as they say to Gideon, ‘Come thou and rule over us, for thou hast delivered us from the hand, not of Midian, but of Satan.’ Who so able to defend thee from his wrath, as he who broke his power? who like to rule thee so tenderly, as he that could not brook another’s tyranny over thee? In a word, who hath right to thee besides him, who ventured his life to redeem thee? —that being delivered from all thine enemies, thou mayest serve him without fear in holiness all the days of thy life. And were it not pity that Christ should take all this pains to lift up thy head from Satan’s house of bondage, and give thee a place among those in his own house, who are admitted to minister unto him—which is the highest honour the nature of men or angels is capable of—and that thou shouldst after all this be found to have a hand in any treasonable practice against thy dear Saviour? Surely Christ may think he hath deserved better at your hands, if at none besides. Where shall a prince safely dwell, if not in the midst of his own courtiers? and those such were all taken from chains and prisons to be thus pre­ferred, the more to oblige them in his service. Let devils and devilish men do their own work, but let not thy hand, O Christian, be upon thy dear Saviour. But this is too little, to bid thee not play the traitor. If thou hast any loyal blood running in thy veins, thy own heart will smite thee when thou rendest the least skirt of his holy law; thou canst as well carry burning coals in thy bosom, as hide any treason there against thy dear Sovereign. No, it is some noble enterprise I would have thee think upon, how thou mayest ad­vance the name of Christ higher in thy heart, and [in the] world too, as much as in thee lies. O how kindly did God take it, that David, when peaceably set in his throne, was casting about, not how he might entertain himself with those pleasures which usually corrupt and debauch the courts of princes in times of peace, but how he might show his zeal for God, in building a house for his worship that had reared a throne for him, 2 Samuel 7:1-29. And is there nothing, Christian, thou canst think on, wherein thou mayest be instrumental for God in thy generation? He is not a good subject, that is all for what he can get of his prince, but never thinks what he may do for him; nor he the true Chris­tian, whose thoughts dwell more on his own happi­ness than on the honour of his God. If subjects might choose what life stands best for their own en­joyment, all would desire to live at court with their prince; but because the prince’s honour is more to be valued than this, therefore, noble spirits, to do their prince service, can deny the delicacies of a court, to jeopard their lives in the field, and thank their prince too for the honour of their employment. Blessed Paul upon these terms was willing to have his day of coronation in glory prorogued[7], and he to stay as companion with his brethren in tribulation here, for the furtherance of the gospel. This, indeed, makes it worth the while to live[8], that we have by a fair op­portunity—if hearts to husband it—in which we may give a proof of our real gratitude to our God, for his redeeming love in rescuing us out of the power of the prince of darkness, and translating us into the king­dom of his dear Son. And therefore, Christian, lose no time, but, what thou meanest to do for God, do it quickly. Art thou a magistrate? now it will be soon seen on whose side thou art. If indeed thou hast re­nounced allegiance to Satan, and taken Christ for thy prince, declare thyself an enemy to all that bear the name of Satan, and march under his colours. Study well by commission, and when thou understandest the duty of thy place, fall to work zealously for God. Thou hast thy prince’s sword put into thy hand. Be sure thou use it, and take heed how thou usest it, that when called to deliver it up, and thy account also, it may not be found rusty in the sheath through sloth and cowardice, besmeared with the blood of vio­lence, not bent and gaped with partiality and injustice. Art thou a minister of the gospel? Thy employ­ment is high, an ambassador, and that not from some petty prince, but from the great God to his rebellious subjects; a calling so honourable, that the Son of God disdained not to come in extraordinary from heaven to perform it, called therefore the ‘messenger of the covenant,’ Malachi 3:1; yea, he had to this day stayed on earth in person about it, had he not been called to re­side as our ambassador and advocate in heaven with the Father; and therefore in his bodily absence he hath intrusted thee, and a few more, to carry on the treaty with sinners, which, when on earth, himself began. And what can you do more acceptable to him, than to be faithful in it, as a business on which he hath set his heart so much? As ever you would see his sweet face with joy—you that are his ambassadors —attend to your work, and labour to bring this treaty of peace to a blessed issue between and those you are sent to. And then if sinners will not come off, and seal the articles of the gospel, you shall, as Abraham said to his servant, be clear of your oath. Though Israel be not gathered, yet you shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord. And let not the private Christian say he is a dry tree, and can do nothing for Christ his prince, be­cause he may not bear the magistrate’s fruit or minis­ter’s. Though thou hast not a commission to punish the sins of others with the sword of justice, yet thou mayest show thy zeal in mortifying thy own with the sword of the Spirit, and mourn for theirs also; though thou mayest not condemn them on the bench, yet thou mayest, yea, oughtest, by the power of a holy life, to convince and judge them. Such a judge Lot was to the Sodomites. Though thou art not sent to preach and baptize, yet thou mayest be wonderfully helpful to them that are. The Christian’s prayers whet [the] magistrates and ministers’ sword also. O pray, Christian, and pray again, that Christ’s terri­tories may be enlarged. Never go to hear the Word but pray, Thy kingdom come. Loving princes take great content in the acclamations and good wishes of their subjects as they pass by. A vivat rex—long live the king—coming from a loyal breast, though poor, is more worth than a subsidy from those who deny their hearts while they part with their money. Thou serv­est a prince, Christian, who knows what all his sub­jects think of him, and he counts it his honour not to have a multitude feignedly submit to him, but to have a people that love him and cordially like his govern­ment, who, if they were to choose their king, and make their own laws they should live under every day, would desire no other than himself, nor any other laws than what they have already from his mouth. It was no doubt great content to David, that he had the hearts of his people, so as whatever the king did, pleased them all, 2 Samuel 3:36. And surely God took it as well, that what he did pleased David, for indeed David was content under the rule and disposure of God as the people were under his. Witness the calm­ness of his spirit in the greatest affliction that ever befell him: ‘Behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him,’ 2 Samuel 15:26. Loyal soul! he had rather live in exile, with the good-will of God, than have his throne, if God will not say it is good for him. BRANCH SECOND. [Against powers.] Satan, in this second branch of the description, is set forth by his strength and puissance—called powers. This gives weight to the former. Were he a prince and not able to raise a force that might dread the saints, the swelling name of prince were contemp­tible; but he hath power answerable to his dignity, which in five particulars will appear. First. In his names. Second. His nature. Third. His number. Fourth. His order and unity. Fifth. The mighty works that are attributed to him. The great power Satan hath not only over the elementary and sensitive part of the world, but over the intellectual also —the souls of men. First. He hath names of great power. [He is] called ‘the strong man,’ Luke 11:21; strong that he keeps his house in peace in defiance of all the sons of Adam, none on earth being able to cope with this giant. Christ must come from heaven to destroy him and his works, or the field is lost. He is called the roaring lion, which beast commands the whole forest. If he roars, all tremble; yea, in such a manner, as Pliny relates, that he goes amongst them, and they stand exanimated while he chooseth his prey without resistance; such a lion is Satan, who leads sinners captive at his will, 2 Timothy 2:26. He takes them alive, as the word is, as the fowler the bird, which, with a little scrap is enticed into the net; or as the conqueror his cowardly enemy, who has no heart to fight, but yields without contest. Such cowards the devil finds sinners [that] he no sooner appears in a motion, but they yield. They are but a very few noble spirits, and those are the children of the most High God, who dare val­iantly oppose him, and in striving against sin resist to blood. He is called the ‘great red dragon,’ who with his tail, wicked men his instruments, sweeps down the third part of the stars of heaven; the ‘prince of the power of the air,’ because as a prince can muster his subjects, and draw them into the field for his service so the devil can raise[9] [the power of the air]. In a word, he is called ‘the god of this world,’ 2 Corinthians 4:4, because sinners give him a god-like worship, fear him as the saints do God himself. Second. The devil’s nature shows his power; it is angelical. Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, Psalms 103:20. Strength is put for angels, Psalms 78:25. They did eat angels’ food, the food of the mighty. In two things the power of angelical nature will appear; in its superiority, and in its spirituality. 1. Its superiority. Angels are the top of the cre­ation; man himself is made a little lower than the angels. Now in the works of creation, the superior hath a power over the inferior; the beasts over the grass and herb, man over the beasts, and angels over man. 2. The spirituality of their nature. The weak­ness of man is from his flesh; his soul, made for great enterprises, but weighed down with a lump of flesh, is forced to row with a strength suitable to its weak partner. But now, the devils being angels have no such encumbrance, no fumes from a fleshly part to cloud their understanding, which is clear and pierc­ing; no clog at their heel to retard their motion, which, for swiftness, is set out by the wind and flame of fire. Yea, being spiritual, they cannot be resisted with carnal force; fire and sword hurt not them. The angel which appeared to Manoah went up in the fire that consumed the sacrifice. Though such had been the dotage, and is at this day, of superstitious ones, that they think to charm the devil with their carnal exorcisms; hence the Romish relics, cross, holy water; yea, and [it existed] among the Jews themselves in corrupter times, who thought by their phylacteries and circumcision to scare away the devil, which made some of them expound that [passage] Song of Solomon 3:8, of circumcision: ‘Every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.’ By sword on the thigh, they expound circumcision, which they will vainly have given as a charm against evil spirits that affright them in the night. But alas, the devil cares for none of these, no, not for an ordinance of God, when by fleshly confidence we make it a spell; he hath been often bound with these fetters and chains, as is said of him in the gospel, and the chains have been plucked asunder by him, neither could any man thus tame him. He esteems, as Job saith of the levia­than, iron as straw and brass as rotten wood. It must be a stronger than the strong man [that] must bind him, and none [is] stronger but God, the Father of spirits. The devil lost, indeed, by his fall, much of his power in relation to that holy and happy estate in which he was created, but not his natural abilities; he is an angel still, and hath an angel’s power. Third. The number of devils adds to their pow­er. What lighter than the sand? yet number makes it weighty. What creature less than lice? yet what plague greater to the Egyptians. How formidable must devils be, who are both for nature so mighty and for number such a multitude! There are devils enough to beleaguer the whole earth; not a place un­der heaven where Satan hath not his troops; not a person without some of these cursed spirits haunting and watching him wherever he goes; yea, for some special service, he can send a legion to keep garrison in one single person, as Mark 5:1-43; and, if so many can be spared to attend one, to what a number would the muster-roll of Satan’s whole army amount, if known? And now tell me if we are not like to find our march difficult to heaven—if ever we mean to go thither —that are to pass through the very quarters of this multitude, who are scattered over the face of all the earth? When armies are disbanded, and the roads full of debauched soldiers, wandering up and down, it is dangerous travelling; we hear then of murderers and robberies from all quarters. These powers of hell are that party of angels, who for their mutiny and dis­obedience were cashiered heaven, and thrust out of that glorious host; and, ever since, they have straggled here below, endeavouring to do mischief to the chil­dren of men, especially travelling in heaven’s road. Fourth. Their unity and order makes their number formidable. We cannot say there is love among them—that heavenly fire cannot live in a devil’s bosom; yet there is unity and order as to this —they are all agreed in their design against God and man: so their unity and consent is knit together by the ligaments not of love, but of hatred and policy —hatred against God and his children, which they are filled with—and policy, which tells them that if they agree not in their design, their kingdom cannot stand. And how true they are to this wicked brotherhood, our Saviour gives a fair testimony, when he saith, Satan fights not against Satan. Did you ever hear of any mutiny in the devil’s army? or that any of these apostate angels did freely yield up one soul to Christ? They are many, and yet but one spirit of wickedness in them all. My name, said the devils, not our name, is legion. The devil is called the leviathan. ‘The Lord with his strong sword shall punish leviathan,’ Isaiah 27:1, from their cleaving together, of %&- (lava), compact or joined together, used for the whale, whose strength lies in his scales, which are so knit, that he is, as it were, covered with armour. Thus these cursed spirits do accord in their machinations, and labour to bring their instruments into the same league with them; not contented with their bare obedience, but where they can obtain it do require an express oath of their servants to be true to them, as in witches. Fifth. The mighty works that are attributed to these evil spirits in Scripture declare their power; and these either respect the elementary, sensible, or in­tellectual part of the world. The elementary: what dreadful effects this prince of the power of the air is able to produce on that, see in the word; he cannot indeed make the least breath of air, drop of water, or spark of fire, but he can, if let loose, as reverend Master Caryl saith on Job 1:1-22, go to God’s storehouse, and make use of these in such a sort as no man can stand before him; he can hurl the sea into such a commotion that the depths shall boil like a pot, and disturb the air into storms and tempests, as if heaven and earth would meet. Job’s children were buried in the ruins of their house by a puff of his mouth, yea, he can go to God’s magazine (as the former author saith) and let off the great ordinance of heaven, causing such dreadful thunder and lightning as shall not only affright, but do real execution, and that in a more dreadful way than in the ordinary course of na­ture. If man’s art can so sublimate nature, as we see in the invention of powder, that such hath a strange force; much more able is he to draw forth its power. Again, over the sensitive world his power is great; not only the beasts, as in the herd of swine, hurried by him into the deep; but over the bodies of men also, as in Job, whose sore boils were not the breakings out of a distempered nature, but the print of Satan’s fangs on his flesh, doing that suddenly, which in nature would have required more time to gather and ripen; and [over] the demoniacs in the gospel, grievously vexed and tormented by him. But this the devil counts small game. His great spite is at the souls of men, which I call the intellectual world; his cruelty to the body is for the soul’s sake. As Christ’s pity to the bodies of men, when on earth, healing their diseases, was in a subserviency to the good of their souls, bribing them with those mercies suitable to their carnal desires, that they might more willingly receive mercies for their souls from that hand which was so kind to their bodies; as we give children something that pleaseth them, to persuade them to do something that pleas­eth them not—go to the school, learn their book; so the devil, who is cruel as Christ as meek, and wisheth good neither to body nor soul, yet shows his cruelty to the body, but on a design against the soul —knowing well that the soul is soon discomposed by the perturbation of the other—[for] the soul cannot but lightly hear, and so have its peace and rest broken by the groans and complaints of the body, under whose very roof it dwells; and then, it is not strange, if, as for want of sleep, the tongue talk idly, so the soul should break out into some sinful carriage, which is the bottom of the devil’s plot on a saint. And as for other poor silly souls, he gains little less than a god-like fear and dread of them by that power he puts forth, through divine permission, in smiting their goods, beasts, and bodies, as among the Indians at this day. Yea, there are many among ourselves who plainly show what a throne Satan hath in their hearts upon this account; such, who, as if there were not a God in Israel, go for help and cure to his doctors —wizards I mean. And truly had Satan no other way to work his will on the souls of men, but by this vantage he takes from the body, yet, considering the degeneracy of man’s state,—how low his soul is sunk beneath its primitive extraction; how the body, which was a lightsome house, is now become a prison to it; that which was its servant, is now become its master —it is no wonder he is able to do so much. But besides this, he hath, as a spirit, a nearer way of access to the soul, and as a superior spirit, yet more [power] over man, a lower creature. And, above all, having got within the soul by man’s fall, he hath now far more power than before; so that, where he meets not resistance from God, he carries all before him; as in the wicked, whom he hath so at his de­votion, that he is, in a sense, said to do that in them which God doth in the saints: God works effectually in them, Galatians 2:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:13. Satan worketh effectually in the children of disobedience, Ephesians 2:2, the word in the original being the same as in the former places[10], —he is in a manner as efficacious with them, as the Holy Spirit with the other. His delusions [are] ‘strong,’ 2 Thessalonians 2:11; they return not[11], [without accomplishing their object]. The Spirit enlightens; he ‘blinds the minds of them which believe not,’ 2 Corinthians 4:4. The Spirit fills the saints, Ephesians 5:18; ‘Why hath Satan filled thine heart?’ saith Peter to Ananias, Acts 5:3. The Spirit fills with knowledge and the fruits of righteousness; Satan fills with envy and all unrigh­teousness. The Holy Spirit fills with comfort; Satan, the wicked with terrors—as in Saul, vexed by an evil spirit, and Judas, into whom it is said he entered, and when he had satisfied his lust upon him (as Amnon on Tamar), shuts the door of mercy upon him, and makes him that was even now traitor to his Master, hangman to himself. And though saints be not the proper subjects of his power, yet they are the chief objects of his wrath; his foot stands on the wicked’s back, but he wrestles with these, and when God steps aside, he is far above their match. He hath sent the strongest among them home, trembling and crying to their God, with the blood running about their con­sciences. He is mighty, both as a tempter to, and for, sin; knowing the state of the Christian’s affairs so well, and able to throw his fire-balls so far into the inward senses, whether they be of lust or horror, and to blow up these with such unwearied solicitations, that—if they at first meet not with some suitable dis­positions in the Christian, at which, as from some loose corns of powder, they may make fire, which is most ordinary—yet, in time, he may bring over the creature, by the length of the siege, and continued volleys of such motions, to listen to a parley with them, if not a yielding to them. Thus many times he even wearies out the soul with importunity. [Use or Application.] Use First. Let this, O man, make the plumes of thy pride fall, whoever thou art that gloriest in thy power. Hadst thou more than thou or any of the sons of Adam ever had, yet what were all that to the power of these angels? Is it the strength of thy body thou gloriest in? Alas, what is the strength of frail flesh, to the force of their spiritual nature? Thou art no more to these, than a child to a giant, a worm to a man: they could tear up the mountains, and hurl the world into a confusion, if God would but suffer them. Is it the strength of thy parts above others? Dost thou not see what fools he makes of the wisest among men? winding them about as a sophist would do an idiot, making them believe light is dark, bitter is sweet, and sweet bitter. Were not the strength of his parts admirable, could he make a rational crea­ture, as man is, so absurdly throw away his scarlet, and embrace dung? I mean, part with God and the glorious happiness he hath with him, in hope to mend himself by embracing sin. Yet this he did when man had his best wits about him in innocency. Is it the power of place and dignity got by war-like achievement? Grant thou wert able to subdue na­tions, and give laws to the whole world, yet even then, without grace from above, thou wouldst be his slave. And he himself, for all this his power, is a cursed spirit, the most miserable of all God’s crea­tures, and the more as he hath so much power to do mischief. Had the devil lost all his angelical abilities when he fell, he had gained by his loss. Therefore tremble, O man, at any power thou hast, except thou usest it for God. Art [thou] strong in body; who hath thy strength? God, or thy lusts? Some are strong to drink, strong to sin; thy bands shall therefore be stronger, Isaiah 28:22. Hast thou power, by thy place, to do God and his church service, but no heart to lay it out for them, but rather against them? Thou and the devil shall be tried at the same bar. It seems thou meanest to go to hell for something, thou wilt carry thy full lading thither. No greater plague can befall a man, than power without grace. Such great ones in the world, while here, make a brave show, like chief commanders and field-officers at the head of their regiments—the common soldiers are poor creatures to them; but when the army is beaten, and all taken prisoners, then they fling off their scarf and feather, and would be glad to pass for the meanest in the army. Happy would devils be, [happy would] princes and great ones in the world be, if then they could appear in the habit of some poor sneaks to receive their sentence as such; but then their titles and dignity, and riches, shall be read, not for their honour, but further shame and damnation. Use Second. It shows the folly of those that think it is such an easy matter to get to heaven. If the devil be so mighty, and heaven’s way so full of them, then sure it will cost hot water before we dis­play our banners upon the walls of that new Jerusa­lem. Yet it is plain that many think otherwise by the provision they make for their march. If you should see a man walking forth without a cloak, or with a very thin one, you will say, ‘Surely he fears no foul weather;’ or one riding a long journey alone and with­out arms, you will conclude he expects no thieves on the road. All, if you ask them, will tell you they are on the way to heaven; but how few care for the com­pany of the saints? as if they needed not their fellow­ship in their journey! Most go naked, without so much as anything like armour, [and] have not enough to gain the name of professors at large; others, it may be, will show you some vain flighty hopes on the mercy of God, without any scripture bottom for the same, and with these content themselves, which will, like a rusty unsound pistol, fly in their own face when they come to use it; and is it any wrong to say [that] they meet with many rooks[12] and cheaters in their dealing, who, should they not look to themselves, would soon undo them. And are there none that thou needest fear will put a cheat on thy soul, and bereave thee of thy crown of glory if they can? Thou art blinder than the prophet’s servant, if thou seest not more devils encompassing thee, than he saw men about Samaria. Thy worldly trade they will not hin­der, nay, may be [will] help thee to sinful tricks in that, to hinder thee in this; but if once thou resolvest to seek out for Christ and his grace, they will oppose thee to thy face. They are under an oath, as Paul’s enemies were, to take away the life of thy soul if they can; desperate creatures themselves, who know their doom is irrecoverable, and sell their own lives they will as dear as they can. Now what folly is it to betray thy soul into their hands, when Christ stands by to be thy convoy? Out of him thou art a lost creature; thou canst not defend thyself alone against Satan, nor with Satan against God. Close with Christ, and thou art delivered from one of thy enemies, and him the most formidable, God, I mean; yea, he is become thy friend, who will stick close to thee in thy conflict with the other. Use Third. To the saints; be not ye dismayed at this report which the Scripture makes of Satan’s power. Let them fear him who fear not God. What are these mountains of power and pride, before thee, O Christian, who servest a God that can make a worm thrash a mountain? The greatest hurt he can do thee, is by nourishing this false fear of him in thy bosom. It is observed, Bernard saith, of some beasts in the forest[13], [that] though they are too hard for the lion in fight, yet [they] tremble when he roars. Thus the Christian, when he comes to the pinch indeed, is able through Christ to trample Satan under his feet, yet before the conflict, stands trembling at the thought of him. Labour therefore to get a right un­derstanding of Satan’s power, and then this lion will not appear so fierce, as you paint him in your melan­choly fancy. Three considerations will relieve you when at any time you are beset with the fears of his power. Consider 1. It is a derived power. He hath it not in himself, but by patent from another, and that no other but God. All powers are of him, whether on earth or in hell. (1.) This truth subscribed in faith, would first secure thee, Christian, that Satan’s power shall never hurt thee. Would thy Father give him a sword to mischief thee his child? ‘I have created the smith,’ saith God, ‘that bloweth the coals,’ ‘I have created the waster to destroy,’ and therefore he as­sures them that no weapon formed against them shall prosper,’ Isaiah 54:16-17. If God provides his enemies’ arms, they shall, I warrant you, be such as will do them little service. When Pilate thought to scare Christ, with what he could do towards the saving or taking away of his life, he replies, that he could do nothing ‘except it were given him from above,’ John 19:11, as if he had said, ‘Do your worst, I know who sealed your commission.’ (2.) This considered, would meeken and quiet the soul, when troubled by Satan within, or his instruments without. It is Satan buffets, man persecutes me, but it is God who gives them both power. The Lord, saith David, bids him curse. The Lord, saith Job, hath given, and the Lord hath taken. This kept the king’s peace in both their bosoms. O Christian, Look not on the jailor that whips thee; may be he is cruel, but read the warrant, [see] who wrote that, and at the bottom thou shalt find thy Father’s hand. Consider 2. [It is a limited power.] Satan’s power is limited, and that two ways—he cannot do what he will, and he shall not do what he can. (1.) He cannot do what he will. His desires are boundless, they walk not only to and fro here below, but in heaven itself, where he is pulling down his once fellow-angels, knocking down the carved work of that glorious temple, as with axes and hammers, yea, unthroning God and setting himself in his place. (a) This fool saith in his heart, ‘There is no God;’ but he cannot do this, nor many other things, which his cankered malice stirs him up to wish; he is but a creature, and so hath the length of his tedder, to which he is staked, and cannot exceed. And if God be safe, then thou also, for thy life ‘is hid with Christ in God.’ ‘If I live,’ saith Christ, ‘ye shall live also.’ You are engraven on the table of his heart; if he plucks one away, he must the other also. (b) Again, as he cannot hurt the being of God, so he cannot pry into the bosom of God. He knows not man’s, much less the thoughts of God. The astrologers nor their master could bring back Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. As men have their closets for their own privacy, where none can enter in but with their key; so God keeps the heart as his withdrawing room, shut to all besides himself; and therefore when he takes upon him to foretell events, if God teach him not his lesson, nor second causes help him, he is beside his book. So to save his credit [he] delivers them dubiously, that his text may bear a gloss suitable to the effect whatever it is. And when he is bold to tell the state of a person, there is no weight to be laid on his judgement. Job was an hypocrite in his mouth, but God proved him a liar. (c) Again, he cannot hinder those purposes and counsels of God he knows. He knew Christ was to come in the flesh, and did his worst, but could not hinder his landing, though there were many devices in his heart, yet the counsel of the Lord concerning him did stand, yea, was delivered by the midwifery of Sa­tan suggesting , and his instruments executing his lust as they thought, but fulfilling God’s counsel against themselves. (d) Satan cannot ravish thy will. He can­not command thee to sin against thy will, he can motum agere—make the soul go faster[14], that is on its way, as the wind carries the tide with more swiftness; but he cannot turn the stream of the heart contrary to its own course and tendency. (2.) Satan’s power is so limited that he cannot do what he can. God lets out so much of his wrath as shall praise him, and be as a stream to set his purpose of love to his saints on work, and then lets down the flood-gate by restraining the residue thereof. God ever takes him off before he can finish his work on a saint. He can, if God suffers him, rob the Christian of much of his joy, and disturb his peace by his cun­ning insinuations, but he is under command; he stands, like a dog, by the table, while the saints sit at his sweet feast of comfort, but dares not stir to roam[15] off their cheer; his Master’s eye is on him. The want of this consideration loseth God his praise, and us our comfort—God having locked up our comfort in the performance of our duty. Did the Christian con­sider what Satan’s power is, and who dams it up, this would always be a song of praise in his mouth. Hath Satan power to rob and burn, kill and slay, torment the body, distress the mind? whom may I thank that I am in any of these out of his hands? Doth Satan love me better than Job? or am I out of sight, or beside his walk? Is his courage cooled or his wrath appeased, that I escaped so well? No, none of these. His wrath is not against one, but all the saints; his eye is on thee, and his arm can reach thee; his spirit is not cowed, nor his stomach stayed with those mil­lions he hath devoured, but [is] keen as ever; yea, sharper, because now he sees God ready to take away, and the end of the world drawing on so fast. It is thy God alone whom thou art beholden to for all this; his eye keepeth thee. when Satan finds this good man asleep, then he finds our God awake; therefore thou art not consumed, because he changeth not. Did his eye slumber or wander for one moment, there would need no other flood to drown thee, yea, the whole world, that what would come out of this dragon’s mouth. Consider 3. [It is a ministerial power.] Satan’s power is ministerial, appointed by God for the service and benefit of the saints. It is true, as it is said of the proud Assyrian, ‘he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so,’ Isaiah 10:7; but it is in his heart to des­troy those he tempts. But no matter what he thinks; as Luther comforted himself, when told what had passed at the diet at Nuremberg against the Protes­tants, that ‘it was decreed one way there, but other­wise in heaven;’ so for the saints’ comfort, the thoughts which God thinks to them are peace, while Satan’s are to ruin their graces, and destruction to their souls. And his counsel shall stand in spite of the devil. The very mittimus[16] which God makes, when he commits any of his saints to the devil’s prison, runs thus: ‘Deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus,’ 1 Corinthians 5:5; so that tempted saints may say, ‘We had perished if we had not perished to our own thinking.’ This leviathan, while he thinks to swallow them up, is but sent of God (as the whale to Jonah) to waft them safe to land. ‘Some of them of understanding shall fall, to try them, and to purge, and to make them white,’ Daniel 11:35. This God intends when he lets his children fall into temptation. As we do with our linen, the spots they get at our feasts, are taken out by washing, rub­bing, and laying them out to bleach. The saints’ spots are most got in peace, plenty, and prosperity, and they never recover their whiteness to such a degree as when they come from under Satan’s scouring. We do too little, not to fear Satan; we should comfort ourselves with the usefulness and sub­serviency of his temptations to our good. All things are yours who are Christ’s. He hath given life to be yours, hath given death also. He that hath given heaven for your inheritance—Paul and Cephas, his ministers and ordinances to help you thither—hath given the world with all the afflictions of it, yea, the prince of it too, with all his wrath and power, in order to the same end. This, indeed, is love and wisdom in a riddle, but you who have the Spirit of Christ can unfold it. BRANCH THIRD. [Against the rulers of the darkness of this world.] These words contain the third branch in the des­cription of our great enemy the devil; and they hold forth the proper seat of his empire, with a threefold boundary. He is not ‘Lord over all’—that is the in­communicable title of God—but a ruler of the dark­ness of this world, where the time, place, and subjects of his empire are stinted. First. The time when this prince hath his rule—in this world, that is, now, not hereafter. Second. The place where he rules—in this world, that is, here below, not in heaven. Third. The subjects or persons whom he rules, not all in this lower world neither; they are wrapped up in these words—the darkness of this world. [The time when Satan rules.] First. [Satan’s empire is bounded by time.] The time when he rules is in this world; that is, now, not hereafter. This word world may be taken in the text for that little spot of time which, like an inconsiderable parenthesis, is clapped in on either side with vast eternity, called sometimes the present world, Titus 2:12. On this stage of time this mock king acts the part of a prince; but when Christ comes to take down his scaffold at the end of this world, then he shall be degraded, his crown taken off, his sword broke over his head, and he hissed off with scorn and shame; yea, of a prince, become a close prisoner in hell. No more, then, shall he infest the saints, no, nor rule the wicked, but he with them, and they with him, shall lie under the immediate execution of God’s wrath. For this very end Christ hath his patent and commission, which he will not give up, till ‘he shall have put down all rule,’ 1 Corinthians 15:24. Then, and not till then, will he deliver up his economical kingdom to his Father, ‘when he shall have put down all rule;’ ‘for he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet,’ 1 Corinthians 15:25. Satan is cast already, his doom is past upon him, as Adam’s was upon his first sin, but full execution is stayed till the end of the world. The devil knows it; it is an article in his creed, which made him trembling ask Christ why he came to torment him before his time. Use First. This brings ill news to the wicked. Your princes cannot long sit in his throne. Sinners at present have a merry time of it, if it would hold; they rejoice, while Christ’s disciples weep and mourn; they rustle in their silks, while the saint goes in his rags. Princes are not more careful to oblige their courtiers with pensions and preferments, than the devil is to gratify his followers. He hath his rewards also: ‘All this will I give thee.’ ‘Am not I able to promote thee?’ saith Balak to Balaam. Oh, it is strange—and yet not strange, considering the degeneracy of man’s nature—to see how Satan carries sinners after him with this golden hook. Let him but present such a bait as honour, pelf, or pleasure, and their hearts skip after it, as a dog would after a crust. He makes them sin for a morsel of bread. Oh the naughty heart of man loves the wages of unrighteousness, which the devil promiseth, so dearly, that it fears not the dreadful wages which the great God threatens. As sometimes see a spaniel so greedy of a bone, that he will leap into the very river for it, if you throw it thither, and by the time he comes with much ado thither, it is sunk, and he gets nothing but a mouthful of water for his pains—thus sinners will [go] after their desired pleasures, honours, and profits, swim­ming through the very threatenings of the Word to them. And sometimes they lose even what they gaped for there. Thus God kept Balaam, as Balak told him, ‘from honour,’ Numbers 24:11. But however they speed here, they are sure to lose themselves everlastingly without repentance. They that are resolved they will have these things, are the men that will fall into the devil’s snare, and are led into those foolish and hurtful lusts, which will drown them in destruction and perdition, 1 Timothy 6:9. O poor sinners! were it not wis­dom, before you truck[17] with the devil, to inquire what title he can give you to these goodly vanities? will he settle them as a free estate upon you? can he secure your bargain, and keep you from suits of law? or is he able to put two lives into the purchase, that when you die, you may not be left destitute in another world? Alas, poor wretches! you shall ere long see what a cheat he hath put on you, from whom you are like to have nought but caveat emptor —let the buyer look to that; yea, this great prince that is so brag to tell what he will give you, must down himself; and a sad prince must needs make a sad court. O what howling will there then be of Satan and his vassals together! O but, saith the sinner, the pleasures and honour sin and Satan offer are present, and that which Christ promiseth we must stay for. This, indeed, that which takes most. Demas, saith Paul, forsook me, ‘having loved this present world,’ 2 Timothy 4:10. It is present, indeed, sinners, for you can­not say it will be yours the next moment. Your pres­ent felicity is going, and the saints’, though future, is coming, never to go; and who, for a gulp of pottage and sensual enjoyments at present, would part with a reversion of such a kingdom? Except thou art of his mind, who thought he had nothing but what he had swallowed down his throat, [thou wouldst not]. Hœc habeo quœ edi, quœ exacurata libido Hausit[18]. This Cicero could say was more fit to be writ on an ox’s grave than [on] a man’s. Vile wretch, that think­est it is not better to deal with God for time, than [with] the devil for ready pay. Tertullian wonders at the folly of the Roman’s ambition, who would endure all manner of hardship in field and fight, for no other thing but to obtain at last the honour to be consul, which he calls[19] ‘a joy that flies away at the year’s end.’ But O! what desperate madness is it of sinners then, not to endure a little hardship here, but [to] entail on themselves the eternal wrath of God here­after, for the short feast and running banquet their lusts entertain them here withal; which often is not gaudium unius horœ—a joy that lasts an hour. Use Second. Let this encourage thee, O Chris­tian, in thy conflict with Satan—the skirmish may be sharp, but it cannot be long. Let him tempt thee, and his wicked instruments trounce[20] thee, it is but a little while, and thou shalt be rid of both their evil neigh­bourhoods. The cloud while it drops is rolling over thy head, and then comes fair weather, an eternal sunshine of glory. Canst thou not watch with Christ one hour or two? keep the field a few days? If thou yield thou art undone for ever. Persevere but while [until] the battle is over, and thine enemy shall never rally more. Bid faith look through the key-hole of the promise, and tell thee what it sees there laid up for him that overcomes; bid it listen and tell thee whether it cannot hear the shout of those crowned saints, as of those that are dividing the spoil, and receiving the reward of all their services and sufferings here on earth. And dost thou stand on the other side afraid to wet thy foot with those sufferings and temp­tations, which, like a little plash of water, run between thee and glory? [The place where Satan rules.] Second. [Satan’s empire is confined to place.] The place where the devil rules is in this world, that is, here below, not in heaven. He is the ruler of this lower world, not of the heavenly. The highest the devil can go is the air; [he is] called the prince there­of, as being the utmost marches of his empire; he hath nothing to do with the upper world. Heaven fears no devil, and therefore its gates stand always open. Never durst this fiend look into that holy place since he was first expelled, but [he] rangeth to and fro here below as a vagabond creature, excommunicated the presence of God, doing what mischief he can to saints on their way to heaven. But is not this matter of great joy, that Satan hath no power there, where the saints’ lies? What hast thou, Christian, which thou needest value, that is not there? Thy Christ is there, and if thou lovest him, thy heart also, which lives in the bosom of its Beloved. Thy friends and kindred in Christ are there, or expected, with whom thou shalt have a merry meeting in thy Father’s house, notwithstanding the snare on Tabor, the plots of Satan which lie in the way. O friends, get a title to that kingdom, and you are above the flight of this kite. This made Job a happy man indeed, who, when the devil had plundered him to his skin, and worried him almost out of that too, could then even vouch Christ, in the face of death and devils, to be his Redeemer; whom he should with those eyes, that now stood full with brinish tears, behold, and that for himself as his own portion. It is sad with him indeed, who is robbed of all he is worth at once; but this can never be said of a saint. The devil took away Job’s purse, as I may say, which put him into some straits, but he had a God in heaven that put him into stock again. Some spending-money thou hast at present in thy purse, in the activity of thy faith, the evidence of thy sonship, and comfort flowing from the same, en­largement in duty and the like. These Satan may for a time disturb, yea, deprive thee of, but he cannot come to the rolls, to blot thy name out of the book of life; he cannot null thy faith, make void thy relation, dry up thy comfort in the spring, though [he may] dam up the stream; nor [can he] hinder thee a happy issue of thy whole war with sin, though [he may] worst thee in a private skirmish; these all are kept in heaven, among God’s own crown-jewels, who is said to keep us by his ‘power through faith unto salvation.’ [The subjects over which Satan rules.] Third. [The subjects of Satan’s empire are stinted.] The third boundary of the devil’s prin­cipality is in regard of his subjects, and they are des­cribed here to be the darkness of this world, that is, such who are in darkness. This word is used some­times to express the desolate condition of a creature in some great distress, ‘He that walketh in darkness, and hath no light,’ Isaiah 50:10; sometimes to express the nature of all sin; so, Ephesians 5:11, sin is called the ‘works of darkness;’ sometimes the particular sin of ignor­ance; [and is] often is set out by the darkness of the night, blindness of the eye. All these I conceive may be meant, but chiefly the latter; for though Satan makes a foul stir in the soul that is in the darkness of sorrow, whether it be from outward crosses or inward desertions; yet if the creature be not in the darkness of sin at the same time, though he may disturb his peace as an enemy, yet [he] cannot be said to rule as a prince. Sin only sets Satan in the throne. So that I shall take the words in the two latter interpreta­tions. First. [I take them] for the darkness of sin in general. Second. For the darkness of ignorance in special. And the sense will be, that the devil’s rule is over those that are in a state of sin and ignorance, not over those who are sinful or ignorant. [Were it] so, he would take hold of saints as well as others; but [it is] over those who are in a state of sin, which is set out by the abstract, ‘rulers of the darkness,’ the more to express the fulness of the sin and ignorance that possesseth Satan’s slaves. The notes [or Doctrines] will be two. First. Every soul in a state of sin is under the rule of Satan. Second. Ignorance above other sins enslaves a soul to Satan; and therefore all sins are set out by that which chiefly expresseth this, namely, darkness. [Souls in a state of sin are subject to Satan’s rules.] Doctrine First. Every soul in a state of sin is under the rule of Satan; under which point these two things must be inquired. First. The reason why sin is set out by darkness. Second. How every one in such a state appears to be under the devil’s rule. First. [The reason why sin is set out by darkness.] 1. Sin may be called darkness, because the spring and common cause of sin in man is darkness. The external cause [is] Satan, who is the great pro­moter of it; he is a cursed spirit, held in chains of darkness. The internal is the blindness and darkness of the soul. We may say when anyone sins, he doth he knows not what, as Christ said of his murderers. Did the creature know the true worth of the soul which he now sells for a song, the glorious amiable nature of God and his holy ways, the matchless love of God in Christ, the poisonful nature of sin, and all these, not by a sudden beam darted into the window at a sermon, and gone again like a flash of lightning, but by an abiding light, it would spoil the devil’s market. Poor creatures would not readily take this toad into their bosom. Sin goes in a disguise, and so is welcome. 2. It is darkness, because it brings darkness into the soul, and that naturally and judicially. (1.) Sin bring darkness into the soul naturally. There is a noxious quality in sin offensive to the un­derstanding, which is to the soul what the eye and palate are to the body; it discerns of things, and dis­tinguisheth true from false, as the eye white from black; it trieth words, as the mouth tasteth meats. Now as there are some things bad for the sight, and others bad for the palate, vitiating it, so that it shall not know sweet from bitter; so here sin besots the creature and makes it injudicious, that he, who could see such a practice absurd and base in others before, when once he hath drunk off this enchanting cup himself—as one that hath foredone his understand­ing—is mad of it himself, not able to see the evil of it, or use his reason against it. Thus Saul, before he had debauched his conscience, thinks the witch worthy of death; but after he had trodden his conscience hard with other foul sins, goes to ask counsel of one himself. (2.) Sin brings darkness into the soul judicially. Such have been threatened, whose ear God hath been trying to open and instruct, and have run out of God’s school into the devil’s, by rebelling against light, that they shall ‘die without knowledge,’ Job 36:10, Job 36:12. What! should the candle burn waste, when the creature hath more mind to play than work? 3. Sin may be called darkness, because it runs into darkness. Impostors bring in their damnable heresies privily, like those who sell bad ware. Loath to come to the market, where the standard tries all, [they] put it off in secret. So in moral wickedness, sinners like beasts go out in the night for their prey, loath to be seen, afraid to come where they should be found out. Nothing more terrible to sinners than [the] light of truth, because their deeds are evil, John 3:19. Felix was so nettled with what Paul spake, that he could not sit out the sermon, but flings away in haste, and adjourns the hearing of Paul till a con­venient season, but he could never find one. The sun is not more troublesome in hot countries, than truth is to those who sit under the powerful preaching of it; and therefore as those seldom come abroad in the heat of the day, and when they must, have their de­vices over their heads to screen them from the sun, so sinners shun as much as may be the preaching of the Word; but if they must go, to keep in with their relations, or for other carnal advantages, they, if pos­sible, will keep off the power of truth, either by sleeping the sermon away, or prating it away with any foolish imagination which Satan sends to bear them company and chat with them at such a time; or by choosing such a cool preacher to sit under, whose toothless discourse shall rather flatter than trouble, rather tickle their fancy than prick their consciences, and then their sore eyes can look upon the light. [They love truth flourishing, who do not love it when it is confuting[21].] They dare handle and look on the sword with delight when in a rich scabbard, who would run away to see it drawn. 4. Sin may be called darkness for its uncom­fortable­ness, and that in a threefold respect. (1.) Darkness is uncomfortable, as it shuts out of all employment. What could the Egyptians do under the plague of darkness but sit still? and this to an active spirit is trouble enough. Thus in a state of sin man is an unserviceable creature, he can do his God no service acceptably, spoils everything he takes in hand; like one running up and down in a shop when the windows are shut, he doth nothing right. It may be writ on the grave of every sinner, who lives and dies in that state, ‘Here lies the man that never did God an hour’s work in all his life.’ (2.) Darkness is uncomfortable in point of enjoy­ment. Be there never such rare pictures in the room, if dark, who the better? A soul in a state of sin may possess much, but he enjoys nothing; this is a sore evil, and little thought of. One thought of its state of enmity to God, would drop bitterness into every cup; all he hath smells of hellfire; and a man at a rich feast would enjoy it sure but little, if he smelt fire, ready to burn his house and himself in it. (3.) Darkness is uncomfortable, as it fills with terrors. Fears in the night are most dreadful; a state of sin is a state of fear. Men that owe much, have no quiet, but when they are asleep, and not then neither, the cares and fears of the day sink so deep, as makes their rest troublesome and unquiet in the night. The wicked hath no peace, but when his conscience sleeps, and that sleeps but brokenly, awaking often with sick fits of terror; when he hath most prosperity, he is scared like a flock of birds in a corn-field, at every piece going off. He eats in fear, and drinks in fear; when afflicted, he expects worse behind, and knows not what this cloud may spread to, and where it may lay him, whether in hell or not, he knows not, and therefore trembles, as one in the dark, not knowing but his next step may be into the pit. 5. Sin may be called darkness, because it leads to utter darkness. Utter darkness is darkness to the ut­most. Sin in its full height, and wrath in its full heat together; both universal, both eternal. Here is some mixture, peace and trouble, pain and ease; sin and thoughts of repenting, sin and hopes of pardon; there the fire of wrath shall burn without slacking, and sin run parallel with torment; hell-birds are no changelings, their torment makes them sin, and their sin feeds their torment, both unquenchable, one being fuel to another. Second. Let us see how it appears, that such as are under a state of sin, are under the rule of Satan. nners are called the children of the devil, 1 John 3:10; and who rules the child, but the father? They are slaves; who rules the slave, but the master? They are the very mansion-house of the devil; where hath a man command, but in his own house? ‘I will return into my house,’ Matthew 12:44. As if the devil had said, I have walked among the saints of God, to and fro, knocking at this door and that, and none will bid me welcome, I can find no rest; well, I know where I may be bold, I will even go to my own house, and there I am sure to rule the roost without control: and when he comes, he finds it empty, swept and garnished, that is all ready for his entertainment. Servants make the house trim and handsome against their master comes home, especially when he brings guests with him, as here the devil brings seven more. Look to the sinner, there is nothing he is or hath, but the devil hath dominion over it; he rules the whole man, their minds blinding them. All the sinner’s apprehensions of things are shaped by Satan; he looks on sin with the devil’s spectacles, he reads the word with the devil’s comment, he sees nothing in its native colours, but is under a continual delusion. The very wisdom of a wicked man is said to be devilish, James 3:15, *"4µ@<4f*0H, or devil-like, be­cause taught by the devil, and also such as the devil’s is, wise only to do evil. He commands their wills, though not to force them, yet effectually to draw them. His work, saith Christ, ye will do. You are re­solved on your way, the devil hath got your hearts, and him you will obey; and therefore when Christ comes to recover his throne, he finds the soul in an uproar, as Ephesus at Paul’s sermon, crying him down, and Diana up. ‘We will not have this man to reign over us;’ ‘what is the Almighty that we should serve him?’ He rules over all their members; they are called weapons of unrighteousness, all at the devil’s service, as all the arms of a kingdom, to defend the prince against any that shall invade—the head to plot, the hand to act, the feet swift to carry the body up and down about his service; he rules over all he hath. Let God come in a poor member, and beseech him to lend him a penny, or bestow a morsel to refresh his craving bowels, and the covetous wretch his hand of charity is withered, and he cannot stretch it forth; but let Satan call, and his purse flies open and heart also. Nabal, that could not spare a few fragments for David and his followers, this churl could make a feast like a prince, to satiate his lust of gluttony and drunken­ness. He commands their time; when God calls to duty, to pray, to hear, no time all the week to be spared for that; but if the sinner hears there is a merry-meeting, a knot of good fellows at the ale­house, all is thrown aside to wait on his lord and mas­ter. Calling left at six and sevens; yea, wife and chil­dren crying, may be starving; while the wretch is pour­ing out their very blood, in wasting their livelihood, at the foot of his lust. The sinner is ‘in bond of ini­quity,’ and being bound he must obey. He is said to go after his lust, as the fool to the stocks, Proverbs 7:22. The pinioned male­factor can as soon untie his own arms and legs, and so run from his keeper, as he from his lusts. They are ‘servants,’ and their members ‘ins­truments of sin;’ even as the workman takes up his axe and it resists not, so doth Satan dispose of them, except God saith nay. [Application of this doctrine, ‘That the soul in a state of sin in under the rule of Satan.’] See here the deplored condition of every one in a state of sin. He is under the rule of Satan and gov­ernment of hell. What tongue can utter, what heart can conceive the misery of this state? It was a dismal day which Christ foretold, Matthew 24:1-51, when the ‘abom­ination of desolation’ should be seen standing in the holy place; then, saith Christ, let him that is in Judea flee into the mountains. But what was that to this? they were but men, though abominable, these devils. They did but stand in the material temple, and defile and deface that: but these display their banners in the souls of men, pollute that throne which is more glorious than the material heaven itself, made for God alone to sit in. They exercised their cruelties at furthest on the bodies of men, killing and torturing them; here the precious souls of men are destroyed. When David would curse to purpose the enemies of God, he prays that Satan may be at their right hand. It is strange that sinners should no more tremble at this, who, should they see but their swine, or a beast bewitched and possessed of the devil, run headlong into the sea, would cry out as half undone: and is not one soul more worth than all these? What a plague is it to have Satan possess thy heart and spirit, hur­rying thee in the fury of thy lusts to perdition? O poor man! what a sad change thou hast made? Thou who wouldst not sit under the meek and peaceful gov­ernment of God, thy rightful Lord, art paid for thy rebellion against him, in the cruelty of this tyrant, who writes all his laws in the blood of his subjects. And why will you sit any longer, O sinners, under the shadow of this bramble, from whom you can expect nothing but eternal fire to come at last and devour you? Behold, Christ is in the field, sent of God to recover his right and your liberty. His royal standard is pitched in the gospel, and proclamation made, that if any poor sinners, weary of the devil’s government, and heavy laden with the miserable chains of his spir­itual bondage, so as these irons of his sins enter into his very soul to afflict it with the sense of them—shall thus come and repair to Christ—he shall have pro­tection from God’s justice, the devil’s wrath and sin’s dominion; in a word, he shall have rest, and that glorious, Matthew 11:28. Usually when a people have been ground with the oppression of some bloody tyrant, they are apt enough to long for a change, and to listen to any overture that gives them hope of liberty, though reached by the hand of a stranger, who may prove as bad as the other, yet bondage is so grievous, that people desire to change, as sick men their beds, though they find little ease thereby. Why then should deliverance be unwelcome to you sinners? —deliverance brought, not by a stranger whom you need fear what his design is upon you, but [by] near kinsman in blood, who cannot mean you ill, but he must first hate his own flesh; and whoever did that? To be sure not he, who though he took part of our flesh, that he might have the right of being our Redeemer, yet would have no kindred with us in the sinfulness of our nature, Hebrews 2:14-15. And it is sin that is cruel, yea, to our own flesh. What can you expect from him but pure mercy, who is himself pure? They are ‘the mercies of the wicked which are cruel,’ Proverbs 12:10. Believe it, sirs, Christ counts it his honour, that he is a king of a willing people, and not of slaves. He comes to make you free, not to bring you into bondage, to make you kings, not vassals. None give Christ an evil word, but those who never were his subjects. Inquire but of those who have tried both Satan’s service and Christ’s, they are best able to resolve you what they are. You see when a soul comes over from Satan’s quarters unto Christ, and has but once the experience of that sweetness which is in his service, there is no getting him back to his old drudgery; as they say of those who come out of the north, which is cold and poor, they like the warm south so well, they seldom or never go back more. What more dreadful to a gracious soul, than to be delivered into the hands of Satan? or fall under the power of his lusts? It would choose rather to leap in­to a burning furnace, than be commanded by them. This is the great request a child of God makes, that he would rather whip him in his house, than turn him out of it to become a prey to Satan. O sinners, did you know—which you cannot till you come over to Christ, and embrace him as your Lord and Saviour—what the privileges of Christ’s ser­vants are, and what gentle usage saints have at Christ’s hands, you would say these are the only hap­py men in the world which stand continually before him. His laws are writ, not with his subjects’ blood, as Satan’s are, but with his own. All his commands are acts of grace, it is a favour to be employed about them. To you it is given to believe, yea, to suffer, Php 1:29. Such an honour the saint esteems it to do anything he commands, that they count God rewards them for one piece of service, if he enables them for another. ‘This I had,’ saith David, ‘because I kept thy precepts,’ Psalms 119:56; what was the great reward he got? ‘I have remembered thy name, O Lord, in the night, and have kept thy law,’ Psalms 119:55; then follows, ‘This I had.’ He got more strength and skill to keep the law for the future, by his obedience past, and was not well paid, think you, for his pains? There is ‘fruit’ even in ‘holiness,’ the Christian hath in hand, which he eats while he is at work, that may stay his stomach until his full reward comes, which is ‘eternal life,’ Romans 6:22. Jesus Christ is a prince that loves to see his people thrive and grow rich under his govern­ment. This is he whom sinners are afraid of, that when he sets open their prison, and bids them come forth, they choose rather to bore their ears to the devil’s post, than enjoy this blessed liberty. It is no wonder that some of the saints have, indeed, ‘when tortured, not accepted deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection,’ Hebrews 11:35. But what a riddle is this, that forlorn souls bound with the chains of their lusts, and the irresistible decree of God for their damnation, if they believe not on the Lord Jesus, should, as they are driving to execution, refuse deliverance! This may set heaven and earth on won­dering. Surely, dying in their sins, they cannot hope for a better resurrection than they have a death. I am afraid rather, that they do not firmly believe they shall have any resurrection, and then no wonder they make so light of Christ’s offer, who think themselves safe, when once earthed in this burrow of the grave. But let sinners know, it is not the grave can hold them, when the day of assize comes, and the Judge calls for the prisoners to the bar. The grave was never intended to be a sanctuary to defend sinners from the hand of justice, but a close prison to secure them against the day of trial, that they may be forthcoming. Then sinners shall be digged out of their burrows, and dragged out of their holes, to answer their contempt of Christ and his grace. O how will you be astonished to see him become your judge, whom you now refuse to be your king! to hear that gospel witness against you for your damnation, which at the same time shall acquit others for their salvation! What think you to do, sinners, in that day? Wilt thou cry and scream for mercy at Christ’s hands? Alas, when the sentence is passed, thy face will immediately be covered; condemned prisoners are not allowed to speak: tears then are unprofitable, when no place left for re­pentance, either in Christ’s heart or [in] thine own. Or meanest thou to apply thyself to thy old lord, in whose service thou hast undone thy soul, and cry to him, as she to Ahab, Help, O king! Alas! thine eye shall see him in the same condemnation with thyself. Hadst thou not better now renounce the devil’s rule, while thou mayest be received into Christ’s govern­ment?—pour out thy tears and cry now for mercy and grace when they are to be had, than to save them for another world to no purpose? [How one born a slave to sin may be translated into the kingdom of Christ.] Question. But possibly thou wilt say, How may I, that am a home-born slave to sin, yea, who have lived so many years under his cursed rule, get out of his dominion and power, and be translated into the kingdom of Christ? Answer. The difficulty of this great work lies not in prevailing with Christ to receive thee for his subject, who refuseth none that in truth of heart de­sire to come under his shadow. It doth not stand with his design to reject any such. Do physicians use to chide their patients away? lawyers their clients? or generals discourage those who fall off from the enemy and come to their side? surely no. When David was in the field, it is said, ‘Every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them,’ 1 Samuel 22:2. And so will Christ be to every one that is truly discontented with Satan’s government, and upon an inward dislike thereof repairs to him. But the main business will be to take thee off from thy engagements to thy lusts and Satan; till which be done, Christ will not own thee as a subject, but look on thee as a spy. It fares with sin­ners as with servants. There may be fallings out be­tween them and their masters, and high words pass between them, that you would think they would take up their pack and be gone in all haste; but the fray is soon over, and by next morning all is forgot, and their servants are as hard at their work as ever. O how oft are sinners taking their leave of their lusts, and giving warning to their old masters, [that] will repent and re­form, and what not; but in a few days they have re­pented of their repentance, and deformed their de­formings, which shows they were drunk with some passion when they thought or spake this, and no won­der they reverse all when they come to their true tem­per. Now because Satan has many policies by which he useth to keep his hold of sinners, I shall discover some of them, which if thou canst withstand, it will be no hard matter to bring thee out of his power and rule. [Policies of Satan which must be withstood if we would escape from his rule.] First. Satan doth his utmost, that sinners may not have any serious thoughts of the miserable state they are in, while under his rule; or hear anything from others which might the least unsettle their minds from his service. Consideration, he knows, is the first step to repentance. He that doth not con­sider his ways what they are, and whither they lead him, is not like to change them in haste. Israel stir­red not, while [until] Moses came and had some dis­course with them about their woeful slavery, and the gracious thoughts of God towards them; and then they began to desire to be gone. Pharaoh soon be­thought him what consequence might follow upon this, and cunningly labours to prevent by doubling their task: ‘Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord. Go therefore now, and work,’ Exodus 5:17-18. As if he had said, ‘Have you so much spare time to think of gadding into the wilderness, and have you your seditious conventicles, Moses and you, to lay your plots together? I will break the knot: give them more work; scatter them all over the land to gather straw, that they may not meet to entice one another’s hearts from my service.’ Thus Satan is very jealous of the sinner, afraid that every Christian that speaks to him, or ordinance he hears, should inveigle him. By his good-will he should come at neither, no, nor have a thought of heaven or hell from one end of the week to the other; and that he may have as few as may be, he keeps him full-handed with work. The sinner grinds, and he is filling the hopper, that the mill may not stand still. He is with the sinner as soon as he wakes, and fills his wretched heart with some wicked thoughts, which as a morning draught may keep him from the infection of any sa­vour of good that may be breathed on him by others in the daytime. All the day long he watched him, as the master would do his man that he fears will run away. and at night he like a careful jailor locks him up again in his chamber with more bolts and fetters upon him, not suffering him to sleep as he lies on his bed till he hath done some mischief. Ah, poor wretch! Was ever slave so looked to? As long as the devil can keep thee thus, thou art his own sure enough. The prodigal came to himself, before he came to his father. He considered with himself what a starving condition he was in, his husks were poor meat, and yet he had not enough of them neither, and how easily he might mend his commons, if he had but grace to go home and humble himself to his father. Now and not till now he goes. Resolve thus, poor sinner, to sit down and consider what thy state is, and what it might be, if thou wouldst but change the bondage of Satan for the sweet government of Jesus Christ. First ask thy soul whether the devil can, after thou hast worn out thy miserable life here in this drudgery, prefer thee to a happy state in the other world, or so much as secure thee from a state of torment and woe? If he cannot, whether there not be one Jesus Christ who is able and willing to do it? and if so, whether it be not bloody cruelty to thy precious soul to stay any longer under the shadow of this bramble, when thou mayest make so blessed a change? A few of these thought abidingly laid home to thy soul, may—God striking in with them—shake the foundations of the devil’s prison, and make thee haste as fast from him, as one out of a house on fire about his ears. Second. Satan hath his instruments to oppose the messengers and overtures which God sends by them to bring the sinner out of Satan’s rule. When Moses comes to deliver Israel out of Egyptian bond­age, up start Jannes and Jambres to resist him. When Paul preacheth to the deputy, the devil hath his chap­lain at court to hinder him—Elymas, one that was full of all subtlety and mischief. Some or other, to be sure, he will find, when God is parleying with a sin­ner, and persuading him to come over to Christ, that shall labour to clog the work. Either carnal friends —these he sends to plead his cause; or old com­panions in wickedness—these bestir them; one while [by] labouring to jeer him out of his new way, or, if that take not, by turning their old love into bitter wrath against him for playing the apostate and leaving him so. Or if yet he will not be stopped in his way, then he hath his daubing preachers, still like Job’s messengers the last the worst, who with their soul-flattering, or rather murdering doctrine, shall go about to heal his wound ‘slightly.’ Now as ever you desire to get out of Satan’s bondage, have a care of all these; harden thyself against the entreaties of carnal friends and relations. Resolve, that if thy children should hang about thy knees to keep thee from Christ, thou wilt throw them away; [resolve], if thy father and mother should lie prostrate at thy foot, rather than not go to Christ, to go over their very backs to him. Never can we part with their love upon such advantageous terms as these. And for thy breth­ren in iniquity, I hope thou dost not mean to stay while [i.e. until] thou hast their good-will; then even ask the devil’s also. Heaven is but little worth if thou hast not a heart to despise a little shame, and bear a few frumps[22] from profane Ishmaels for thy hopes of it. Let them spit on thy face, Christ will wipe it off; let them laugh, so thou winnest. If they follow not thy example before they die, the shame will be their own; God himself shall spit it on their face before men and angels, and then kick them into hell. And lastly, escape but the snare of those flatterers, who use their tongues only to lick sinners’ consciences whole with their soothing doctrine, and thou art fair for a Christ; ask not counsel of them; they may go about to give you ease, with which they sow up thy wounds, must be ripped open, or thou diest for it. Third. Satan labours to while off the sinner with delays. Floating, flitting thoughts of repenting he fears not; he can give sinners leave to talk what they will do, so he can beg time, and by his art keep such thoughts from coming to a head, and ripening into a present resolution. Few are in hell but thought of repenting, but Satan so handled the matter, that they could never pitch upon the time in earnest when to do it. If ever thou meanest to get out of his clutches, fly out of his doors and run for thy life, wherever this warning finds thee; stay not, though in the midst of thy joys, with which thy lusts entertain thee. As the paper which came to Brentius—from that senator his dear friend—took him at supper with his wife and children, and bade him flee citò, citus, citissimè—[quickly, more quickly, as quickly as possible]—which he did, leaving his dear company and sweet cheer; so do thou, or else thou mayest repent thy stay when it is too late. A vision charged the wise men to go back another way, and not so much as see Herod, though he had charged them otherwise. O go not back, drunkard, to thy good fellows; adulterer, to thy queans[23]; covetous wretch, to thy usury and unlawful gain: turn another way and gratify not the devil a moment. The command saith, ‘Now repent;’ the imperative hath no future tense. God saith, ‘To-day, while it is called to-day.’ The devil saith, To-morrow. Which wilt thou obey, God or him? Thou sayest, thou meanest at last to do it, then why not now? Wilt thou stand with God a day or two, huckle with him for a penny? Heaven is not such a hard pennyworth, but thou mayest come up to his terms. And which is the morrow thou meanest? Thou hast but a day in thy life, for aught thou know­est, where then canst thou find a morrow for repen­tance? But shouldst thou have as many days to come as Methuselah lived, yet know, sin is hereditary, and such sort of diseases grow more upon us with our years. It is with long-accustomed sinners, as with those who have sat long under a government, they rather like to be as they are, though but ill on it, than think of a change; or like those who in a journey have gone out of their way all the day, will rather take any new way, over hedge and ditch, than think of going so far and back to be set right. Fourth. Satan labours to compromise the bus­iness, and bring it to a composition between him and Christ. When conscience will not be pacified, then Satan for quiet’s sake will yield to something, as Pharaoh with Moses; after much ado he is willing they should go. ‘And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness,’ Exodus 8:28. But then comes this caution, ‘Only you shall not go very far away.’ Thus Satan will yield; the sinner may pray, and hear the word, and make a goodly profession, so he doth not go very far, but that he may have him again at night. If God hath the matins, he looks for the vigils, and thus he is content the day should be divided. Doth con­science press a reformation and change of the sinner’s course? rather than fail, he will grant that also. Yet as Pharaoh, when he yielded they should go, he meant their little ones should stay behind as a pledge for those that went, Exodus 10:11; so Satan must have some one sin that must be spared, and no matter though it be a little one. Now if ever you would get out of the devil’s rule, make no composition with him. Christ will be king or no king. Not a hoof must be left behind, or anything which may make an errand for thee afterwards to return. Take therefore thy ever­lasting farewell of every sin, as to the sincere and fixed purpose of thy heart, or thou dost nothing. Paul joins his faith and purpose together, 2 Timothy 3:10, not the one without the other. At the promulgation of the law in Sinai, God did, as it were, give Israel the oath of allegiance to him; then he told them what law he would rule them by, and they gave their consent; this was the espousal which God puts them in mind of, Jeremiah 2:1-37, in which they were solemnly married to­gether, as king and subjects. Now mark, before God would do this, he will have them out of Egypt. They could not obey his laws and Pharaoh’s idolatrous customs also, and therefore he will have them out, before he solemnly espouseth them to be a nation peculiarly his. Thou must be a widow before Christ marry thee; he will not lie beside another’s wife. O that it were come to this! then the match would soon be made between Christ and thee. Let me ask thee, poor soul, hast thou seriously considered who Christ is, and what his sweet government is? and couldst thou find in thy heart—out of an inward abhor­rency of sin and Satan, and a liking to Christ—to renounce sin and Satan, and choose Christ for thy Lord? Doth thy soul say, as Rebekah, ‘I will go,’ if I could tell how to get to him. But alas, I am here a poor prisoner, I cannot shake off my fetters, and set myself at liberty to come unto Christ.’ Well, poor soul, canst thou groan heartily under thy bondage? then for thy comfort know thy deliverance is at the door; he that heard the cry of Israel in Egypt, will hear thine also, yea, [will] come and save thee out of the hands of thy lusts. He will not act as some, who entangle thy affections by making love to thee, and then give over the suit and come at thee no more. If Christ has won thy heart, he will be true to thee, and be at all the cost to bring thee out of thy prison- house also, yea, take the pains to come for thee himself, and bring with him those wedding garments in which he will carry thee from thy prison to his Father’s house with joy, where thou shalt live, not only as a subject under his law, but as a bride in the bosom of his love. And what can be added to thy happiness more? when thy prince is thy husband, and that such a prince to whom all other are vassals, even the Prince of the world himself; and yet so gracious, that his majesty hinders not his familiar converse with thee a poor creature, but adds to the condescent thereof; therefore God chooseth to mix names of greatness and relation together, the one to sweeten the other: ‘Thy Maker is thine husband, thy Re­deemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called,’ Isaiah 54:5. And to usher in those promises with titles of greatest dread and ter­ror to the creature, that hold forth the greatest con­descensions of love; how can God stoop lower than to come and dwell with a poor humble soul? which is more than if he had said, such a one should dwell with him; for a beggar to live at court is not so much as the king to dwell with him in this cottage. Yet this promise is ushered in with the most magnificent titles: ‘Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,’ Isaiah 57:15; and why such titles, but to take away the fears which his saints are prone to take up from them? Will the high and lofty One, saith the humble soul, look on a poor worm? will the Holy God come near such an unclean crea­ture? saith the contrite one. Isaiah himself cried he was undone at the sight of God, and this attribute proclaimed before him, Isaiah 6:1-13. Now God prefixeth these, that the creature may know his majesty and holiness, which seems so terrible to us, are no prej­udice to his love; yea, so gra­cious a prince is thy hus­band, that he delights rather his saint should call him by names of love than state. ‘Thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. Hosea 2:16, that is, my husband, not my Lord. [Souls in a state of ignorance are subject to Satan’s rule.] Doctrine Second. Ignorance above other sins enslaves a soul to Satan. A knowing man may be his slave, but an ignorant one can be no other. Knowl­edge doth not make the heart good, but it is impos­sible that without knowledge it should be good. There are some sins which an ignorant person cannot com­mit, there are more which he cannot but commit; knowledge is the key, Luke 11:52; Christ the door, John 10:1-42. Christ opens heaven. Knowledge opens Christ. In three particulars the point will appear more fully. First. Ignorance opens a door for sin to enter. Second. As ignorance lets sin in, so it locks it up in the soul, and the soul in it. Third. as it locks it up, so it shuts all means of help out. First. Ignorance opens the door for Satan to enter in with his troops of lusts. Where the watch is blind, the city is soon taken. An ignorant man sins, and like drunken Lot, he knows not when the temp­ter comes, nor when he goes; he is like a man that walks in his sleep, knows not where he is, nor what he does. ‘Father, forgive them,’ saith Christ, ‘they know not what they do.’ The apostle, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, having reproved the sensu­ality of some, 1 Corinthians 15:32, who made the consideration of death, by which others are awed from sin, a provocative to sin, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die;’ he gives an account of this absurd reasoning: All have not the knowledge of God. An ignorant person is a man in shape, and a beast in heart. There is no knowledge in the land, saith the prophet, Hosea 4:1 and see what a regiment follows this blind captain, swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and what not. We read, 2 Timothy 3:6, of some ‘laden with sins;’ ‘silly women,’ and such who never ‘come to the knowledge of the truth.’ Here are trees full of bitter fruit, and what dung shall we find at the root, that makes them so fruitful, but ignorance? Second. Ignorance, as it lets sin in, so it locks it up in the soul, and the soul in it. Such a one lies in Satan’s inner dungeon, where no light of conviction comes. Darkness inclines to sleep; a blind man and a drowsy conscience go together. When the storm arose, the mariners who were awake fell a praying to their god, but the sleeper fears nothing. Ignorance lays the soul asleep under the hatches of stupidity. God hath planted in the beast a natural fear of that which threatens to hurt it. Go to thrust a beast into a pit, and it hangs back; nature shows its abhorrency. Man being of a nobler nature, and subject to more dangers, God hath set a double guard on him; as [he has] a natural fear of danger, so also a natural shame that covers the face at the doing of any unworthy action. Now an ignorant man hath slipped from both these his keepers; he sins and blusheth not, because he knows not his guilt; he wants that magistrate within which should put him to shame. Neither is he afraid, because he knows not his danger; and there­fore he plays with his sin, as the child with the waves, that, by and by, will swallow him up. Conscience is god’s alarm to call the sinner up. It doth not always ring in his ear that hath knowledge, being usually set by God to go off at some special hour, when God is speaking in an ordinance, or striking in a providence; but in an ignorant soul this is silent. The clock can­not go when the weights are taken off; conscience is only a witness to what it knows. Third. Ignorance shuts out the means of re­covery. Friends and ministers, yea, Christ himself stands without, and cannot help the creature. As such, threatenings and promises are of no use; he fears not the one, he desires not the other, because he knows neither. Heaven’s way cannot be found in the dark, and therefore the first thing God doth, is to spring in with a light, and let the creature know where he is, and what the way is to get out of his prison-house, without which all attempts to escape are in vain. There is some shimmering light in all. Non dantur purœ tenebrœ [absolute darkness is not giv­en], I think, is good divinity as well as philosophy. And this night-light may discover many sins, produce inward prickings of conscience [for] them, yea, stir up the creature to step aside, rather than to drown in such broad waters. There are some sins so cruel and costly, that the most prostrate soul may in time be weary of their service for low ends; but what will all this come to, if the creature be not acquainted with Christ, the true way to God, faith and repentance, the only way to Christ? Such a one, after all this bustle, instead of making an escape from Satan, will run full into his mouth another way. There are some ways which at first seem right to the traveller, yet wind about so insensibly, that when a man hath gone far, and thinks himself near home, he is carried back to the place from whence he set forth. This will befall every soul ignorant of Christ, and the way of life through him. After many years’ travel, as they think, towards heaven by their good meanings, blind de­votions, and reformation, when they shall expect to be within sight of heaven, they shall find themselves even where they were at first, as very slaves to Satan as ever. [Use or Application.] Use First. This speaks to you that are parents. See what need you have of instructing your children, and training them up betimes in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Till these chains of dark­ness be knocked off their minds, there is no possi­bility of getting them out of the devil’s prison. He hath no such tame slave as the ignorant soul. Such a one goes before Satan—as the silly sheep before the butcher—and knows not who he is, nor whether he carries him. And can you see the devil driving your children to the shambles, and not labour to rescue them out of his hands? Bloody parents you are, that can thus harden your bowels against your own flesh. now the more to provoke you to your duty, take these considerations. First. Your relation obligeth you to take care of their precious souls. It is the soul [that] is the child, rather than the body; and therefore in Scripture put for the whole man. Abraham and Lot went forth with all the souls they had gotten in Haran, Genesis 12:1-20; so, all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, that is, all the persons. The body is but the sheath; and if one should leave his sword with you to be kept safely for him, would you throw away the blade, and only pre­serve the scabbard? And yet parents do commonly judge of their care and love to their children by their providing for the outward man, by their breeding, that teaching them how to live like men, as they say, when they are dead and gone, and [to] comport themselves to their civil place and rank in the world. These things, indeed, are commendable; but is not the most weighty business of all forgotten in the meantime, while no endeavour is used that they may live as Christians, and know how to carry themselves in duty to God and man as such? And can they do this without the knowledge of the holy rule they are to walk by? I am sure David knew no means effectual without this, and therefore propounds the question, ‘Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?’ and he resolves it in the next words, ‘by taking heed thereto according to thy word,’ Psalms 119:9. And how shall they compare their way and the Word together, if not instructed? Our children are not born with Bibles in their heads or hearts. And who ought to be the instructor, if not the parent, yea, who will do it with such natural affection? As I have heard some­times a mother say in other respects, Who can take such pains with my child, and be so careful as myself, that am its mother? Bloody parents then they are who acquaint not their children with God or his Word. What do they but put them under a necessity of perishing, if God stir not up some to show more mercy than themselves to them? Is it any wonder to hear that ship to be sunk or dashed upon the rock, which was put to sea without card or compass? No more is it, they should engulf themselves in sin and perdition, that are thrust forth into the world—which is a sea of temptation—without the knowledge of God or their duty to him. In the fear of God think of it, parents. your children have souls, and these God sets you to watch over. It will be a poor account at the last day, if you can only say, Lord, here are my children, left them rich and wealthy. The rust of that silver you left them will witness your folly and sin, that you would do so much for that which rusts, and nothing for the enriching their minds with the knowl­edge of God, which would have endured for ever. Happy if you had left them less money and more knowledge. Second. Consider it hath ever been the saints’ practice to instruct and teach their children the way of God. David we find dropping instruction into his son Solomon: ‘Know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind,’ 1 Chronicles 28:9. Though a king, he did not put it off to his chaplains, but whetted it on him with his own lips. Neither was his queen Bathsheba forgetful of her duty, her gracious counsel is upon record, Proverbs 31:1-31; and that she may do it with the more seriousness and solemnity, we find her stirring up her motherly bowels, to let her son see she fetched her words deep, even from her heart: ‘What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?’ Proverbs 31:2. Indeed that counsel is most like to go to the heart which comes from thence. Parents know not what impression such melting expressions of their love mingled with their instructions, leave with their children. God bids draw forth our souls to the hungry, that is more than draw forth our purse, which may be done, and the heart hard and churlish. Thus we should draw forth our souls with our instructions. What need I tell of Timothy’s mother and grand­mother, who acquainted him with the Scripture from his youth? And truly, I think that man calls in ques­tion his own saintship, that takes no care to acquaint his child with God, and the way that leads to him. I have known some that, though profane themselves, have been very solicitous their children should have a good education; but never knew I saint that was regardless whether his child knew God or not. Third. It is an act of great unrighteousness not to instruct our children. We read of some who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Among others, those parents do it that lock up the knowledge of these sav­ing truths from their children, which God hath im­parted to themselves. There is a double unrigh­teousness in it. 1. They are unrighteous to their children, who may lay as much claim to their care of instructing them, as to their labour and industry in laying up a temporal estate for them. If he should do unrigh­teously with his child, that should not endeavour to provide for his outward maintenance, or having gath­ered an estate, should lock it up, and deny his child necessaries, then much more he that lives in ignor­ance of God, whereby he renders himself incapable of providing for his child’s soul, but most of all, he that having gathered a stock of knowledge, yet hides it from his child. 2. They are unrighteous to God. (1.) In that they keep that talent in their own hands which was given to be paid out to their chil­dren. When God revealed himself to Abraham, he had respect to Abraham’s children, and therefore we find God promising himself this at Abraham’s hands, upon which he imparts his mind to him concerning his purpose of destroying Sodom, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham,’ saith God, ‘that thing which I do? I know him that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord,’ Genesis 18:17, Genesis 17:19. The church began at first in a family, and was preserved by the godly care of par­ents in instructing their children and household in the truths of God, whereby the knowledge of God was transmitted from generation to generation, and though the church is not confined to such strait limits, yet every private family is as a little nursery to the church. If the nursery be not carefully planted, the orchard will soon decay. O could you be willing, Christians, that your children, when you are laid in the dust, should be turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine, and prove a generation that do not know God? Atheism needs not be planted; you do enough to make your children such, if you do not endeavour to plant religion in their minds. The very neglect of the gardener to sow and dress his garden, gives advantage enough to the weeds to come up. This is the difference between religion and atheism, Religion doth not grow without planting, but will die even where it is planted, without watering; atheism, irreligion, and profaneness are weeds [that] will grow without setting, but they will not die without plucking up. All care and means are little enough to stub them up. And therefore you that are parents, and do not teach your children, deal the more unrighteously with God, because you neglect the best season in their whole life for planting in them the knowledge of God, and plucking up the contrary weeds of atheism and irreligion. Young weeds come up with most ease. Simple ignorance in youth becomes wilful ignorance, yea, impudence in age; you will not instruct them when young, and they will scorn that their ministers should, when they are old. (2.) You deal unrighteously with God, that train not up your children in the knowledge of God. Because your children, if you be Christian parents, are God’s children, they stand in a federal relation to him, which the children of others do not; and shall God’s children be nurtured with the devil’s education? Ignorance is that which he blinds the minds of the children of disobedience withal. Shall God’s children have no better breeding? The chil­dren of a Jew God made account were born to him, ‘Thy sons and thy daughters whom thou hast born unto me,’ Ezekiel 16:20. God had by the covenant which he made with that people, married them unto him­self, and therefore as the wife bears her children to her husband, they are his children. So God calls the children of the Jews his, and complains of it as a hor­rible wickedness in them, that they should not bring them up as his, but offer them up to Moloch; they have ‘slain my children,’ saith God, Ezekiel 16:21. And are not the children of a Christian his children, as well as the Jews’ were? Hath God altered or recalled the first covenant, and cut off the entail, and darest thou slay not only thy children, but the Lord’s also? And is not ignorance that bloody knife that doth it? ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,’ Hosea 4:6. Do you not tremble to offer them, not to Moloch but [to] the devil, whom, before, you had given up to God, when you brought them to that solemn ordin­ance of baptism, and there desired before God and man that they might become covenant-servants to the Lord? and hast thou bound them to him, and never teach them, either who their Lord and Master is, or what their duty is as his servants? Of thy own mouth God will condemn thee. Fourth. Consider, you who are parents, that by not instructing your children, you entitle yourselves to all the sins they shall commit to their death. We may sin by a proxy, and make another’s fact our own. ‘Thou hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon,’ 2 Samuel 12:9. So thou mayest pierce Christ, and slay him over and over with the bloody sword of thy wicked children, if thou beest not the more careful to train them up in the fear of God. There might be something said for that heathen who, when the scholar abused him, fell upon the master and struck him. Indeed it is possible he might be in the most fault. When the child breaks the Sabbath, it is his sin, but more the father’s, if he never taught him what the command of God was. And if the par­ent be accessory to the sin of the child, it will be hard for him to escape a partnership, yea, a precedency in the punishment. O what a sad greeting will such have of their children at the great day! will they not then accuse you to be the murderers of their precious souls, and lay their blood at your door, cursing you to your face that taught them no better? But, grant that, by the interposition of thy timely repentance, thou securest thy soul from the judgement of that day, yet God can scourge thee here for the neglect of thy duty to them. How oft do we see children be­come heavy crosses to such parents? It is just that they should not know their duty to thee, who didst not teach them their duty to God. Or if thou shouldst not live so long as to see this, yet sure thou canst not but go in sorrow to thy grave, to leave chil­dren behind thee that are on their way to hell. Some think that Lot’s lingering so long in Sodom, was his loathness to leave his sons-in-law behind him, to perish in the flames. No doubt, good man, it was very grievous to him, and this might make him stay pleading with them, till the angel pulled him away. And certainly nothing makes holy parents more loath to be gone out of this Sodomitical world, than a de­sire to see their children out of the reach of that fire, before they go, that God will rain upon the heads of sinners. You know not how soon the messenger may come to pluck you hence. Do your best while you are among them to win them home to God. Use Second. To the ministers of the gospel. Let this stir up your bowels of compassion towards those many ignorant souls in your respective congre­gations, who know not the right hand from the left. This, this is the great destroyer of the country, which ministers should come forth against with all their care and strength. More are swept to hell with this plague of spiritual darkness than [with] any other. Where the light of knowledge and conviction is, there com­monly is a sense and pain that accompanies the sin­ner when he doth evil, which forceth some, now and then, to inquire for a physician, and [to] come in the distress of their spirits to their minister or others for counsel. But the ignorant soul feels no such smart. If the minister stay till he sends for him to instruct him, he may sooner hear the bell go for him, than any messenger come for him. You must seek them out, and not expect they will come to you. These are a sort of people that are afraid more of their remedy than of their disease, and study more to hide their ig­norance, than how they may have it cured, which should make us pity them the more, because they pity themselves so little. I confess, it is no small unhap­piness to some of us, who have to do with a multi­tude, that we have neither time nor strength to make our addresses to every particular person in our con­gregations, and attend on them as their needs require, and yet cannot well satisfy our consciences otherwise. But let us look to it, that though we cannot do to the height of what we would, we be not found wanting in what we may. Let not the difficulty of our province make us like some, who when they see they have more work upon their hands than they can well des­patch, grow sick of it, and sit down, out of a lazy despondency, and do just nothing. He that hath a great house running to ruin, and but a small purse—it is better for him to repair now a little, and then a little, than [to] let all fall down, because he cannot do it all at once. Many ministers may complain of their predecessors, that they left them their people more out of repair than their houses, and this makes the work great indeed; as the Jews did, who were to revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, before they could build the wall; yet it went up, because the people had a mind to work, Nehemiah 4:1-23. O if once our hearts were but filled with zeal for God, and com­passion to our people’s souls, we would up and be doing, though we could but lay a brick a day, and God would be with us. May be, you who find a people rude and sottishly ignorant, like stones in the quarry, and trees unfelled, shall not bring the work to such perfection in your days as you desire; yet as David did for Solomon, thou mayest, by thy pains in teaching and instructing them, prepare materials for another who shall rear the temple. It is very ordinary for one minister to enter into the labours of another, to reap those by a work of conversion, in whom a former minister hath cast the seed of knowledge and conviction. And when God comes to reckon with his workmen, the ploughman and the sower shall have his penny, as well as the harvest-man and reaper. O it is a blessed thing to be, as Job saith he was, ‘eyes to the blind,’ much more to blind souls. Such are the ministers God himself calls pastors after his own heart, that feed his people with knowledge and under­standing, Jeremiah 3:15. But woe to those that are accessory to their people’s ignorance. Now a minister may be accessory to the ignorance of his people— First. By his own ignorance. Knowledge is so fundamental to the work and calling of a minister, that he cannot be one without it. ‘Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hosea 4:6. The want of knowledge in a minister can be such a defect, as cannot be supplied by anything else. Be he never so meek, patient, bountiful, unblamable, if he hath not skill to divide the word aright, he is not cut out for a minister. Everything is good, as it is good for the end it is appointed to. A knife, though it had a haft of diamonds, yet if it will not cut, it is no knife. A bell, if not sound, is no bell. The great work of a minister is to teach others, his lips are to preserve knowledge, he should be as conversant in the things of God as others in their particular trades. Ministers are called lights. If the light then be darkness, how great is the darkness of that people like to be? I know these stars in Christ’s hands are not all of the same magnitude. There is a greater glory of gifts and graces shining in some than [in] others; yet so much light is necessary to every minister, as was in the star the wise men saw at Christ’s birth, to be able out of the word to direct sinners the safe and true way to Christ and salvation. O sirs, it is a sad way of getting a living by killing of men, as some unskilful physi­cians do; but much more to get a temporal livelihood by ruining souls through our ignorance. He is a cruel man to the poor passengers, who will undertake to be pilot, when he never so much as learned his compass. Second. By his negligence. It is all one if the nurse hath no milk in her breasts, or having [it], draws it not forth to her child. There is a woe to the idle shepherd, Zechariah 11:17; such as have mouths, but speak not; lips, but not to feed the people with knowledge. It shall be the people’s sin, if they feed not when bread is before them, but woe to us if we give them not meat in due season. O sirs, what shall we say to our Lord that trusts us, if those abilities which he hath given us as market-money to buy bread for our people, be found wrapped up in a napkin of sloth? if that time wherein we should have been teaching and instructing them, shall appear to be wasted in our pleasures, or employed about our car­nal profits. That servant shall have but a sad wel­come of his master when he comes home, that shall be found out of the way with the key, and the family starving in meantime for want of provision. Third. By his unedifying preaching; when he preacheth unsound doctrine, which doth not perfect the understanding, but corrupt it. Better he did leave them in simple ignorance, than colour their minds with a false dye; or when that he preacheth is frothy and flashy, no more fit to feed their souls, than husks the prodigal’s belly, which, when they know, they are little the wiser for their soul’s good. Or, when his discourses are so high flown, that the poor people stand gazing, as those who have lost the sight of their preacher, and at the end of the sermon cannot tell what he would have. Or, those who preach only truths that are for the higher form of professors, who have their senses well exercised; excellent, may be, for the building up three or four eminent saints in the congregation; but in the meantime, the weak ones in the family—who should indeed chiefly be thought on, because least able to guide themselves, or carve for themselves—these are forgotten. He, sure, is an unwise builder that makes a scaffold as high as Paul’s steeple, when his work is at the bottom, and he is to lay the foundation, whereas the scaffold should rise as the building goes up. So Paul advanceth in his doc­trine, as his hearers do in knowledge: ‘Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection,’ Hebrews 6:1. ‘Let us;’ it is well, in­deed, when the people can keep pace with the preacher. To preach truths and notions above the hearer’s capacity, is like a nurse that should go to feed the child with a spoon too big to go into its mouth. We may by such preaching please ourselves and some of higher attainments, but what shall poor ignorant ones do in the meantime? He is the faithful steward that considers both. The preacher is, as Paul saith of himself, a ‘debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise,’ Romans 1:14. [He is] to prepare truths suitable to the de­gree of his hearers. Let the wise have their portion, but let them be patient to see the weaker in the family served also. Fourth. A minister may be accessory to the igno­rance of his people, when through the scandal of his life he prejudiceth his doctrine; as a cook, who, by his nastiness, makes others afraid to eat what comes out of his foul fingers. Or he may be so, when, through his supercilious carriage, his poor people dare not come to him. He that will do any good in the min­ister’s calling, must be as careful as the fisher, that he doth nothing to scare souls away from him, but all to allure and invite, that they may be toled[24] within the compass of his net. Use Third. [To the ignorant.] Is the ignorant soul such a slave to Satan? Let this stir you up that are ignorant from your seats of sloth whereon, like the blind Egyptians, you sit in darkness, speedily come out of this darkness, or resolve to go down to utter darkness. The covering of Haman’s face did tell him that he should not stay in the king’s presence. If thou livest in ignorance, it shows thou art in God’s black bill. He puts this cover before their eyes in wrath, whom he means to turn off into hell: ‘If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost,’ 2 Corinthians 4:3. In one place sinners are threatened, ‘they shall die without knowledge,’ Job 36:12; in another place, they shall die in their sins, John 8:21. He, indeed, that dies without knowledge, dies in his sins; and what more fearful doom can the great God pass upon a creature than this? Better die in a prison, die in a ditch, than die in one’s sins. If thou die in thy sins, thou shalt rise in thy sins; as thou fallest asleep in the dust, so thou awakest in the morning of the resur­rection; if an ignorant Christless wretch, as such thou shalt be arraigned and judged. That God whom sin­ners now bid depart from them will then be worth their acquaintance—themselves being judges—but alas! then he will throw their own words in their teeth, and bid them depart from him, he desires not the knowledge of them. O sinners, you shall see at last, God can better be without your company in heaven, than you could be without his knowledge on earth. Yet, yet it is day, draw your curtains, and be­hold Christ shining upon your face with gospel-light. Hear wisdom crying in the streets, and Christ piping in your window in the voice of his Spirit and messen­gers, ‘How long, ye simple ones, will ye love sim­plicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: be­hold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you,’ Proverbs 1:21-23. What can you say, sinners, for your sottish ignorance? Where is your cloak for this sin? The time hath been when the word of the Lord was precious, and there was no open vision, not a Bible to be found in town or coun­try; when the tree of knowledge was forbidden fruit, and none might taste thereof without license from the pope. Happy he that could get a leaf or two of the Testament into a corner, afraid to tell the wife of his bosom! O how sweet were these waters, when they were forced to steal them! but you have the word, or may, in your houses; you have those that open them every Sabbath in your assemblies; many of you, at least, have the offers of your ministers, to take any pains with you in private, passionately beseeching you to pity your souls, and receive instruction; yea, it is the lamentation they generally take up, [that] you will not come unto them that you may receive light. How long may a poor minister sit in his study, before any of the ignorant sort will come upon such an errand? Lawyers have their clients, and physicians their patients; these are sought after, and called up at midnight for counsel; but alas! the soul, which is more worth than raiment and body too, that is neg­lected, and the minister seldom thought on, till both these be sent away. Perhaps, when the physician gives them over for dead, then we must come and close up those eyes with comfort, which were never opened to see Christ in his truth, or be counted cruel, because we will not sprinkle them with this holy water, and anoint them for the kingdom of heaven, though they know not a step of the way which leads to it. Ah, poor wretches! what comfort would you have us speak to those, to whom God himself speaks terror? Is heaven ours to give to whom we please? or is it in our power to alter the laws of the Most High, and save those whom he condemns? Do you not re­member the curse that is to fall upon his head ‘that maketh the blind to wander out of the way?’ Deuteronomy 27:18. What curse, then, would be our portion, if we should confirm such blind souls, that are quite out of the way to heaven, encouraging you to go on and ex­pect to reach heaven at last, when, God knows, your feet stand in those paths that lead to eternal death? No, it is written, we cannot, and God will not reverse it; you may read your very names among those damned souls which Christ comes in flaming fire to take vengeance on, who, the apostle tells us, are such ‘that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ 2 Thessalonians 1:8. And therefore, in the fear of God, let this provoke you, of what age or sex, rank or condition soever in the world, to labour for the saving knowledge of God in Christ, whom to know is life eternal. Are you young? Inquire after God betimes, while your parts are fresh, and memory strong, before the throng of worldly cares divert you, or lusts of youth debauch you. The feet of those lusts which have buried millions of others in perdition, stand ready to carry you the same way, if preventing grace come not and deliver you out of their hands, by seasoning your minds with the knowledge of God. This morning’s draught may prevent thy being in­fected with the ill savours thou mayest receive from the corrupt examples of others. Nay, how long thy stay may be in the world thou knowest not—see whether thou canst not find graves of thy length in the burial-place; and if thou shouldst die ignorant of God and his law, what would then become of thee? The small brush and the old logs, young sinners and those that are withered with age, meet and burn to­gether; or if thou shouldst stay a while longer here, may be because thou wilt not learn now, God will not teach thee then; or if thou shouldst in thy old age get acquaintance with God, yet it is sad to be sowing thy seed, when thou shouldst be reaping thy sheaves; learning to know God, when thou mightest be com­forting thyself from the old acquaintance thou hast enjoyed with him. Are you old and ignorant? Alas, poor creatures! your life in the socket, and this candle of the Lord not set up and lighted in your understanding! your body bowing to the dust, and nature tolling the pass­ing bell, as it were, and you, like one going into the dark, know not whither death will lead you or leave you. It is like the infirmities of age make you wish your bones were even laid at rest in the grave; but if you should die in this condition, your poor souls would even wish they were here again with their old burdens on their back. Aches and diseases of old age are grievous, but damned souls would thank God if he would bless them with such a heaven as to lie in these pains, to escape the torments of the other. O bethink you before you go hence! The less time you have, the more diligence you must use to gain knowl­edge. We need not be earnest, one would think, to bid the poor prisoner learn his book, that cannot read, when he knows he shall be hanged if he read not his neck-verse. It is not, indeed, the bare know­ing the truths of the gospel saves; but the gross ignorance of them, to be sure, will damn souls. Are you poor? It is not your poverty is your sin or misery, but your ignorance where the true treasure lies. Were you God’s poor, rich in knowledge and faith, you were happy—‘Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished,’ Ecclesiastes 4:13—yea, so happy, that did the princes of the world understand themselves aright, they would wish themselves in your clothes, how rag­ged soever they are, rather than be in their own robes. There are better making for you in heaven, which you shall put on, when theirs shall be pulled off to their shame. It will not then trouble you that you were, while in the world, poor; but it will torment them they were so rich and great, and so poor to God and beggarly in their souls. Are you rich? Labour for the knowledge of the Most High. Solomon had more of the world’s trea­sure than a thousand of you have, and yet we find him hard at prayer, tugging with God for knowledge, 2 Chronicles 1:10. All these outward enjoyments are but vaginœ bonorum [the shells of blessings], as afflic­tions are vaginœ malorum [the shells of evils]. I am afraid that many men think themselves privileged by their worldly greatness from this duty, as if God were bound to save them because rich. Alas, sirs, there are not so many of you like to come there. I must confess, it would make one tremble to think what a small number those among the great ones that shall be saved, are summed up into, Not many great, not many rich. Why so few saved? Because so few have saving knowledge. O the atheism, the ignorance, the sottish barbarism that is to be found even in those that the world applaud, and even worship, because of their lands and estates, who yet are not able to give any account of their faith? A poor leather-coat Chris­tian will shame and catechize a hundred of them. If heaven were to be purchased with house and lands, then these would carry it away from the poor disciples of Jesus Christ—they have their hundreds and thousands lying by them for a purchase always, but this money is not current in heaven’s exchange. ‘This is life eternal, to know thee, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’ Question. But how may an ignorant soul attain to knowledge? Answer First. Be deeply affected with thy ignor­ance. Some are blind, as Laodicea, and know it not, Revelation 3:17. As ignorance blinds the mind, so pride is a blind before their ignorance, that they know it not. These have such a high opinion of themselves that they take it ill that any should suspect them as such. These of all men are most out of the way to knowl­edge; they are too good to learn of man, as they think, and too bad to be taught of God. The gate into Christ’s school is low, and these cannot stoop. The Master himself is so humble and lowly, that he will not teach a proud scholar. Therefore first become a fool in thine own eye. A wiser man than thyself hath confessed as much: ‘I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowl­edge of the holy,’ Proverbs 30:2-3. When thou art come to thyself to own and blush at the brutish ignorance of thy mind, thou art fit to be admitted into Christ’s school. If they be ashamed, then show them the pattern of the house, Ezekiel 43:10. Answer Second. Be faithful with that little knowledge thou hast. Art thou convinced this is a sin, and that is a duty? Follow the light close, you know not what this little may grow to. We use to set up our children with a little stock at first, and as they use it, so we add. The kingdom of God comes of small beginnings. God complains of Israel, they were brutish in their knowledge, Jeremiah 10:14. He doth not say, brutish in their ignorance; had they sinned be­cause they did not know better, this would have excused à tanto [by so much], but they did that which was brutish and unreasonable, as their worshipping graven images, notwithstanding they knew to the con­trary. That man shall not excel in knowledge who prostitutes it to sin: ‘If they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge,’ Job 36:12. A candle pent up close in a dark lantern, sweals[25] out apace; and so doth light shut up in the conscience, and not suffered to come forth in the conversation. Those heathens that are charged for holding ‘the truth in unrighteousness,’ Romans 1:18, the next news you hear from them is, that they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened, Romans 8:21. Answer Third. Ply the throne of grace. He is the best student in divinity that studies most upon his knees[26]. Knowledge is a divine gift; all light is from heaven. God is the Father of light, and prayer puts the soul under the pupilage of God. If anyone lack wisdom, let him ask it of God. This is more than naked knowledge; wisdom how to use it. Study may make one a great scholar in the Scriptures, but prayer makes a wise Christian, as it obtains sanctified knowledge, without which it is no perfect gift, but *äDÎ< –*TD@<—a gift and no gift. Pray then with an humble boldness. God gives it all to ask, and that •B8TH—candidly, liberally; not like proud man, who will rather put one to shame, who is weak for his ignorance, than take the pains to teach him. Thy petition is very pleasing to God. Remember how Sol­omon sped upon the like occasion, and promise thy­self the same success. Christ’s school is a free school; he denies none that come to him, so they will submit to the orders of the school; and though all have not an answer in the same degree of knowledge—it is not needful that all should be Solomons in knowledge, except all were to be Solomons in place; yet the meanest disciple that Christ sends forth, shall be furnished with saving knowledge enough to fir him for his admittance into heaven’s academy. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and after bring me to glory. Answer Fourth. Thou must bestow some time for thy diligent search after truth. Truth lies deep, and must be digged for. Since man was turned out of paradise, he can do nothing without labour except sin (this follows his hand indeed), but this treasure of knowledge calls for spade and mattock. We are bid ‘search the Scriptures.’ Again, it is said that ‘many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be in­creased,’ Daniel 12:4—a metaphor from merchants, who bestir themselves to get an estate, run to and fro, first in one land, then in another; wherever they hear of anything to be got, thither they post, though to the ends of the earth. Thus must the soul run from one duty to another, one while read, and anon meditate of what he hath read, then pray over his meditations, and ask counsel after all. What is the meaning of this, and how understand you that? [Not the school of Epicurus, but intercourse with him, made great men[27].] There is more light got sometimes by a short conference with the preacher, than by his whole sermon. Be sure thou compass all the means for knowledge within the walk of thy endeavour. In this thy search for knowledge observe three things. 1. The end thou proposest, that it be pure and holy; not merely to know, as some do, who labour for knowledge, as many for estates, and when they have got it, look on their notions, as they on their bags of money, but have not a heart to use their knowledge for their own or others’ good; this is a sore evil. Speculative knowledge, like Rachel, is fair, but bar­ren. Not to be known and admired by others for thy stature in knowledge above thy brethren, verily, it is too base an end to aim at, in seeking knowledge, especially such as is the knowledge of God in Christ. To see a heathen study for knowledge in philosophy, and then carry all his labour to this market, and think himself rewarded with obtaining the name for a wise man, is, though base, yet more tolerable; but for one that knows God, and what it is to enjoy him, for such a one to content himself with a blast or two of sorry man’s vain breath, this is folly with a witness. Look thou fliest higher in thy end than so. Labour for knowledge, that thou mayest fear God whom thou knowest. Thus David, ‘Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end,’ Psalms 119:33. The Word of God is called a light unto our feet, not to our tongues, merely to talk of, but [to our] feet to walk by. Endeavour for it, not that thou mayest spread thy own name, but celebrate God’s. As David promiseth, when he understands the precepts of God, then he will talk of his wondrous works, he will trumpet the fame of them, and thereby awaken others to inquire after God. 2. When thy end is right set, then thou must be constant in thy endeavour after it. The mysteries of Christ are not learned in a day. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord, Hosea 6:3. Some are in a good mood, may be, and they will look into the Bible, and read a chapter or two, and away they go for a week, and never practice it more, like some boys [who] if at school one day, truant all the week after; is it any wonder such thrive not in knowledge? It is a good speech of Bernard:[28] ‘The study of the word, and the reading of it differ as much as the friendship of such who every day converse lovingly together, doth from the acquaintance one hath with a stranger at an inn, or whom he salutes as he passeth by in the street.’ If you will get knowledge indeed, you must not only salute the word now and then, but walk with it, and enter into daily converse with it. The three men, who were indeed angels, that stood by Abraham, as he sat at his tent door, were reserved and strange, till Abraham invited them into his tent, and enter­tained them friendly, Genesis 18:2; and then Christ, who was one among them—as appears by the name Jehovah, given him in several verses, and also by what he promised he would do for Sarah, Genesis 18:10, not what God would do, which if a created angel, he would —begins to discover himself to Abraham, and [to] reveal his secrets to him. That soul above others shall be acquainted with the secrets of God in his word, that doth not slightly read the word, and as it were compliment with it, at his tent-door, but desires more intimacy with it, and therefore entertains it within his soul by frequent meditating of it. David compares the word for sweetness to the honey and the honey-comb. Indeed it is so full, that at first reading some sweetness will now and then drop from it, but he that doth not press it by meditation, leaves the most behind. 3. Be sure thou takest the right order and meth­od. Arts and sciences have their rudiments, and also their more abstruse and deep notions, and sure the right end to begin at is first to learn the principles. He, we say, is not likely to make a good scholar in the university, that never was a good grammar-scholar. And they cannot be solid Christians, that are not in­structed in the grounds of Christianity. The want of this is the cause why many are so unsteadfast. First of this way and then of that, blown like glasses into any shape, as false teachers please to breathe. Alas! they have no center to draw their lines from. Think it no disgrace you who have run into error, and lost yourselves in the labyrinths of deep points, which now are the great discourse of the weakest professors, to be set back to learn the first principles of the oracles of God better. Too many are, as Tertullian saith in another case,[29] more tender of their reputation than their salvation: who are more ashamed to be thought ignorant, than careful to have it cured. Answer Fifth. If thou wouldst attain to divine knowledge, wait on the ministry of the word. As for those who neglect this, and come not where the word is preached, they do like that one should turn his back on the sun that he may see it. If thou wouldst know God, come where he hath appointed thee to learn. Indeed, where the means is not, God hath extraordinary ways, as a father, if [there is] no school in town, will teach his child at home, but if there be a public school, thither he sends him. God maketh manifest, saith Paul, the savour of his knowledge by us in every place, 2 Corinthians 2:14. Let men talk of the Spirit what they please. He will at last be found a quencher of the Spirit, that is, a despiser of prophecy; they both stand close together, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20, Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesying. But it is not enough to sit under the means. Woeful experience teacheth us this. There are some no sun will tan, they keep their old complexion under the most shin­ing and burning light of the word preached, as ig­norant and profane as those that never saw gospel-day; and therefore if thou wilt receive any spiritual advantage by the word, take heed how thou hearest. 1. Look thou beest a wakeful hearer. Is it any wonder he should go away from the sermon no wiser than he came, that sleeps the greatest part of it away, or hears betwixt sleeping and waking? It must be in a dream sure, if God reveals anything to his mind to him. So indeed God did to the fathers of old, but it was not as they profanely slept under an ordinance. O take heed of such irreverence. He that composeth himself to sleep, as some do, at such a time, or he that is not humbled for it, and that deeply, both of them betray the base and low esteem they have of the ordinance. Surely thou thinkest but meanly of what is delivered, if it will not keep thee awake, yea, of God himself, whose message it is. See how thou art reproved by the awful carriage of a heathen, and that a king. Ehud did but say to Eglon, I have a message from God unto thee, and he arose out of his seat, Judges 3:20. And thou clappest down on thy seat to sleep. O how darest thou put such an affront upon the great God? How oft did you fall asleep at dinner, or telling your money? And is not the word of God worth more than these? I should wonder if such sermon-sleepers do dream of anything but hell-fire. It is dangerous, you know, to fall asleep with a candle burning by our side—some have been so burned in their beds; but more dangerous to sleep while the candle of the word is shining so near us. What if you should sink down dead like Eutychus? here is no Paul to raise you as he had; and that you shall not, where is your security? 2. Thou must be an attentive hearer. He that is awake, but wanders with his eye or heart, what doth he but sleep with his eyes open? It were as good the servant should be asleep in his bed, as when up, not to mind his master’s business. When God intends a soul good by the word, he draws such a one to listen and hearken heedfully to what is delivered, as we see in Lydia, who, it is said, attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul; and those, Luke 19:48, ‘The people were attentive to hear him.’ They did hang on him, as you shall see bees on some sweet flower, or as young birds on the bills of their dams as they feed them, that is, the soul which shall get light and life by the word. Hear ye children, and attend to know understanding, Proverbs 4:1. Labour therefore in hearing the word to fix thy quicksilver mind, and set thyself to hear, as it is said Jehoshaphat did to pray; and that thou mayest, before thou goest, get thy heart into some deep sense of thy spiritual wants, especially of thy ignorance of the things of God, and thy de­plored condition by reason of it: till the heart be touched, the mind will not be fixed. Therefore you may observe, it is said, God opened the heart of Lydia, that she attend, Acts 16:14. The mind goes of the will’s errand; we spend our thoughts on what our hearts propose. If the heart hath no sense of its ig­norance, or no desires after God, no wonder such a one listens not [to] what the preacher saith, his heart sends his mind another way. They sit before me as my people, saith God, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. They do not come out of such an in­tent or desire to hear for any good to their souls; then they would apply themselves wholly to the work. No, it is their covetousness that hath their hearts, and therefore as some idle servant, when he hath waited on his master [and] brought him to his pew, then he goes out to his good fellows at the alehouse, and comes no more till sermon be almost done. So do the thoughts of most when they go to the ordinance; they slip out in the street, market, or shop; you may find them anywhere but about the duty before them, and all because these have their hearts more than God and his word. 3. Thou must be a retentive hearer. Without this the work will ever be to begin again. Truths to a forgetful hearer are as a seal set on water, the impression lasts no longer than the seal is on; the ser­mon once done, and all is undone. Be therefore very careful to fasten what thou hearest on thy memory, which that thou mayest do, (1.) Receive the truth in the love of it. An affec­tionate hearer will not be a forgetful hearer. Love helps the memory. ‘Can a woman forget a child, or a maid her ornaments, or a bride her attire?’ No, they love them too well. Were the truths of God thus pre­cious to thee, thou wouldst with David think of them day and night. Even when the Christian, through weakness of memory, cannot remember the very words he hears, to repeat them, yet then he keeps the power and savour of them in his spirit. As when sugar is dissolved in wine, you cannot see it, but you may taste it; when meat is eaten and digested it is not to be found as it was received, but the man is cheered and strengthened by it, more able to walk and work than before, by which you may know it is not lost; so you may taste the truths the Christian heard in his spirit [and] see them in his life. Perhaps if you ask him what the particulars were the minister had about faith, mortification, repentance, and the like, he cannot tell you; yet this you may find, his heart is more broken for sin, more enabled to rely on the promises, and now weaned from the world. As that good woman answered one, that coming from ser­mon, asked her what she remembered of the sermon; [she] said she could not recall much, but she heard that which should make her reform some things as soon as she came home. (2.) Meditate on what thou hearest. By this David got more wisdom than his teachers. Observe what truth, what Scripture is cleared to thee in the sermon more than before, take some time in secret to converse with it, and make it thereby familiar to thy understanding. Meditation to the sermon in what the harrow is to the seed, it covers those truths, which else might have been picked or washed away. I am afraid there are many proofs turned down at a ser­mon, that are hardly turned up, and looked on any more, when the sermon is done; and if so, you make others believe you are greater traders for your souls, than you are indeed. It is as if one should come to a shop and lay by a great deal of rich ware, and when he hath done goes away, and never calls for it. O take heed of such doings. The hypocrite cheats himself worst at last. (3.) Discharge thy memory of what is sinful. We wipe our table-book and deface what is there scrib­bled, before they can write anew. There is such a contrariety betwixt the truths of God, and all that is frothy and sinful, that one puts out the other. If you would retain the one, you must let the other go. BRANCH FOURTH. Against spiritual wickedness. These words are the fourth branch in the des­cription, spiritual wickedness, and our contest or combat with them as such [is] expressed by the adversative particle ‘against.’ In the Greek [it reads] BDÎH J B<,Lµ"J46 J­H B@<0D\"H, word for word, against the spirituals of wickedness, which is, say some, ‘against wicked spirits;’ that is true, but not all. I conceive, with many interpreters, not only the spir­itual nature of the devil, and the wickedness thereof, to be intended, but also, yea chiefly, the nature and kind of those sins which these wicked spirits do most usually and vigorously provoke the saints unto; and they are the spirituals of wickedness, not those gross fleshly sins, which the heard of beastly sinners, like swine, wallow in, but sin spiritualized, and this because it is not BFrom The Random House Dictionary. — SDB [2]Flagitious, marked by outrageous or scandalous crime or vice.—SDB [3]Toll, usually spelled tole—to draw on, allure.—Ed. [4]Minatory, threatening, menacing.—SDB [5]Teasel, any of a genus of Old World prickly herbs; with flower heads covered with stiff hooked bracts —called also fuller’s teasel. Or: a flower head of a fuller’s teasel used when dried to raise a nap on woolen cloth. Or: a wire substitute for a fuller’s teasel. From Web­ster’s. —SDB [6]Carbonading, i.e. cutting up or across, in order to broiling. [7]Copy-hold, A former tenure of land in England and Ireland by right of being recorded in the court of the manor. From Webster’s.—SDB [8]Dreggy, full of dregs, muddy.—Ed. [9]Quartan, occurring every fourth day.—Ed.. [10]Shaleing, taken, probably, from shale, meaning a husk or shell; hence, outside, specious.—Ed. [11]Fiduciary, i.e. confident. [12]Lure is explained by Latham to be—‘that whereto falconers call their young hawks by casting it up in the air;’—generally something which invites by the prospect of advantage.—Ed. [13]Fleering, i.e. mocking, deriding.—Ed. [14]Jointure—an estate settled on a wife to be taken by her in lieu of a dower; a settlement on the wife of a freehold estate for her lifetime. From Webster’s.—SDB [15]Cum interea non satageret pater, qualis cresserem tibi, dummodo essem disertus, velpotius desertus a culturâ tuâ deus. [16]Roule i.e. roll.—Halliwell. [17]Complacency—It would seem that the Rev. Gurnall has in mind here the meaning more associated with the word complaisance i.e., a disposition to please or oblige: affability. From Webster’s.—SDB [18]Multa bona facit Deus in homine, quæ non facit homo, nulla vero facit homo, quæ non facit Deus ut faciat. — Augustine [19]Crock and smutch, i.e. blacken with smoke, soot, or coal.—Ed. [20]Justiciary—it would seem that he means to say that one might be feeling self-righteous and not just a little judgmental.—SDB ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.10 - THIRD PIECE - THE CHRISTIAN'S SPIRITUAL SHOE ======================================================================== Direction Seventh. The Several Pieces of the Whole Armour of God. Third Piece—The Christian’s Spiritual Shoe. ‘And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace’ (Ephesians 6:15). This verse presents us with the third piece of armour in the Christian’s panoply—A Spiritual Shoe, fitted to his foot, and to be worn by him, so long as he keeps the field against sin and Satan. ‘And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.’ We shall cast the words into distinct questions or inquiries, from the resolution of which will result the several points to be insisted on. First. What is meant by the ‘gospel.’ Second. What is meant by ‘peace,’ and why it is attributed to ‘the gospel.’ Third. What the ‘feet’ here mentioned import, and what grace is intended by ‘the preparation of the gospel of peace,’ which here is compared to the shoe, and fitted for these feet. DIRECTION VII.—FIRST GENERAL PART. [What is meant by the Gospel.] What is meant by the gospel. Gospel, according to the notation of the original word, ¦L"((X84@<, signifies any good news, or joyful message. So, Jeremiah 20:15, ‘Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad’—Septuagint, Ò ¦L"((,84FVµ,<@H Jè B"JDÂ. But usually in Scripture, it is restrained, by way of excellency, to signify the doctrine of Christ, and salvation by him to poor sinners. ‘I bring you good tidings,’ said the angel to the shepherds, ‘of great joy,’ Luke 2:10. And, Luke 2:11, he addeth, ‘unto you is born....a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’ Thus it is taken in this place, and generally in the New Testament, and affords this note. Doctrine. The revelation of Christ, and the grace of God through him, is without compare the best news, and the joyfullest tidings, that poor sinners can hear. It is such a message that no good news can come before it, nor no ill news follow. No good news can come before it, no, not from God himself to the creature. He cannot issue out any blessing to poor sinners till he hath shown mercy to their souls in Christ. ‘God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us,’ Psalms 67:1. First. God forgives and then he gives. Till he be merciful to pardon our sins through Christ, he cannot bless or look kindly on us sinners. All our enjoyments are but blessings in bullion, till gospel grace —pardoning mercy—stamp, and make them current. God cannot so much as bear any good-will to us, till Christ makes peace for us; ‘on earth peace, good-will toward men,’ Luke 2:14. And what joy can a sinner take, though it were to hear of a kingdom befallen to him, if he may not have it with God’s good-will? Second. Again, no ill news can come after the glad tidings of the gospel, where believingly embraced. God’s mercy in Christ alters the very property of all evils to the believer. All plagues and judgments that can befall the creature in the world, when baptized in the stream of gospel-grace, receive a new name, come on a new errand, and have a new taste on the believer’s palate, as the same water by running through some mine, gets a tang and a healing virtue, which before it had not. ‘The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity,’ Isaiah 33:24. Observe, he doth not say ‘They shall not be sick.’ Gospel grace doth not exempt from afflictions, but ‘they shall not say, I am sick.’ they shall be so ravished with the joy of God’s pardoning mercy, that they shall not complain of being sick. This or any other cross is too thin a veil to darken the joy of the other good news. This is so joyful a message which the gospel brings, that God would not have Adam long without it, but opened a crevice to let some beams of this light, that is so pleasant to behold, into his soul, amazed with the terror of God’s presence. As he was turned out of paradise without it, so he had been turned into hell immediately; for such the world would have been to his guilty conscience. This is the news God used to tell his people of, on a design to comfort them and cheer them, when things went worst with them, and their affairs were at the lowest ebb, Isaiah 7:15; Micah 5:5. This is the great secret which God whispers, by his Spirit, in the ear of those only [whom] he embraces with his special distinguishing love, Luke 10:21; 1 Corinthians 2:12, so that it is made the sad sign of a soul marked out for hell, to have the gospel ‘hid’ from it, 2 Corinthians 4:3. To wind up this in a few words, there meet all the properties of a joyful message in the glad tidings of the gospel. [The five properties of a joyful message found in the gospel.] Five ingredients are desirable in a message, yea, must all conspire to fill up the joyfulness thereof into a redundancy. First Property. A message to be joyful must be good. None rejoice to hear evil news. Joy is the dila­tion of the heart, whereby it goes forth to meet and welcome in what it desires; and this must needs be some good. Ill news is sure to find the heart shut against it, and to come before it is welcome. Second Property. It must be some great good, or else it affects little. Affections are stirred according to the degrees of good or evil in the object presented. A thing we hear may be so inconsiderable, that it is no great odds how it goes, but if it be good, and that great also, of weighty importance, this causeth rejoicing proportionable. The greater the bell, the more strength is required to raise it. It must be a great good that raiseth great joy. Third Property. This great good must intimately concern them that hear it. My meaning is, they must have propriety in it. For though we can rejoice to hear of some great good befallen another, yet it affects most when it is emptied into our own bosom. A sick man doth not feel the joy of another’s recovery with the same advantage as he would do his own. Fourth Property. It would much add to the joy­fulness of the news if this were inauditum or insper­atum—unheard of and unlooked for—when the tidings steal upon us by way of surprise. The farther our own ignorance or despair has set us off all thoughts of so great enjoyment, the more joy it brings with it when we hear the news of it. The joy of a poor swineherd’s son, who never dreamed of a crown, would be greater at the news of such a thing conferred on him, than he whose birth invited him to look for it, yea, promised it him as his inheritance. Such a one’s heart would but stand level to the place, and therefore could not be so ravished with it, as another, who lay so far below such a preferment. Fifth Property. To fill up the joy of all these, it is most necessary that the news be true and certain, else all the joy soon leaks out. What great joy would it afford to hear of a kingdom befallen to a man, and the next day or month to hear all crossed again and prove false? Now, in the glad tidings of the gospel, all these do most happily meet together, to wind up the joy of the believing soul to the highest pin that the strings of his affections can possibly bear. 1. The news which the gospel hath in its mouth to tell us poor sinners is good. It speaks promises, and they are significations of some good intended by God for poor sinners. The law, that brings ill news to town. Threatenings are the lingua vernacula legis —the native language of the law. It can speak no other language to sinners but denunciations of evil to come upon them; but the gospel smiles on poor sinners, and plains the wrinkles that sit on the law’s brow, by proclaiming promises. 2. The news the gospel brings is as great as good. It was that the angel said, ‘I bring you good tidings of great joy,’ Luke 2:10. Great joy it must needs be, be­cause it is all joy. The Lord Christ brings such news in his gospel as that he left nothing for any after him to add to it. If there be any good wanting in the ti­dings of the gospel, we find it elsewhere than in God, for in the covenant of the gospel he gives himself through Christ to the believing soul. Surely the apos­tle’s argument will hold: ‘All things are yours and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s,’ 1 Corinthians 3:22-23. The gospel lays our pipes close to the fountain of goodness itself; and he, sure, must have all, that is united to him that hath that is all. Can any good news come to the glorified saints which heaven doth not afford them? In the gospel we have news of that glory. ‘Jesus Christ, hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,’ 2 Timothy 1:10. The sun in the firmament discovers only the lower world; absignat cælum dum revelat terram—O it hides heaven from us, while it shows the earth to us! But the gospel en­lightens both at once—‘Godliness hath the promise of the life that is now, and of that which is to come,’ 1 Timothy 4:8. 3. The gospel doth not tell us news we are little concerned in—not what God has done for angels, but for us. ‘Unto you,’ saith the angel, ‘is born a Saviour, Christ the Lord.’ If charity made angels rejoice for our happiness, surely then, the benefit which is paid into our nature by it, gives a further pleasure to our joy at the hearing of it. It were strange that the mes­senger who only brings the news of some great empire to be devolved on a person should sing, and the prince to whom it falls should not be glad. And, as the gospel’s glad tidings belong to man’s nature, not to angels; so in particular, to thee, poor soul, whoever thou art, that embracest Christ in the arms of thy faith. A prince is a common good to all his kingdom —every subject, though never so mean, hath a part in him—and so is Christ to all believers. The promises are so laid that, like a well‑drawn picture, they look on all that look on them by an eye of faith. The gos­pel’s joy is thy joy, that hast but faith to receive it. 4. The glad tidings of the gospel were unheard of and unlooked for by the sons of men. Such news it brings as never could have entered into the heart of man to conceive, till God unlocked the cabinet of his own good pleasure, and revealed the counsel of his will, wherein this mysterious price of love to fallen man lay hid far enough from the prying eye of the most quick-sighted angel in heaven, much more from man himself, who could read in his own guilty conscience within, and spell from the covenant without, now broken by him, nothing but his certain doom and damnation. So that the first gospel-sermon preached by God himself to Adam, anticipated all thoughts of such a thing intended to him. O who but one that hath really felt the terrors of an approaching hell in his despairing soul, can conceive how joyous the ti­dings of gospel mercy is to a poor soul, dwelling amidst the black thoughts of despair, and bordering on the very marches of the region of utter darkness! Story tells us of a nobleman of our nation, in King Henry VIII.’s reign, to whom a pardon was sent a few hours before he should have been beheaded, which, being not at all expected by him, did so transport him that he died for joy. And if the vessel of our nature be so weakly hooped that the wine of such an inferior joy breaks it, how then could it possibly be able to bear the full joy of the gospel tidings, which doth as far exceed this as the mercy of God doth the mercy of a mortal man, and as the deliverance from an eternal death in hell doth a deliverance from a temporary death, which is gone before the pain can well be felt? 5. The glad tidings of the gospel are certainly true. It is no flying report, cried up today, and liked to be crossed tomorrow—not news that is in every one’s mouth, but none can tell whence it came, and who is the author of it; we have it from a good hand —God himself, to whom it is impossible to lie. He from heaven voucheth it—‘This is my beloved Son: hear him,’ Luke 9:35. What were all those miracles which Christ wrought but ratifications of the truth of the gospel? Those wretches that denied the truth of Christ’s doctrine, were forced many times to acknowledge the divinity of his miracles, which is a pretty piece of nonsense, and declares the absurdity of their unbelief to all the world. The miracles were to the gospel as seals are to a writing. They could not deny God to be in the miracles, and yet they could not see him in the doctrine! As if God would set his seal to an untruth! Here, Christians, is that which fills up the joy of this good news the gospel brings—that we may lay our lives upon the truth of it. It will never deceive any that lay the weight of their confidence on it. ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accepta­tion, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ 1 Timothy 1:15. This bridge which the gospel lays over the gulf of God’s wrath, for poor sinners to pass from their sins into the favour of God here, and [into the] kingdom of God hereafter, is supported with no other arches than the wisdom, power, mercy, and faithfulness of God; so that the believing soul needs not fear, till it sees these bow or break. It is called the ‘everlasting gospel,’ Revelation 14:6. When heaven and earth go to wreck, not the least iota or tittle of any promise of the gospel shall be buried in their ruins. ‘The word of the Lord endureth for ever; and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you,’ 1 Peter 1:25. USE OR APPLICATION. [Claim of those who never heard the gospel on our compassion.] Use First. Pity those that never heard word of this good news. Such there are in the world—whole nations, with whom the day is not yet broke, but a dismal night of ignorance and barbarism continues to be stretched over them—whose forlorn souls are un­der a continual massacre from the bloody butcher of hell! An easy conquest, God knows, that soul-fiend makes of them. He lays his cruel knife to their throats, and meets with no resistance, because he finds them fast asleep in ignorance—utterly destitute of that light which alone can discover a way to escape the hands of this destroyer. What heart, that ever tas­ted the sweetness of gospel grace, trembles not at their deplored state?—yea, doth not stand astonished at the difference of God’s dispensations to them and us? ‘Lord, why wilt thou manifest thyself to us, and not to the world?’ God pardon the unmercifulness of our hearts, that we can weep no more over them. Truly we do not live so far from the Moors and Indians but we may—by not pitying of them, and earnest desiring their conversion—besmear ourselves with the guilt of their souls’ blood, which is shed continually by the destroyer of mankind. O how sel­dom is their miserable the companion of our sorrow­ful thoughts, and their conversion the subject of our prayers and desires! There have been, alas! in the world, more counsels how to ease them of their gold, than enrich them with the treasure of the gospel —how to get their land, than how to save their souls. But the time is coming, when winning souls will be found more honourable than conquering nations. Well, Christian, though thou canst not impart to them what God hath laid on thy trencher, yet, as thou sittest at the feast of the gospel, think of those poor souls, and that compassionately, who starve to death for want of that bread with which thou art fed unto eternal life. There is an opinion which some have lately taken up, that the heathens may spell Christ out of the sun, moon and stars. These may seem kinder than others have been to them; but I wish it doth not make them more cruel to them in the end —I mean by not praying so heartily for gospel light to arise among them, as those must needs do who be­lieve them under a sad necessity of perishing without it. When a garrison is judged pretty well stored with provisions for its defence, it is an occasion that relief and succour comes the slower to it. And I wish Satan hath not such a design against those forlorn souls in this principle. If such a lesson were to be got by the stars, we should ere this have heard of some that had learned it. Indeed, I find a star led the wise men to Christ; but they had a heavenly preacher to open the text to them, or else they would never have understood it. [Lamentation for the unkind welcome the gospel finds in the world.] Use Second. A sad lamentation may be here taken up, that so good news should have such an ill welcome as the gospel commonly finds in the world. When the tidings were first told at Jerusalem of a Saviour being born, on would have thought—espe­cially if we consider that the Scripture reckoning was now out for the birth of the Messias, and they big with the expectation of his coming—that all hearts should have leaped within them for joy at the news, to see their hopes so happily delivered and accomplished. But, behold, the clean contrary. Christ’s coming proves matter of trouble and distaste to them. They take the alarm at his birth, as if an enemy, a destroyer —not a Saviour—were landed in their coast; and as such, Herod goes out against him, and makes him flee the country. But possibly, though at present they stumble at the meanness of his birth and parentage, yet, when the rays of his divinity shall shame through his miracles, then they will religiously worship him when now they contemn; when he comes forth into his public ministry, opens his commission and shows his authority—yea, with his own lips tells the joyful message he brings from the Father unto the sons of men, then surely they will dearly love his person, and thankfully embrace, yea greedily drink in, the glad tidings of salvation which he preacheth to them. No; they persist in their cursed unbelief and obstinate rejecting of him. Though the Scripture, which they seemed to adore, bear so full a testimony for Christ that it accuseth them to their own consciences, yet they will have none of him. Christ tells them so much—‘Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me; and ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,’ John 5:39-40. Life they desired, yet will lose it rather than come to him for it. And is the world now amended? Doth Christ in his gospel meet with any kinder usage at the hands of most? The note that Christ sings is still the same, ‘Come unto me, that ye may have life.’ The worst hurt Christ does poor souls that come unto him, is to put them into a state of life and salvation; and yet where is the person that likes the offer? O, it is other news that men generally listen after. This makes the exchange, the market-place, so full, and the church so thin and empty. Most expect to hear their best news from the world. They look upon the news of the gos­pel as foreign, and that which doth not so much con­cern them, at least at present. It is time enough, they think, to mind this, when they are going into another world. Alas! the gospel is not accommodated to their carnal desires. It tells them off no fields and vineyards that it hath to give. It invites them not with the gaieties of worldly honours and pleasures. Had Christ in his gospel but gratified the cravings of men’s lusts with a few promises for these things—though he had promised less for another world—the news would have gone down better with these sots, who had rather hear one prophecy of wine and strong drink, than [to hear] preach of heaven itself. Truly, there are but a very few—and those sufficiently jeered for their pains —that like the message of the gospel so well as to receive it cordially into their hearts. If any one does but give entertainment to Christ, and it be known, what an alarm does it give to all his carnal neighbours! If they do not presently beset his house, as the Sodomite’s did Lot’s, yet do they set some brand of scorn upon him—yea, make account they have now reason enough to despise and hate him, how well soever they loved him before. O what will God do with this degenerate age we live in! O England! England! I fear some sad judgment or other bodes for thee! If such glad tidings as the gospel brings be rejected, sad news cannot be far off—I cannot think of less than of a departing gospel. God never made such settlement of his gospel among any people but he could remove it from them. He comes but upon liking, and will he stay where he is not welcome? Who will that hath elsewhere to go? It is high time for the merchant to pack up and be gone when few or none will buy, nay, when instead of buy­ing, they will not suffer him to be quiet in his shop, but throw stones at him, and dirt on his richest com­modities. Do we not see the names of Christ’s faithful messengers bleeding at this day under the reproaches that fly so thick about their ears? Are not the most precious truths of the gospel almost covered with the mire and dirt of errors and blasphemies, which men of corrupt minds—set on work by the devil himself—have raked out of every filthy puddle and sink of old heretics and thrown on the face of Christ and his gospel! And where is the hand so kind as to wipe off that which they have thrown on? the heart so valiant for the truth as to stop these foul mouths from spitting their venom against Christ and his gospel? If anything be done of this kind, alas! it is so faintly, that they gather heart by it. Justice is so favourably sprinkled, like a few drops upon fire, that it rather increaseth the flame of their rage against the truth than quencheth it. A prince calls not home his ambassador for every affront that is offered him in the streets—only when he is affronted and can have no redress for the wrong. Objection. But some may say, Though it cannot be denied that the gospel hath found very unkind entertainment by many among us, and especially of late years—since a spirit of error hath so sadly prevailed in the land—yet, make us not worse than we are.’ There is, blessed be God, ‘a remnant of gracious souls yet to be found to whom Christ is precious —who gladly embrace the message of the gospel, and weep in secret for the contempt that is cast upon it by men of corrupt minds and profane hearts, and therefore we hope we are not in such imminent danger of losing the gospel as your fears suggest.’ Answer. If there were not such a sprinkling of saints among us, our case would indeed be desperate, conclusum esset de nobis—the shades of that dismal night would quickly be upon us. These are they that have held the gospel thus long among us. Christ had, as to his gospel presence, been gone ere this, had not these hung about his legs, and with their strong cries and prayers entreated his stay. But there are a few considerations as to these, which, seriously weighed, will not leave us without some tremblings of heart. 1. Consideration. Consider what little proportion, as to the number, I mean, do these that embrace the gospel bear with those that continue to reject it —those that desire to keep Christ among us with those that wish him gone and would gladly be rid of him. Were it put to the vote, would not they carry it by thousands of thousands that care not whether we have a gospel or not? And doth it not prophesy sadly when the odds are so great? In all the departures of God from a people, there were ever some holy ones mingled amongst the rout of sinners. Sardis had her ‘few names which had not defiled their garments;’ but yet the ‘candlestick was removed.’ All that they could get was a promise for themselves in particular—‘They shall walk with me in white,’ Revelation 3:4—but no protection for the church. God can pull down the house, and provide well for his saints also that he finds there. A few voices are easily drowned in the outcry of a multitude—a few pints of wine are hardly tasted in a tun of wine—and a little number of saints can do, sometimes, but little to the saving of a wretched people among whom they live. Possibly, as in a weak body, where the disease hath got the mastery, nature putting forth its summum conatum—its utmost strength—may keep life a while in the body—some days or weeks—but cannot long, without some help to evacuate the distemper; so a few saints, shut up in a degenerate age amongst an ungodly Christ-despising people, may a while prorogue the judgment, and reprieve a while the life of such a people; but if there be no change made upon them for the better, ruin must needs break in upon them. 2. Consideration. Consider, of these few gracious ones found amongst us that embrace the gospel, how many are new converts—such, I mean, as the gospel hath of late days won to Christ. I am afraid you will find this little number of saints chiefly to consist of old disciples—such as were wrought upon many years since. Alas! the womb of the gospel hath been in a great measure shut up of late, as to the bringing forth of souls by a thorough solid work of conversion. Indeed, if they may pass for converts that baptize themselves into a new way and form of wor­ship, or that begin their religion with a tenet and an opinion, we have more than a good many to show of these. But in this old age of England’s withered pro­fession, how great a rarity is a sincere convert? We cannot deny but God is graciously pleased to bring the pangs of the new birth now and then upon some poor souls in our assemblies, that his despised serv­ants may have his seal to confirm their ministry, and stop those mouths which are so scornfully opened against it; yet, alas! it is but here and there one. And doth not this prophesy sadly to this nation? I am sure, when we see a tree that used to stand thick with fruit no bring forth but little—may be an apple on this bough, and another on that—we look upon it as a dying tree. Leah comforted herself from her fruitfulness, that there­fore her husband would love her and cleave to her, Genesis 29:34. May we not, on the con­trary, fear that God will not love, but leave, a people when they grow barren under the means of grace? God threatens as much, ‘Be thou instruc­ted, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee,’ Jeremiah 6:8. And if God’s soul departs, then he is upon his remove as to his visible presence also. So indeed it follows, ‘lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.’ O my brethren, those golden days of the gospel are over when converts come flying as a cloud—as the doves to their windows in flocks. Now gospel news grow stale; few are taken with them. Though a kingdom hath much treasure and riches in it; yet, if trade cease, no new bullion comes in, nor merchandise be imported, it spends upon its old stock, and must needs in time decay. Our old store of saints—the treasure of their times—wears away apace, what will become of us if no new ones come in their room? Alas! when our burials are more than our births, we must needs be on the losing hand. There is a sad list of holy names taken away from us; but where are they which are born to God? If the good go, and those which are left continue bad—yea, become worse and worse—we have reason to fear that God is clearing the ground, and making way for a judgment. 3. Consideration. Consider the unhappy con­tentions and divisions that are found among the people of God yet left upon the place: these prophesy sadly, the Lord knows. Contentions ever portend ill. The remarkable departures of God, recorded in Scripture, from the church of the Jews, found them woefully divided and crumbled into parties. And the Asian churches no less. Christ sets up the light of his gospel to walk and work by, not to fight and wrangle; and therefore it were no wonder at all if he should put it out, and so end the dispute. If these storms which have been of late years upon us, and are not yet off, had but made Christians, as that did the disciples, Mark 6:48, to ply their oar and lovingly row all one way, it had been happy. We might then have expected Christ to come walking towards us in mercy, and help us safe to land. But when we throw away the oar, and fall a scuffling in the ship, while the wind continues loud about us, truly we are more like to drive Christ from us than invite him to us, we are in a more prob­able way of sinking than saving the ship and ourselves in it. [A word of exhortation to unbelievers and also to believers.] Use Third. A word of exhortation to you who have not closed with the terms of the gospel, and also to you who have—to believers and to unbelievers. 1. To unbelievers. Be persuaded to receive the message of the gospel kindly, believingly, into your hearts; it is the best news you can send back to heaven, as a gratulatory return, for the glad tidings that the gospel brings from thence. Thy embracing Christ preached to thee in the gospel, will be as wel­come news to heaven, I can tell thee, as the tidings of Christ and salvation through him, can be to thee. ‘There is joy in heaven’ at the conversion of a sinner. Heaven soon rings of this. The angels that sang Christ into the world, will not want a song when he is received into thy heart; for he came into the world for this end. Christ descended when he came into the world, but now he ascends. That was an act of his hu­miliation, this of his exaltation. The highest created throne that God can sit in, is the soul of a believer. No wonder then, that Christ calls all his friends to joy with him at a soul’s return to him and reception of him, Luke 15:9. What joy is now in heaven upon this occasion, we may collect from the joy it drew from Christ when on earth. It was some great good news that could wring a smile then from Christ, or tune his spirit into a joyful note, who was ‘a man of sorrows,’ and indeed came into the world to be so. Yet when his disciples whom he had sent forth to preach the gospel, returned with news of some victorious success of their labours, ‘in that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father,’ Luke 10:21. Of all the hours of his life, that is the hour wherein Christ would express his joy; which, with the care of the Spirit to record this passage in the history of Christ’s life, shows that Christ had an especial design in that expression of his joy at that time. And what could it be, but to let us know how much his heart was set upon this work of saving souls? and that, when he should be gone to heaven, if we meant to send any joyful news to him thither, it should be of the prosperous and victorious success the gospel hath over our hearts. This, this which could make him rejoice in the midst of all his sorrows here on earth, must needs be more joyous to him in heaven now, where he hath no bitterness from his own sufferings—which are all healed, past, and gone—to mingle with the joy of this news. And, if the kind reception of the gospel be such joyful news to him, you may easily conceive how distasteful the rejecting of it is to him. As he rejoiced in spirit to hear the gospel prevailed; so he cannot but be angry when it meets with a repulse from the unbe­lieving world. We find, Luke 14:21 ‘the master of the house’— that is Christ—‘angry,’ when his ser­vants, sent to invite the guests—that is, preach the gospel —return with a denial from those that were bidden (for so their mannerly excuses were interpreted by Christ), yea, so angry, that he claps a fearful doom upon them—‘not one of those which were bidden shall taste of my supper,’ Luke 14:24. God can least bear any contempt cast upon his grace. The Jews, though they had many grievous calamities which befell them for their idolatries and other sins, yet never any like that which the rejecting Christ brought upon them. Under those they relented, but under this they hard­ened. They would not come when the supper was on the table; and therefore the cloth is drawn, and they go supperless to bed, and die in their sins. While they shut the door of their hearts against Christ, this padlock, as I may so call it, of judiciary impenitence is fastened to it. Christ needs take no other revenge on a soul for its refusing him, to make it miserable to the height, than to condemn such a one to have its own desire. Christ thou wilt not, Christ therefore thou shalt not have. O unhappy soul thou! that hast offers of Christ, but diest without Christ! Thou goest with thy full lading to damnation. None sink so deep in hell, as those that fall into it with a stumble at Christ. That gospel which brings now good news, will, when thou shalt have a repetition sermon of it at the great day, bring the heaviest tidings with it that ever thy ears heard. 2. To believers. You who have entertained the message of the gospel, rejoice at the news. Glad ti­dings and sad hearts do not well together. When we see one heavy and sorrowful, we ask him, what ill news he hath heard. Christian, what ill news hath Christ brought from heaven with him, that makes thee walk with thy folded arms and pensive counte­nance? Psalms 132:16. To see a wicked man merry and jocund, or a Christian sad and dumpish, is alike uncomely. ‘A feast is made for laughter,’ saith Solomon, Ecclesiastes 10:19. I am sure God intended his people’s joy in the feast of the gospel. Mourners are not to sit at God’s table, Deuteronomy 26:1-19. Truly the saint’s heaviness reflects unkindly upon God himself. We do not com­mend his cheer, if it doth not cheer us. What saith the world? The Christian’s life is but a melancholy walk. Sure, thinks the carnal wretch, it is a dry feast they sit at, where so little wine of joy is drunk. And wilt thou confirm them in this their opinion, Christian? Shall they have an example to produce Christ and his word, which promise peace and joy to all that will come to this feast? O God forbid that thy conversation, wherein thou art to ‘hold forth the word of life’—to live in the eyes of the world—and which ought to be as a comment or gloss upon the word, to clear up the truth and reality of it to others—forbid that this should so disagree with the text, as to make the gladsome tidings spoken of in it, more disputed and questioned in the thoughts of the unbelieving world than before. It is an error, I confess, and that a gross one, which the Papists teach—that we cannot know the Scriptures to be the word of God, but by the testimony of the church; yet it is none to say, that a practical testimony from the saints’ lives hath great authority over the consciences of men, to convince them of the truth of the gospel. Now they will believe it is good news indeed the gospel brings, when they can read it in your cheerful lives. But when they ob­serve Christians sad with this cup of salvation in their hands, truly they suspect the wine in it is not so good as the preachers commend it to them for. Should men see all that trade to the Indies come home poorer than they went, it would be hard to persuade others to venture thither, for all the golden mountains said to be there. O Christians, let the world see that you are not losers in your joy since you have been acquainted with the gospel. Give not them cause to think by your uncomfortable walking, that when they return Christians, they must bid all joy farewell and resolve to spend their days in a house of mourning. Is the gospel a message of glad tidings? Do not then for shame, Christian, run on the world’s score by taking up any of its carnal joy; thou needest not go out of God’s house to be merry. Here is joy enough in the glad tidings of the gospel, more than thou canst spend, though thou shouldst live at a higher rate than thou dost or canst here on earth. Abraham would not take so much as ‘ thread,’ or shoe‑latchet’ from the king of Sodom, lest he should say that he made Abra­ham rich, Genesis 14:23. A Christian should deny himself of the world’s joy and delights, lest they say, These Christians draw their joy out of our cistern. The channel is cut out by the Spirit of God, in which he would have his saints’ joy to run. ‘If any be merry, let him sing psalms.’ Let the subject of his mirth be spir­itual; as, on the other hand, if he be sick, let him pray, James 5:14. A spiritual vent is given to both affec­tions of sorrow and joy. Aliter ludit ganeo, aliter princeps—a prince’s recreation must not be like a ruffian’s. No more a Christian’s joy like the carnal man’s. If ever there was need to call upon Christians to feed the lamp of their joy with spiritual fuel, holy oil, that drops from a gospel pipe, now the time is, wherein professors do symbolize with the world in their outward bravery, junketings, fashions, pastimes, and are so kind to the flesh in allowing of, yea in pleading so much for, a carnal liberty in these things, that shows too plainly that the spiritual joy to be drawn out of these wells of salvation does not satisfy them; or else they would not make up their draught from this puddle‑water, which was wont to be thirsted after only by those that had never drunk of Christ’s cup. O what is the reason for those, who would pass for Christians, forsake this pure wine of gospel joy, for the sophisticated stuff which this whore the world presents in her golden cup to them? Is it because the gladsome message of the gospel is grown stale, and so its joy—which once sparkled in the preaching of it, as generous wine doth in the cup, and cheered the hearts of believers with strong consolations—hath now lost its spirits? or can that pure stream of spiritual joy, which hath run so long through the hearts and lives of the saints in so many generations, with our mingling with the brackish water of the world’s sensual pleasures, at last fall in with them, and be content to lose its own divine nature and sweetness in such a sink? O no! The gospel is the same it was; the joy it brings as sweet and brisk, as spiritual and pure, as ever it was, and will be as long as God and Christ continue to be the same, out of whose bosom of love it first flowed, and is still fed; but the professors of this gospel now, are not the same with those holy men and women of primitive times. The world grows old, and men’s affections with it chill and become cold. We have not our taste so lively, nor our spirits so chaste and pure, to relish the heavenly viands dished forth in the gospel. The cheer is as good as ever, but the guests are worse. We are grown debauched in our judgments, and corrupt in our prin­ciples; no wonder then if carnal in our joys. Error is a whore, it takes away the heart from Christ and his spiritual joys. The head once distempered soon af­fects the heart, and, by dropping the malignity of its principles upon it, poisons it with carnal affections; and carnal affections cannot fare with any other than gross and carnal joys. Here, here is the root of the misery of our times. Hath not, think you, the devil played his game cunningly among us, who, by his instruments—transforming themselves into the like­ness of angels of light—could first raise so many credulous souls into a fond expectation of higher at­tainments in grace and comfort from their new pre­tended light, than ever yet the saints were acquainted with, and then at last make them fall so low, be so reasonable, or rather unreasonable, as to accept such sensual pleasures and joys as this world can afford, in full payment for all the glorious things he promised them? Well, sirs, this I hope will make some love the gospel the more, and stick closer to it as long as they live. O Christians! bless God for the glad tidings of the gospel; and never lend an ear to him that would be telling you other news, except you mean to part with truth to purchase a lie. Yea, let it make you careful to draw all your comfort and joy from the gospel’s breast. When a carnal heart would be merry, he doth not take the Bible down to read in that. He doth not go into the company of the promises, and walk in the meditation of them. It brings no joy to him to think of Christ or heaven. No, he takes down a play-book, may be; seeks some jovial company; goes to the exchange or market, to hear what news he can meet with. Every one, as his haunt lies; but still it is from the world he expects his joy. And now where lies thy road, Christian? whither doth thy soul lead thee for thy joy? Dost thou not go to the word, and read there what Christ has done for thee on earth, and is doing for thee in heaven? Is not the throne of grace the exchange, to which thou resortest for good news from that far country, heaven, where all thy es­tate lies, and thy best friends live? Art thou not lis­tening what promise he will speak peace from to thy soul? If so, thou hast not thy name for naught, thou art a Christian indeed. ‘True students,’ saith Erasmus, ‘that love their book indeed, when they have wearied their spirits with study, can recreate them again with study, by making a diversion from that which is severe and knotty, to some more facile and pleasant subject.’[1] Thus the true Christian, when his spirits are worn and wasted in the severer exercises of Christianity, such as are fasting and prayer, wherein he afflicts both body and soul for his sins, then can he recover them at the feast of God’s love in Christ, where he sees his water turned into wine, and the tears that even now his sins covered his face with, all washed off with the blood of Christ. When his soul is struck into a fear and trembling with the consideration of the justice of God, and the terror of his threatenings and judgements for sin, then the meditation of the sweet promises of the gospel recreate and revive him; so that, in the same word where he meets with his wound, he finds his healing; where he hath his sorrow, there also he receives his joy. DIRECTION VII.—SECOND GENERAL PART. [What is here meant by Peace.] The second inquiry follows, viz.—What peace is here meant that is attributed to the gospel. Peace is a comprehensive word. ‘We looked for peace,’ saith the prophet, ‘but no good came,’ Jeremiah 8:15. Peace brings, and carries away again with it, all good, as the sun doth light, to and from the world. When Christ would to the utmost express how well he wished his disciples, he wraps up all the happiness which his large heart could beterm them in this blessing of peace—‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,’ John 14:27. Now, take peace in its greatest latitude, if not spurious, and it will be found to grow upon this gospel-root. So that we shall lay the conclusion in general terms. Doctrine. True peace is the blessing of the gospel, and only of the gospel. This will appear in the sev­eral kinds of peace, which may be sorted into this fourfold division:—first. Peace with God which we may call peace of reconciliation. second. Peace with ourselves, or peace of conscience. third. Peace with one another, or peace of love and unity. fourth. Peace with the other creatures, even the most hurtful, which may be called a peace of indemnity and service. Let us begin, where all the others begin, with peace of reconciliation with God. For when man fell out with God, he fell out with himself, and all the world besides; and he can never come to be at peace with these, till his peace be made with God. Tranquillus Deus tranquillat omnia—a tranquil God tranquilizes all things. FIRST KIND OF PEACE. [Peace with God the blessing of the gospel.] Peace with God we may call peace of reconciliation; and peace of reconciliation with God is the bles­sing of the gospel. Three things are here to be done in prosecution of the point. First. I shall show you that there is a quarrel depending between God and the sons of men. Second. I shall show you that the gospel, and only the gospel, takes this up, and makes peace betwixt God and man; therefore called the gospel of peace. Third. I shall show you why God conveys this second piece of re­conciliation into the world in this way, and by this method. [Need for peace with God.] First. I shall show you there is a quarrel de­pending betwixt God and the sons of men. Open acts of hostility done by one nation against another pro­claim there is a war commenced. Now, such acts of hostility pass betwixt God and man. Bullets fly quick­ly to and fro on either hand. Man, he lets fly against God—though, against his will, he shoots short —whole volleys of sins and impieties. The best saints acknowledge thus much of themselves, before con­verting grace took them off. ‘We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures,’ Titus 3:3. Mark the last words, ‘serving lusts and pleasures.’ They were in pay to sin, willing to fight against God, and side with this his only enemy. Not a faculty of the soul or member of the body of an unconverted man which is not in arms against him. ‘The carnal mind,’ saith the apos­tle, ‘is enmity against God,’ Romans 8:7. And if there be war in the mind, to be sure there can be no peace in the members—inferior faculties, I mean—of the soul, which are commanded all by it. Indeed, we are by nature worst in our best part; the enmity against God is chiefly seated in the superior faculties of the soul. As in armies, the common soldiery are wholly taken up with the booty and spoil they get by the war, without much minding one side or other, but the more principal officers, especially the princes or gen­eral, go into the field full of enmity against them that oppose them; so the inferior faculties seek only satis­faction to their sensual appetite in the booty that sin affords, but the superior faculties of the mind, these come forth more directly against God, and oppose his sovereignty; yea, if it could lay a plot effectually to take away the life of God himself, there is enmity enough in the carnal mind to put it in execution. And as man is in arms against God, so is he against man. ‘God is angry with the wicked every day;...he hath bent his bow and made it ready; he hath also prepared for him the instruments of his death,’ Psalms 7:11-13. God hath set up his royal standard in defiance of all the sons and daughters of apostate Adam, who from his own mouth are proclaimed reb­els and traitors to his crown and dignity; and as against such, he hath taken the field, as with fire and sword, to be avenged on them. Yea, he gives the world sufficient testimony of his incensed wrath, by that of it which is revealed from heaven daily in the judgements executed upon sinners, and those, many of them, but ‘of a span long’—before they can show what nature they have by actual sin—yet crushed to death by God’s righteous foot, only for the viperous kind of which they come. At every door where sin sets it foot, there the wrath of God meets us. Every faculty of soul and member of body are used as a weapon of unrighteousness against God; so every one hath its portion of wrath, even to the tip of the tongue. As man is sinful all over, so is he cursed all over; inside and outside, soul and body, written all with woes and curses so close and full, that there is not room for another to interline or add to what God hath written. In a word, so fiery is the Lord’s wrath against sinful man, that all the creatures share with him in it. Though God takes his aim at man, and levels his ar­rows primarily at his very heart, yet as they go they slant upon the creature. God’s curse blasts the whole creation for man’s sake; and so he pays him some of his misery from the hand of those creatures which were primarily ordained to minister to him in his happy estate, yea, contribute some drops to the filling of his cup. As an enraged army makes spoil and havoc of all in their enemies’ land—destroys their provision, stops or poisons their waters, burns up their houses, and lets out his fury on all his hand comes at—truly thus God plagues man in every crea­ture, not one escapes his hand. The very bread we eat, water we drink, and air we breathe in, are poisoned with the curse of God; of which they who live longest die at last. All these, however, are no more to hell than the few files of men in a forlorn[2] to the whole body of an army. God doth but skirmish with sinners here, by some small parties of judgments, sent out to let them know they have an enemy alive, that observes their motions, takes the alarm their sins give him, and can be too hard for them when he pleaseth. But it is in hell where he falls on with his whole power. There sinners ‘shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power,’ 2 Thessalonians 1:9. And so much for the first, that there is a quarrel between God and man: the second follows. [The gospel effects the peace needed.] Second. I shall show you that the gospel, and only the gospel, takes this quarrel up, and makes peace between God and man:—therefore called the ‘gospel of peace.’ This will appear in two particulars. First. The gospel presents us with the articles of peace which God offers graciously to treat upon with the children of men, and this none but the gospel doth. Second. The gospel, preached and published, is the great instrument of God to effect this peace thus offered. First. The gospel presents us with the articles of peace which God graciously offers to treat and conclude an inviolable peace upon, with rebellious man. In it we have the whole method which God laid in his own thoughts from eter­nity of reconciling poor sin­ners to himself. The gospel, what is it but God’s heart in print? The precious promises of the gospel, what are they but heaven’s court-rolls translated into the creature’s language? In them are exposed to the view of our faith all the counsels and purposes of love and mercy which were concluded on by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for the recovery of lost man by Jesus Christ, who was sent as heaven’s plenipoten­tiary to earth, fully empowered and enabled, not only by preaching to treat of a peace as desired on God’s part to be concluded between God and man, but by the purchase of his death to procure a peace, and by his Spirit to seal and ratify the same to all those who —believing the credential letters which God sent with him in the miracles wrought by him, and especially the testimony which the Scripture gives of him—do by a faith unfeigned receive him into their souls as their only Lord and Saviour, Galatians 3:23. This is such a notion as is not to be learned elsewhere. A deep silence we find concerning it in Aristotle and Tully. They cannot tell us how a poor sinner may be at peace with God. Nothing of this is to be spelled from the covenant God made with Adam. That shuts the sinner up in a dark dun­geon of despair—bids him look for nothing but what the wrath of a just God can measure out to him. Thus the guilty creature is surrounded on every side as with a deluge of wrath —no hope nor help to be heard of—till the gospel, like the dove, brings the olive branch of peace, and tells him the tide is turned, and that flood of wrath which was poured on man for his sin is now fallen into another channel, even upon Christ, who was ‘made a curse for us,’ and hath not only drunk of the brook that lay in the way and hindered our passage to God, but hath drunk it off; so that where a sea was now appears dry land, a safe and fair causey, called, ‘a living way,’ Hebrews 10:20, by which every truly repenting and believing sinner may pass without any danger from the justice of God now appeased into the love and favor of God. ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Romans 5:1. We are entirely beholden to the gospel for the discovery of this secret, which the apostle solemnly acknowledgeth, where Christ is said to bring ‘life and immortality to light by the gospel,’ 2 Timothy 1:10. It lay hid in the womb of God’s pur­pose, till the gospel arose, and let us into the knowledge of it, as the light of the sun reveals to the eye what was before, but what could not be seen without its light; and therefore, it is not only called ‘a living way,’ but ‘a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us,’ in the place forementioned—so ‘new,’ that the heart of man never was acquainted with one thought of it, till the gospel opens it, according to that of Isaiah 42:16, ‘I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known.’ Second. The gospel, published and preached, is the great instrument of God to effect this peace. Before peace is concluded betwixt God and the crea­ture, both must be agreed; as God to pardon, so the sinner to accept and embrace peace upon God’s own terms. But how shall this be done? The heart of man is so deeply rooted in its enmity against God, that it requires a strength to pluck up this equal with that which tears up mountains, and carries rocks from one place to another. The gospel preached is the instrument which God useth for the effecting of it. ‘I am not ashamed,’ saith the apostle, ‘of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation,’ Romans 1:16. It is the chariot wherein the Spirit rides victoriously when he makes his entrance into the hearts of man—called therefore ‘the ministration of the Spirit,’ 2 Corinthians 3:8. He fashions anew the heart, as he framed the world at first, with a word speaking. This is the day of God’s ‘power,’ wherein he makes his people ‘willing’—power indeed, to make those that had the seeds of war sown in their very natures against God willing to be friends with him. Unheard-of power! As if the beating of a drum should carry such a charm along with its sound as to make those on the enemy’s side upon the hearing of it to throw down their arms, and seek peace at his hand against whom they even now took the field with great rage and fury. Such a secret power accompanies the gospel. It strikes many times not only the sinner’s sword out of his hand while it is stretched out against God, but the enmity out of his heart, and brings the stoutest rebel upon his knee, humbly to crave the benefit of the articles of peace published in the gospel. It makes sinners so pliant and tractable to the call of God in the gospel, that they on a sudden, upon the hearing of a gospel sermon, forget their old natural affections which they have had to their beloved lusts, and leap out of their embraces with indignation, lest they should keep God and them at odds one moment longer. Now follows the third. [Why God effects peace by the gospel.] Third. Why doth God convey this peace of re­concilia­tion unto the sons of men in this way and by this method? or, in plainer terms, why doth God chose to reconcile poor sinners to himself by Christ? For this is the peace which the gospel proclaims, Colossians 1:20, ‘And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself;’ and, Colossians 1:21-22, ‘and you, that were sometime alienated and ene­mies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.’ But let us reply. They are too bold with God who say that he could not find out another way. Who can tell that, except God himself had told him so? Alas! how unmeet is the short line of our created un­derstanding for such a daring attempt as to fathom the unsearchableness of God’s omnipotent wisdom! —to determine what God can, and what he cannot do! But we may say, and not forgat to revere the Ma­jesty of heaven, that the wisdom of God could not have laid the method of salvation more advantageous to the exalting of his own glorious name, and his poor creatures’ happiness, than in this expedient of reconciling them to himself by Christ our great Peace-maker. This transaction hath in it a happy temperament to solve all the difficulties on either hand; and, for its mysterious contrivance, it exceeds the workmanship which God put forth in making this exterior world—though in its kind so perfect and so glorious that the least creature tells its maker to be a Deity, and puts the atheist to shame in his own conscience that will not believe so; yet, I say, the plan of reconciliation exceeds this goodly frame of heaven and earth as far as the watch itself doth the case which covers it. Indeed, God intended, by this way of rec­onciling poor sinners to himself, to make work for angels and saints to admire the mystery of his wisdom, power, and love therein, to everlasting. O, when they shall all meet together in heaven, and there have the whole counsel of God unfolded to them!—when they shall behold what seas were dried up, and what rocks of creature impossibilities digged through, by the omnipotent wisdom and love of God, before a sinner’s peace could be obtained, and then behold the work, notwithstanding all this, to be ef­fected and brought to a happy perfection—O how will they be swallowed up in adoring the abyss of his wis­dom, who laid the platform of all this according to the eternal counsel of his own will! Surely the sun doth not so much exceed the strength of our mortal eyes as the glory of this will their understandings from ever fully comprehending it. This, this is the piece which God drew on purpose, for its rare workmanship, to beautify heaven itself withal. When Christ returned to heaven he carried none of this world’s rarities with him—not its silver and gold, not crowns and diadems, which here men venture their lives, yea part with their souls, so prodigally for. Alas! what are these, and the whole pride and gallantry of this world, to heaven? That which it glories most of, suits heav­en no better than the beggar’s dish and scraps do a prince’s table; or the patched, tattered coat of the one, the wardrobe of the other. No, the Lord Christ came on a higher design than this to earth. The en­terprise he under­took to achieve was to negotiate, yea effect, a peace betwixt God and his rebel creature man, that had by his revolt incurred his just wrath and vengeance. This was a work that became God himself so well to engage in, that he thought none high and worthy enough to be trusted with the trans­acting of it beneath his only Son, who stayed here but while he had brought his negotiation to a happy period, and then carried the joyful tidings of its being finished back with him to heaven, which made his return infinitely welcome to his Father, and all the glorious inhabitants of heaven, his attendants. But I shall proceed to give some more particular answer to the question propounded. [Particular reasons why God adopts the method of reconciliation by the gospel.] Reason First. God lays this method of reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, that he might give the deepest testimony of his perfect hatred to sin in that very act wherein he expresseth the highest love and mercy to sinners. No act of mercy and love like that of pardoning sin. To receive a reconciled sinner into heaven is not so great an advance as to take a rebel into a state of favour and reconciliation. The terms here are infinitely wider. There is reason to expect the one, none to look for the other. It is pure mercy to pardon, but truth, being pardoned, to save, Micah 7:19-20. Well, when God puts forth this very act, he will have the creature see his hatred to sin written upon the face of that love he shows to the sin­ner. And truly this was but needful, if we consider how hard it is for our corrupt hearts to conceive of God’s mercy without some dishonourable reflection upon his holiness. ‘I kept silence,’ saith God, Psalms 50:21. And what inference doth the wicked draw from thence? ‘Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself,’ that is, ‘thou thoughtest I liked sin as well as thyself.’ Now, if so plain and easy a text as God’s forbearing mercy be wrested, and a false gloss, so repugnant, not only to the end of God therein, but to the holy nature of God, imposed, how much more subject is forgiving mercy—that is so far superlative to that, and infinitely more luscious to the sinner’s palate—to be abused? Some men gaze so long on this pleasing object that they are not willing to look off, and see any other attribute of God. Now, in this way of reconciling himself to sinners by Christ, he hath given such an argument to convince sinners that he is an implacable hater of sin, as hath not its fellow. It is true, every threat in the Bible tells us that sin finds no favour in God’s heart; the guilty consciences of men, that hunt them home, and follow them into their own bosoms, continually yelling and crying dam­nation in their ears; the remarkable judgments which now and then take hold of sinners in this world; and much more the furnace which is heating for them in another world, show abundantly how hot and burning God’s heart within him is in wrath against sin. But, when we see him run upon his Son, and lay the en­venomed knife of his wrath to his throat, yea, thrust it into his very heart, and there let it stick—for all the supplications and prayers which in his bitter agonies he offered up to his Father, ‘with strong crying and tears’—without the least sparing of him, till he had forced his life, in a throng of sad groans and sighs, out of his body, and therewith paid justice the full debt, which he had, as man’s surety, undertaken to dis­charge—this, this I say, doth give us a greater advantage to conceive of God’s hatred to sin, than if we could stand in a place to see what entertainment the damned find in hell, and at once behold all the tor­ments they endure. Alas! their backs are not broad enough to bear the whole weight of God’s wrath at once—it being infinite and they finite, which, if they could, we would not find them lying in that prison for nonpayment. But behold one here who had the whole curse of sin at once upon his back. Indeed, their sufferings are infinite extensivè—extensively, because everlasting; but his were infinite intensivè —intensively. He paid in one sum what they shall be ever paying, and yet never come to the last farthing of. ‘The chastisement of our peace was upon him,’ Isaiah 53:5. ‘the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,’ Isaiah 53:6. Or [as it is in the margin], ‘he hath made the iniquity of us all to meet in him.’ The whole curse met in him, as all streams do in the sea—a vir­tual collection of all the threatenings denounced against sin, and all laid on him. And now, take but one step more, and consider in how near relation Christ stood to God, as also the infinite and unspeakable love with which this relation was filled, and mutually endeared on each hand, and this at the very same time when he ascended the stage for this bloody tragedy to be acted on him in; and, I think, that you are at the highest stair the word of God can lead you to ascend by, into the meditation of this subject. Should you see a father that has but one only son, and can have no more, make him his mittimus to prison; come into court himself, and sit judge upon his life; and with his own lips pass sentence of death upon him, and order that it be executed with the most exquisite torments that may be, yea, go to the place himself, and with his own eyes, and those not full of water, as mourning for his death, but full of fire and fury—yea, a countenance in every way so set as might tell all that see it, the man took pleasure in his child’s death;—should you see this, you would say, Surely he bitterly hates his son, or the sin his son hath committed. This you see in God the Father towards his Son. It was he, more than men or devils, that procured his death. Christ took notice of this, that the warrant for his death had his Father’s hand and seal to it. ‘Shall I not drink of the cup my Father gives me?’ Yea, he stands by and rejoiceth in it. His blood was the wine that made glad the heart of God—‘It pleased the Lord to bruise him,’ Isaiah 53:10. When God corrects a saint he doth it, in a manner, unwillingly; but when Christ suffers, it pleaseth him; and not this from want of love in his heart to Christ, nor that any disobedience in Christ had hardened his Father’s against him —for he never displeased him—but from that hatred he had to sin, and from zeal to exalt his mercy towards sinners, by satisfying his justice on his Son. Reason Second. God effected our peace by Christ, that he might for ever hide pride from his saints’ eyes. Pride was the stone on which both angels and men stumbled and fell. In man’s recovery, there­fore, he will roll that stone, as far as may be, out of the way—he will lay that knife aside with which man did himself the mischief. And that he may do this, he transacts the whole business by Christ for them. Man’s project was to cut off the entail of his obedience to God, and set up for himself as a free and absolute prince, without holding upon his Maker. A strange plot! for to effect this he must first have thrown away that being which God gave him, and, by self-creation—if such a thing had been possible —have bestowed a new one upon himself; then, indeed, and not till then, he might have had his will. But alas! his pride to be what he could not, lost him what he had, and still might have, enjoyed. Yet how foolish soever it now appears and infeasible, that was the plot pride had sprung into man’s heart. Now, God, to preserve his children from all future assaults and batteries of hell at this door, chose such a way of reconciling and saving them, that, when the prince of the world comes to tempt them to pride, he should find nothing in them to give the least countenance or colour to such a motion; so that, of all sins, pride is such a one as we may wonder how it should grow, for it hath no other root to bear it up but what is found in man’s dreaming fancy or imagination. It grows, as sometimes we shall see a mushroom or moss, among stones, where little or no soil is for its root to take hold of. God, in this gospel way reconciling sinners by Christ, makes him fetch all from without doors. Wilt thou, poor soul, have peace with God? Thou must not have it from thine own penance for thy sins. ‘The chastisement of our peace was upon him;,’ Isaiah 53:5. O know thou art not thy own peacemaker! That is Christ’s name, who did that work: ‘for he is our peace, who hath made both one,’ Ephesians 2:14—Jew and Gentile one with God, and one with one another. Wouldst thou be righteous? Then thou must not ap­pear before God in thy own clothes. It is another’s righteousness, not thy own, that is provided for thee. ‘Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness,’ Isaiah 45:24. In a word, wouldst thou ever have a right in heaven’s glory? Thy penny is not good silver to purchase it with. The price must not come out of thy purse, but Christ’s heart; and therefore, as it is called the ‘purchased posses­sion,’ in regard of Christ —because he obtained it for us with a great sum, not ‘silver and gold,’ but his ‘precious blood’— so ‘an in­heritance’ in regard of us, because it descends upon us as freely as the father’s estate on his child, Ephesians 1:14. And why all this, but that the ‘lofty looks’ of man may be ‘humbled,’ and the ‘haughtiness of man’ should be ‘bowed down, and the Lord alone exalted’ in the day of our salvation? The manna is expounded by Christ himself in a type of him: ‘The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world,’ John 6:33. Now observe wherefore God chose that way of feeding them in the wilderness: ‘Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,’ Deuteronomy 8:16. But wherein lay this great humbling of them? Were they not shrewdly humbled think you, to be fed with such a dainty dish, which had God for its cook, and is called ‘angels’ food’ for its delicacy? Psalms 78:25—such, that if they needed any repast, might well suit their table. I answer, it was not the meanness of the fare, but the manner of having it, which God intended should humble them. Man is proud, and loves to be his own pro­vider, and not stand to another’s allowance. The same feast sent in by the charity and bounty of another, will not go down so well with his high stomach as when it is provided at his own cost and charges; he had rather have the honour of keeping his own house, though mean, than to live higher upon the alms and allowance of an­other’s charity. This made them wish themselves at their onions in their own gardens in Egypt, and their flesh-pots there, which though they were grosser diet, they liked better, because bought with their own penny. Reason Third. God lays this method of reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, that it might be a peace with the greatest advantage possible—that God and man might meet again on better terms by this pa­cification, than when Adam stood in all his primitive glory. God, no doubt, would not have let the beauty of his first workmanship to be so defaced by sin, had he not meant to have reared a more magnificent structure out of its ruins. Now, God intending to print man’s happiness in the second edition with a fairer character than at the first, he employs Christ in the work, as the only fit instrument to accomplish so great a design. Christ himself tells us as much: ‘I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,’ John 10:10. His coming was not to give those who were dead and damned bare peace, naked life, but ‘more abundantly’ than ever man had before the breach. It was Christ in the sec­ond temple who filled it with a glory superlative to the first—Christ in the second creation of man, that lifts his head above the first state in happiness. As Adam was a pattern to all his seed—what he was in his innocent state, that should they all have been, if sin had not altered the scene, and turned the tables —so Christ is a pattern to all his seed of that glory which they shall be clothed with, 1 John 3:2. ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet ap­pear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him’—that is, ‘our vile bodies like his glorious body.’ as the apostle hath it, Php 3:21, and our souls also, like his glorious soul. Now, by how much our nature in Christ is more glor­ious than it was in Adam, by so much the state of a reconciled sinner surpasseth Adam’s first condition. Some little discovery whereof, take in two particulars. [Superiority of our nature in Christ to its state in Adam.] 1. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his union to God. 2. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his communion with God. 1. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his union to God. And that, (1.) As it is nearer. The union is nearer, because God and man make one person in Christ. This is such a mystery as was not heard of by Adam in all his glory. He, indeed, was in league of love and friend­ship with God—and that was the best flower in his crown—but he could lay no claim to such kindred and consanguinity as now—with reverence be it spoken—the reconciled soul can with God. This comes in by the marriage of the divine nature with the human, in the person of Christ, which personal union is the foundation of another, a mystical union betwixt Christ and the person of every believer; and this is so near a union, that, as by the union of the divine nature and human, there is one person, so also by this mystical union, the saints and their head make one Christ, ‘for as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ,’ 1 Corinthians 12:12. Ecclesia est Christus explicatus—the church is nothing but Christ displayed. Who can speak what an advance this is to the human nature in general, and to the persons of believers in especial?—such a one, as it leaves not only Adam, but angels, beneath a reconciled sinner in this respect. Adam, at first, was made but ‘little lower than the angels;’ but, by this pair of unions, God hath set the reconciled soul more than a little above them both, for Christ, by taking on him, not ‘the nature of angels’—though the more an­cient and noble house—but the seed of Abraham,’ made ‘the elder serve the younger.’ Even angels themselves minister to the meanest saint, as unto their Master’s heir, Hebrews 1:14. (2.) As it is stronger. Therefore stronger, because nearer. The closer stones stand together the stronger the building. The union betwixt God and Adam in the first covenant, was not so near but Adam might fall, and yet God’s glory stand entire and un­shaken; but the union now is so close and strong be­twixt Christ and his saints, that Christ cannot be Christ without his members. ‘Because I live,’ saith Christ, ‘ye shall live also,’ John 14:19—implying that their life was bound up in his, and [that] it was as easy for him to be turned out of heaven as for them to be kept out. The church is called Christ’s ‘body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all,’ Ephesians 1:23. A body is not full if it hath not every member and joint, though never so little, and them in their fulness too. The saints’ graces is Christ’s glory, 2 Corinthians 8:23; and, though his essential glory as God receives no filling from his saints, or their graces, yet consider him in his mediatorship as head of his church, so Christ’s glory is daily filling, as the elect are called in daily, and as those that are called in grow up to their ap­pointed stature. Christ hath not his fulness till the saints have their perfection and complement of grace in heaven’s glory. 2. The reconciled sinner hath the advantage of Adam in his communion with God. The nearer, we use to say, the dearer. Communion results from un­ion. If the union be nearer and stronger between a reconciled soul and God than Adam’s was, his communion must needs be sweeter and fuller. Why else is the communion between husband and wife fuller than of friend and friend, but because the union is closer? God converseth with Adam as a friend with his friend and ally, but with the reconciled soul as a husband with his wife. ‘For thy Maker is thy husband,’ Isaiah 54:5. There is a double sweetness peculiar to the reconciled sinner’s communion with God. (1.) There is, in Christ, a foundation laid for greater familiarity with God, than Adam was at first capable of. He, indeed, was the son of God, yet he was kept at a further distance, and treated with more state and majesty, from God, than now the reconciled soul is; for, though he was the son of God, by crea­tion, yet ‘the Son of God’ was not then ‘the Son of man’ by incarnation; and at this door comes in the believer’s sweetest familiarity with God. The Christian cannot now lift up an eye of faith to God, but sees his own nature standing upon the throne by him, in the person of Christ. And, if the sight of Joseph at Pharaoh’s right hand, in court favour and honour, sent the patriarchs home with such joyful news to their aged father, what a ravishing message of joy must faith carry then to the soul of a reconciled sin­ner, when it comes in after some vision of love in an ordinance and saith, ‘Cheer up, O my soul, I see Jesus Christ, thy near kinsman, at God’s right hand in glory, to whom ‘all power is given in heaven and earth;’ fear not, he is so nigh in blood to thee that he cannot be unmindful of thee, except he should do what is unnatural in thyself, that is, hide himself from his own flesh.’ The lower a prince stoops to the meanest of his subjects, the more familiar he makes himself to his subjects. It was a wonderful condescension in the great God, who can have no compeer, first to make man, and then to strike so friendly a league and covenant with him. This God doth now with every reconciled soul, and that too enriched with so many astonishing circumstances of condescending grace as must needs speak the way of the believer’s access to God more familiar. God, in this second and new alliance with the poor creature, descend from his throne—exc­hanges his majestic robes of glory for the rags of man’s frail flesh. He leaves his palace to live for a time in his creature’s humble cottage, and there not only familiarly converses with him, but, which is stranger, ministers to him, yea, which is more than all these, he surrenders himself up to endure all manner of indignities from his sorry creature’s hand; and when this, his coarse entertainment is done, back he posts to heaven, not to complain to his Father how he hath been abused here below, and to raise heaven’s power against those that had so ill-entreated him, but to make ready heaven’s palace for the reception of those who had thus abused him, and now will but ac­cept of his grace; and lest these yet left on earth should fear his re-assumed royalty and majesty in heaven’s glory would make some alteration in their affairs in his heart—to give them therefore a constant demonstration that he would be the same in the height of his honour that he was in the depth of his abasement—he goes back in the same clothes he had borrowed of their nature, to wear them on the throne in all his glory—only some princely cost bestowed, to put them into the fashion of that heavenly kingdom, and make them suit with his glorified state—giving them a pattern by this, what their own vile bodies, which are now so dishonourable, shall be made another day. Now none of all those circumstances were found in God’s first administration to Adam, and therefore this is the more familiar. (2.) There is the sweetness of pardoning mercy, and the bleeding love of Christ—who, by his death, purchased it for him—to be tasted in the reconciled soul’s communion with God. This lump of sugar Adam had not in his cup. He knew what the love of a giving God meant, but was stranger to the mercy of a forgiving God. The reconciled soul experiments both. The love of a father, more than ordinary kind, is a great comfort to a dutiful child—one that never displeased his father; but it carries no such wonder in it to our thoughts as the compassion and melting bowels of a father towards a rebellious child doth. And certainly the prodigal child, that is received again into his father’s embraces, hath the advantage for loving his father more than his brother that never came under his father’s displeasure. O this pardoning mercy, and the love of Christ that procured it! —they are the most spacious and fruitful heads for a gracious soul to enlarge his sweetest meditations up­on, here on earth. But who can conceive what ravishing music glorified saints will make in running division on this sweet note? I am sure the song their harps are tuned unto is ‘the song of the Lamb,’ Revelation 15:2-3. The saints’ finished happiness in heaven’s glory is a composition of all the rare ingredients pos­sible—so tempered by the wise hand of God, that, as none could well be spared, so not the taste of any one shall be lost in another. But this ingredient of pardoning mercy, and of the stupendous love and wisdom of God through Christ therein, shall, as I may so say, give a sweet relish to all, and be tasted above all the rest. [Use or application.] Let it provoke everyone to labour to get an inter­est in this peace of reconciliation with God which the gospel brings. Peace with God! Sure it is worth the sinner’s having, or else the angels were ill employed when they welcomed the tidings thereof into the world at our Saviour’s birth with such acclamations of joy. ‘Glory to God,....on earth peace,’ Luke 2:14. Yea otherwise Christ himself was deceived in his pur­chase, who, if a sinner’s peace with God be not of high praise and value, hath little to show for the effusion of his heart-blood, which he thought well spent to gain this. But this we cannot believe. And yet to see how freely God offers peace and pardon to the sons of men through Christ, and how coy, yea sullen and cross they are to the motion:—one that does not well know them both—God’s infinite goodness, and wretched man’s horrible baseness—might be ready to think it some low prized ware which lay upon God’s hands, and this to be the cause why God is so earnest to put it off, and man so loath to take it off his hands. Ah poor deluded wretches! who is the wicked counsellor that hardens your hearts from embracing your own mercies? None, sure, but a devil can hate God and you so much. And hath he sped so well in his own quarrel against God, that he should be hearkened to by thee, poor sinner? Can he give thee armour that will quench God’s bullets? How then is it that he is so unkind to himself as to let them lie burning in his own bosom to his unspeakable torment? Or will he lend thee any pity when thou hast by his advice undone thyself? Alas! no more than the cruel wolf doth the silly sheep, when he hath sucked her blood and torn her in pieces. Think, and think again, poor sinner, what answer thou meanest to send to heaven before God calls his ambassadors home, and the treaty break up, never to be renewed again. And that thou mayest not want some seasonable mat­ter for thy musing thoughts to enlarge upon on this subject, let me desire thee to treat with thy own heart upon these four heads. First. Consider what it is that is offered thee. Second. Who it is that offers it. Third. How he offers it. Fourth. What thou dost when thou refusest it. [Exhortations to the sinner to embrace this peace with God, offered in the gospel.] First. Consider what it is that is offered thee —peace with God. A thing so indispensable—thou canst not have less, and so comprehensive—thou needest have no more than this, and what cometh with it, to make thee truly, fully happy. Of all the variety of enjoyments with which it is possible thy table can be spread, this is a dish can least be spared. Take away peace, and that but of an inferior nature —outward peace—and the feast is spoiled, though it be on a prince’s table. David’s children had little stomach to their royal dinner when one of them was slain that sat at the board with them. And what taste can you have in all your junkets while God is in array against you; many sinners slain before your eye by God’s judgments; and the same sword that hath let out their blood, at thy throat, while the meat is in thy mouth? Methinks your sweet morsels should stick in your throat, and hardly get down, and hardly get down, while you muse on these things. O sinner! is not this as a toad swelling at the bottom of thy most sweetly sugared cup—that the controversy yet depends betwixt God and thee? Thy sins are unpar­doned, and thou a dead damned creature, however thou dost frolic it for the present in thy prison. Would you not wonder to see a man at his sport, hunting or hawking, and one should tell you that that man is to be hanged tomorrow? Truly God is more merciful to thee than thou canst promise thyself, if he stay the execution till another day. I confess, when I meet a man whose life proclaims him an unreconciled sinner, and see him spruce up himself with the joy of his children, estate, honour, or the like, in this life, it administers matter of admiration [amazement] to me, what such a one thinks of God or himself. Canst thou think it is long thou shalt sit at this fire of thorns thou hast kindled, and not God for thee? Must it needs provoke a creditor to see his debtor live high, and go brave, all at his cost, and all the while never think of getting out of his debt, or of making his peace with him? Much more then doth it provoke God to see sinners spend upon his bounty—lead joyful jovial lives in the abundance of outward enjoyments he lends them, but take no thought of making peace with him in whose debt‑book they are so deep in arrears. What folly had it been for the Jews, when Ahasu­erus had sealed the warrant for their destruction, to have gone and painted their houses, planted their fields, and let out their hearts in the enjoyment of their estates, without taking care, in the first place, of getting that bloody decree reversed? A worse sot art thou, that doest all these, while thou carriest the sen­tence of death from God’s mouth, about thee in thy own conscience. Sir Thomas More, when in the Tower, would not so much as trim himself, saying, ‘There was a controversy betwixt the king and him for his head, and till that was at a happy end, he would be at no cost about it.’ Scum but off the froth of his wit and you may make a solemn use of it. Certainly all the cost you bestow on yourselves to make your lives pleasurable and joyous to you is mere folly, till it be decided what will become of the suit betwixt God and you, not for your heads, but souls, yea soul and body, whether for heaven or hell. O were it not thy wisest choice to begin with making thy peace, and then thou mayest soon lead a happy life! We say, ‘He that gets out of debt grows rich.’ I am sure the recon­ciled soul cannot be poor. As soon as the peace is concluded a free trade is opened betwixt God and the soul. If once pardoned, thou mayest then sail to any port that lies in God’s dominions, and be welcome. All the promises stand open with their rich treasure. Take, poor soul, full lading in of all the precious things they afford, even as much as thy faith can bear, and none shall hinder thee. As a man may draw the wine of a whole vessel through one tap, so faith may draw the comfort of all the covenant out of this one promise of reconciliation. If reconciled, then the door is open to let thee into communion with God in all his ordinances. God and thou being agreed may now walk together, whereas before thou couldst not look into God’s presence but his heart rose against thee, as one at the sight of his enemy, ready to draw upon thee with his judgments. ‘The smith,’ we say, ‘and his penny, both are black.’ So wert thou with all thy duties and performances, while unreconciled in his eye. But now thy ‘voice is sweet, and countenance comely.’ All the attributes of God, thy ally, are thine: his horses and chariots thine, as Jehoshaphat told Ahab. Whenever any enemy puts thee in fear, you know where to have a friend that will take part with thee. All his providences, though like bees, they fly some this way, and some that, yea, one contrary to another, as, thou thinkest, impossible to trace them, are yet all at work for thee; and thy soul is the hive wherein they will unlade the sweet fruit of all their labour, though possibly it may be night—the evening of thy days—before thou findest it. In a word, if reconciled, thou standest next step to heaven; ‘whom he justifies, them he glorifies,’ Romans 8:30. Thou art sure to be there as soon as death rends the veil of thy flesh, which is all that interposeth between thee and it. Second. Consider who it is that offers peace to thee—the great God. It is hard to say which speaks the greatest wonder—for God to offer, or thee to de­ny what he offers. We marvel not to see the undutiful child on his knee, labouring to soften his father’s heart with his tears, which he hath hardened against him with his rebellions; nor a condemned traitor prostrate at his prince’s foot, begging for his life, now forfeited to the justice of the law; but it is something strange to see the father become suppliant to his child, more, for the traitor to open his dungeon door and find his prince standing there, and that upon no other errand than to desire him to accept of a pardon. And yet self-love may be the great motive for this seeming self-denial. The parent doth but love himself when he steps below his place to gain his child, that carries so much of its parent’s life about him. And such necessity of state there is sometimes, that great princes are forced to stoop to the meanest, yea worst of his subjects. A prince’s safety may be so intimately concerned in a traitor’s life that he cannot cut off his head without imminent danger to the crown that stands upon his own. But none of these straits forced God to take up thoughts of peace to his poor creature; no, they are the birth of free condescending love. And now, think again, sinner, before the great God hath a denial from thee. If a neighbour, the poorest in the town, and he one that hath done thee wrong, and not received it from thee, comes to thee and desires peace, shouldst thou reject the motion? Would not thy conscience reproach thee to thy dying day? How then wilt thou endure to look God or conscience in the face, if thou refusest peace at God’s hands that thou doth not treat, like men, when their sword is broke, and they cannot fight, but when he hath absolute power over thy life—which is ever in his hands—yea, a God that hath ever received the wrong—never did thee any—yea, should have done thee none, if he had long before this hanged thee up in chains of darkness among the damned. Third. Consider how God offers thee peace. 1. He offers peace sincerely. He covers not fraud under a treaty of peace. Among men there hath been horrible juggling in this case. The flag of peace is oft hung out at lip only, to draw them within the reach of their dagger, which is ready to smite them, as Joab did Abner, ‘under the fifth rib.’ In all the civil wars of France the poor Protestants found peace more costly to them than war; they beat the Papists in the field, when open enemies, but were betrayed by them in the chamber, when false friends. But for thy com­fort know it is, ‘a God of truth’ thou treatest with. Never did he shed the blood of war in peace, or give a soul to the sword of his wrath, after quarter taken and peace given. ‘If we confess,....he is just and faithful to forgive.’ His promises are not ‘yea and nay,’ like the devil’s, who lays them so that he may have the credit both ways. No, the very heart of God may be seen as through a crystal window in the promise; they are all ‘yea and amen’ in Christ, 2 Corinthians 1:20. 2. He offers peace affectionately, his heart deep­ly engaged in the tenders of mercy to poor sinners; which will appear, (1.) In his contriving a way for reconciling sinners to himself. What men strongly desire, they stretch their wits to the utmost how to accomplish. ‘The liberal man deviseth liberal things,’ Isaiah 32:8. It shows the heart exceeding large in charity, when a man shall sit down and study how he may find out ways for the exercise of his charity; whereas, most men, alas! beat their brains how they may save their purses and escape with giving as little as may be to the poor. O what a rare invention hath God found out for showing mercy, which hath so many mysterious passages in it, that angels themselves are put hither to school, that by studying this mystery of God’s reconciling sinners to himself by Christ, they might know ‘the manifold wisdom of God!’ Ephesians 3:10. (2.) By the early discovery he made of this to the sons of men. He would go among us, for no sooner had man broken the peace, and taken up rebellious arms against his Maker, but the Lord’s heart relented towards him, and could not let the sun go down on his wrath against him, but must, in the very same day that he sinned, let him hear of a Saviour, by preaching peace to him, in ‘the seed of the woman,’ Genesis 3:15. Little did Adam think that God had such a message in his mouth for him, when he first heard him coming towards him, and for fear ran his head into a bush, meditating a flight from him, if he had known whither to have gone. O, that ‘Adam, where art thou?’ sounded, no doubt, in his guilty ears, like the voice of an avenging God calling him, a malefactor, to execution! But it proved the voice of a gracious God, com­ing, not to meet man in his way returning to him, but to seek him out, who had lost all thoughts of him, that he might give some ease to his own gracious heart, now full of mercy to his poor creature, by dis­closing to him the purposes of grace which he had there conceived towards him. Surely his heart was very full, or else this would not have burst out so soon. (3.) The great ordinance of the gospel-ministry, which God hath set up in the church, on purpose to treat with sinners upon a peace, speaks his deep affection to the work, 2 Corinthians 5:18. One would have thought it had been enough to print his thoughts and purposes of mercy in the Scripture, though he had done no more. Princes, when they put out a statute or law, expect all their subjects should inquire after it, and do not send one to every town, whose office shall be to give notice thereof, and persuade people to sub­mit to it. Yet this the great God doth. The minister’s work from one end of the year to the other, what is it but to beseech sinners to be reconciled to God? And in this observe, (a) The persons he sends to preach. Not angels, foreigners to our nature, who, though they wish us well, yet are not so intimately concerned in man’s fall, as to give them the advantage of preaching with those melting bowels, that God would have them filled with who go on his errand. No, he sends men, with whom he may converse familiarly, creatures of like passions—whose nature puts them under the same depravation, temptation, condemnation with ourselves—who can, from the acquaintance they have with their own hearts, tells us the baseness of ours —from the fire of God’s wrath, which hath scorched them for their sins, [can] tell us the desert of ours, and the danger we are in by reason of them—as also, from the sweet sense that the taste of God’s love in Christ hath left on their souls, can commend the cheer and feast they invite us to upon their own knowledge. Did not God, think you, desire good speed to his embassage when he chose such to carry it? (b) Observe the qualifications required in those he employs as ambassadors to offer peace to sinners. ‘The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves,’ 2 Timothy 2:24-25. O how careful is God that nothing should be in the preacher to prejudice the sinner’s judgment, or harden his heart, against the offer of his grace. If the servant be proud and hasty, how shall they know the master is meek and patient? God would have them do nothing to make the breach wider, or hinder a happy close betwixt him and them. Indeed, he that will take the bird must not scare it. A froward peevish messenger is no friend to him that sends him. Sinners are not pelted into Christ with stones of hard provoking language, but wooed into Christ by heart-melting exhortations. (c) Look into the commission God gives his am­bassadors, and still his heart appears in the business, whether you consider the largeness of it, on the one hand, or the strictness of it on the other. First, the largeness of it—‘Go and preach,’ saith Christ, ‘the gospel to every creature.’ Make no difference—rich or poor, great sinners or little, old sinners or young. Offer peace to all that will but repent and believe. Bid as many come as will; here is room for all that come. Again, the strictness of it on the other hand. O what a solemn charge have they of delivering their message faithfully! Paul trembles at the thoughts of loitering—‘Woe is me if I preach not.’ What an argument doth Christ use—fetched from his very heart—to persuade Peter to be careful, ‘If thou lovest me, feed my sheep.’ As if he had said, ‘Peter, thou now art in tears for thy cowardice in denying me, but thou hast yet one way left, for all that unkindness, to demonstrate thy love to me, and that is by feeding my sheep; do this, and trouble not thyself for that.’ Christ shows more care of his sheep than of himself. (d) The joy God expresseth when poor sinners come into the offer of peace. Joy is the highest testi­mony that can be given to our complacency in any thing or person. Love to joy is as fuel to the fire. If love lay little fuel of desires on the heart, then the flame of joy that comes thence will not be great. Now God’s joy is great in pardoning poor sinners that come in; therefore his affection great in the offer thereof. It is made the very motive that prevails with God to pardon sinners, ‘because he delighteth in mercy,’ Micah 7:18. ‘Who is a God like unto thee, that pardon­eth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.’ God doth all this, ‘because he delighteth in mercy.’ Ask why the fisher stands all night with his angle in the river. He will tell you, ‘because he delights in the sport.’ Well, you now know the reason why God stands so long waiting on sinners, months, years, preaching to them; it is that he may be gracious in pardoning them, and in that act delight himself. Princes very oft pardon traitors to please others more than themselves, or else it would never be done, but God doth it chiefly to delight and gladden his own merciful heart. Hence the business Christ came about—which was no other but to reconcile sinners to God—is called ‘the pleasure of the Lord,’ Isaiah 53:10. The Lord takes such joy and pleasure in this, that, whereas other fathers —whose love to their children sinks infinitely beneath any comparison with the love of God to Christ —mourn at the death of their children, and most of all when violent and bloody, God takes content in his Son’s death; yea, had the chief hand in the procuring of it, and that with infinite complacency: ‘It pleased the Lord to bruise him.’ And what joy could God take in his Son’s death, but as it made way for him and his poor creature that were fallen out, and at open war one against another, to fall in again by a happy accord? And now, speak, O sinner! if God doth so affectionately desire to be reconciled with thee, doth it not much more behove thee to embrace the peace, than it doth him to offer it? There is but one thing more I would desire thee, sinner, to consider, and then I leave thee to thy own choice. Fourth. Consider what thou doest when thou re­fusest peace with God. Determinations of war or peace use to be the result of the most grave counsels and mature deliberation possible. Think and think again, what thou doest, before thou breakest off the treaty of peace, lest thou makest work for repentance when it will be bootless. But, lest thou shouldst not be so faithful to God and thy own soul as to give thy conscience liberty to speak freely in this matter, I shall do it for thee, and tell thee what thou doest when thou rejectest peace. Thou justifiest thy former hostilities against God, and declarest that thou wilt vouch what thou hast done, let God right himself as well as he can. He that refuseth a pardon, either denieth he hath done wrong, or, which is worse, stands to defend it. Thou hadst as good say thou de­sirest not to be friends with God, but hast a mind to perpetuate the feud betwixt God and thee, like Amil­car, who was such an enemy to Rome, that, when he died, he made his son Hannibal heir to his hatred against them. Is it not enough that thou hast fought so many battles on earth against thy Maker, but wilt thou keep the quarrel up in another world also, where there is no more possibility to put an end to it than to eternity itself? Thou throwest the greatest scorn up­on God that it is possible for a creature to do. As if God’s love and hatred were such inconsiderable things that they need not, when cast into the scale of thy thoughts, preponderate[3] thee either way—the one to move thy desire, or the other thy fear! In a word, thou consentest to thy own damnation, and desperately flingest thyself into the mouth of God’s flaming wrath, which gapes in the threatening upon thee. God is under an oath to procure thy destruction, if thou diest in this mind, which God forbid! Death is the trap-door which will let thee down to hell’s dungeon; and when once thou art there, thou art where thou wilt have space enough to weep over thy past folly, though here thou hast neither mind nor leisure to make God thy friend. The very thoughts of those offers of peace which once thou hadst, but no heart to embrace them, will be like so much salt and vinegar, with which thy accusing conscience will be continually basting thee, as thou liest roasting in hell-fire, to make thy torment the more intolerable. I know this language grates on the sinners’ ears, but not so ill as the gnashing of the sinner’s own teeth will in hell. I have read of a foolish, I may say cruel, law among the Lacedemonians[4], that none should tell his neighbour any ill news befallen him, but every one should be left, in process of time, to find it out them­selves. Many among us, I think, would be content if there were such a law, that might tie up ministers’ mouths from scaring them with their sins, and the miseries that attend their unreconciled state. The most are more careful to run from the discourse of their misery, than to get out of the danger of it—are more offended with the talk of hell, than troubled for that sinful state that shall bring them thither. But alas! when, then, shall we show our love to the souls of sinners if not now, seeing that in hell there remains no more offices of love to be done for them? Hell is a pest-house, that we may not write so much on the door of it as ‘Lord, have mercy on them that are in it.’ Nay, they who now pray for their salvation, and weep over their condition, must then with Christ vote for their damnation, and rejoice in it, though they be their own fathers, husbands, and wives they see there. O, now bethink yourselves, before the heart of God and man be hardened against you! Question. But how may a poor sinner be at peace with God? 1. See and be sensible of the feud and enmity that at present stands betwixt God and thee. 2. Look thou propoundest right ends in thy desire of reconciliation with God. 3. Throw down thy rebellious arms, and humbly submit to his mercy. 4. Hie thee, as soon as may be, to the throne of grace, and humbly present thy request to God to be at peace with thee through Christ. [Directions to sinners as to how they may be at peace with God.] 1. Direction. See and be sensible of the feud and enmity that at present stands betwixt God and thee. (1.) As to the reality of the thing, that there is indeed a quarrel, which God hath against thee. Wher­ever thou goest, an angry God is at thy back, and his wrath, like a big-bellied cloud, hangs full of curses over thy head, ready every moment to empty them upon thy head. There is need of pressing this. For, though it is ordinary for men to confess themselves sinners, yet most are loath to disparage their state so far as to rank themselves among the enemies of God. No, they hope God and they are good friends for all this. Like thieves they will confess some little matter, but they have a care of letting fall anything that may hazard their necks. ‘Sinner’ is a favourable word. Who lives and sins not? That they will grant. But, to be in a state of enmity, and under the wrath of God, this scares them too much, and brings them too near the sight of the gallows—the seat of hell—which are due to that state; and therefore, when pressed thus far—as the Jews desired Rabshakeh, when he scared them with the dreadful things that would befall them if they stood out against the king his master, ‘that he would not speak in the Jews’ language in the ears of the people,’ Isaiah 36:11, for fear of affrighting them, but in a foreign tongue—so sinners desire those that deal plainly with them, that they should not speak so broad in the hearing of their conscience, which they are afraid should know the worst. But, if thou lovest thy own soul, make a true representation of thy state to thyself. O what folly is it for a man to lose his cause by concealing the badness of it! (2.) Labour to bring thyself under the sense of thy miserable condition as thou art. Hadst thou the empire of the world, and all nations creeping to thy foot, as once the beasts did to Adam, and a lease as long as Methuselah’s life twice told to enjoy it in, without the interposition of one cloud all the while, to darken the glory of this thy royalty, yet, supposing thee to be one to whom God is an enemy, I would choose to be the worm under thy foot, the toad in the ditch, sooner than thy miserable self in thy palace. One thought of thy approaching death, and eternal misery in store for thee, will let out all the joy of thy present happiness. This, this makes the great ones of the world—indeed all unreconciled sinners, high and low—to go to their graves as bears down a hill—back­wards. Alas! if they should but look forward whither they were going, their hearts would soon be at their mouths, for want of this breastplate—a comfortable persuasion of their peace made with God. Go, there­fore, as a poor malefactor condemned to die would do, shut thyself up from all thy old flattering companions, that would still lullaby thy miserable soul in a senseless security—the cradle which the devil rocks souls in, to their utter destruction; let none of them come to thee, but send for those that dare be faithful to thee, and, like Samuel, dare tell thee every word that God saith against thee, and conceal nothing; yea, read thy doom with thy own eyes in the word, and take thy condemnation from God’s own mouth, and not man’s. ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’ Muse on it till it cleaves to thy soul like a drawing-plaster to a sore, and brings out the very core of thy pride and carnal confidence, which hardened thy heart from all sense of thy condition; by which time, the anguish of thy own spirit, seeing the straits thou art brought into, will prompt thee to desire peace with God, and this is that which God waits for to hear drop from thee, as much as Benhadad’s servants did for a word from Ahab’s mouth. 2. Direction. Look thou propoundest right ends in thy desire of reconciliation with God. Nothing more hateful to God or man than falsehood and treachery in treaties of peace; and yet some men can have words as smooth as butter in their mouths, and war be in their hearts at the same time, Psalms 55:21. O take heed of any hollowness of heart in thy inquiry for peace! When found out—as it must needs be, except God’s eye fails him, which is impossible—it will ex­ceedingly harden the heart of God against thee. God never repented of any he pardoned or took up into the chariot of peace with him, because he was never deceived by any, as men are, who make often peace with those that prove at last false brethren, and give them cause to wish they had never known them. Joab killed Amasa, but he took no heed to the sword in Joab’s hand. God looks to the heart, and sees what is in its hand; be sure thou therefore stand clear in thy own thoughts as to the ends thou aimest at. It is lawful for thee to look to thy own safety. God will give thee leave to look to thyself. This thou mayest, and yet not neglect him. But never was any peace true or sure where only self-love made it, whether it be with God, or between man and man. Thou seest thou art undone if thou keepest thy old side, and therefore thou seekest peace with God, as the kings that served Hadarezer. When they saw he was ‘smit­ten before Israel, they made peace with Israel’ them­selves, 2 Samuel 10:19. Well, this may be allowed thee to come over to God, because his is the surer side. Never any made peace with God, but this argument weighed much with them. If Jacob could have been safe at home, he had never fled to Laban. All are fired out of their holds before they yield to God. But take heed this be not all thou aimest at, or the chief thou aimest at. This thou mayest do, and hate God as much as ever, like those who are said to yield ‘feign­edly’ to David’s victorious arms, because no help for it. A man taken in a storm may be forced under the pent-house of his greatest enemy for shelter, without any change of his heart, or better thoughts of him than before he was wont. Two things, therefore, thou mayest look to have in thy eye, above thy own self-preservation. (1.) You must desire to be reconciled to God with an eye to the honour of God. Hence, oft the saints’ prayers are pressed with an argument from God, as well as them­selves and their own misery: ‘Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake,’ Psalms 79:9. Certainly, if God could not be more glorified in our peace and reconciliation, than in our death and damnation, it were a wicked thing to desire it. But God hath cleared this up to us, that he is no loser by acts of mercy. In this lies the greatest revenue of his crown, or else he could not love ‘mercy rather than sacrifice.’ God is free to choose what suits his own heart best, and most conduceth to the exalting of his great name; and he delights more in the mercy shown to one, than in the blood of all the damned that are made a sacrifice to his justice. And, indeed, he had a higher end in their damnation than their suffering, and that was the enhancing of the glory of his mercy in his saved ones. This is the beau­tiful piece God takes delight in, and the other but the shadow to it. Then thou art in a fit disposition to pray for peace, and mayest go with encouragement, when thy heart is deeply affected with the honour that will accrue to God by it. It is an argument God will not deny. ‘This,’ said Abigail to David, ‘shall be no grief unto thee, nor offence of heart unto my lord,’ 1 Samuel 25:31. She meant he should never have cause to repent that he was kept from shedding blood. Thus mayest thou plead with God and say, ‘O Lord, when I shall with saints and angels be praising thy pardoning grace in heaven, it will not grieve thee that thy mercy kept thee from shedding my blood, damning my soul to hell.’ But now it is evident that many who seem to seek peace, and pursue it too, very strongly, yet do not take overmuch care for God’s honour in the thing, because they are earnest with God to par­don them in a way that were to him dishonourable. Pardoned they would be, though wholly ignorant of God and Christ. They would have God to be at peace with them while they were enemies to him. Like a thief at the bar, he would have the judge spare his life, right or wrong, legally or illegally, what cares he? Doth this wretch consider the honour of the judge? or that sinner, who, so he be saved, how unrighteous God is in the act of mercy? O deceive not yourselves, poor souls, God will not make war between his own attributes to make peace with you! (2.) You must desire to be reconciled to God, that you may have fellowship with God. Certainly a soul sensible what the loss of communion with God is, counts it hath not all her errand done when it hath naked peace given it. Should God say, ‘Soul, I am friends with thee—I have ordered thou shalt never go to hell. Here is a discharge under my hand that thou shalt never be arrested for my debt more; but, as for any fellowship with me, or fruition of me, thou canst expect none. I have done with thee—for ever being acquainted more with thee.’ Certainly the soul, in such a case, would take little joy in her peace. Were the fire out as to positive torments, yet a hell would be left in the dismal darkness which the soul would sit under for want of God’s presence. Absalom knew no middle condition that could please him betwixt seeing the king his father’s face, and being killed. ‘Let me see the king’s face; and if there be any iniquity in me, let him kill me,’ 2 Samuel 14:32—‘if I be not worthy to enjoy my father’s love and presence, neither do I desire to live;’ whereas a naughty heart seeks reconciliation without any longing after any fellowship with God. Like the traitor, if the king will but pardon and save him from the gallows, he is ready to promise him never to trouble him at court. It is his own life, not the king’s favour, he desires. 3. Direction. Throw down thy rebellious arms and hum­bly submit to his mercy. God will not so much as treat with thee so long as thy sword is in thy hand—‘Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord,’ Isaiah 1:18. Mark when the parley begins: ‘put away the evil of your doings,’ ver. 16. Now come and treat with God about a peace. (1.) God is a great God, and it doth not become his sov­ereignty to treat with his sorry creature on equal terms, as a king doth with his fellow-prince, who, if he cannot have peace on his own terms, is able probably to revenge himself by force of arms; but, as a mighty king with his rebel subject, whom he hath fast bound with chains in prison, and can at pleasure hang up for his treason. The great God will have thee know that. Let those capitulate who can retire to their strength and live without peace. But as for thee, poor sinner, thou dost not, I hope, think thou art in a capacity to meet with God in the field, or to thrive by this trade of war against God. No, thy only way is to conquer him upon thy knee, to lay thy neck at his foot and say, ‘Lord, I put my life in thy hands, thy true prisoner I will be, choosing rather to die by the hand of thy justice, than to continue fighting against thy mercy.’ Now, poor soul, thou art got into the right path, that leads to peace. ‘Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up,’ James 4:10. That soul shall not long be out of his arms that is prostrate at his foot. But, though ‘the high and lof­ty One’ can stoop to take up a penitent sinner into the arms of his pardoning mercy, yet he will not de­base his sovereignty to treat with a wretch that stands to his arms and stouts it out with him. There is one red letter in God’s name—‘he will by no means clear the guilty,’ Exodus 34:7. (2.) The holy nature of God requires this. Sin is that which made the breach, and caused God to take arms against his creature; how canst thou rationally think to make thy peace with him, and keep this makebate[5] in thy bosom? God is willing to be reconciled with thee, but wilt thou have him be at peace with thy sin also? Is it not enough to be justified from thy sin? but wouldst thou have God betray his own honour by justifying thee in thy sin? Did you ever hear a prince give a patent to another to cut his own throat? What security canst thou give to God of thy love to him if thou wilt not renounce that which is the only thing that seeks his life? Peccatum est deicidium—sin is deicide. As long as the traitor is in favour within, God will not raise his siege, or hear of peace without. They cannot reign together; choose which you will have of them. And be not so far de­luded as to think it is enough to send thy lust out of the way for a while, as princes use to do their favourites in a popular commotion, to please the people, and then call for them home when the hubbub is over. No, God will not be thus dodged and mocked. See how the promise runs, and this he will stand to. ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon,’ Isaiah 55:7. See how cau­tious God is in the terms; no corner left for the least sin to skulk and save its life in—he must ‘forsake all.’ That implies, (a) A deliberate choice in the soul; he does it freely. Some men’s sins ‘forsake’ them. The unclean spirit goes out, and is not driven out—occasions to sin cease, or bodily ability to execute the command of sin is wanting. There is no forsaking sin, however, in all this. But to break from it with a holy indignation and resolution, when temptation is most busy and strength most active—now as David said, when his enemy opposed him as bees, in the name of the Lord to repel and resist them—this is to forsake. This is the encomium[6] of Moses. He forsook the court when he was grown up; not for age, as Barzillai, but when his blood was warm in his veins. A man doth not for­sake his wife when he is detained from her in prison, but when he puts her away, and gives her a bill of divorce. (b) To ‘forsake’ sin is to leave it without any thought reserved of returning to it again. Every time a man takes a journey from home about business we do not say he hath forsaken his house, because he meant, when he went out, to come to it again. No, but when we see a man leave his house, carry all his stuff away with him, lock up his doors, and take up his abode in another, never to dwell there more, here is a man hath indeed forsaken his house. It were strange to find a drunkard so constant in the exercise of that sin, but some time you may find him sober, and yet a drunkard he is, as well as if he was then drunk. Every one hath not forsaken his trade that we see now and then in their holiday suit. Then the man forsakes his sin when he throws it from him, and bolts the door upon it with a purpose never to open more to it. ‘Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?’ Hosea 14:8. Again observe, before pardon can be sealed he must ‘forsake,’ not this sin or that, but the whole ‘way’ of sin. ‘Let the wicked forsake his way.’ A trav­eller may step from one path to another, and still go on in the same way—leave a dirty, deep, rugged path, for one more smooth and even. So many, finding some gross sins uneasy, and too toilsome to their awakened consciences, step into a more cleanly path of civility; but alas! poor creatures, all they get is to go a little more easily and cleanly to hell than their beastly neighbours. But he forsakes the way of sin that turns out of the whole road. In a word, thou must forsake the blindest path of all in sin’s way —that which lies behind the hedge, as I may so say, in the thoughts of the heart—‘and the unrighteous man his thoughts;’ or else thou knockest in vain at God’s door for pardoning mercy; and therefore, poor soul, forsake all or none. Save one lust and you lose one soul. If men mean to go to hell, why are they so man­nerly? This halving with sin is ridiculous. Art thou afraid of this sin, and not of a less, which hinders thy peace, and procures thy damnation as sure, only not with so much distraction to thy drowsy conscience at present? This is as ridiculous as it was with him, who, being to be hanged, desired that he might by no means go through such a street to the gallows, for fear of the plague that was there. What wilt thou get, poor sinner, if thou goest to hell, though thou goest thither by thy ignorance, unbelief, spiritual pride, &c., yet led about so as to escape the plague of open profaneness? O sirs, consider but the equity, the honourableness of the terms that God offers peace upon. What lust is so sweet or profitable that is worth burning in hell for? Darius, when he fled before Alexander, that he might run the faster out of danger, threw away his massy crown from his head which hindered him; and is any lust so precious in thy eye that thou canst not leave it behind thee, rather than fall into the hands of God’s justice? But so sottish is foolish man, that a wise heathen could take notice of it[7]—we think we only buy what we part with money for, and as for those things we pay ourselves our souls for, these we think we have for nothing, as if the man were not more worth than his money! Having been faithful to follow the preceding directions, thou art now in a fair way to effect thy much desired enterprise. Therefore, 4. Direction. Hie thee, therefore, as soon as may be, to the throne of grace, and humbly present thy request to God that he would be at peace with thee, yea, carry with thee a faith that thou shalt find him more ready to embrace the motion than thou to make it. Take heed only, what thou makest thy plea to move God, and where thou placest thy confidence. Not in thy repentance or reformation, this were to play the merchant with God; but know he expects not a chapman to truck with him, but a humble supplicant to be suitor to him. Nor his absolute mercy, as ignorant souls do. This is to take hold of the sword by the blade, and not by the hilt. Such will find their death and damnation from that mercy which they might be saved by, if they did take hold of it as God offers it them, and that is ‘through Christ.’ ‘Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me,’ Isaiah 27:5. And where lies god’s saving strength, but in Christ? He hath, ‘laid strength’ upon this ‘mighty’ one, ‘able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God.’ It is not God’s absolute power or mercy will help thee, but his covenant strength and mercy, and this is in Christ. Take hold of Christ and thou hast hold of God’s arm; he cannot strike the soul that holds thereby. Indeed, God’s essential goodness is a powerful argument to persuade the poor soul to rely upon the promise in Christ for pardon—when he considers that God who promiseth peace to the believer, is a God whose very nature is forgiving, and mercy itself —but had there been no promise to engage this mercy to poor sinners through Christ, this would have been but cold comfort to have believed God was good. He could have damned the whole stock of Adam, and not called his essential goodness the least in question. It is no blot to the almightiness of his power that he doth not all he can. He could make more worlds, if he was so pleased, than he hath done; but we have no ground to believe he will, neither is he the less almighty because he does not. So he could have saved the fallen angels with the sons of lost man. He is not scanted in mercy for such a design, if he had thought it fit. But, having passed no promise for such a thing, the essential goodness of God affords the devils but little relief, or hope that he will do it. And yet God continues good. And, for aught I can find out of the word, they among the sons of men who, either throu gh simple ignorance of the gospel, or prejudice, which their proud reason hath taken up against the way it chalks out for making our peace with God, through Christ’s satisfaction for us, do neglect Christ, or scornfully reject his satisfaction, and betake themselves to the absolute goodness and mercy of God, as the plea which they will make at Christ’s bar for their pardon and salvation, shall find as little benefit from it as the devils themselves. Suppose, friends, a prince should freely make a law, by which he will govern his people, and takes a solemn oath to keep close to it, could a malefactor that is condemned by this law to die expect any relief by appealing from the law to the mercy and goodness of the prince’s nature? I confess some have sped and saved their lives by taking this course. But it hath been, because either the prince was imprudent in making the law, or unfaithful in keeping his oath; neither of which can, without blasphemy, be imputed to God, infinitely wise and holy. He hath enacted a law, called the law of faith, for the saving poor sinners through Christ, and is under an oath to make it good both in the salvation of every one that believes on Christ, and damnation on every one that doth not believe: and, to make all sure, hath given Christ an oath to be faithful in his office; who was trusted as priest to secure redemption, and shall sit judge to pronounce the sentence at the great day of absolution or condemnation. Take heed, therefore, poor sinner, that thou beest not drawn from placing thy entire confidence on Christ the Son of God—both God and man in one person—who laid down his life upon agreement with his Father, to make an atonement for the sin of the world; and now offers thee that blood which then he shed, as a price to carry in the hand of thy faith to the Father, for pardon and peace. No, though they should come and call thee from Christ to Christ—from a Christ without thee, to a Christ within thee. As the Jesuit doth in the Quaker, into whom he is now got; as the friars of old were wont into their hollow images, viz. that they might deliver their lying doctrines out of the mouths of their reputed saints, and thereby cozen the multitude without any suspicion of their knavery. Just so do the Jesuits nowadays deliver their popish stuff out of the mouths of the Quakers—a design so much more dangerous as it is more cunning than the other. There is too much light shed abroad for that old puppet play to take. But, though men are too wise to lend an ear to a block or a stone, yet holiness in a living saint commands such reverence, that the devil hath ever found, and will, to the end of the world, that he may pass least suspected under this cloak. Well, when he comes to call thee from a Christ without thee to a Christ within thee; strip the doctrine out of its pleasing phrase, and, in plain English, he calls thee from trusting in the righteousness of Christ wrought by him for thee, and by faith to be made thine for thy justification before God, to an inherent work of grace or righteousness wrought by the Spirit of God in thee for thy sanctification and renovation, called sometimes the ‘new creature,’ and ‘Christ within us.’ Now, hadst thou not made a goodly change if thou hadst let go thy hold on Christ, who is thy righteousness, to rely on a creature, and that a weak one too, God knows, full of so many imperfections that thy conscience —except injudicious and given over to believe a lie —can tell it is but a vein of gold embased with much more earth and dross, which shall never be quite purged till thou beest put into the refining pot of the grave. Look to thyself, Christian. Here it is a matter of life and death. Prize Christ’s grace within thee thou must; yea thou hast none in thee, if thou dost not value it above all the mountains of gold the world hath. But trust not to this Christ or grace of Christ within thee for life and salvation; for now thou prizest the creature above God, and settest ‘Christ within thee’ to fight with ‘Christ without thee.’ The bride doth well highly to esteem her husband’s picture which he hath given her, especially if very like him, and most of all, if drawn by his own hand; but it were very ridiculous if she should dote on that so far as to slight her husband, and, when she wants money, clothes, or the like, to go, not to her husband, but to the picture he gave her, for all. The saint’s grace is called ‘Christ within him,’ because it is his picture, and makes the saint so like Christ. This, for the re­semblance it bears to the holiness of Christ, himself thy husband, who with the finger of his own Spirit, drew it on thy soul, deserves highly to be valued. But, what a dotage were it for thee turn thy back on the Lord Jesus Christ himself, to whom by faith thou art married, and, when thou wantest pardon and comfort —wouldst have heaven and happiness—to expect these, not from Christ, but from thy grace? O will Christ thank thee for honouring his creature to the dishonour of his person? [Exhortations to those already at peace with God.] A few words by way of improvement to you whose peace with God is concluded with Christ. First. Hast thou peace with God?—look thou makest no peace with sin. This broke thy peace with God; now let thy peace with God begin a war with that never to have end. Thou canst not, sure, forget the inestimable wrong and damage thou hast suffered by it. Every moment’s sweet enjoyment of God —whose bosom-love thou hast now happily recovered—will help to keep the fire of wrath and revenge burning in thy heart against that cursed enemy, that both threw and kept thee so long thence. God hath now won thy heart, I hope, by his pardoning mercy, dearly to love him for his love to thee. How then canst thou with patience see any lust come braving forth from its trench—thy heart I mean—defying thy God and his grace in thee? Paul’s spirit was stirred in him at Athens to see God dishonoured by the superstition of others; and is not thine, to see him re­proached by the pride, unbelief, and other sins, that do it from under thy own soul’s roof? O Christian, meditate some noble exploit against it. Now, the more to steel thy heart, and harden it against all re­lenting towards it, carry the blood and wounds of thy Saviour into the field with thee, in the hand of thy faith. The sight of those will certainly enrage thy heart against thy lusts, that stabbed and killed him, more than the bloody garments of Cæsar, held up by Antony, did the Roman citizens against his mur­derers. O see how cruelly they used the Lord of glory, and where they laid him in an ignominious grave —and that fastened with a seal, stronger than that which man set to it—the curse due to us sinners, never possible to have been broke up by any less than his own almighty arm! And now, Christian, shall these murderers, not of man, but of God—for it was the blood of God that was shed—escape that vengeance which God would have done with thy hand upon them? Wherefore else doth he leave thee any life in thy soul but that thou shouldst have the opportunity of showing thy love to Christ by running thy dagger of mortification into their heart? Alexander got no more honour by his great victories in the field than by his piety to his dead father Philip, whose bloody death he avenged as soon as he came into the throne, slaying the murderers upon his father’s tomb. O, show thou, Christian, thy pity to thy dear Saviour by falling upon thy cursed lusts, and that speedily! Never rest till thou hast had their blood that shed his. Till thou dost this thou art consenting to all the cruelty that was executed on him. This, this is the ‘honour’ which all ‘the saints shall have,’ and therefore the ‘two-edged sword’ of the Spirit is put into their hands that they may execute the vengeance written. Second. Is God reconciled to thee? Be thou willing to be reconciled to any that have wronged thee. Thy God expects it at thy hands. Thou hast reason to pardon thy brother for God’s sake, who par­doned thee for his pure mercies’ sake. Thou, in par­doning, dost no more than thou owest thy brother, but God pardoned thee when he did owe thee nothing but wrath. Thou needest not, I hope, think that thou dishonourest thyself in the act, though it be to the veriest beggar in the town. Know thou dost it after thy betters. Thy God stooped lower when he reconciled himself to thee, yea, sought it at thy hands, and no dishonour, neither, to the high and lofty One. Nay, by implacableness and revenge, thou debasest thyself the most thou canst likely do; for, by these, thou stoopest not only beneath thy heaven-born nature, but beneath thy human nature. It is the devil, and none but such as bear his image, that are implacable enemies. Hell-fire it is that is unquenchable. ‘The wisdom from above’ is ‘easy to be entreated.’ Thou a Christian, and carry hell-fire about thee! How can it be? When we see a child, that comes of merciful parents, furious and revengeful, we use to say, ‘We wonder of whom he got his currish, churlish disposition, his father and mother were not so.’ Who learns thee, O Christian, to be so revengeful and un­merciful? Thou hast it not of thy heavenly Father, I am sure. Third. Is God at peace with thee? Hath he par­doned thy sins? Never, then, distrust his providence for anything thou wantest as to this life. Two things, well weighed, would help thy faith in this particular. 1. When he pardoned thy sins he did more for thee than this comes to. And, did he give the greater, and will he grudge thee the less? Thou hast Christ in thy pardon bestowed on thee. ‘How shall he not with him also freely give thee all things?’ Romans 8:32. When the father gives his child the whole orchard, it were folly to question he gives him this apple or that in it —‘all things are yours,’ and ‘ye are Christ’s,’ 1 Corinthians 3:22. The reconciled soul hath a right to all. The whole world is his. But, as a father who, though he settles a fair estate on his child, yet lets him hold no more in his own hand than he can well manage; so God gives believers a right to all the comforts of this life, but proportions so much out to them for their actual use, as his infinite wisdom sees meet, so that he that hath less than another in his present possession, ought to impute it not to any want of love or care in God, but to the wisdom both of his love and care, that gives stock as we have grace to work it out. We pour the wine accordingly as the cup is. That which but fills one would half be lost if poured into a less. 2. Consider how God gives these temporals to those he denies peace and pardon to. Though, within a while, they are to be tumbled into hell, yet while on earth his providence reacheth unto them. And, doth God feed these ‘ravens,’ unclean birds? Doth he cause his rain to drop fatness on their fields, and will he neglect thee, thinkest thou, that art a believer? If the prince feeds the traitor in prison, surely the child in his house shall not starve. In a word, to allude to that, Luke 12:28, if God in his providence so abounds to the to the ungodly, as we see he doth, if he ‘so clothe the grass,’ for to this the wicked may well be compared, ‘which is to-day in the field, and to- morrow is cast into hell’s burning oven, how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?’ Fourth. Art thou at peace with God? O show then no discontent at any cross or affliction that God visiteth thee withal! If he hath visited thee first with his mercy, thou hast reason to bid him kindly wel­come when he comes to visit thee with his rod. Thou hast sugar by thee now to sweeten thy bitter cup. When the Prophet Samuel came to Bethlehem, it is said, ‘The elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably? And he said, Peaceably!’ 1 Samuel 16:4-5. Thus when God comes with some heavy affliction to us, it may make us tremble till we know what it comes for, whether peaceable or no. Now, if thou beest at peace with God the fear is over, it cannot but come peaceably; thou mayest con­clude it comes on mercy’s errand. What condition canst thou, O pardoned soul, be in, that should part thee and the joy of thy peace with God? Is it the wrath of man thou fearest? Possibly thou hast many enemies, and those great ones, and their wrath as great as such can express. Let it be so. Is God among them or no? Doth God let out their wrath in his wrath against thee? If not, thou exceed­ingly wrongest God, if overmuch troubled, and thyself also. Thou wrongest God by not sanctifying his name in thy heart, whose mercy, I hope, is able to secure thee from their wrath: ‘If God be for us, who can be against us?’ Romans 8:31. Thou needest not fear them though an army of them were about thee—no more than if they were so many wisps of straw. And thou wrongest thyself also: for how, indeed, can we wrong God and not ourselves? So long as thou art under the power of such a fear from man’s wrath, thou canst never have the taste of God’s love in its true sweetness. Again, art thou sick, poor, and what not beside? May not God reasonably expect that reconciling mer­cy should stop thy mouth from whispering any word of discontent against him, and prevent all envious glances of thy eye at the prosperity of the wicked? Re­member, man, that thou canst say one great word which they cannot, in the midst of all their pomp and worldly glory. ‘Though I lie here poor and sick, yet I am, through mercy, at peace with God.’ This, well thought on, would soon change both your notes—the joy of the prosperous sinner into bitter mourning, and thy sorrow, Christian, into joy. The Lady Elizabeth —afterwards England’s gracious queen—hearing a simple milk-maid sing merrily in the field, when the poor princess, being then a sorrowful prisoner, had more mind to sigh than sing, though served at the same time in state as a princess, said, ‘That poor maid was happier than herself.’ And so would the sinner, how great and high soever in the world, think the poorest Christian, with his rags and penury, a better man, and happier in his liberty, and peace with God, than himself in all his grandeur and worldly gaieties, did he but consider that in the midst of all these he is a prisoner, not to man, but God, out of whose hands there is no escaping. Fifth. Comfort thyself with this, that thou, who art at peace with God now on earth, shalt feast with God ere long in heaven. ‘And whom he justified, them he also glorified,’ Romans 8:30. And do not think this news to be too good or great to be true. Here is a word for it, you see. Heaven’s number of glorified saint’s is made up of justified sinners. Neither more nor less of the one than of the other. Art thou justified by faith, by which thou hast peace with God? Then, lose not thy privilege, but rejoice with thy fellow-saints, ‘in hope of the glory of God.’ It is be­fore thee. Every day brings thee nearer to it, and nothing can hinder thee of it at last. Not thy sins themselves, and I know thou fearest them most. He that paid thy great score at thy conversion will find mercy enough in his heart, surely, to pass by thy drib­bling debts, which thy own infirmity, and Satan’s subtlety, have run thee into. Thou wert an enemy when God thought of doing the first, but now thou art a friend; and this will oblige him to do the second, that he may not lose his disbursement in the first; yea, provision is made by God in this method of our salvation for the one, as strongly as for the other. Christ died to make us, of enemies to God, friends with him, and he lives now to bring God and us, being thus made friends, to meet in one heaven together. Yea, the apostle gives the advantage to this of the two for our faith to triumph in. ‘For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life,’ Romans 5:10. As if the apostle had said, ‘Can you believe that God hath taken you that were bloody enemies, into a state of peace and favour with himself? Surely, then, you must needs find it easier for your faith to argue from reconciliation to salvation, than from hostility to enmity to pardon and peace. Could Christ procure the one by his death, when he was weakest, as I may so say, and at the lowest descent of his humiliation; how much more shall he, in the height of his court-favour in heaven —when he hath all power given him, and in particular ‘the keys of the hell and death’ to open and shut as he pleaseth—to be able to save those whom he hath reconciled?’ Revelation 1:18. Sixth. Art thou at peace with God? Knowing the goodness of God to thyself, then do thou woo in some others to embrace the same mercy. The house is not so full, but ‘yet there is room,’ Luke 14:22. Hast thou none thou lovest so well as to wish them thy happiness? Haply, thou hast a carnal husband lying by thy side, children of thy womb or loins, neighbours in whose company thou art every day almost, and all these in an unreconciled state—who, should they die as now they live, their precious souls are lost for ever, and yet themselves think no more of this misery com­ing on them, than the silly sheep doth, as to what the butcher is doing, when he is whetting his knife to cut her throat. Well, the less merciful they are to their own souls, the more need there is thou shouldst show thy compassion towards them. We take most care of those that are least capable of taking care for themselves. If thou hadst a friend sick in thy house, and of such a disease that he could not help himself, should he die rather than thou wouldst look after him? If a child were condemned to die, though he did himself not mind the getting of a pardon, yet surely thou wouldst run and ride to obtain it, rather than see him end his days so shamefully. In a word, didst thou but know thy next neighbour had an intention to foredo himself, and for that end had locked himself up in a room, wouldst thou not bestir thee to break up the door, rather than the man should thus miscarry? But alas, where is the holy violence that is used to save poor souls? Parents, husbands, neighbours, they can see their relations going to hell before their eyes, and who saith to them, Why do you so? O, for the Lord’s sake, be more merciful to the souls of others. Thou hast found a feast, let not any that are near thee starve for want of knowing where it is to be had. Go and invite all thou canst see to God’s house. So did David: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good,’ Psalms 34:8. Thou needst not fear a chiding from God for sending him more guests. He complains he hath no more. ‘Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,’ John 5:40. He threatens those that keep sinners off from making their peace with him, by flattering them with a false one, called a ‘strengthening the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life,’ Ezekiel 13:22. O how acceptable a work then must it needs be to woo souls to Christ! The merchant is not angry for sending a customer into his warehouse that will buy what he hath taken so much cost and travail to get that he may sell. Nor will the physician blame any for bringing a patient to him, by whose cure he may let the world know his skill and art. And this is the great design Christ hath long had in particular prayed for, viz. ‘that the world might believe he was sent of God,’ John 17:21. What aims he at in the gathering in of souls by the grace of the gospel, but ‘to take out of them a peo­ple’ from the heap of sinners ‘for his name,’ Acts 15:14, that is, cull out a number, in showing mercy to whom he might exalt his own name gloriously. SECOND KIND OF PEACE. [Peace of conscience the blessing of the gospel.] We come now to the second kind of peace, and that is peace of consolation, or peace of conscience. By the former—peace of reconciliation—the poor sinner is reconciled to God; by this, he becomes ani­ma pacata sibi—a soul reconciled to itself. Since man fell out with God, he could never be truly friends with his own conscience. This second peace is so necessary, that he cannot taste the sweetness of the first, nor indeed of any other mercy, without it. This is to the soul what health is to the body, it sugars and sweetens all enjoyments. A suit, though of cloth of gold, sits not easy on a sick man’s back. Nothing joy­ous to a distressed conscience. Moses brought good news to the distressed Israelites in Egypt, but it is said, ‘They hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit,’ Exodus 6:9. Hannah, she went up to the festival at Jerusalem with her husband, but it is said, ‘She wept, and did not eat,’ 1 Samuel 1:7. Truly, thus the wounded soul goes to the sermon, but doth not eat of the feast before it; hears many precious promises, but her ear is shut up from receiving the good news they bring. Tell one in trouble of conscience, here is your dear husband, [your] sweet children, will you not rejoice with them; alas, the throes such a one feels are so amazing, that he regards these things no more than Phinehas’ wife in her sore travail did the woman that joyed her with the birth of a son. Set the most royal feast before such a soul that ever was on prince’s table, and, poor heart, it had rather go into a corner and weep, than sit and eat of those delicacies. ‘A wounded spirit who can bear?’ yea, who can cure? Some diseases are, for their incurableness, called ludibrium medicorum—the physician’s shame and reproach. To be sure this spiritual trouble of an ac­cusing conscience puts all the world to shame for their vain attempts. Many have attempted to conjure this evil spirit out of their own bosoms and others’; but have found it at last to leap upon them, and prevail against them, as the ‘evil spirit’ did by the sons of Sceva, Acts 19:14. No, peace of conscience, I am now to show, is the blessing of the gospel, and only of the gospel. Conscience knows Jesus, and the gospel of Jesus; these and none else it will obey. Two particulars considered will demonstrate the truth of the point. First. If we consider what is the argument that pacifies and satisfies conscience. Second. If we consider what the power is and strength required to apply this argument so close and home to the conscience as to quiet and fully satisfy it. Both these will be found in the gospel, and only in the gospel. [The argument which gives peace to the conscience.] First. Let us inquire what is the argument that is able to pacify conscience when thoroughly awakened. Now to know this, we must inquire what is the cause of all those convulsions of horror and terror with which the consciences of men are at any time so sadly rent and distorted. Now this is sin. Could this little word—but great plague—be quite blotted out of men’s minds and hearts, the storm would soon be hushed, and the soul become a pacific sea, quiet and smooth, without the least wave of fear to wrinkle the face thereof. This is the Jonah which raiseth the storm—the Achan that troubles the soul. Wherever this comes, as was observed of a great queen in France, a war is sure to follow. When Adam sinned, he dissolved another manner of jewel than Cleopatra did, he drank away this sweet peace of conscience in one unhappy draught, which was worth more to him than the world he lived in, Hebrews 10:2. No wonder that it rose in his conscience as soon as it was down his throat—‘they saw that they were naked.’ Their con­sciences reproached them for cursed apostates. That therefore which brings peace to conscience must pros­trate this Goliath—throw this troubler overboard —pluck this arrow out of the soul—or else the war will not end, the storm will not down, the wound will not close and heal which conscience labours under. Now the envenomed head of sin’s arrow, that lies burning in conscience, and, by its continual boking[8] and throbbing there, keeps the poor sinner out of quiet—yea, sometimes in unsupportable torment and horror—is guilt. By it the creature is alarmed up to judgment, and bound over to the punishment due to his sin; which, being no less than the infinite wrath of the eternal living God, must needs lay the poor crea­ture into a dismal agony, from the fearful expectation thereof in his accusing conscience. He, therefore, that would use an argument to pacify and comfort a distressed conscience that lies roasting upon these burning coals of God’s wrath kindled by his guilt, must quench these coals, and bring him the certain news of this joyful message—that his sins are all pardoned; and that God, whose wrath doth so affright him is undoubtedly, yea everlastingly, reconciled to him. This and no other argument will stop the mouth of conscience, and bring the creature to true peace with his own thoughts. ‘Son, be of good cheer,’ said Christ to the palsied man, ‘thy sins be forgiven thee,’ Matthew 9:2. Not, be of good cheer, thy health is given thee (thou gh that he had also); but, thy ‘sins are forgiven thee.’ If a friend should come to a malefactor on his way to the gallows, put a sweet posy into his hands, and bid him ‘be of good cheer, smell on that,’ alas! this would bring little joy with it to the poor man’s heart, who sees the place of execution before him. But if one comes from the prince with a pardon, which he puts into his hand, and bids him be of good cheer; this, and this only, will reach the poor man’s heart, and overrun it with a sudden ravishment of joy. Truly, anything short of pardoning mercy is as incon­siderable to a troubled conscience towards any reliev­ing or pacifying of it, as that posy in a dying prisoner’s hand would be. Conscience demands as much to sat­isfy it as God himself doth to satisfy him for the wrong the creature hath done him. Nothing can take off conscience from accusing but that which takes off God from threatening. Conscience is God’s sergeant he employs to arrest the sinner. Now the sergeant hath no power to release his prisoner upon any pri­vate composition between him and the prisoner, but listens whether the debt be fully paid, or the creditor be fully satisfied; then, and not till then, he is discharged of his prisoner. Well, we have now only one step to go further, and we will bring this demonstration to a head. From what quarter comes this good news, that God is reconciled to a poor soul, and that his sins are pardoned? Surely from the gospel of Christ, and no other way besides. Here alone is the covenant of peace to be read betwixt God and sinners; here the sacrifice by which this pardon is purchased; here the means discovered by which poor sinners may have benefit of this purchase; and therefore here alone can the accusing conscience find peace. Had the stung Israelites looked on any other object besides the bra­zen serpent, they had never been healed. Neither will the stung conscience find ease with looking upon any besides Christ in the gospel promise. The Levite and the priest looked on the wounded man, but would not come near him. There he might have lain and per­ished in his blood for all them. It was the good Sa­maritan that poured oil into his wounds. Not the law, but Christ by his blood, bathes and supplies, closeth and cureth, the wounded conscience. Not a drop of oil in all the world to be got that is worth anything for this purpose besides what is provided and laid up in this gospel vial. There was abundance of sacrifices offered up in the Jewish church; yet, put all the blood of those beasts together which was poured out from first to last in that dispensation, and they were not able to quiet one conscience or purge away one sin. The ‘conscience of sin,’ as the apostle phraseth it, Hebrews 10:2—that is, guilt in their conscience—would still have remained unblotted notwithstanding all these, if severed from what was spiritually signified by them. And the reason is given, Hebrews 10:4, ‘for it is not pos­sible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.’ There is no proportion betwixt the blood of beasts, though it should swell into a river—a sea, and the demerit of the least sin. Man’s sin deserves man’s death, and that eternal, both of body and soul, in hell. This is the price God hath set upon the head of every sin. Now, the death of beasts being so far be­neath this price which divine justice demands as satis­faction for the wrong sin doeth him, it must needs be as far beneath pacifying the sinner’s conscience —which requires as much to satisfy it, yea, the very same, as it doth to satisfy the justice of God himself. But in the gospel, behold, joyful news is brought to the sinner’s ears, of a fountain of blood there opened, which for its preciousness is as far above the price that divine justice demands for man’s, as the blood of bulls and beasts was beneath it, and that is the blood of Jesus Christ, who freely poured it out upon the cross, and by it ‘obtained eternal redemption for us,’ Hebrews 9:1-28. This is the door all true peace and joy comes into the conscience by. Hence we are directed to bot­tom our confidence and draw our comfort here, and nowhere else: ‘Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,’ Hebrews 10:22. Mark that, ‘sprin­kled from an evil conscience.’ Conscience, by office, is appointed to judge of a man’s actions and state, whether good or bad, pardoned or unpardoned. If the state be good, then it is to acquit and comfort; if evil, then to accuse and con­demn him; therefore the ‘evil conscience’ here, is the accusing conscience. From this ‘evil conscience’ we are said to be ‘sprinkled,’ that is, freed by the blood of Christ sprinkled on us. It is sin the evil conscience accuseth of, and wrath, the due punishment for that, it condemns the poor creature unto; and to be sprinkled with the blood of Christ is to have the blood of Christ applied to the heart by the Spirit, for pardon and reconciliation with God. Sprinkling in the law did denote the cleansing of the person so sprinkled from all legal impurities; yea, the believing soul from all sinful uncleanness by the blood of Christ, which was signified by the blood of those sacrifices. Therefore David prays, ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean,’ Psalms 51:7—that is, apply the blood of Christ to my troubled conscience, as they did with the bunch of hyssop did the blood of the beast into which it was dipped upon the leper, to cleanse him, ‘then,’ saith he, ‘I shall be clean,’ Leviticus 14:6. This sin, which now doth affright my conscience, shall be washed off, and I at peace, as if I had never sinned. To this sprinkling of blood the Holy Ghost alludes, where we are said in the gospel administration to be ‘come...to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel,’ Hebrews 12:24, that is, ‘better things’ in the conscience. Abel’s blood, sprinkled in the guilt of it upon Cain’s conscience, spake swords and daggers, hell and damnation; but the blood of Christ sprinkled in the conscience of a poor trembling sinner speaks pardon and peace. Hence it is called ‘the answer of a good con­science toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,’ 1 Peter 3:21. An answer supposeth a ques­tion, an ‘answer toward God’ supposeth a question from God to the creature. Now the question God here is supposed to propound to the poor creature may be conceived to be this, viz. what canst thou say —who art a sinner, and standest by the curse of my righteous law doomed to death and damnation—why thou shouldst not die the death pronounced against every sinner? Now the soul that hath heard of Christ, and hearing of him hath received him by faith into his heart, is the person, and the only person, that can answer this question so as to satisfy God or himself. Take the answer as it is formed and fitted for, yea, put into the mouth of every believer, by the apostle Paul, ‘Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us,’ Romans 8:34. Such an answer this is that God himself cannot object against it, and therefore St. Paul, representing all believers, triumphs in the invincible strength thereof against all the enemies of our salvation, ‘who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Romans 8:35, and proceeds to challenge in death and devils, with all their attendants, to come and do their worst against believers who have got this breast-work about them, and at last he displays his victorious colours, and goes out of the field with this holy confidence, that none—be they what they will—shall ever be able to hurt them: ‘I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,...shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,’ Romans 8:38-39. In him he lodg­eth his colours, and lays up all his confidence. But I am afraid I have been too long; if I can be said to be too long on this subject—the richest vein in the whole mine of gospel treasure. [The power required so to apply this argument as to give peace of conscience.] Second. This second demonstration is taken from the strength and power required to press this ar­gument home to the conscience, so as to quiet and fully satisfy it. Conscience is a lock that goes hard; though the key fit it (I mean the argument used to comfort it be suitable and strong), yet, if this key be in a weak hand, that cannot turn it in this lock—as it is whenever a mere creature holds it—conscience will not open; its doubts and fears will not be resolved. No, this must be the work of the Spirit, or else it will never be done. Conscience is God’s officer; and, though the debt be paid in heaven, yet it will not let the soul go free, till a warrant comes from thence to authorize it. And who can bring this but the Spirit of God? Thus as it is not in all their power that are about the poor prisoner to comfort him, till news come from court what the prince means to do with him; so here in this case. ‘When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hideth his face, who then can behold him?’ Job 34:29. Now two things I shall do for the bringing of this demonstration to a head. 1. I shall show that the gospel alone presents the Spirit of God to us under the notion of a Comforter. 2. I shall show the admirable fitness and sufficiency of the Holy Spirit to pacify and com­fort a guilty troubled con­science. The first will evince that peace of conscience is nowhere else to be found but from the gospel; the second will show that it is there abundantly to be found. 1. It is the gospel alone that presents the Spirit of God as a Comforter to poor sinners. Indeed the comforting office of the Spirit is founded on the satis­faction of Jesus Christ. When Christ had shed his blood, and in it laid down upon the nail the full price of a sinner’s peace with God; then, at his return to heaven, he prays his Father to send the Comforter. Neither could Christ desire this request of his Father, nor his Father grant it to him, but upon the account of this his death, which secures the justice of God from receiving any damage by the comfort which the Spirit carries into the believing sinner’s bosom. Christ tells his disciples thus much, ‘If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you,’ John 16:7. Pray, mark the Spirit, as a Comforter, stays till Christ goes to heaven to send him down, and no room for Christ there, till the work was done he came about. And what was that, but, by his bloody death, to purchase peace with God for poor believing sinners? Now let him come when he will. The Spirit is ready to be sent as a com­forter, as soon as he appears in the heavens with his blood as an intercessor. But whence then had the Old Testament saints all their peace and comfort, who lived before Christ returned to heaven, yea, be­fore he took his first journey from hea­ven, I mean to earth? I answer, ‘Upon the same account they had their comfort, that they had their pardon.’ They were pardoned through the blood of Christ, who was vir­tually a lamb slain from the beginning of the world; and they were comforted by the Spirit of Christ, whose comforting office bears the same date with Christ’s mediatorial office. As all their pardons were issued out upon the credit of Christ, who stood en­gaged in the fulness of time to lay down his life; so all the comfort which the Spirit of Christ issued out into their consciences, was upon the same credit of Christ, who should, as in the fulness of time die on earth for sinners, so appear also in the heavens—by virtue of the satisfaction that his death should make—there to intercede with the Father for a comforter. Thus you see the first thing. The Spirit as a comforter hath his office from the gospel covenant, and could never have spoken a word of comfort, but upon this gospel ac­count. Hence it is, when the Father sends him as a comforter, he sends him in Christ’s name, who hath made up the breach betwixt him and sinners, John 14:26—that is, for his sake and at his entreaty. Yea, when the Spirit doth comfort, what is it he saith? The joyful news he brings is gospel intelligence, ‘He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,’ John 16:13. The meaning is [that] when he comes to teach, he shall not bring new light, dif­ferent from what shines in the gospel, but what truth Christ preached in the gospel, that he shall teach. When he comforts, the ingredients which his soul-reviving cordials shall be made of, are what grow in the gospel garden, as John 16:14: ‘He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you’—that is, my death, my merit, my resurrection, my ascension and intercession, my promises pur­chased and sealed with my blood—these he shall take and make report of to you, for your eternal joy and comfort. So that, if it had not been for these, the Spirit, who is Christ’s messenger, would have wanted an errand of this comfortable nature to have brought unto poor sinners, yea, instead of a comforter, he would have been an accuser and a tormentor. He that now bears witness with our spirits for our recon­ciliation, adoption, and salvation, would have joined in a sad testimony with our guilty consciences against us, for our damnation and destruction. 2. I am to show the admirable fitness of the Spir­it for this comforting office, which the gospel reveals him to have, for the pacifying and satisfying the con­sciences of poor disconsolate sinners. You have heard the gospel affords an argument sufficient to sat­isfy the most troubled conscience in the world—to wit, the full satisfaction which Christ by his precious blood hath made to God for sinners—but, if poor man had been left to improve this as well as he could for his comfort, he might have lain long enough roar­ing in the horror of his scorched conscience without ease, for want of one to drop this cooling healing balm into it. But, as both the wisdom and love of God appeared in providing an able Saviour to purchase eternal redemption for us; so also a meet Comforter, as able to apply this purchased redemption to us. His consolations are called ‘strong consolations.’ Christ showed his strength, when he unhinged the gates of the grave, and made his way out of that dark prison by his glorious resurrection. By this he was ‘declared to be the Son of God with power,’ as the apostle hath it, Romans 1:4. And truly, it requires no less power to break open the dungeon, wherein the guilty conscience lies shut up, as one free among the dead in his own despairing thoughts. For, if you ob­serve it well, the same stone and seal are upon the sinner’s conscience to keep him down from a resurrection of comfort, as was on Christ’s grave to keep him down from a resurrection to life. What was the heaviest stone, the strongest seal, upon dead Jesus to keep him from rising? Not the stone man rolled upon him, not the seal the Jews thought to fasten the grave with, but the curse of the law for sin, which divine justice rolled upon him. This pressed heaviest upon Christ without all compare. The angel himself that rolled away the stone could not have removed the curse. Now, look in upon the distressed conscience’s grave, where its own guilt hath laid it. What is that? no other than the lowest hell in its fears and present dismal apprehensions. I am damned, I am for ever an undone creature, is the language such a one rings continually in his own ears. But inquire, what is it that keeps him down in this grave? what hinders, but the poor wretch may be helped out of this pit of horror, and receive some comfort? Alas he will tell you, that it is but in vain to comfort him; this ointment is all wasted to no purpose, which you pour upon his head. No, he is an undone sinner. The curse of God sticks like a dagger in his heart; the wrath of God lies like a mountain of lead on his con­science. Except you can put your hand into his bosom, and pluck out the one, or by main force roll off the other, it is impossible he should be raised to any peace or comfort in his miserable conscience. You see it is the same gravestone on both. But for thy eternal comfort know, poor heart, that art thus fast laid under the sense of the curse due to thy sins, know that as the weight that keeps thee from comfort is the same which lay on Christ to keep him from life; so the same power and strength is sent to raise thee to comfort, that enabled Christ to rise to life. That Spir­it, who kept the Lord Jesus from seeing corruption in the grave; that restrained death, when it had Christ in its very mouth, so as it could no more feed on him than the whale could digest Jonah in her belly; yea that quickened his dead body, and raised him with honour, not only to life, but immortality also—is he that Christ sends for his messenger, to come and sat­isfy the trembling consciences of his poor children on earth concerning his love, yea his Father’s love to them for his sake. This blessed Spirit hath all the properties of a comforter. He is also pure and holy, he cannot deceive; called therefore ‘the Spirit of truth,’ John 14:1-31. If he tell thee thy sins are pardoned, thou mayest believe him. He will not flatter. If thy were not so pardoned he would have brought another message to thee; for he can chide and reprove as well as comfort, convince of sin as well as of righteousness. He is so wise and omniscient, that he cannot be de­ceived. Never did the Spirit of God knock at the wrong doors, and deliver his letters into a wrong hand, as a man may do, especially where persons are very like. The Spirit exactly knows the heart of God to the creature, with all his counsels concerning him: ‘The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God,’ 1 Corinthians 2:10. And what are those ‘deep things of God’ the apostle means, but the counsels of love, which lie deep in his heart, till the Spirit draws them forth and acquaints the creature with them? That ap­pears by 1 Corinthians 2:9. And he also knows the whole frame of man’s heart. It were strange indeed if he that made the cabinet should not know every secret box in it. Some few men have compassed that we call the greater world. But the little world of man, as we call him, never did any creature encircle with his knowledge, no not the devil himself, who hath made it his work so many thousands of years to make a full dis­covery of it. But the Spirit of God doth know him, intus est in cute—as we say, thoroughly; and knowing both these, he cannot be deceived. In a word, he is so unresistible, that none can hinder the efficacy of his comforts. The pardon brought by Nathan to David did not lie so close as the holy man desired; and therefore away goes he to beg comfort of the Comforter, Psalms 51:1-19. There you find him on his knees praying hard to have his lost joy restored, and his trembling heart established by the free Spirit of God. Though thou canst baffle man, and through thy own melancholy fancy, and the sophistry of Satan, who coins distinctions for thee, evade the arguments that Christians and ministers bring for thy comfort; yet, when the Spirit comes himself, all dis­putes end. The devil cannot chop logic with him. No; then the lying spirit vanisheth, and our own fears too, as the darkness flees before the sun. So sweetly and powerfully doth the comforting Spirit overrun the heart with a flood of joy that the soul can no more see her sins in the guilt of them, than Noah could the mole-hills when the whole earth was under water. USE OR APPLICATION. [A reproof to three sorts of persons.] Use first. Is peace of conscience the blessing of the gospel? This reproves three sorts of persons. 1. Sort. The Papists, who interpretatively deny that peace of conscience is the blessing of the gospel, for they deny that any person can know in this life, unless by an extraordinary revelation, that he is a child of God, and one that shall be saved—which, if true, would stave all to pieces the vessel in which the Christian’s joy and inward peace is kept. Whence comes the peace we have with our own consciences, but from the knowledge we have of our peace with God? ‘Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God,’ Romans 5:1. If the poor soul be left at uncertainties here, and the gospel cannot resolve to it what its state is for hell or heaven, farewell to all inward peace. The poor Christian may then say of himself, with a trembling heart, what St, John saith, in another case, of him that hateth his brother, ‘He walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth,’ 1 John 2:11. Truly then the gospel might rather be called the gospel of fears and doubts, than the gospel of peace. But is that the top of the blessing the gospel brings to saints, which was almost the bottom of the curse that the law de­nounced against sinners?—that ‘their life should hang in doubt before them; and they shall fear day and night, and should have no assurance of life,’ Deuteronomy 28:66. Bold men they are that dare so wretchedly dis­figure the sweet face of the gospel; making Christ in his precious promises speak as doubtfully to his saints, as the devil did in his oracles to his devotees. Because their hypocrisy makes them justly question their own salvation, and will not suffer them to apply the comfort of the promises to themselves, must they therefore seal up these wells of salvation from those that are sincere, and then lay the blame on the gospel which is due only to their own wickedness? But there is a mystery of iniquity which hath at last been found to be at the root of this uncomfortable doctrine of theirs. They are a little akin to Judas, who was a thief, and carried the bag. These have a bag, too, into which they put more gold and silver, that this doctrine brings them in, than ever Judas had in his. Though the doctrine of gospel-grace to poor sinners’ would bring more peace to others’ consciences —might it be seen in its naked glory among them —yet the superstitious fear which they keep ignorant souls in, brings more money to their purses; and this lies so near the heart of their religion, that gospel, Christ, heaven, and all, must bow unto it. 2. Sort. Those are to be reproved, who frame very unlovely images in their own foolish imaginations of the gospel—as if there was nothing less than peace of conscience and inward comfort to be found in it—and all, because they see some that profess it, who cannot show that they have got any more peace and comfort since their acquaintance with the gospel than they had before, or than themselves have who are yet strangers to it; yea may be, discover more trouble of spirit. Such I would desire to take these following particulars, by way of answer, into their seri­ous consideration. (1.) Consider all that are not true Christians that hang upon the gospel by profession. And no blame can be laid on the gospel, though it doth not lavish out this treasure to every one that scrapes acquaintance with it. The Spirit of God is too wise and faith­ful to set his seal to a blank. The minister indeed of­fers peace to all that will accept it. But where the peace of the gospel meets with a false heart, it will not stay there, ‘If the house be not worthy, let your peace return to you,’ Matthew 10:13. As the dove returned to the ark again, when it found the earth under water, so doth the Spirit of God carry his comfort back with him to heaven from a soul that is yet in the suds of sin, soaking in his abominations. Where can this heavenly dove find rest for the sole of her foot in such a soul? And will he speak peace to that soul in which himself can find no rest? (2.) As for those that are sincere, true-hearted Christians, there are several considerations which will vindicate the gospel to answer its name, and to be a gospel of peace and consolation. (a) Some that are sincere Christians, do not so clearly understand the doctrine of the gospel as oth­ers; and the want of light, of joy, and comfort in their consciences comes from that want of light in their un­derstandings. The ignorance of the workman doth not disparage the art. Plus est in arte, quam in arti­fice—there is more in an art than the attainment of the artist. There is a fulness of comfort in the principles of the gospel, but every Christian hath not at­tained to the ‘riches of the full assurance of under­standing, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ,’ which the apostle directs the Colossians to, as a sovereign means whereby ‘their hearts might be comforted,’ Colossians 2:2. (b) Some that do understand the doctrine of sal­vation by faith in Christ—the only foundation to build and rear up true comfort and peace of conscience on—yet may, by their negligence in their Christian course—not walking carefully by the rule of the gospel—deprive themselves at present of this sweet peace, which otherwise might flow into their bosoms from the promises of the gospel. ‘As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them,’ Galatians 6:16. And if so, what blame can be laid on the gospel? Be the pen never so good, and the hand never so skil­ful, it will not write on wet paper; yet we do not fault the hand or pen, but the paper. If the heart—though of a saint never so eminent —be under the defilement of a present lust, not repented of, no promise will speak peace to him; he is a disorderly walker, and the Spirit hath his rod to whip such. No sweet­meats of joy and peace to entertain them withal in that night. (3.) As for those which do walk close to the rule of the gospel—I mean by a sincere endeavour—and thou seest no such peace and comfort, as we speak of, that they have, I answer, (a) They may have it, and thou not know it. The saint’s joy and peace is not such a light giggling joy as the world’s; res severa verum gaudium—true joy is a real thing. The parlour, wherein the Spirit of Christ entertains the Christian, is an inner room, not next to the street, for every one that goes by to smell the feast. ‘The stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy,’ Proverbs 14:10. Christ and the soul may be at supper within, and thou not so much as see one dish go in, or hear the music that sounds so sweetly in the Christian’s ears. Perhaps thou thinkest he wants peace, be­cause he doth not hang out a sign in his countenance of the joy and peace he hath within. Alas, poor wretch! may not the saint have a peaceful conscience with a solemn, yea sad countenance, as well as thou and thy companions have a sorrowful heart, when there is nothing but fair weather in your faces? ‘In laughter the heart is sorrowful,’ Proverbs 14:13. Sure he means the wicked man’s laughter. It never looks more like rain with them than when it shines. Their conscience lowers when their face laughs. So, on the contrary, there is never more inward peace and com­fort to be found in a saint’s bosom, than sometimes when his face is blubbered with tears. Shouldst thou come in and hear the Christian bemoaning himself, and complaining with sighs and sobs of his sins against God, thou wouldst go home, and cry out of this melancholy religion, and the sad condition this man was in. And yet he whom thou so pitiest can de­sire thee to save it for thyself, and not spend it in vain for him; for he would not part with that very sorrow that scares thee so much, for all the joy which the world, with all its gallantry, when best set forth, could afford. There is a mystery in this sorrow which thou canst not unriddle. Know therefore that there is a sorrow and anguish of heart which ariseth from the guilt of sin and the fearful apprehensions of God’s wrath due to sin; and another that flows, not from fear of wrath arising from guilt, but from the sense of sin’s inbeing in the soul, provoking the Christian to do that which is dishonourable to that God who hath pardoned his sins to him; and this is the sorrow which sometimes makes the saints go for sad uncomfortable creatures, when all the same time their hearts are as full of comfort from the sense of God’s pardoning mercy as they can hold. This sorrow is but like a summer shower, melted by the sense of God’s love, as that by the warm sun, and leaves the soul—as that doth a garden of sweet flowers—on which it falls, more fresh and odoriferous. (b) Though some precious souls, that have closed with Christ, and embraced the gospel, be not at present brought to rest in their own consciences, but continue for a while under some dissatisfactions and troubles in their own spirits; yet even then they have peace of conscience in a threefold respect. In precio, in promisso, in semine—in what purchases it, in the promise, and in the germ. Every true believer hath peace of conscience in precio —in the price. The gospel puts that price into his hand which will assuredly purchase it, and that is the blood of Christ. We say, ‘That is gold which is worth gold’—which we may anywhere exchange for gold. Such is the blood of Christ. It is peace of con­science, because the soul that hath it, may exchange it for this. God himself cannot deny the poor creature that prays on these terms, ‘Lord, give me peace of conscience, here is Christ’s blood the price of it.’ That which could pay the debt, surely can procure the receipt. Peace of conscience is but a discharge under God’s hand that the debt due to divine justice is fully paid. The blood of Christ hath done that the greater for the believer, it shall therefore do this the less. If there were such a rare potion, that did infallibly procure health to every one that takes it, we might safely say, as soon as the sick man hath drunk it down, that he hath drunk his health; it is in him, though at present he doth not feel himself to have it, in time it will appear. Every true believer hath peace of conscience in promisso—in the promise. And that we count as good as ready money in the purse, which we have sure bond for, Psalms 29:11. ‘The Lord will bless his people with peace.’ He is resolved on it, and then who shall hinder it? It is worth your reading the whole psalm, to see what weight the Lord gives to this sweet promise, for the encouragement of our faith in expecting the performance thereof; nothing more hard to enter into the heart of a poor creature—when all is in an uproar in his bosom, and his conscience threatening nothing but fire and sword, wrath and vengeance, from God for his sins—than thoughts or hopes of peace and comfort. Now, the psalm is spent is show­ing what great things God can do, and that with no more trouble to himself than a word speaking. ‘The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty,’ Psalms 29:4. ‘It breaketh the cedars; it divi­deth the flames; it shaketh the wilderness; it maketh the hinds to calve.’ This God that doth all this, promiseth to bless his people with peace, outward and inward. For without this inward peace, though he might give them peace, yet could he never bless them with peace as he here undertakes. A sad peace, were it not, to have quiet streets, but cutting of throats in our houses? yet infinitely more sad is it to have peace both in our streets and houses, but war and blood in our guilty consciences. What peace can a poor creature taste or relish, while the sword of God’s wrath lies at the throat of conscience—not peace with God himself? Therefore Christ purchased peace of pardon, to obtain peace of conscience for his pardoned ones; and accordingly hath bequeathed it in the promise to them. ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you,’ John 14:27. There, you see, he is both the testator to leave and the executor of his own will—to give out with his own hands what his love hath left believers; so that there is no fear, but his will shall be performed to the full, seeing himself lives to see it done. Every believer hath this inward peace in semine—in the seed. ‘Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart,’ Psalms 97:11. Where sown, but in the furrows of the believer’s own bosom, when principles of grace and holiness were cast into it by the Spirit of God? Hence it is called ‘the peaceable fruit of righteousness,’ Hebrews 12:11. It shoots as naturally from holiness as any fruit in its kind doth from the seed proper to it. It is indeed most true, that this seed runs and ripens into this fruit sooner in some than it doth in others. This spiritual harvest comes not alike soon to all, no more than the other that is outward doth. But here is the comfort, whoever hath a seedtime of grace pass over his soul, shall have his harvest-time also of joy. This law God hath bound himself to, as strongly as for the other; which are ’not to cease while the earth remaineth,’ Genesis 8:22; yea, more strongly, for that was to the world in gen­eral, not to every particular country, town or field in these, which may want a harvest, and yet God keep his word; but God cannot perform his promise, if any one particular saint should everlastingly go without his reaping time. ‘He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him,’ Psalms 126:6. And therefore you who think so basely of the gospel and the professors of it, because at present their peace and comfort is not come, know it is on the way to them, and comes to stay everlastingly with them; whereas your peace is going from you every moment, and is sure to leave you without any hope of returning to you again. Look not how the Christian begins, but ends. The Spirit of God by his convictions comes into the soul with some terrors, but it closeth with peace and joy. As we say of March, ‘It enters like a lion, but goes out like a lamb.’ ‘Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace,’ Psalms 37:37. 3. Sort. This reproves those that think to heal their consciences with other than gospel balm; who leave the waters of living comfort, that flow from this fountain opened in the gospel by Christ, to draw their peace and comfort out of cisterns of their own hewing, and they are two—a carnal cistern, and a legal cistern. (1.) Some think to draw their peace out of a car­nal cistern. There is not more variety of plasters and foolish medicines used for the cure of the ague of the body, than there is of carnal receipts used by self-deceiving sinners to rid themselves of the shaking ague which the fear of God’s wrath brings upon their guilty consciences. Some, if they be but a little awakened by the word, and they feel their hearts chill within them, from a few serious thoughts of their wretched undone condition, fall to the physic of Fe­lix; who, as soon as his conscience began to be sick at Paul’s sermon, had enough of the preacher, and made all the haste he could to get that unpleasing noise out of his head: ‘Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way,’ Acts 24:25. Thus many turn their back off God, run as far as they can from those ordinances, that company, or anything else that is likely to grate upon their consciences, and revive the thoughts of their de­plored state, which all their care is to forget. Such a one I have heard of, that would not be present at any funeral; could not bear the sight of his own gray hairs, and therefore used a black-lead comb to discolour them; lest, by these, the thoughts of death, which he so abhorred, should crowd in upon him. A poor cow­ardly shift, God knows! yet all that this wretch had, and all that many more have, betwixt them and a hell above ground in their consciences. Others, their light is so strong, and glares on them so constantly, that this will not do, but wherever they go, though they hear not a sermon in a month, look not on a Bible in a year, and keep far enough from such company as would awake their consciences, yet they are haunted with their own guilt. And therefore they do not only go ‘from the presence of the Lord,’ as Cain did, Genesis 4:16; but as he also made diversion of those musing thoughts which gathered to his guilty conscience, by employing them another way in ‘building a city,’ Galatians 4:17, so do they labour to give their consciences the slip in a crowd of worldly businesses. This is the great leviathan that swallows up all the thoughts of heaven and hell in many men’s hearts. They are so taken up with that project and this, that conscience finds them not at leisure to exchange a few words with them of a long time together. Conscience is as much hunched at and spited among sinners, as Joseph was among the patriarchs. That which conscience tells them, likes them no better than Joseph’s dream did his brethren; and this makes many play the merchants with their consciences, as they did with him—which they do by bribing it with the profits of the world. But this physic is found too weak also; and therefore Saul’s harp, and Nabal’s feast, is thought on by others. With these they hope to drown their cares, and lay their raving consciences asleep, like some ruffian that is under an arrest for debt, and hath no way, but now to prison he must go, except he can make the sergeant drunk in whose hand he is; which he doth, and so makes an escape. Thus many besot their conscience with the brutish pleasures of sin; and when they have laid it as fast asleep in senseless stupidity as one that is dead drunk, then they may sin without control till it wakes again. This is the height of that peace which any carnal recipe can help the sinner unto—to give a sleeping potion, that shall bind up the senses of con­science for a while, in which time the wretch may forget his misery, as the condemned man doth when he is asleep; but as soon as it awakes, the horror of his condition is sure again to affright him worse than before. God keeps you all from such a cure for your troubles of conscience, which is a thousand times worse than the disease itself. Better to have a dog that will, by his barking, tell us a thief is in our yard, than one that will still, and let us be robbed before we have any notice of our danger. (2.) Some draw their peace of conscience from a legal cistern. All the comfort they have is from their own righteousness. This good work, and that good duty, they bless themselves in, when any qualm comes over their hearts. The cordial drink which they use to revive and comfort themselves with, is drawn, not from the satisfaction which Christ by his death hath given to God for them poor sinners, but from the righteousness of their own lives; not from Christ’s in­tercession in heaven for them, but [from] their own good prayers on earth for themselves. In a word, when any spark of disquiet kindles in their consciences—as it were strange, if, where so much com­bustible matter is, there should not at one time or other some smothering fire begin in such a one’s bosom—then, not Christ’s blood, but their own tears, are cast to quench it. Well, whosever thou art that goest this way to work to obtain peace of con­science, I accuse thee as an enemy to Jesus Christ and his gos­pel. If any herb could be found growing in thy garden to heal the wounds of thy conscience, why did the Lord Christ commend for such a rarity the balm which he came from heaven on purpose to compound with his own blood? why doth he call sinners from all besides himself as comforters of no value, and bid us come to him, as ever we would find rest for our souls? Matthew 11:28. No; know, poor creature, and believe it —while the knowing of it may do thee good—either Christ was an impostor, and the gospel a fable, which I hope thou art not such an infidel, worse than the devil himself, to believe; or else thou takest not the right method of healing thy conscience wounded for sin, and laying a sure bottom for solid peace in thy bosom. Prayers and tears—repentance I mean—good works and duties, these are not to be neglected; nay, thou canst never have peace without them in thy con­science; yet these do not, cannot, procure this peace for thee, because they cannot thy peace with God. And peace of conscience is nothing but the echo of pardoning mercy, which, sounding in the conscience, brings the soul into a sweet rest with the pleasant music it makes. And the echo is but the same voice repeated; so that, if prayers and tears, good duties and good works, cannot procure our peace of pardon, then not our peace of comfort. I pray remember I said, ‘You can never have inward peace without these; and yet not have it by these.’ A wound would hardly ever cure, if not wrapped up from the open air, and also kept clean; yet not these, but the balm cures it. Cease therefore, not from praying and the exercise of any other holy exercise of grace or duty, but from ex­pecting thy peace and comfort to grow from their root, or else thou shuttest thyself out from having any benefit of that true peace which the gospel offers. The one resists the other; like those two famous rivers in Germany, whose streams, when they meet, will not mingle together. Gospel peace will not mingle and incorporate, as I may so say, with any other. Thou must drink it pure and unmixed, or have none at all. ‘We,’ saith holy Paul for himself, and all other sincere believers, ‘are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,’ Php 3:3. As if he had said, ‘We are not short of any in holy duties and services, nay, we exceed them, for we worship God in the Spirit; but this is not the tap from whence we draw our joy and comfort; we rejoice (fiduciarily) in Christ Jesus, not in the flesh,’ where, that which he called worshipping God in the Spirit, now, in opposition to Christ and rejoicing in him, he calls flesh. They are to be proved from hence, who do indeed use the balm of the gospel for the healing of conscience-wounds; but who use it very unevangeli­cally. The matter they bottom their peace and com­fort on, is right and good—Christ and the mercy of God through him in the promise to poor sinners. What can be said better? But they do not observe gospel rule and order in the applying it. They snatch the promise presumptuously, force and ravish it, rather than seek to have Christ’s consent—like Saul, who was in such haste that he could not stay till Samuel came to sacrifice for him, but boldly falls to work before he comes, flat against order given him. Thus many are so hot upon having comfort, that they will not stay for the Spirit of God to come and sprin­kle their consciences with the blood of Christ in gospel order; but profanely do it themselves, by ap­plying the comfort of those promises which indeed at present does not belong to them. O sirs, can this do well in the end? Should he consult well for his health, that will not stay for the doctor’s direction, but runs into the apothecary’s shop, and on his own head takes his physic, without the counsel of the physician how to prepare it, or himself for the taking of it? This every profane wretch doth, that lives in sin, and yet sprinkles himself with the blood of Christ, and blesseth himself in the pardoning mercy of God. But let such know that, as the blood of the paschal lamb was not struck on the Egyptians’ doors, but the Israelites’; so neither is the blood of Christ to be sprinkled on the obstinate sinner, but on the sin­cere penitent. Nay, further, as that blood was not to be spilt on the threshold of an Israelite’s door, where it might be trampled on, but on the side posts; so neither is the blood of Christ to be applied to the be­liever himself while he lies in any sin unrepented of, for his present comfort. This were indeed to throw it under his foot to be trod upon. David confesseth his sin with shame, before Nathan comforts him with the news of a pardon. [Four characters of gospel peace.] 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,’ Isaiah 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,’ Isaiah 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,’ Isaiah 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. 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, Galatians 6:16. Now this rule you may see, to be the rule of the ‘new crea­ture,’ Galatians 6:15. 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[9] 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,’ 2 Thessalonians 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.’ 2 Thessalonians 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[10] 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. 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,’ Psalms 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,’ Proverbs 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,’ Psalms 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,’ 1 Samuel 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,’ Psalms 119:165. This distinguishes the saint’s peace, both from the worldling’s and the hypocrite’s. (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[11] 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. (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,’ Psalms 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,’ Proverbs 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,’ Psalms 40:12; but, before the psalm is at an end, after a few deep groans in prayer, Psalms 40:13-14, 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,’ Psalms 40:17. 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. 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; Hebrews 12:14; 1 Thessalonians 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,’ Luke 1:17; 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,’ Isaiah 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,’ Isaiah 11:9. 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,’ Revelation 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. [How the gospel knits the hearts of men in peace, and why it alone can do so.] 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, Ephesians 4:3. The apostle exhorts them ‘to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’ And how doth he persuade them Ephesians 4:4-7. 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, Genesis 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 Zechariah 11:10, compared with Zechariah 11:14. When once ‘the staff of beauty,’ Zechariah 11:10 —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. 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 Titus 3:4-5, ‘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,’ Romans 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. 3. 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,’ Galatians 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. 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,’ Isaiah 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,’ Proverbs 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,’ Ezekiel 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. [The sin of ministers who stir up strife.] 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. 1. Christians are unevangelical in their judgments; ‘they know but in part, and prophesy but in part,’ 1 Corinthians 13:9. He that pretends to more than this boasts without his measure, and doth thereby discover what he denies—his ignorance, I mean, in the gospel. And this defect and craze that is in the saints’ judgments exposeth them sometimes to drink in principles that are not evangelical. Now, these are they that make the bustle and disturb their peace and unity. All truth is reducible to a unity; like lines they lovingly meet in one center—the God of truth—and are so far from jostling and clashing, that, as stones in an arch, they uphold one another. They then which so sweetly agree in one them­selves cannot learn us to divide. No, it is this strange error that creeps in among the saints, and will needs be judge; this breaks the peace, and kindles a fire in the house, that in a while, if let alone, will be seen at the house-top. Wholesome food makes no disturbance to a healthy body; but corrupt food doth presently make the body feverish and untoward, and then, when the man is distempered, no wonder if he begins to be pettish and peevish; we have seen it by woful experience. Those from whom we had nothing but sweetness and love while they fed on the same dish of gospel truth with us, how strangely froward are they grown since they have taken down some unevangelical and erroneous principles! We know not well how to carry ourselves towards them they are so captious and quarrelsome; yea, at the very hearing of the word, if they have not yet forgot the way to the ordinance, what a distasteful behaviour do many of them show, as if every word went against their stomach, and made them sick! O sirs, let us not blame the gospel, it is innocent as to these sad contentions among us. Paul tells us where to find a father for this brat of strife. See at whose door he directs us to lay it: ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and of­fences contrary to the doctrine ye have learned,’ Romans 16:17. I pray observe how he clears the gospel here. This dividing quarrelling spirit is contrary to the gos­pel; they never learned it in Christ’s school. And then he tacitly implies that they have it somewhere else, from some false teacher and false doctrine or other. ‘Mark them,’ saith he, as if he had said, ‘Ob­serve them well, and you shall find them tainted some way or other.’ They have been warming themselves at Satan’s fire, and from thence have brought a coal with them, that does the mischief. 2. Christians are in part unevangelical in their hearts and lives. The whole root of sin is not stubbed up at once; no wonder some bitter taste remains in the fruit they bear. Saints in heaven shall be all grace, and no sin in them, and then they shall be all love also; but here they are part grace, part corruption, and so their love is not perfect. How can they be fully soldered together in unity never to fall out, as long as they are not so fully reconciled to God, in the point of sanctification, but now and then there are some breeches betwixt them and God himself? And the less progress the gospel hath made in their hearts to mortify lust and strengthen grace, the less peace and love is to be expected among them. The apostle con­cludes from the contentions among the Christians at Corinth, that they were of little growth in grace, such as were not past the child’s spoon and meat. ‘I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal,’ 1 Corinthians 3:2. Nay, he conceives this to be so clear evidence, that he appeals to their con­sciences if it be not so. ‘For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not car­nal, and walk as men?’ ver. 3. But as grace strengthens, and the gospel prevails on the hearts of Christians, so does love and a spirit of unity increase with it. We say ‘older and wiser;’—though children, when young, do scratch and fight, yet when they get up into years, they begin to agree better. Omne invalidum est naturá quærulum—those that are young and weak are peevish and quarrelsome. Age and strength bring wis­dom to overcome those petty differences that now cannot be borne. In the controversy between the servants of Abraham and Lot, Abraham, who was the elder and stronger Christian, was most forward for peace, so as to crave it at the hands of his nephew, every way his inferior. Paul, who was a Christian higher by the head than others—O how he excelled in love!—he saith of himself, 1 Timothy 1:14, ‘The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus;’ where, saith Calvin, fides incredulitati opponitur; dilectio in Christo sævitiæ quam exercuerat adversus fideles—faith is opposed to his former obstinate unbelief, when a Pharisee; love in Christ Jesus, to the cruelty he expressed against Christians, when, breathing slaughter, he went on a persecuting errand to Damascus. Now he was as full of faith as then of unbelief, now as fire-hot of love to the saints as then of cruelty against them. But that I quote chiefly the place for, is to see how this pair of graces thrive and grow together; if abundant in faith, then abundant in love. [Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace.] Use Third. What we have learned of gospel peace as a peace of love and unity, brings a seasonable exhortation to all the saints, that they would nourish peace what they can among themselves. You all profess to have been baptized into the spirit of the gospel, but you do not show it when you bite and snarl at one another. The gospel, that makes wolves and lambs agree, doth not teach the lambs to turn {into} wolves and devour each other. Our Saviour told the two disciples whose choler was soon up, that they would be fetching fire from heaven to go on their revengeful errand, that they little thought from what hearth that wild-fire of their passion came: ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of,’ Luke 9:55. As if he had said, Such fiery wrathful speeches do not suit with the meek Master you serve, nor with the gospel of peace he preacheth to you. And if the gospel will not allow us to pay our enemies in their own coin, and give them wrath for wrath, then much less will it suffer brethren to spit fire at one another’s faces. No, when any such embers of contention begin to smoke among Christians, we may show who left the spark —no other but Satan; he is the greatest kindle-coal of all their contentions. If there be a tempest, not in the air, but in the spirits of Christians, and the wind of their passions be high and loud, it is easy to tell who is the conjurer. O it is the devil, who is practicing his black art upon their lusts, which yet are so much un­mortified as gives him too great an advantage of rais­ing many times sad storms of division and strife among them. Paul and Barnabas set out in a calm together, but the devil sends a storm after them —such a storm as parted them in the midst of their voyage: ‘And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other,’ Acts 15:39. There is nothing, next Christ and heaven, that the devil grudged believers more than their peace and mutual love. If he cannot rend them from Christ, stop them from getting heaven, yet he takes some pleasure in seeing them go thither in a storm; like a shattered fleet severed one from another, that they may have no assistance from, nor comfort of, each other’s company all the way; though, where he can divide he hopes to ruin also, well knowing this to be the most probable means to effect it. One ship is easier taken than a squadron. A town, if it can be but set on fire, the enemy may hope to take it with more ease; Let it therefore be your great care to keep the devil’s spark from your powder. Certainly peace among Christians is no small mercy, that the devil’s arrows fly so thick at its breast. Something I would fain speak to endear this mercy to the people of God. I love, I confess, a clear and still air, but, above all, in the church among believers; and I am made the more sensible what a mercy this would be, by the dismal consequence of these divisions and differences that have for some years together troubled our air, and filled us with such horror and confusion, that we have not been much unlike that land called Terra del Fuego—the land of smoke, because of the frequent flashings of lightnings and abundance of smoke found there. What can I compare error to, better than smoke? and contention to, better than to fire? a kind of emblem of hell itself, where flames and darkness meet together to increase the horror of the place. But, to press the exhortation a little closer, give me leave to provoke you by three arguments to peace and unity. 1. Argument. The Christian should seek peace for Christ’s sake. And methinks, when begging for his sake I should have no nay. When you pray to God and do but use his name in the business, you are sure to speed. And why should not an exhortation, that woos you for Christ’s sake, move your hearts to duty, as a prayer put up by you in his name, moves God’s heart to mercy? Indeed, how can you in faith use Christ’s name as an argument to unlock God’s heart to thee, which hath not so much credit with thyself as to open thy own heart into a compliance with a duty, which is so strongly set on his heart to promote among his people? This appears, (1.) By the solemn charge he gave his disciples in this particular: ‘A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another,’ John 13:34. I pray observe how he prepares their hearts to open readily, and bid his commandment kindly welcome. He sets his own name upon it—‘a new commandment I give unto you.’ As if he had said, ‘Let this command, though as old as any other, Leviticus 19:18, yet go under my name in an especial manner. When I am gone and the fire of strife begins at any time among you, re­member what particular charge I now give you, and let it quench it presently.’ Again, observe how he delivers this precept, and that is by way of gift and privilege. ‘A new commandment I give unto you.’ Indeed, this was Christ’s farewell sermon, the very streakings of that milk which he had fed them withal. Never dropped a sweeter discourse from his blessed lips. He saved his best wine till the last. He was now making his will, and amongst other things that he be­queaths his disciples, he takes this commandment, as a father would do his seal-ring off his finger, and gives it to them. Again, thirdly, he doth not barely lay the command before them, but, to make it the more effectual, he annexeth in a few words the most powerful argument why they should, as also the most clear and full direction how they might, do this, that is possible to be given—As I have loved you, that ye also love one another. O Christians, what may not the love of Christ command you? If it were to lay down your lives for him that loved you to death, would you deny them? and shall not this his love persuade you to lay down your strifes and divisions? This speaks enough, how much weight he laid upon this commandment. But then, again, observe how Christ, in the same sermon, over and over again minds them of this; which if he had not been very solicitous of, should not have had so large a room in his thoughts at that time, when he had so little time left in which he was to crowd and sum up all the heavenly counsel and comfort he de­sired to leave with them before his departure. Nay, so great weight he lays on this, that he seems to lock up his own joy and theirs together in the care that they should take about this one command of loving one another, ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might reMal. in you, and that your joy might be full,’ John 15:11. What these things were appears by the precedent verse, ‘If ye keep my commandment, ye shall abide in my love.’ These were the things that he spake of in order to {keep} his joy in them, and theirs in him, that they would ‘keep his commandments.’ Now, to let them know how high a place their obedience to this particular command of love and unity had in his heart, and how eminently it conduced to the continuing his joy in them, and filling up their own; he chooseth that above any for this instance, in order to what he had said, as you may see, John 15:12, ‘This is my command­ment, That ye love one another.’ Observe still, how Christ appropriates this commandment to himself. ‘This is my commandment;’ as if he would signify to them that as he had one disciple, who went by the name of ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ so he would have a darling commandment, in which he takes some singular delight, and that this should be it, ‘their loving one another.’ But we are not yet at the last link of this golden chain of Christ’s discourse. When he hath put some more warmth into their affections to this duty, by exposing his own love to them in the deepest expression of it, even to die for them, John 15:13, then he comes on more boldly, and tells them he will own them for his friends, as they are careful to observe what he had left in charge with them, John 15:14, ‘Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’ And now taking it for granted that he had prevailed upon them, and that they would walk in unity and love as he had com­manded them, he cannot conceal the pleasure he takes therein, yea and in them for it. He opens his heart to them, and locks no secret from them, yea bids them go and open their heart to God and be free to him, as he is to them. And mark from what bless­ed hour all this familiarity that they are admitted to, bears date. ‘From henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’ John 15:15, that is from the time you walk dutiful to me and lovingly to one another. One would think he had now said enough; but he thinks not so. In the very next words he is at it again. ‘These things I command you, that ye love one another,’ John 15:17, as if all he had left else in charge with them had been subservient to this. (2.) A second thing that speaks Christ’s heart deeply engaged in the promoting of love and unity among Christians, is his fervent prayer for this. Should you hear a preacher with abundance of vehe­mency press a grace or duty upon the people in his pulpit, and as soon as sermon is done, you should go under his closet window, and hear him as earnestly wrestling with God that he would give his people what he had so zealously pressed upon them; you would easily believe the man was in earnest. Our blessed Saviour hath taught us ministers whither to go when we come out of the pulpit, and what to do. No soon­er hath he done his sermon to them, but he is at pray­er with God for them. And what he insisted on most in preaching he enlargeth most upon in prayer. Unity and peace was the legacy he desired so much to leave with them, and this is the boon he puts in strongly with God to bestow on them: ‘Father, keep through thine own power those whom thou hast given me,’ John 17:11. And why all this care?—‘that they may be one, as we are.’ As if he had said, ‘Father, did we ever fall out? was there ever discord betwixt us? why then should they, who are thine and mine, disagree?’ So, John 17:21, and again, John 17:23, he is pleading hard for the same mercy. And why so oft? is it so hardly wrung from God, that Christ himself must tug so often for it? No, sure; but as Christ said of the voice that came from heaven, ‘This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes;’ John 12:30, so may I say here. This ingeminated[12] zeal of Christ for his people’s unity and love was for their sakes. (a) He would by this raise the price of this mercy in their thoughts. That is sure worth their care which he counted. Worth his redoubled prayer—when not a word was spoken for his own life—or else he misplaced his zeal, and improved not his time with God for the best advantage of his people. (b) He would make divisions appear more scareful and dreadful things to his people, by putting in so many requests to God for preventing them. Certainly if Christ had known one evil worse than another like to come upon his people at his departure, he would have been so true and kind to his children as to deprecate that above all, and keep that off. He told his children what they must look for at the world’s hand—all manner of sufferings and tor­ments that their wit could help their malice to devise —yet he prays not so much for immunity from these, as from unbrotherly contentions among themselves. He makes account, if they can agree together, and be in love, saint with saint, church with church, that they have a mercy that will alleviate the other, and make it tolerable, yea joyous. This heavenly fire of love among themselves will quench the flames of the per­secutor’s fire, at least the horror of them. (c) In a word, Christ would, as strengthen our faith to ask boldly for that which he hath bespoke for us, so also aggravate the sin of contention to such a height, that all who have any love to him, when they shall see they cannot live in strife, but they must sin against those prayers which Christ with strong cries put up for peace and unity, may tremble at the thoughts of it. (3.) The price that Christ gave for the obtaining of this peace and unity. As Christ went from preaching up peace to pulling down peace from heaven by prayer, so he went from praying to paying for it. In­deed Christ’s prayers are not beggar’s prayers, as ours are; he prays his Father that he may only have what he pays for. He was now on the way to the place of payment, Calvary, where his blood was the coin he laid down for this peace. I confess peace with God was the chief pearl that this wise merchant, Christ, bought up for his people. But he had this in his eye also, viz. love to the brethren; and therefore the sacra­ment of the Lord’s supper, which is the commemoration feast of Christ’s death, as it seals our peace with God, so it signifies our love one to another, 1 Corinthians 10:1-33. And need I now give you any account why our dear Lord pursued his design so close of knitting his peo­ple in peace and unity together? Truly the church is intended by Christ to be his house, in which he means to take up his rest. And what rest could he take in a house all on fire about him? It is his kingdom; and how can his laws be obeyed, if all his sub­jects be in a hubbub one against another? Inter arma silent leges—laws are silent amid arms. In a word, his church are a people that are called out of the world to be a praise to him in the sight of the nations, as Peter saith, ‘God did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name,’ Acts 15:14—that is, a people for his honour. But a wrangling divided peo­ple would be little credit to the name of Christ. Yea such, where they are foun d—and where alas are they not to be found?—are to the name of Christ as smoke and dirt to a fair face. They crock and disfigure Christ, so that the world will not acknowledge him to be who he saith he is; they lead them even into temptation to think basely of Christ and his gospel. Christ prays his people may be made perfect in one, and mark his argument—‘That the world may know that thou hast sent me,’ John 17:23. Whose heart bleeds not to hear Christ blasphemed at this day by so many black mouths? and what hath opened them more than the saints’ divisions? 2. Argument. The second argument shall be ta­ken from yourselves; for your own sakes live in peace and unity. (1.) Consider your obligations to love and unity; your relations call for it. If believers, Paul tells you your kindred, ‘Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus,’ Galatians 3:26; not only children of God, so are all by creation, but by faith in Jesus Christ also. Christ is the foundation of a new brotherhood to be­lievers. O Christians! consider how near you are set one to another. You are conceived in the same womb of the church, begotten by the same seed of the word to this new creation, whereby, as one saith, you be­come brethren of the whole blood, and therefore there should be more unity and dear affection among you than among any others. Joseph’s heart went out more to Benjamin, than any of the rest of his brethren, because he was his brother both by father and mother. If you fall out, who shall agree? what is it that can rationally break your peace? Those things which use to be bones of contention, and occasion squabbling among other brethren, Christ hath taken care to remove them all, so that of all others, your quarrellings are most childish, yea sinful. Sometimes one child finds himself grieved at the partiality of his parents’ affection, more set on some others than him­self, and this makes him envy them, and they despise him. But there is no such foundling in his God’s family—all dear alike to Christ: ‘Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us,’ Ephesians 5:2, that is, for one as well as another. Christ in the church is like the soul in the body, he is totus in toto, et totus in qualibet parte—every member in Christ hath whole Christ, his whole heart and love, as if there were none besides himself to enjoy it. Again, among men, though the father shows not so much partiality in his affection, yet oft great ine­quality in the distribution of his estate. Though all are children, yet not all heirs, and this sows the seed of strife among them; as Jacob found by woeful exper­ience. But Christ hath made his will so, that they are all provided for alike, called therefore the ‘common salvation,’ Jude 1:3, and ‘the inheritance of the saints in light,’ Colossians 1:12, for the community. All may enjoy their happiness without justling with or prejudicing of one another, as millions of people who look upon the same sun, and at the same time, and none stand in another’s light. Methinks that speech of Christ looks a little this way, ‘The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one,’ John 17:22. By ‘glory’ there I would understand heaven’s glory prin­cipally. Now saith Christ, ‘I have given it,’ that is, in reversion, I have given it them; not this or that fav­ourite, but ‘them’—I have laid it out as the portion of all sincere believers, and why? ‘that they may be one,’ that all squabbles may be silenced, and none may en­vy another for what he hath above him, when he sees glory in his. It is true indeed some difference there is in Christians’ outward garb—some poor, some rich —and in common gifts also—some have more of them, some less. But are these tanti? of such weight, to commence a war upon, among those that wait for the same heaven? If the father clothes all his children in the same cloth, it were sad to see them stab one another, because one hath a lace more than the other; nay because one’s lace is red, and the other’s green; for indeed the quarrel among Christians is sometimes, not for having less gifts than another, but because they are not the same in kind, though another, as good and useful, which possibly he wants whom we envy. (2.) Consider where you are, and among whom. Are you not in your enemies’ quarters? If you fall out, what do you but kindle a fire for them to warm their hands by? ‘Aha! so would we have it,’ say they. The sea of their rage will weaken this bank fast enough; you need not cut it for them. The unseasonableness of the strife betwixt Abraham’s herdsmen and Lot’s is aggravated by the near neighbourhood of the heathens to them: ‘And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land,’ Genesis 13:7. To fall out while these idolaters looked on—this would be town-talk presently, and put themselves and their religion both to shame. And I pray, who have been in our land all the while the people of God have been scuffling? Those that have curiously observed every uncomely behaviour among them, and told all the world of it —such as have wit and malice enough to make use of it for their wicked purposes. They stand on tiptoes to be at work; only we are not yet quite laid up and dis­abled, by the soreness of those our wounds, which we have given ourselves, from withstanding their fury. They hope it will come to that; and then they will cure us of our wounds, by giving one, if they can, that shall go deep enough to the heart of our life, gospel and all. O Christians! shall Herod and Pilate put you to shame? They clapped up a peace to strengthen their hands against Christ; and will not you unite against your common enemy? It is an ill time for mariners to be fighting, when an enemy is boring a hole at the bottom of their ship. (3.) Consider the sad consequences of your contentions. (a) You put a stop to the growth of grace. The body may as well thrive in a fever, as the soul prosper when on a flame with strife and contention. No, first this fire in the bones must be quenched, and brought into its natural temper, and so must this unkindly heat be slaked among Christians before either can grow. I pray observe that place, ‘But speaking the truth in love’—or being sincere in love—‘may grow up into him in all things,’ Ephesians 4:15. The apostle is up­on a cure, showing how souls that at present are weak and their grace rather wan and withered than growing, may come to thrive and flourish; and the recipe he gives is a composi­tion of these two rare drugs, sincerity and love. Preserve these, and all will do well; as Ephesians 4:16, where the whole body is said to ‘edify itself in love.’ There may be preaching, but no edifying, with­out love. Our times are a sad comment upon this text. (b) You cut off your trade with heaven at the throne of grace. You will be little in prayer to God, I warrant you, if much in squabbling with your brethren. It is impossible to go from wrangling to praying with a free spirit. And if you should be so bold as to knock at God’s door, you are sure to have cold wel­come. ‘Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift,’ Matthew 5:24. God will not have the incense of prayer put to such strange fire; nor will he eat of our leavened bread, taste of any perform­ance soured with malice and bitterness of spirit. First the peace was renewed, and a covenant of love and friendship struck between Laban and Jacob, Genesis 31:44, and then, ‘Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread,’ Genesis 31:54. The very heathens thought no serious business could be well done by quarrelling spirits. Therefore the senators of Rome used to visit the temple dedicated Jovi depositorio, because there they did deponere inimicitias—lay down all their feuds and controversies, before they went into the senate to consult of state affairs. Durst not they go to the senate, till friends? and dare we go up to God’s altar, bow our knees to him in prayer, while our hearts are roiled and swollen with anger, envy, and malice? O God humble us. (c) As we cut off our trade with heaven, so with one another. When two countries fall out, whose great interest lies in their mutual traffic, they must needs both pinch by the war. Truly, the Christians’ great gains come in by their mutual commerce, and they are the richest Christians commonly who are seated with the greatest advantage for this trade. As no nation have all their commodities of their own growth, but needs some merchandise with others; so there is no Christian that could well live without bor­rowing from his brethren. There is ‘that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part,’ Ephesians 4:16. Paul himself is not so well laid in, but he hopes to get something more than he hath from the meanest of those he preacheth to. He tells the Christians at Rome, Romans 1:1-32, he longs to see them, as to impart some spiritual gift to them, Romans 1:11, so, saith he, ‘that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me,’ Romans 1:12; yea, he hopes to be ‘filled with their company,’ Romans 15:24. As a man is filled with good cheer, so he hopes to make a feast of their com­pany. Now contentions and divisions spoil all intercourse between believers. They are as baneful to Christian communion, as a great pestilence or plague is to the trade of a market town. Communication flows from communion, and communion that is founded upon union. The church grows under per­secution. That sheds the seed all over the field, and brings the gospel where else it had not been heard of. But divisions and contentions, like a furious storm, wash the seed out of the land, with its heart, fatness, and all. (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,’ James 3:16. 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,’ Malachi 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,’ 2 Corinthians 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. 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 of Solomon 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,’ Romans 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! FOURTH KIND OF PEACE. [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,’ Romans 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. DIRECTION VII.—THIRD GENERAL PART. [What is meant by the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace.] ‘Shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace’ (Ephesians 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, Psalms 57:1-11. And how came he so? ‘My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared,’ saith he, ’I will sing and give praise,’ Psalms 57:7. 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. 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,’ Psalms 110:1-7—‘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, Romans 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. FIRST DOCTRINE. [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, 2 Timothy 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. [Why we are to be always ready for trials —Reasons in regard of Christ.] 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,’ 2 Timothy 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[13] 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, Exodus 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. 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,’ Psalms 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, Matthew 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, 1 Corinthians 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. (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,’ Psalms 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,’ Psalms 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,’ 2 Corinthians 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 trials—reasons from the excellency of such a spirit.] 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, Numbers 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[14] 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, Exodus 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,’ Hebrews 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,’ Esther 5:13. A third sort are as much in bondage to their pleasures. They are said to ‘live in pleasure on the earth,’ James 5:5. Their life is bound up in their pleas­ures. As the rush grows in the mud, and the fish lives in the water, they cannot live without their pleasures. Take them from their feasts and sports, and their hearts, with Nabal’s, die like a stone in their bosoms. Now this frame of spirit we are speaking of breaks all these chains, and brings the Christian out of every house of bondage. It learns him to like what fare God sends. If prosperity comes, he ‘knows how to abound,’ so, that if he be, by a turn of providence, thrown out of the saddle of his present enjoyments, his foot shall not hang in the stirrup, nor his enslaved soul drag him after it with whining desires. No, through grace he is a free man, and can spare the company of any creature, so long as he may but have Christ’s with him. Blessed Paul stands upon his liberty. ‘All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any,’ 1 Corinthians 6:12. I know the place is meant of those indifferent things, concerning which there was a present dispute. There is but another sense, in which all things here below were indifferent things to that holy man; honour or dishonour, abundance or want, life or death. These were indifferent to Paul, he would not come under the power of any one of them all. It did not become a servant of Christ, he thought, to be so tender of his reputation as to write himself undone when he had not this or that—not to be so in love with abundance as not to be ready to welcome want—not to be en­deared so to life as to run from the thoughts of death —nor to be so weary of a suffering life as to hasten death to come for his ease. That mind is to be called superior which chooses rather to meet and show the experiences of life, than to escape them. Third. This readiness to suffer, as it ennobles with freedom, so it enables the Christian for service. It is a sure truth [that] so far and no more is the Christian fit to live serviceably, than he is prepared to suffer readily. Because there is no duty but hath the cross attending on it; and he that is offended at the cross, will not be long pleased with the service that brings it. Prayer is the daily exercise of a saint. This he cannot do as he should, except he can heartily say, ‘Thy will be done.’ And who can do that in truth, unless ready to suffer? Praising God is a standing duty; yea, ‘in everything we must give thanks,’ 1 Thessalonians 5:18. But, what if affliction befalls us? How shall we tune our hearts to that note, if not ready to suffer? Can we bless God, and murmur?—praise God, and repine? The minister’s work is to preach, ‘Woe to him if he do not;’ and if he do preach, he is sure to suffer. Paul had his orders for the one, and his mittimus for the other, together. He was sent at the same time to preach the grace of God to the world and to endure the wrath of the world for God. So God told Ananias, ‘that he should bear his name before the Gentiles,’ and ‘suffer great things for his name’s sake,’ Acts 9:15-16. And if the gospel did not please the ungrateful world out of Paul’s mouth, who had such a rare art of sweetening it, it were strange that any who fall so far short of his gifts to move in the pulpit, and of his grace to win upon the hearts of men when out, should, if they mean to be faithful, think to go without the wages which the world paid him for his pains—reproach and contempt, if not downright blows of bloody persecution, as he met with. And is not this shoe needful for the preacher’s foot, that is to walk among so many hissing serpents? Who but a Paul, that had got over the fond love of life, and fear of a bloody death, would have been so willing to go into the very lion’s den, and preach the gospel there, where in a manner, he invited death to come unto him?—I mean at Rome itself, the seat of cruel Nero. ‘So much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also; for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,’ Romans 1:15-16. In a word, it is the duty of every Christian to make a free profession of Christ. Now this cannot be done without hazard many times. And if the heart be not resolved in this point—what to do; the first storm that riseth will make the poor man put in to any creek or hole, rather than venture abroad in foul weather. ‘Among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue,’ John 12:42. Poor souls, they could have been content if the coast had been clear to have put forth, but had not courage enough to bear a little scorn that threatened them. O what folly is it to engage for God, except we be willing to lay all at stake for him! It is not worth the while to set out in Christ’s company by profession, except we mean to go through with him, and not leave him unkindly when we are half way, because of a slough or two. Fourth. This readiness of spirit to suffer, gives the Christian the true enjoyment of his life. A man never comes to enjoy himself truly, in any comfort of his life, till prepared to deny himself readily in it. It is a riddle; but two considerations will unfold it. 1. Consideration. When we are prepared to deny ourselves in any comfort we may enjoy, then, and not till then, is that which hinders the enjoyment of our lives taken away; and that is fear. Where there is, ‘there is torment.’ The outsetting deer is observed to be lean—though where good food is—because always in fear. And so must they needs be, in the midst of all their enjoyments, on whose heart this virtue is continually feeding. There needs nothing else to bring a man’s joy into a consumption, than an inor­dinate fear of losing what he hath at present. Let but this get hold of a man’s spirit, and [he] once become hectical[15], and the comfort of his life is gone past re­covery. How many, by this, are more cruel to themselves, than it is possible their worst enemies in the world could be to them? They alas, when they have done their utmost, can kill them but once. But, by antedating their own miseries, they kill themselves a thousand times over, even as oft as the fear of dying comes over their miserable hearts. When once, however, the Christian hath got this piece of armour on—‘the gospel of peace’—his soul is prepared for death and danger. He sits at the feast which God in his present providence allows him, and fears no messenger with ill news to knock at his door. Yea, he can talk of his dying hour, and not spoil the mirth of his present condition, as carnal men think it does. To them a discourse of dying in the midst of their junkets, is like the coming in of the officer to attack a company of thieves that are making merry to­gether with their stolen goods about them; or, like the wet cloth that Hazael clapped on the king his master’s face, it makes all the joy, which flushed out be­fore, squat in on a sudden, [so] that the poor creatures sit dispirited and all a mort, as we say, till they get out of this affrighting subject by some divertise­ment or other. [And even when they do so, the effect is] only to relieve them for the present. It puts them out of that particular fit which this brought upon them; but leaves them deeper in slavery to such amazement of heart, whenever the same ghost shall appear for the future. Whereas, the Christian, that hath this preparation of heart, never tastes more sweetness in the enjoyments of this life, than when he dips these morsels in the meditation of death and eternity. It is no more grief to his heart to think of the remove of these—which makes way for those far sweeter enjoyments—than it would be to one at a feast, to have the first course taken off, when he hath fed well on it, that the second course of all rare sweetmeats and banqueting stuff may come on, which it cannot till the other be gone. Holy David, Psalms 23:4-6, brings in (as it were), a death’s head with his feast. In the same breath almost he speaks of his dying, Psalms 23:4, and of the rich feast he at present sat at, through the bounty of God, Psalms 23:5. To that however he was not so tied by the teeth, but if God, that gave him this cheer, should call him from it to look death in the face, he could do so and ‘fear no evil, when in the valley of the shadow thereof,’ Psalms 23:4. And what think you of the blessed apostle Peter? Had not he, think you, the true enjoyment of his life? when he could sleep so sweetly in a prison—no desirable place—fast bound ‘between two soldiers’ —no comfortable posture—and this the very ‘night’ before Herod ‘would have brought him forth’ in all probability to his execution! This was no likely time (one would think) to get any rest; yet we find him even there, thus, and then, so sound asleep, that the angel who was sent to give him his gaol delivery smote him on the side to awake him, Acts 12:6-78. I question whether Herod himself slept so well that night as this his prisoner did. And what was the potion that brought this holy man so quietly to rest? No doubt ‘this preparation of the gospel of peace.’ He was ready to die, and that made him able to sleep. Why should that break his rest in this world, which, if it had been effected, would have brought him to his eternal rest in the other? 2. Consideration. The more ready and prepared the Christian is to suffer from God, or for God, the more God is engaged to take care for him, and of him. A good general is most tender of that soldier’s life who is least tender of it himself. The less the Christian values himself and his interests for God’s sake, the more careful God is of him, either to keep him from suffering, or in it. Both of these blessings are meant, ‘Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it,’ Matthew 16:25. Abraham was ready to offer up his son, and then God would not suffer him to do it. But if the Lord at any time takes the Christian’s offer, and lets the blow be given, though to the severing of soul and body, he yet shows his tender care of him, by the high esteem he sets upon their blood, which is not more prodigally spilt by man’s cruelty, than carefully gathered up by God. ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’ Thus we see, that by resigning ourselves up readily to the disposure of God, we engage God to take care of us whatever befalls us. And that man or woman, sure, if any other in the world, must needs live comfortably, that hath the care of himself wholly taken off his own shoulders, and rolled upon God, at whose finding he now lives. The poor widow was nev­er better off than when the prophet kept house for her. She freely parted with her little meal for the prophet’s use, and, [as] a reward of her faith—in crediting the message he brought from the Lord, so far as to give the bread out of her own mouth, and child’s, to the prophet—she is provided for by a miracle, 1 Kings 17:12-13. O when a soul is once thus brought to the foot of God, that it can sincerely say, ‘Lord, here I am; willing to deliver up all I have, and am, to be at thy dispose; my will shall be done, when thou hast thy will of me;’ God accounts himself deeply obliged to look after that soul! USE OR APPLICATION. [True Christians few, shown from the gospel holy readiness to suffer.] Use First. Must the Christian stand thus shod in readiness to march at the call of God in any way or weather? This will exceedingly thin and lessen the number of true Christians, to what they appear to be at the first view, by the estimate of an easy cheap profession. He that should come into our assemblies, and see them thracked and wedged in so close with multitudes flocking after the word, might wonder at first to hear the ministers sink the number of Chris­tians so low, and speak of them as so little a company. Surely their eyes fail them, that they cannot see wood for trees, Christians for multitudes of Chris­tians that stand before them. This very thing made one of the disciples ask Christ with no little stranging [wondering] at it, ‘Lord, are there few that be saved?’ Luke 13:23. Observe the occasion of this question. Christ, ‘went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem,’ Luke 13:22. He saw Christ so free of his pains to preach at every town he came to, and people throng after him, with great ex­pressions of joy that fell from many, Luke 13:17. Then said he, ‘Lord, are there few that be save d?’ As if he had said, This seems very strange and almost incredible. To see the way to heaven strewed so thick with peo­ple, and the means of salvation in such request, and yet be few saved at last! how can this be? Now mark our Saviour’s unriddling this mystery. ‘And he said unto them (it seems the man spoke more than his own scruple), Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able,’ Luke 13:24. As if Christ had said, You judge by a wrong rule. If profession would serve the turn, and flocking after sermons, with some seeming joy at the word, were enough to save, heaven would soon be full. But, as you love your souls, do not boult[16] or try yourselves by this coarse sieve; but ‘strive to enter,’ •(T<Æ.,F2,—fight and wrestle, venture life and limb, rather than fall short of heaven. ‘For many shall seek,...but shall not be able;’ that is, seek by an easy profession, and cheap religion, such as is hearing the word, performance of duties, and the like. Of this kind there are many that will come and walk about heaven-door—willing enough to enter, if they may do it without ruffling their pride in a crowd, or hazarding their present carnal interest by any contest and scuf­fle; ‘but they shall not be able!’ that is, they ‘shall not be able to enter’—because their carnal cowardly hearts shall not be able to strive. So that take Christians under the notion of ‘seekers,’ and by Christ’s own words they are ‘many.’ But consider them under the notion of ‘strivers,’ such as stand ready shod with a holy resolution to strive even to blood—if such trials meet them in the way to heaven—rather than not enter, and then the number of Christian soldiers will shrink, like Gideon’s goodly host, to a ‘little troop.’ O how easy were it to instance in several sorts of Christians—so called in a large sense—that have not this gospel shoe to their foot, and therefore are sure to founder and falter when once brought to go upon sharp stones! 1. Sort. The ignorant Christian—what work is he like to make of suffering for Christ and his gospel? and such are not the least number in many congregations. Now, they who have not so much light of knowledge in their understanding, as to know who Christ is and what he hath done for them, will they have so much heat of love as to march cheerfully after him, when every step they take must fetch blood from them? Nabal thought he gave a rational answer to David’s servants, that asked some relief of him in their present strait, when he said, ‘Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?’ 1 Samuel 25:11. He thought it too much to part with upon so little acquaintance. And will the ignorant person, think you, be ready to part, not only with his bread and flesh out of the pot —a little of his estate I mean—but the flesh of his own body, if called to suffer, and all this at the com­mand of Christ, who is one he knows not whence he is? Paul gives this as the reason why he suffered and was not ashamed, ‘for (saith he) I know whom I have believed,’ 2 Timothy 1:12. Story tells us of the Samaritans —a mongrel kind of people both in their descent and religion—that, when it went well with the people of God, the Israelites, then they would claim kindred with them, and be Jews, but, when the church of God was under any outward affliction, then they would disclaim it again. And we may the less wonder at this base cowardly spirit in them, if we read the character Christ gives of them, to be a people that ‘worship they know not what,’ John 4:22. Religion hath but loose hold of them, that have no better hold of it than a blind man’s hand. 2. Sort. Carnal gospellers, who keep possession of their lusts while they make profession of Christ. A generation these are that have nothing to prove them­selves Christians by, but their baptism, and a Christian name which they have obtained thereby; such as, were they to live among Turks and heathens, their language and conversations—did they but conceal whence they came—would never bewray them to be Christians. Can it now be rationally thought then that these are the men and women who stand ready to suffer for Christ and his gospel? No sure; they who will not wear Christ’s yoke will much less bear his burden. If the yoke of command that binds them to duty be thought grievous, they will much more think the burden of the cross insupportable. He that will not do [work] for Christ, will not die for Christ. That servant is very unlike to fight to blood in his master’s quarrel, that will not work for him so as to sweat in his service. 3. Sort. The politic professor—a fundamental article in whose creed is, to save himself, not from sin, but from danger. And therefore he studies the times more than the Scriptures; and is often looking what corner the wind lies in, that accordingly he may shape his course, and order his profession, which, like the hedgehog’s house, ever opens toward the warm side! 4. Sort. The covetous professor, whose heart and head are so full of worldly projects, that suffering for Christ must needs be very unwelcome to him, and find him far enough from such a disposition. You know what the Egyptians said of the Israelites, ‘They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in,’ Exodus 14:3. More true is it of this sort of pro­fessors. They are entangled in the world, this wilderness hath shut them in. A man whose foot in a snare is as fit to walk and run as they to follow Christ, when to do it may prejudice their worldly interest. Our Saviour, speaking of the miseries that were to come on Jerusalem, saith, ‘Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days,’ Matthew 24:19—because it would be more difficult for them to escape the danger by flight. But many more woes to them, who in days of trial and persecution for the gospel, shall be found big with the world, or that give suck to any covetous inordinate affection to the crea­ture. Such will find it hard to escape the temptation that these will beset them with. It is impossible in such a time to keep estate and Christ together; and as impossible for a heart that is set upon the world, to be willing to leave it for Christ’s company. 5. Sort. The conceited professor, who hath a high opinion of himself, and is so far from a humble holy jealously and fear of himself, that he is self-confident. Here is a man shod and prepared he thinks, but not with the right gospel shoe. ‘By strength shall no man prevail,’ 1 Samuel 2:9. He that, in Queen Mary’s days, was so free of his flesh for Christ [that], as he said, he would see his fat—of which he had a good store—melt in the fire rather than fall back to Popery, lived, poor man, to see this his reso­lution melt, and himself cowardly part with his faith to save his fat. Those that glory of their valour, when they put on the harness, ever put it off with shame. ‘The heart’ of man ‘is deceitful above all things,’—a very Jacob, that will supplant its own self. He that cannot take the length of his own foot, how can he of himself fit a shoe to it? [Exhortation to get on this shoe of preparation.] Use Second. Be exhorted all you that take the name of Christ upon you, to get this shoe of preparation on, and keep it on, that you may be ready at all times to follow the call of God’s providence, though it should lead you into a suffering condition. Take but two motives. 1. Motive. Consider, Christian, suffering work may overtake thee suddenly, before thou art aware of it; therefore be ready shod. Sometimes orders come to soldiers for a sudden march; they have not so much as an hour’s warning, but must be gone as soon as the drum beats. And so mayest thou be called out, Christian, before thou art aware, into the field, either to suffer for God or from God. Abraham had little time given him to deal with his heart, and persuade it into a compliance with God, for offering his son Isaac. A great trial, and short warning, ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,’ Genesis 22:2, not a year, a month, a week hence, but now. This was in the night, and Abraham is gone ‘early in the morning,’ Genesis 22:3. How would he have entertained this strange news, if he had been then to gain the consent of his heart? But that was not now to do. God had Abraham’s heart already, and therefore he doth not now dispute his order, but obeys. God can make a sudden alteration in thy private affairs, Christian; how couldst thou in thy perfect strength and health, endure to hear the message of death? If God should, before any lingering sickness hath brought thee into some ac­quaintance with death, say no more, but ‘Up and die,’ as once to Moses, art thou shod for such a journey? Couldst thou say, ‘Good is the word of the Lord?’ What if one day thou wert to step out of honour into disgrace, to be stripped of thy silks and velvets, and, in vile raiment, called to act a beggar’s part? Couldst thou rejoice that thou art made low, and find thy heart ready to bless the Most High? This would speak thee a soul evangelically shod indeed. Again, God can as soon change the scene, in the public affairs of the times thou livest in, as to the gos­pel and profession of it. May be, now, authority smiles on the church of God; but, within a while it may frown, and the storm of persecution arise. ‘Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea,’ Acts 9:31. This was a blessed time. But how long did it last? Alas! not long, see Acts 12:1-25. There is sad news of a bloody persecution in the first verse of it. ‘Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.’ In this persecution James the brother of John lost his life by his cruel sword; and Peter we find in prison, like to go to the same shambles. The entire church, indeed, is driven into a corner to pray in the night together, Acts 12:12. O what a sad change is here! Now in blood, who even now had ‘rest’ on every side. It is observed that in islands the weather is far more variable and uncertain than in the continent. Here you may know, ordinarily, what weather will be for a long time together; but in islands, in the morning we know not what weather will be before night. We have ofttimes summer and win­ter in the same day. And all this is imputed to the near neighbourhood of the sea that surrounds them. The saints in heaven, they live, as I may so say, on the continent. A blessed constancy of peace and rest is there enjoyed. They may know by what peace and bliss they have at present, what they shall have to eternity. But here below, the church of Christ is as a floating island, compassed with the world —I mean men of the world—as with a sea; and these [i.e. men of the world] sometimes blow hot, and sometimes cold; sometimes they are still and peaceable, and sometimes enraged and cruel, even as God binds up or lets loose their wrath. Now, Christian, doth it not behove thee to be always in a readiness, when thou knowest not but in the next moment the wind may turn into the cold corner, and the times which now favour the gospel, so as to fill the sails of thy profession with all encouragement, on a sudden blow full on thy face, and oppose it as much as it did before countenance it? 2. Motive. Consider, if thy feet be not shod with a preparation to suffer for Christ here on earth, thy head cannot be crowned in heaven. ‘If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,’ Romans 8:17. Now mark the following words, ‘If so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified togeth­er.’ It is true, all the saints do not die martyrs at a stake; but every saint must have a spirit of martyrdom, as I may so call it—a heart prepared for suffering. God never intended Isaac should be sacri­ficed, yet he will have Abraham lay the knife to his throat. Thus God will have us lay our neck on the block, and be, as Paul said of himself, ‘bound in the spirit,’ under a sincere purpose of heart to give up ourselves to his will and pleasure, which is called ‘a presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,’ Romans 12:1. The end in view is, that as the Jew brought the beast alive, and presented it freely before him, to be done withal as God had commanded, so we are to present our bodies before God, to be disposed of as he commands, both in active and passive obedience. He that refuseth to suffer for Christ, refuseth also to reign with Christ. The putting off of the shoe among the Jews was a sign of a man’s putting off the right of an inheritance, Deuteronomy 25:9-10. Thus did Elimelech’s kinsman, when he renounced and disclaimed any right that he might have in his estate—he drew off his shoe, Ruth 4:7-8. O Christian, Talk heed of putting off thy gospel shoe! By this thou dost dis­claim thy right in heaven’s inheritance. No portion is there laid up for any that will not suffer for Christ. The persecutions which the saints endure for the gos­pel, are made by Paul an evident token to them of salvation, and that of God, Php 1:28. Surely then the denying Christ, to escape suffering, is a sad token of perdition. O sirs, is not heaven’s inheritance worth enduring a little trouble for it? Naboth’s vineyard was no great matter, yet rather than he would—not lose it, but—sell it to its worth, or change it for a bet­ter in another place, chose to lay his life at stake by provoking a mighty king. Thou canst, Christian, ven­ture no more for thy heavenly inheritance, than he paid for refusing his petty patrimony of an acre or two of land—thy temporal life I mean. And besides the odds between his vineyard on earth and thy paradise in heaven —which is infinite, and suffers no proportion, thou hast this advantage also of him in thy suf­ferings for Christ. When Naboth lost his life, he lost his inheritance also that he so strove to keep; but thy persecuting enemies shall do thee this friendly office against their wills, that when they dispossess thee of thy life, they shall help thee into possession of thy inheritance. [Directions for helping on this spiritual shoe.] The great question I expect now to fall from thy mouth, Christian, is not how mayest thou escape these troubles and trials which, as the evil genius of the gospel, do always attend it? but rather, how thou mayest get this shoe on, thy heart ready for a march to go and meet them when they come, and cheerfully wade through them, whatever they be, or how long so­ever they stay with thee? This is a question well be­coming a Christian soldier, to ask for armour wherewith he may fight; whereas the coward throws away his armour, and asks whether he may flee. I shall therefore give the best counsel I can, in these few particulars. First Direction. Look carefully to the ground of thy active obedience, that it be sound and sincere. The same right principles whereby the sincere soul acts for Christ, will carry him to suffer for Christ, when a call from God comes with such an errand, ‘The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle,’ Psalms 78:9. Why? what is the matter? so well armed, and yet so cowardly? This seems strange. Read the precedent verse, and you will cease wondering. They are called there ‘a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.’ Let the ar­mour be what it will, yea, if soldiers were in a castle whose foundation were a rock, and its walls brass, yet, if their hearts be not right to their prince an easy storm will drive them from the walls, and a little scare open their gate, which hath not this bolt of sincerity on it to hold it fast. In our late wars we have seen that honest hearts within thin and weak works have held the town, when no walls would defend treachery from betraying trust. O labour for sincerity in the engaging at first for God and his gospel! Be oft asking thy own soul for whom thou prayest, hearest, reform­est this practice and that. If thou canst get a satisfactory answer from thy soul here, thou mayest hope well. If faith’s working hand be sincere, then its fighting hand will be valiant. That place is observable, Hebrews 11:33 ‘Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire,’ and with other great things, that faith enabled them to endure, as you may read in Hebrews 11:34-36. There note, I pray, how the power of faith enabling the Christian to ‘work righteousness’—that is, live holily and righteously—is reckoned among the wonders of sufferings which it strengthened them to endure. In­deed had it not done this, it would never have endured these. Second Direction. Pray for a suffering spirit. This is not a common gift, which every carnal gospel­ler and slighty professor hath. No; it is a peculiar gift, and bestowed on a few sincere souls. ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake,’ Php 1:29. All the parts and common gifts that a man hath will never enable him to drink deep of this cup for Christ. Such is the pride of man’s heart. He had rather suffer any way than this; rather from himself, and for himself, than from Christ or for Christ. You would wonder to see sometimes, how much a child will endure at his play, and never cry for it—this fall, and that knock, and no great matter is made of it, because got in a way that is pleasing to him. But, let his father whip him, though it puts him not to half the smart, yet he roars and takes on, that there is no quieting of him. Thus, men can bring trouble on themselves, and bite in their complaints. They can, one play away his es­tate at cards and dice, and another whore away his health, or cut off many years from his life by beastly drunkenness; and all is endured patiently. Yea, if they had their money and strength again, they should go the same way. They do not repent of what their lusts have cost them, but mourn they have no more to bestow upon them. Their lusts shall have all they have, to a morsel of bread in their cupboard and drop of blood in their veins; yea, they are not afraid of burning in hell, as their sins’ martyrs. But come, and ask these that are so free of their purse, flesh, soul, and all, in lust’s service, to lay their estate or life for a few moments at stake in Christ’s cause and his truth’s, and you shall see that God is not so much beholden them. And therefore pray and pray again for a suffering spirit in Christ’s cause. Yea, saints themselves need earnestly to plead with God for this. Alas! they do not find suffering work follow their hand so easily. The flesh loves to be cockered, not crucified. Many a groan it costs the Christian before he can learn to love this work. Now prayer, if any means, will be helpful to thee in this particular. He that can wrestle with God, need not fear the face of death and danger. Prayer engageth God’s strength and wisdom for our help. And what is there too hard for the creature, that hath God at his back for his help, to do or suffer? We are bid to ‘count it all joy, when we fall into divers temptations,’ James 1:2—not temptations to sin, but for righteousness. He means troubles for Christ and his gospel. Ah! but might the poor Christian say, it were cause of more joy to be able to stand under these temptations, than to fall into them. Little joy would it be to have the tempta­tion, and not the grace to endure temptation. True indeed; but, for thy comfort, Christian, he that leads thee into this temptation stands ready to help thee through it. Therefore, ver. 5, there is a gracious si quis —if any one—set up; ‘If any of you’—i.e. you suffers chiefly—‘lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.’ This, methinks, should not much strain our faith to believe. There are not many mas­ters so disingenuous to be found, that would twit and upbraid their servant for asking humbly their counsel in a work of peril and difficulty, which they cheerfully undertake out of love to their persons and obedience to their command. How much less then needest thou fear such dealing from thy God? If thou hast so much faith and love as to venture at his command upon the sea of suffering, he will, without doubt, find so much mercy as to keep thee from drowning, if, feeling thyself begin to sink, thou criest earnestly as Peter did to him, ‘Lord, save me.’ Wert thou even under water, prayer would buoy thee up again. The proverb indeed is, ‘He that would learn to pray, let him go to sea.’ But I think it were better thus, ‘He that would go to sea—this I mean of suffering—let him learn to pray before he comes there.’ But, if thou beest not a man of prayer before suffering work come, thou wilt be able to do little at that weapon then. Third Direction. Be much in the meditation of a suffering state. He will say his lesson best, when his master calls him forth, that is oftenest conning[17] it over beforehand to himself. Do by the troubles thou mayest meet with, as porters used to do with their burdens—they will lift them again and again, before they take them on their back. Thus do thou. Be often lifting up in thy meditations those evils that may befall thee for Christ and his truth; and try how thou couldst fadge [agree] with them, if called to en­dure them. Set poverty, prison, banishment, fire, and fagot, before thee, on the one hand; and the precious truths of Christ on the other, with the sweet promises made to those that shall hold fast the word of patience held forth in such an hour of temptation. Suppose it were now thy very case, and thou wert put to thy choice which hand thou wouldst take, study the question seriously, till thou determinest it clearly in thy conscience. And do this often, so that the arguments which flesh and blood will then be sure to use for thy pitying thyself, may not be new and unanswered, nor the encouragements and strong consolations which the word affords be strange and under any suspicion in thy thoughts, when thou art to ven­ture thy life upon their credit and truth. That of Augustine we shall find most true, non facile inven­iuntur præsidia in adversitate, quæ non fuerint in pace quæsita—the garrisons are not easily found in adversity which were not sought for and known dur­ing peace. The promises are our garrison and fastness at such a time; and we shall not find it easy to run to them in a strait, except we were acquainted with them in a time of peace. A stranger that flies to a house for refuge in the dark night, he fumbles about the door, and knows not how to find the latch—his enemy, if nigh, may kill him before he can open the door. But one that lives in the house, or is well ac­quainted with it, is not long a getting in. ‘Come, my people,’ saith God, ‘enter thou into thy chambers,’ Isaiah 26:20. He is showing them their lodgings in his at­tributes and promises, before it is night and their suf­ferings be come, that they may readily find the way to them in the dark. Fourth Direction. Make a daily resignation of thyself up to the will of God. Indeed this should be, as it were, the lock of the night and the key of the morning. We should open and shut our eyes with this recommending of ourselves into the hands of God. This, if daily performed—not for­mally, as all duties frequently repeated, without the more care, are like to be; but solemnly—would sweetly dispose the soul for a welcoming of any trial that can befall him. The awkness of our hearts to suffer comes much from distrust. An unbelieving soul treads upon the promise as a man upon ice—at the first going upon it, it is full of fears and tumultuous thoughts lest it should crack. Now this daily resignation of thy heart, as it will give thee an occasion of conversing more with the thoughts of God’s power, faithfulness, and other of his attributes—for want of familiarity with which, jealousies arise in our hearts when put to any great plunge—so also it will furnish thee with many experi­ences of the reality both of his attributes and promises; which, though they need not any testimony from sense to gain them any credit with us, yet, so much are we made of sense, so childish and weak is our faith, that we find our hearts much helped by those experiences we have had, to rely on him for the fu­ture. Look therefore carefully to this; every morning leave thyself and ways in God’s hand, as the phrase is, Psalms 10:14. And at night, look again, how well God hath looked to his trust, and sleep not till thou hast affected thy heart with his faithfulness, and laid a stronger charge on thy heart to trust itself again in God’s keeping in the night. And when any breach is made, and seeming loss befall thee in any enjoyment, which thou hast by faith insured of thy God, observe how God fills up that breach, and makes up that loss to thee; and rest not till thou hast fully vindicated the good name of God to thy own heart. Be sure thou lettest no discontent or dissatisfaction lie upon thy spirit at God’s dealings; but chide thy heart for it, as David did his, Psalms 42:1-11. And thus doing, with God’s blessing, thou shalt keep thy faith in breath for a longer race, when called to run it. Fifth Direction. Make self-denial appear as ra­tional and reasonable as thou canst to thy soul. The stronger the understanding is able to reason for the equity and rationality of any work or duty, the more readily and cheerfully it is done, if the heart is honest and sincere. Suppose, Chris­tian, thy God should call for thy estate, liberty, yea, life and all; can it seem un­reasonable to thee? especially, 1. If thou considerest that he bids thee deliver his own, not thy own. He lent thee these, but he nev­er gave away the propriety of them from himself. Dost thou wrong thy neighbour to call for that money thou lentest him a year or two past? No sure, thou think­est he hath reason to thank thee for lending it to him, but none to complain for calling it from him. 2. Consider that he doth not, indeed cannot, bid thee deny so much for him as he hath done for thee. Is reproach for Christ so intolerable, that thy proud spirit cannot brook it? Why, who art thou? what great house comest thou from? See One that had more honour to lay at stake than I hope thou darest pretend to—Jesus Christ—who ‘thought it not rob­bery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation,’ Php 2:6-7. Is it pain and torment thou art afraid of? O look up to the cross where the Lord of life hung for thy sins! and thou wilt take up thy own cross more willingly, and thank God too, that he hath made thine so light and easy, when he provided one so heavy and tormenting for his beloved Son. 3. Consider, whatever God calls thee to deny for his truth, it is not more than he can recompense. Moses saw this, and that made him leap out of his honours and riches into the reproach of Christ, ‘for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward,’ Hebrews 11:26. It is much that a man will deny himself in for something his heart strongly desires in this life. If a man be greedy of gain, he will deny himself half of a night’s sleep to plot in his bed, or rise early from it to be at his work; he will eat homely fare, go in vile raiment, dwell in a smoky hole, as we see in London, for the conveniency of a shop. How men of quality will crowd themselves up into a little corner, though to the prejudice of their healths, and hazard sometimes of their lives! yet, hope of gain recompenseth all. And now, put their gains into the scale with thine Christian, that are sure to come in by denying thyself for Christ, which theirs are not, and ask thy soul whether it blush not to see them so freely deny themselves of the comfort of their lives for an imaginary, uncertain, at best a short advantage, while thou hucklest[18] so with Christ for a few outward enjoyments, which shall be paid thee over a hundred-fold here, and beyond what thou canst now conceive when thou comest to heaven’s glory! Sixth Direction. Labour to carry on the work of mortification every day to further degrees than other. It is the sap in the wood that makes it hard to burn, and corruption unmortified that makes the Christian loath to suffer. Dried wood will not kindle sooner, than a heart dried and mortified to the lusts of the world will endure anything for Christ. The apostle speaks of some that were ‘tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrec­tion,’ Hebrews 11:35. They did not like the world so well, as being so far on their journey to heaven—though in hard way —to be willing to come back to live in it any longer. Take heed, Christian, of leaving any worldly lust unmortified in thy soul. This will never consent thou shouldest endure much for Christ. Few ships sink at sea; they are the rocks and shelves that split them. Couldst thou get off the rocks of pride and unbelief, and escape knocking on the sands of fear of man, love of the world, thou wouldst do well enough in the greatest storm that can overtake thee in the sea of this world. ‘If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for his Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,’ 2 Timothy 2:21. O that we knew the heaven that is in a mortified soul! one that is crucified to the world and lusts of it. He hath the advantage of any other in doing or suffering for Christ, and enjoying Christ in both. A mortified soul lives out of all noise and disturbance from those carnal passions, which put all out of quiet where they come. When the mortified soul goes to duty there are not those rude and unmannerly intrusions of impertinent, carnal, yea sinful thoughts, between him and his God. Is he to go to prison? Here is not such weeping and taking on; no lust to hang about his legs, and break his heart with its insinuations; no self-love to entreat him that he would pity himself. His heart is free, got out of the acquaintance of these troublers of his peace; and a prison to him, if he may go upon so honourable an errand as testifying to the truth, O how welcome to him! Whereas a unmortified heart is wedged in with so great acquaintance and kindred, as I may so say, which his heart hath in the world, that it is impossible to get out of their embraces into any willingness to suffer. A man that comes into an inn in a strange place, he may rise at what time he pleaseth, and be gone as early as he pleaseth in the morning. There are none {to} entreat him to stay. But it is hard to get out of a friend’s house; these, like the Levite’s father‑in‑law, will be desiring him to stay one day, and then one more, and another after that. The mortified soul is the stranger. He meets with no dis­turbance—I mean comparatively—in his journey to heaven; while the unmortified one is linked in fast enough for getting on his journey in haste, especially so long as the flesh hath so fair an excuse as the foul­ness of the way or weather, any hardship likely to be endured for his profession. I have read of one of the Catos, that, in his old age, he withdrew himself from Rome to his country-house, that he might spend his elder years free from care and trouble. And all the Romans, as they ride by his house, used to say, iste solus scit vivere—this man alone knows how to live. I know not what art Cato had to dis­burden himself, by his retiring, of the world’s cares. I am sure, a man may go into the country and yet not leave the city be­hind him. His mind may be in a crowd while his body is in the solitude of a wilderness. Alas! poor man, he was a stranger to the gospel. Had he been but acquainted with this, it could have shown him a way out of the world’s crowd in the midst of Rome itself, and that is, by mortifying his heart to the world, both in the pleasures and troubles of it; and then that high commendation might have been given him with­out any hyperbole. For, to speak truth, he only knows aright how to live in the world that hath learned to die to the world. And so much for the first point; which, we may remind you, was, that the Chris­tian is to stand ready for all trials and troubles that may befall him. The second follows. SECOND DOCTRINE. [The gospel’s blessing of peace prepares the saint for trials.] 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. He who enjoys in his bosom the peace of the gospel, is the person and the only person, that stands shod for all ways, prepared for all troubles and trials. None can make a shoe to the creature’s foot, so as he shall go easy on a hard way, but Christ. He can do it to the creature’s full content. And how doth he {do} it? Truly by no other way that by underlaying it, or, if you will, lining it, with the peace of the gospel. What though the way be set with sharp stones? if this shoe go between the Christian’s foot and them, they cannot much be felt. Solomon tells us that ways of wisdom,—that is, Christ—‘are ways of pleasantness.’ But how so, when some of them are ways of suffering? The next words resolve it; ‘and all her paths are peace,’ Proverbs 3:17. Where there is peace—such peace as peace with God and conscience—there can want no pleasure. David goes merry to bed when he hath nothing to supper but the gladness that God by this puts into his heart, and promiseth himself a better night’s rest than any of them all that are feasted with the world’s cheer; ‘Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep,’ Psalms 4:7-8. This same peace with God enjoyed in the conscience, redounds to the comfort of the body. Now David can sleep sweetly when he lies on a hard bed. What here he saith he would do, he saith he had done: ‘I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me,’ Psalms 3:5. The title of the psalm tells us when David had this sweet night’s rest, not when he lay on his bed of downs in his stately palace at Jerusalem, but when he fled for his life from his unnatural son Absalom, and possibly was forced to lie in the open field under the canopy of heaven. Truly it must be a soft pillow indeed that could make him forget his danger, who then had such a disloyal army at his back hunting of him. Yea, so transcendent is the sweet in­fluence of this peace, that it can make the creature lie down as cheerfully to sleep in the grave as on the softest bed. You shall say that child is willing that calls to be put to bed. Some of the saints have de­sired God to lay them at rest in their beds of dust; and that not in a pet and discontent with their present trouble, as Job did, but from a sweet sense of this peace in their bosoms. ‘Now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,’ was the swan-like song of old Simeon. He speaks like a mer­chant that had got all his goods on shipboard, and now desires the master of the ship to hoist sail and be gone homewards. Indeed what should a Christian, that is but a foreigner here, desire to stay any longer for in the world, but to get this full lading in for heaven? And when hath he that, if not when he is assured of his peace with God? This peace of the gos­pel, and sense of the love of God in the soul, doth so admirably conduce to the enabling of a person in all difficulties, and temptations, and troubles, that ordin­arily before he calls his saints to any hard service or hot work, he gives them a draught of this cordial wine next their hearts, to cheer them up, and embolden them in the conflict. God calls Abram out of his native country, Genesis 12:1, and what so fit as a promise of Christ to bring his heart to God’s foot? Genesis 12:2-3. A sad errand it was that sent Jacob to Padan-aram. He fled from an angry wrathful brother, that had murdered him already in his thoughts, to an unkind, de­ceitful, uncle, under whom he should endure much hardship. Now God comes in a sweet gospel vision to comfort this poor pilgrim; for by that ‘ladder, whose foot stood on earth, and top reached heaven,’ Christ was signified to his faith, in whom heaven and earth meet, God and man are reconciled; and, by the ‘moving up and down of the angels on the ladder,’ the ministry of the angels, which Christ by his death and intercession procures for his saints, that they shall tend on them, as servants on their master’s children. So that the sum of all is as much as God had said, ‘Jacob, thy brother Esau hates thee, but in Christ I am reconciled to thee, thy uncle Laban, he will wrong thee, and deal hardly by thee, but fear him not. As I am in Christ at peace with thee so through him thou shalt have my especial care over thee, and the guardianship of the holy angels about thee, to defend thee wherever thou goest.’ The Israelites when ready to take their march out of Egypt into a desolate wilderness, where they should be put to many plunges, and their faith tried to purpose; to prepare them the more for these, he entertains them at a gospel supper before they go forth—I mean the passover, which pointed to Christ. And no doubt the sweetness of this feast made some gracious souls among them, that tasted Christ in it, endure the hardship and hunger of the wilderness the more cheerfully. And the same care and love did our Lord Jesus observe in the institution of his supper, choosing that for the time of erecting this sweet or­dinance when his disciples’ feet stood at the brink of a sea of sorrows and troubles, which his death and the consequences of it would inevitably bring upon them. Now the pardon of their sins, sealed to their souls in the ordinance must needs be welcome, and enable them to wade through their sufferings the more comfortably. Indeed, the great care which Christ took for his disciples, when he left the world, was not to leave them a quiet world to live in, but to arm them against a troublesome world. And to do this, he labours to satisfy their poor hearts with his love to them, and his father’s love to them for his sake; he bequeaths unto them his peace, and empties it in the sweet consolations of it into their bosoms; for which end he tells them, as soon as he got to heaven, he would pray his Father to send the Comforter to them with all speed, and sends them to Jerusalem, there to stay privately, and not go into the field, or openly contest with the angry world, till they received the strength and succour which the Spirit in his comforts should bring with him. By all which it doth abundantly appear how powerful this gospel peace is to en­able the soul for suffering. Now I proceed to show how this peace doth prepare the heart for all sufferings. And that it doth these two ways. First. As it brings along with it, and possesseth the soul where it comes, with such glorious privileges as lift it above all danger and damage from any sufferings whatever from God, man, or devils. Second. As it is influential unto the saint’s graces and affections, exciting them, and making them act to such a height, as lifts the Christian above the fear of trouble and suffering. [How gospel peace prepares the soul for suffering by its privileges.] First. Gospel peace prepares the heart for suf­fering, as it brings along with it, and possesseth the soul where it comes, with such glorious privileges as lift it above all danger from any sufferings whatever, from God man, or devils. If a man could be assured he might walk as safely on the waves of the sea, or in the flames of fire, as he doth in his garden, he would be no more afraid of the one than he is to do the other. Or, if a man had some coat of mail secretly about him, that would undoubtedly resist all blows and quench all shot that are sent against him, it would be no such scareful thing for him to stand in the midst of swords and guns. Now, the soul that is indeed at peace with God, is invested with such privi­leges as do set it above all hurt and damage from suf­ferings. ‘The peace of God’ is said ‘to garrison the believer’s heart and mind,’ Php 4:7. He is surrounded with such blessed privileges, that he is as safe as one in an impregnable castle. 1. Privilege. A person at peace with God becomes then a child of God. And when once the Christian comes to know his relation, and the dear love of his heavenly Father to him, afflictions for or sufferings from him, dread him not, because he knows it is inconsistent with the love of a father, either to hurt his child himself, or to suffer him to be hurt by another, if he can help it. I have often wondered at Isaac’s patience to submit to be bound for a sacrifice, and see the knife so near his throat, without any hideous outcries or strugglings that we read of. He was old enough to be apprehensive of death, and the horror of it, being conceived by some to be above twenty years of age. That he was of good growth is out of doubt by the wood which Abraham caused him to carry for the sacrifice. But, such was the authority Abraham had over his son, and the con­fidence that Isaac had in his father, that he durst put his knife into his hands; which, had the knife been in any other hand, he would hardly have done. Whoever may be the instrument of any trouble to a saint, the rod or sword is at God’s disposure. Christ saw the cup in his Father’s hand, and that made him take it willingly. 2. Privilege. Every soul at peace with God is heir to God. This follows his relation. ‘If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,’ Romans 8:17. This is such a transcendent privilege, that the soul to whom the joyful news of it comes is lift up above the amazing and affrightening fears of any suf­fering. The apostle having, in the forenamed place, but a little sweetened his thoughts with a few meditations on this soul-ravishing subject, see how his blessed soul is raised into a holy slighting of all the troubles of this life: ‘I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,’ Romans 8:18. He will not allow his own soul, or any that hath the hope of this inheritance, so far to undervalue the glory thereof, or the love of God that settled it on them, as to mention the greatness of their sufferings in any way of pitying themselves for them. As if he had said, ‘Hath God made us his heirs, and bestowed heaven upon us in reversion, and shall we be so poor-spirited to sit down and bemoan ourselves for our present sor­rows, that are no more to be compared with the glory that we are going to, than the little point of time, into which our short life with all our sufferings are contracted, is to be compared with the vast circumference of that eternity which we are to spend in endless bliss and happiness?’ He is a poor man, we say, that one or two petty losses quite undoes; and he is a poor Christian that cries out he is undone by any cross in this life. We may safely conclude such a one either is heir to nothing in the other world, or hath little or no evidence for what he hath here. [How gospel peace prepares the soul for suffering by its influences.] Second. Gospel peace prepares the heart for suffering, as it is influential unto the saint’s graces and affections, exciting them, and making them act to such a height, as lifts him above the fear of trouble and suffering. 1. Influence. This peace where it is felt, makes the Christian unconquerable in his faith. Nothing is too hard for such a one to believe, that carries a par­don in his con­science, that hath his peace with God sealed to him. Moses was to meet with many difficulties in that great work of conducting Israel out of Egypt towards Canaan. Therefore, to make them all a more easy conquest to his faith, when he should be assaulted with them, God gives him at his very first entering upon his charge an experiment of his mighty power in some miracles—as the turning {of} his rod into a serpent, and that again into a rod, making his hand leprous, and then restoring it again to be as sound as before—that he might never think anything too hard for that God to do towards their salvation and deliverance, even when things seem most desperate. And how unconquerable Moses was after these in his faith, we see. Truly, when God speaks to a poor soul, he gives such a testimony of his almighty power and love, that, so long as the sweet sense of this lasts in the soul, the creature’s faith cannot be posed. What doth God in his pardoning mercy, but turn the serpent of the law—with all its threatenings, from which the sinner fled, as that which would sting him to death—into the blossoming rod of the gospel, that brings forth the sweet fruit of peace and life? And which is the greater miracle of the two, think you?—the leprous hand of Moses made clean and sound, or a poor sinner’s heart, leprous with sin, made clean and pure by washing in the blood of Christ? Certainly this miracle of mercy, where it is strongly believed to be done, will make it easy for that soul to trust God in a sea of temporal sufferings, and cheerfully follow him through a whole wilderness of troubles in this life. When David hath comfortable apprehensions of God’s pardoning mercy, then his faith is up, and can strongly act on God for tem­poral deliverance. We find him, Psalms 32:5, under the sweet sense of his peace with God, able to vouch God as reconciled to him. ‘I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’ And now see, Psalms 32:7, to what a height his faith acts on God as to outward troubles. ‘Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.’ He spells this, which is the less, from the other, that is incomparably the greater mercy. 2. Influence. This peace with God, where it is felt, fills the heart with love to Christ. The Chris­tian’s love to Christ takes fire at Christ’s love to him. And the hotter Christ’s love lies on the soul, the stronger reflection doth the creature make of love to him again, ‘she loved much,’ to whom much was ‘forgiven,’ Luke 7:47. And the more love, the less fear there will be of suffering. We will venture far for a dear friend. When Christ told his disciples Lazarus was dead, Thomas would needs go and die with him for company, John 11:16. So powerful is love, even as strong as death. ‘For a good man,’ saith the apostle, ‘some would even dare to die’—that is, a merciful kind man, whose had endeared him to them. How much more daring will a gracious soul be to sacrifice his life for a good God? ‘Thy name,’ saith the spouse of Christ, ‘is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee,’ Song of Solomon 1:3. Then Christ’s name is poured forth, when the love of God through him is shed abroad in the soul. Let this precious box be but broke, and the sweet savour of it diffused in the heart, and it will take away the unsavoury scent of the most stinking prison in the world. This heavenly fire of Christ’s love, beaming powerfully on the soul, will not only put out the kitchen fire of creature love; but also the hell fire, as I may call it, of slavish fear. What makes us so aghast at the thoughts of death, especially if it comes towards us in a bloody dress, and hath some circumstances of persecutors’ cruelty, to put a further grimness on its unpleasing counte­nance? Surely this comes from guilt, and unac­quaintance with Christ, and what he hath done for us; who came partly on this very errand into the world, ‘To deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,’ Hebrews 2:15. And how hath he done it, but by reconciling us to God, and so reconciling us to the thoughts of death itself, as that which only can do us this kind office—bring us and Christ, that hath done all this for us, together. 3. Influence. This peace enjoyed in the Christian’s bosom hath a sweet influence into his self-denial—as grace so necessary to suffering, that Christ lays the cross, as I may so say, upon the back of it. ‘Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,’ Mark 8:34. Another, with Simon of Cyrene, may be compelled to carry Christ’s cross after him a little way. But, it is the self-denying soul that will stoop willingly, and down on his knees, to have this burden laid on him at Christ’s hand. Now the sense of a soul’s peace with God will enable the creature in a twofold self-denial, and by both, sweetly dispose him for any suffering from or for Christ. (1.) The sense of this peace will enable the Christian to deny himself in his sinful self. Sin may well be called ourself; it cleaves so close to us, even as members to our body. [It is] as hard to mortify a lust as to cut off a joint. Some sins too are more ourself than others, as our life is more bound up in some members than others. Well, let them be what they will, there is a good day, in which, if Christ asks the head of the proudest lust among them all, he shall have it with less regret than Herodias obtained the Baptist’s at Herod’s hands. And what is that gaudy day, in which the Christian can so freely deny his sin, and deliver it up to justice, but when Christ is feasting him with this ‘hidden manna’ of pardon and peace? A true friend will rather deny himself than one he loves dearly, if it be in his power to grant his request. But, least of all can he deny him, when his friend is doing him a greater kindness at the same time that he asks a less. No such picklock to open the heart as love. When love comes a begging, and that at a time when it is showing itself in some eminent expression of kindness to him at whose door she knocks, there is little fear but to speed. Esther chose that time to engage Ahasuerus’ heart against Haman her enemy, when she expressed her love most to Ahasuerus, viz. at a banquet. When doth God give, or indeed when can he give, the like demonstration of his love to a poor soul, as when he entertains it at this gospel banquet? Now sure, if ever, God may prevail with his child to send the cursed Amalekite to the gallows, his lust to the gibbet. Do you think that Mary Magdalene, when that blessed news dropped from Christ into her mournful heart, that her ‘sins, which were many, were all forgiven her,’ could now have been persuaded to have opened the door to any of her for­mer lovers, and gone out of these embraces of Christ’s love to have played the whore again? No, I doubt not but she would sooner have chosen the flames of martyrdom than of lust. Indeed, that which can make the creature deny a lust, can make the creature it shall not deny a cross. (2.) The sense of this peace will enable the Christian to deny himself in his carnal enjoyments. And these the Chris­tian finds his great pull-backs from suffering. As the heart burns in the hot fit of love to the pleasures and profits of this world when he abounds with them, in that degree will his shaking fit of fear and grief be when Christ calls him to part with them. What the sweet wines and dainty fare of Capua was to Hannibal’s soldiers, that we shall find any intemperance of heart to the creature will be to us. It will enervate our spirits, and so effeminate us, that we shall have little mind to endure hardship when drawn into the field to look an enemy in the face. Now the sense of this gospel peace will deaden the heart to the creature, and facilitate the work of self-denial as to the greatest enjoyments the world hath. ‘God forbid,’ saith Paul, ‘that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world,’ Galatians 6:14. Paul’s heart is dead to the world. Now mark what gave the death’s wound to his carnal affections. ‘By whom,’ saith he, ‘the world is crucified to me, and I unto it;’ that is, Christ and his cross. There was a time, indeed, that Paul loved the world as well who most. But, since he hath been acquainted with Christ, and the mercy of God in him to his soul —pardoning his sins and receiving him into favour and fellowship with himself—he is of another mind. He leaves the world, as Saul his seeking of the asses, at the news of a kingdom; his haunt lies another way now. Let the Zibas of the world take the world, and all they can make of it with their best husbandry. He will not grudge them their happiness, forasmuch as his heavenly Lord and King is come in peace to his soul. None can part with the comfort of the creature so cheerfully as he who hath his mouth at the fountain-head, the love of God himself. Parents are near, and friends are dear, yet a loving wife can forget her father’s house, and leave her old friends’ company, to go with her husband though it be to a prison. How much more will a gracious soul bid adieu to these, yea life itself, to go to Christ, especially when he hath sent the Comforter into his bosom, to cheer him in the solitariness of the way with his sweet company? 4. Influence. This peace, where it is felt, promotes the suffering grace of patience. Affliction and suffering to a patient soul are not grievous. Patience is, as one calls it, BXR4H J0H RLP0H—the concoctive faculty of the soul —that grace which digests all things, and turns them into good nourishment. Meats of hard digestion will not do well with squeamish weak stomachs, and therefore they are dainty and nice in their diets; whereas men of strong stom­achs, they refuse no meat that is set before them; all fare is alike to them. Truly thus there are some things which are of very hard digestion to the spirits of men. The peevish, passionate, short-spirited pro­fessor will never concoct reproaches, prison, and death itself, but rather quarrel with his profession, if such fare as these attend the gospel. ‘When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended,’ Matthew 13:21. This will not stay in his stomach, but makes him cast up even that which else he could have kept—a profession of Christ—might he have had it with a quiet life and a whole skin. But now the patient soul, he makes his meal of what God in his providence sets before him. If peace and prosperity be served up with the gospel, he is thankful, and enjoys the sweetness of the mercy while it lasts. If God takes these away, and instead of them, will have him eat the gospel feast with sour herbs of affliction and persecution, it shall not make him sick of his cheer. It is but eating more largely of the comforts of the gospel with them, and they go down very well wrapped up in them. Indeed the Christian is beholden to those consolations which flow from the peace of the gospel for his patience. It were impossible for the people of God to endure with what sometimes they meet with from men and devils also, as they do, had they not sweet help from the sense of God’s love in Christ, that lies glowing at their hearts in inward peace and joy. The apostle resolves all the saints’ patience, experience, and hope, yea, glorying in their tribulations, into this, as the cause of all, ‘Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,’ Romans 5:5. Sin makes suffering intolerable. When that [sin, viz.] is gone, the worst part of the trouble is removed. A light cart goes through that slough easily, where the cart deeply laden is set fast. Guilt loads the soul, and bemires it in any suffering. Take that away, and let God speak peace to his soul, and he that raged before like a madman under the cross, shall carry it without whinching[1] and whining. ‘The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds,’ Php 4:7. Now what is patience but the keeping of the heart and mind composed and serene in all troubles that befall us? But a word or two for application. [Use or Application.] Use First. The preceding doctrine informs our judg­ments in two particulars. 1. What to judge of their patience in affliction that have no interest in the gospel’s peace. 2. What to think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience at all. 1. What we are to judge of their patience in af­fliction who have no interest in the gospel’s peace. Some you shall see very still and quiet in affliction, yet mere strangers to this peace, ignorant of Christ the Peace-maker, walking in opposition to the terms God offers peace in the gospel upon, and yet very calm in affliction. Certainly all is not right with this poor creature. If he had any sense how it is with him, he would have little patience to see himself under the hand of God, and not know but it may leave him in hell before it hath done with him. When I see one run over the stones and hard ways barefoot and not complain, I do not admire his patience, but pity the poor creature that hath benumbed his feet, and, as it were, soled them with a brawny, dead kind of flesh, so as to lose his feeling. But, save your pity much more for those whose consciences are so benumbed and hearts petrified into a senseless stupidity, that they feel their misery no more than the stone doth the ma­son’s saw which cuts it asunder. Of all men out of hell, none [is] more to be pitied than he that hangs over the mouth of it, and yet is fearless of his danger, while thus the poor wretch is incapable of all means for his good. What good does physic put into a dead man’s mouth? If he cannot be chased to some sense of his condition, all applications are in vain. And if afflictions—which are the strongest physic—leave the creature senseless, there is little hope left that any other will work upon him. 2. What are we to think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience at all—those that are great pretend­ers to gospel peace, yet cannot think with any patience of suffering from God or for God. Certainly, so far as the creature is acquainted with this peace, and hath the true sense of God’s love in Christ lying warm at his heart, he cannot but find pro­portionably his heart stand ready to submit to any suffering that God lays out for him. And therefore it behooves us well to try our peace and comfort. If thou hast no heart to suffer for God, but choosest a sin to escape a cross, thy peace is false. If thou hast but little patience under ordinary afflictions, to com­pose thy spirit from murmuring, and sustain thy heart from sinking, thy faith on the promise is weak. ‘If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small,’ Proverbs 24:10. Use Second. Let this doctrine stir thee up, Christian, to be very tender and chary of thy peace with God and thy own conscience. Keep this peace clear and unbroken, and it will keep thy heart whole, when the whole world breaks about thee. So long as this peace of God rules in your hearts, you are safe from fear or danger, though in a prison or at a stake. But if thou sufferest it to be wounded, then thy ene­mies will come upon thee as Simeon and Levi on the men of Shechem when sore, and be too hard for thee. O it is sad, friends—you will find it so—to go with sore and smarting consciences into a suffering condition. A thorn in the foot will make any way uneasy to the traveller; and guilt in the conscience any condition uncomfortable to the Christian, but most of all a suffering one. Now, if you will keep your peace unbroken, you must bestow some attendance on it, and set as it were a life-guard about it. The choicest flowers need most looking to. The richer the treasure the safer we lay it. This peace is thy treasure; look well where thou layest it. Two ways our Saviour tells us that worldly treasure, such as silver and gold is, may be lost—by thieves that break in and carry it away, and by rust that eats and corrupts it, Matthew 6:19. There are two ways something like these, wherein the Christian may go by the loss in this his heavenly treasure of inward peace and comfort. 1. Presumptuous sins, these are the thieves that ‘break through and steal’ the saint’s comfort away. When the Christian comes to look into his soul after such a bold act, and thinks to entertain himself, as formerly, with the comforts of his pardoned state, in­terest in Christ, and hopes of heaven through him, alas! he finds a sad change. There is no promise that will give out its consolations to him—the cellar-door is locked, Christ withdrawn, and the keys carried away with him. He may even cry out with a sad com­plaint, as Mary when she found not Christ’s body in the sepulchre, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.’ Thus the Christian may, with aching heart, bemoan his folly, ‘My pride, my uncleanness, my earthly-mindedness, they have taken away my treasure, robbed me of my comfort. I could never have a comfortable sight of God’s face in any duty or promise since I fell into that foul sin.’ And therefore, Christian, have a care of such robbers of thy peace as this. ‘The spirit of man’ is called ‘the candle of the Lord,’ Proverbs 20:27. Hath God lighted thy candle, Christian—cheered thy spirit, I mean, with the sense of his love? Take heed of presumptuous sins. If such a thief be suffered in this thy candle, thy comfort will soon sweal out. Hast thou fallen into the hands of any such presumptuous sins as have stolen thy peace from thee? Send speedily thy hue and cry after them—I mean, take thy sad moan to God, renew thy repentance out of hand, and raise heaven upon them by a spirit of prayer. This is no time to delay. The farther thou lettest these sins go without repentance, the harder thou wilt find it to recover thy lost peace and joy out of their hands. And for thy encouragement know, God is ready, upon thy serious and solemn return, to restore thee ‘the joy of his salvation,’ and do justice upon these enemies of thy soul for thee by his mortifying grace, if thou wilt prosecute the law upon them closely and vigorously, without relenting towards them, or being bribed with the pleasure or carnal advantage that they will not spare to offer, so their lives may be spared. 2. Again, as presumptuous sins are the ‘thieves’ that with a high hand rob the Christian of his comfort; so sloth and negligence are as the ‘rust,’ that in time will fret into his comfort and eat out the heart and strength of it. It is impossible that the Christian who is careless and secure in his walking, infrequent and negligent in his communion with God, should long be owner of much peace or comfort that is true. What if thou dost not pour water of presumptuous sins into the lap of thy joy to quench it? It is enough if thou dost not pour oil of duty to feed and maintain it. Thou art murderer to thy comfort by starving it, as well as by stabbing of it. End of Volume I. [1]Qui litteris addicti sumus, saith Erasmus, animi las­situdinem à studiis gravioribus contractam, ab iisdem studiis, sedamænioribus recreamus. [2]Forlorn—a small group of soldiers detached from the main group for a very dangerous mission; with very little chance of success. From Webster’s. [3]Preponderate—outweigh; to weigh down; to exceed in weight; to descend or incline downward; to exceed in influence, power, or importance. — From Webster’s. [4]Lacedemonians—This is the same as Sparta, a city-state in ancient Greece, before the time of Rome. — SDB [5]Makebate, any thing or person that excites dispute—a bone of contention.—Ed. [6]Encomium, High or glowing praise.—From Webster’s. [7]Ea sola emi putamus, pro quibus pecuniam solvimus; ea gratuita vocamus, pro quibus, nos-ipsos impendimus, &c.—Sen. Epist. 42. [8]Boke—to nauseate, to vomit, to belch.—Halliwell. [9]Connatural, connected by nature; inborn; of the same nature. — From Webster’s. [10]ILLAPSE, n. illaps’. [See Lapse.] A sliding in; an immission or entrance of one thing into another. 1. A falling on; a sudden attack.—From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary—SDB [11]Cozenage; to cheat, defraud; the act of cozening or deception — From Webster’s. [12]ingeminate—to stress or make more forceful by re­peating. From Webster’s.—SDB [13]Fadge, to suit or fit.—Ed. [14]Awkness, clumsiness, oddness.—Ed. [15]Hectical: — of, relating to, or being a fluctuating but persistent fever (as in tuberculosis); having a hectic fever; flushed, red; marked by feverish activity.—From Webster’s. [16]Boult, or bolt, to sift, separate the pure from the im­pure, to examine.—Ed. [17]Conning — [ME, connen, to be able] to peruse carefully; study; fix in the memory.—From Webster’s [18]Huckle, i.e. to haggle in trading.—Imp. Dict. [1]I need to find out what the word “whinching” means. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 02 - VOLUME 2 ======================================================================== Volume 2 1. Fourth Piece—The Christian’s Spiritual Shield. 2. The Saint’s Enemy Described. 3. Fifth Piece—The Christian’s Helmet. 4. Sixth Piece—The Christian’s Sword. 5. The necessary duty of the Christian, as clothed in the Whole Armour of God: or, how the Spiritual Panoply may alone be kept furbished. 6. How to perform the duty commanded—a directory for prayer. 7. The Inward Principle of Prayer 8. The Duty of every Christian in complete Armour to aid by Prayer. The Christian In Complete Armour Volume Two A Treatise of The Whole Armour of God “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perse­verance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” — Ephesians 6:13-20 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 02.01 - FOURTH PIECE - THE CHRISTIAN'S SPIRITUAL SHIELD ======================================================================== Part Second.—Direction Eighth. The Several Pieces of the Whole Armour of God. Fourth Piece—The Christian’s Spiritual Shield. ‘Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.’ — Ephesians 6:16 The Fourth piece in the Christian’s panoply presents itself in this verse to our consideration —and that is The Shield of Faith. A grace of graces it is, and here fitly placed in the midst of her other companions. It stands, methinks, among them, as the heart in the midst of the body; or, if you please, as David when Samuel ‘anointed him in the midst of his brethren,’ 1 Samuel 16:13. The apostle, when he comes to speak of this grace doth, as it were, lift up its head, and anoint it above all its fellows—‘above all, take the shield of faith.’ The words easily fall into these two general parts. FIRST. An exhortation—‘above all, take the shield of faith.’ SECOND. A powerful argument pressing the exhortation—‘whereby ye are able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked.’ explication of the words. In the exhortation ‘Above all, taking the shield of faith, whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked,’ these four particulars call for our inquiry towards the explication of the words. First. What faith it is that is here commended to the Christian soldier. Second. Having found the kind, we are to inquire what his faith is as to its nature. Third. Why it is compared to a shield rather than other pieces. Fourth. What is the importance of this §B4 BF4<, ‘above all.’ [The kind of faith here meant.] First Inquiry. What faith is it that here is commended? This will soon be known, if we consider the use and end for which it is commended to the Christian, and that is to enable him to ‘quench all the fiery darts of the wicked;’ i.e. of the wicked one, the devil. Now, look upon the several kinds of faith, and that among them must be the faith of this place which enables the creature to quench Satan’s fiery darts, yea, all his fiery darts. Historical faith cannot do this, and therefore is not it. This is so far from quenching Satan’s fiery darts, that the devil himself, that shoots them, hath this faith. ‘The devils believe,’ James 2:19. Temporary faith cannot do it. This is so far from quenching Satan’s fiery darts, that itself is quenched by them. It makes a goodly blaze of profession, and ‘endures for a while,’ Matthew 13:21, but soon disappears. Miraculous faith, this falls as short as the former. Judas’ miraculous faith, which he had with other of the apostles—for aught that we can read —enabling him to cast devils out of others, left himself possessed of the devil of covetousness, hypoc­risy, and treason; yea, a whole legion of lusts, that hurried him down the hill of despair into the bottomless pit of perdition. There is only one kind of faith remains, which is it the apostle means in this place, and that is justifying faith. This indeed is the grace that makes him, whoever hath it, the devil’s match. Satan hath not so much advantage of the Christian by the transcendency of his natural abilities, as he hath of Satan in this cause and this his weapon. The apos­tle is confident to give the day to the Christian before the fight is fully over: ‘Ye have overcome the wicked one,’ 1 John 2:13, that is, ye are as sure to do it as if you were now mounted on your triumphant chariot in heaven. The knight shall overcome the giant; the saint, Satan; and the same apostle tells us what gets him the day. ‘This is the victory that over­cometh the world, even our faith,’ 1 John 5:4. [Justifying faith, as to its nature.] Second Inquiry. What is this justifying faith as to its nature? I shall answer this, First. Negatively. Second. Af­firmatively. First. Negatively, in two particulars. 1. Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel. This justifying faith doth give; but this doth not make it justifying faith. A dogmat­ical faith, or historical, is comprehended in justifying faith. But dogmatical faith doth not infer justifying faith. Justifying faith cannot be without a dogmatical; it implies it, as the rational soul in man doth the sen­sitive. But, the dogmatical may be without the justi­fying, as the sensitive soul in the beast without the ra­tional. Judas knew the Scriptures, and without doubt did assent to the truth of them, when he was so zeal­ous a preacher of the gospel; but he never had so much as one dram of jus­tifying faith in his soul. ‘But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him,’ John 6:64. Yea, Ju­das’ master, the devil himself—one far enough, I sup­pose, from justifying faith—yet he assents to the truth of the word. He goes against his conscience who denies them. When he tempted Christ he did not dispute against the Scripture, but from the Scripture, drawing his arrows out of this quiver, Matthew 4:6. And at another time, he makes as full a confession of Christ, for the matter, as Peter himself did, Matthew 8:29, compared with Matthew 16:17. Assent to the truth of the word is but an act of the understanding, which reprobates and devils may exercise; but justifying faith is a compounded habit, and hath its seat both in the under­standing and will; and therefore [it is] called a ‘believing with the heart,’ Romans 10:10; yea, a ‘believing with all the heart,’ Acts 8:37. ‘Philip said, If thou be­lievest with all thine heart, thou mayest.’ It takes all the powers of the soul. There is a double object in the promise—one proper to the understanding, to move that; another proper to the will, to excite and work upon that. As the promise is true, so it calls for an act of assent from the understanding; and as it is good as well as true, so it calls for an act of the will to embrace and receive it. Therefore, he which only no­tionally knows the promise, and speculatively assents to the truth of it, without clinging to it, and embracing of it, doth not believe savingly, and can have no more benefit from the promise, than nourishment from the food he sees and acknowledgeth to be wholesome, but eats none of. 2. Justifying faith is not assurance. If it were, St. John might have spared his pains, who wrote to them that ‘believed on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life,’ 1 John 5:13. They might then have said ‘We do this already. What else is our faith, but a believing that we are such as through Christ are pardoned, and shall through him be saved?’ But this cannot be so. If faith were assurance, then a man’s sins would be pardoned before he believes, for he must necessarily be pardoned before he can know he is pardoned. The candle must be lighted before I can see it is lighted. The child must be born before I can be assured it is born. The object must be before the act. Assurance rather is the fruit of faith. It is in faith as the flower is in the root. Faith, in time, after much communion with God, ac­quaintance with the word, and experience of his deal­ings with the soul, may flourish into assurance. But, as the root truly lives before the flower appears, and continues when that hath shed its beautiful leaves, and gone again; so doth true justifying faith live before assurance comes, and after it disappears. As­surance is, as it were, the cream of faith. Now you know there is milk before there is cream, this riseth not but after some time standing, and there remains milk after it is fleted off. How many, alas! of the precious saints of God must we shut out from being believers, if there is no faith but what amounts to assurance? We must needs offend against the generation of God’s children, among whom some are babes, not yet come to the use of their reflex act of faith, so as to own the graces of God in them to be true, upon the review that they take of their own actings. And, must not the child be allowed to be a child, till he can speak for himself, and say he is so? Others there are in Christ’s family, who are of higher stature and great­er experience in the ways of God, yet have lost those apprehensions of pardoning mercy, which once they were, through the goodness of God, able to have shown—shall we say their faith went away in the de­parture of their assurance? How oft then in a year may a believer be no believer? even as oft as God withdraws and leaves the creature in the dark. Assur­ance is like the sun-flower, which opens with the day and shuts with the night. It follows the motion of God’s face. If that looks smilingly on the soul, it lives; if that frowns or hides itself, it dies. But faith is a plant that can grow in the shade, a grace that can find the way to heaven in a dark night. It can ‘walk in darkness,’ and yet ‘trust in the name of the Lord,’ Isaiah 50:10. In a word, by making the essence of faith to lie in assurance, we should not only offend against the generation of God’s children, but against the God and Father of these children; for at one clap we turn the greater number of those children he hath here on earth out of doors. Yes, we are cruel to those he is most tender of, and make sad the hearts of those that he would have chiefly comforted. Indeed if this were true, a great part of gospel provision laid up in the promises is of little use. We read of promises to those that mourn, ‘they shall be comforted,’ to the contrite, ‘they shall be revived,’ to him that ‘walks in darkness,’ and the like. These belong to believers, and none else. Surely then there are some believers that are in the dark, under the hatches of sorrow, wounded and broken with their sins, and temptation for them. But they are not such as are assured of the love of God; their water is turned into joy, their night into light, their sighs and sobs into joy and praise. Second. I shall answer affirmatively, what justi­fying faith is, and in the description of it I shall con­sider it solely as justifying. And so take it in these few words—It is the act of the soul whereby it rests on Christ crucified for pardon and life, and that upon the warrant of the promise. In the description observe, 1. The subject where faith is seated, not any single faculty, but the soul. 2. The object of faith as justifying—Christ crucified. 3. The act of faith upon this object, and that is resting on Christ crucified for pardon and life. 4. The warrant and security that faith goes upon in this act. 1. The subject where faith is seated, not any sin­gle faculty, but the soul. Of this I have spoken some­thing before, and so pass on to the second point. 2. Here is the object of faith as justifying, and that is Christ crucified. The whole truth of God is the object of justifying faith. It trades with the whole word of God, and doth firmly assent unto it; but, in its justifying act, it singles out Christ crucified for its object. (1.) The person of Christ is the object of faith as justifying. (2.) Christ as crucified. (1.) The person of Christ. Not any axiom or proposition in the word. This is the object of assurance, not of faith. Assurance saith ‘I believe my sins are pardoned through Christ.’ Faith’s language is, ‘I believe on Christ for the pardon of them.’ The word of God doth direct our faith to Christ, and terminates it upon him; called therefore, a ‘coming to Christ,’ Matthew 11:28, a ‘receiving of him,’ John 1:12, a ‘believing on him,’ John 17:20. The promise is but the dish in which Christ, the true food of the soul, is served up; and, if faith’s hand be on the promise, it is but as one that draws the dish to him, that he may come at the dainties in it. The promise is the marriage-ring on the hand of faith. Now we are not married to the ring, but with it unto Christ. ‘All the promises,’ saith the apostle, ‘are yea and amen in him.’ They have their excellency from him, and efficacy in him—I mean in a soul’s union to him. To run away with a promise, and not to close with Christ, and by faith become one in him, is as if a man should rend a branch from a tree, and lay it up in his chest, expecting it to bear fruit there. Promises are dead branches severed from Christ. But when a soul by faith becomes united to Christ, then he partakes of all his fatness; not a promise but yields sweetness to it. (2.) As Christ is the primary object of faith, so Christ as crucified. Not Christ in his personal ex­cellencies—so he is the object rather of our love than faith—but as bleeding, and that to death, under the hand of divine justice for to make an atonement by God’s own appointment for the sins of the world. As the handmaid’s eye is to her mistress’s hand for direc­tion, so faith’s eye is on God revealing himself in his word; which way God by it points the soul, thither it goes. Now there faith finds God, intending to save poor sinners, pitched on Christ, and Christ alone, for the transacting and effecting of it, and him whom God chooseth to trust with the work—him and him alone—will faith choose to lay the burden of her confidence on. Again, faith observes how Christ performed this great work, and accordingly how the promise holds him forth to be applied for pardon and salvation. Now faith finds that then Christ made the full payment to the jus­tice of God for sin, when he poured out his blood to death upon the cross. All the prece­daneous[1] acts of his humiliation were but preparatory to this. He was born to die; he was sent into the world as a lamb bound with the bonds of an irreversible decree for a sacrifice. Christ himself when he came into the world understood this to be the errand he was sent on, Hebrews 10:5. ‘Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me;’ i.e. to be an expiatory sacrifice. Without this, all he had done would have been labour undone. No redemption but by his blood, ‘In whom we have re­demption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,’ Ephesians 1:7. No church without his blood, ‘The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood,’ Acts 20:28. E latere Christi morientis exstitit ecclesia— the church is taken out of dying Jesus’ side, as Eve out of sleeping Adam’s. Christ did not redeem and save poor souls by sitting in majesty on his heavenly throne, but by hanging on the shameful cross, under the tormenting hand of man’s fury and God’s just wrath. And therefore the poor soul, that would have pardon of sin, is directed to place his faith not only on Christ, but on bleeding Christ, Romans 3:25: ‘Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.’ 3. The act of faith upon this object, and that is resting on Christ crucified for pardon and life. I know there are many acts of the soul antecedent to this, without which the creature can never truly exer­cise this. As knowledge, especially of God and Christ, upon whose authority and testimony it relies: ‘I know whom I have believed,’ 2 Timothy 1:12. None will readily trust a stranger that he is wholly unacquainted with. Abraham indeed went he knew not whither, but he did not go with he knew not whom. The greatest thing God laboured to instruct Abraham in, and satisfy him with, was— (1.) The knowledge of his own glorious self —who he was—that he might take his word and rely on it, how harsh and improbable, soever it might sound in sense or reason’s ear, ‘I am Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect.’ (2.) Assent to the truth of the word of God. If this foundation-stone be not laid, faith’s building cannot go on. Who will trust him that he dares not think speaks true? (3.) A sense of our own vileness and emptiness. By the one he means us see our demerit, what we deserve, hell and damnation; by the other, our own impotency, how little we can contribute—yea, just nothing, to our own reconciliation. I join them together, because the one ariseth out of the other. Sense of this emptiness comes from the deep apprehensions a soul hath of the other’s fulness in him. You never knew a man full of self-confidence and self-abasement together. The con­science cannot abound with the sense of sin and the heart with self-conceit at the same time. ‘When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,’ Romans 7:9—that is, when the commandment came, in the accusations of it, to his conscience, sin, like a sleepy lion had lain still, and he secure and confident by it, when that began to roar in his conscience, then he died—that is, his vain-confidence of himself gave up the ghost. Both these are necessary to faith—sense of sin, like the smart of a wound, to make the creature think of a plaster to cure it; and sense of emptiness and insufficiency in himself or any creature to do the cure necessary to make him go out to Christ for cure. We do not go abroad to beg what we have of our own within doors. These, with some other, are necessary to faith. But the receiving of Christ, and resting on Christ, is that act of faith to which justification is promised. ‘He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,’ John 3:18. Now every one that assents to the truth of what the Scripture saith of Christ, doth not believe on Christ. No; This believing on Christ im­plies an union of the soul to Christ and fiduciary re­cumbency on Christ. Therefore we are bid to take hold of Christ, Isaiah 27:5, who is there called God’s ‘strength,’ as elsewhere his arm—‘that we may make peace with God, and we shall make peace with him.’ It is not the sight of a man’s arm stretched out to a man in the water will save him from drowning, but the taking hold of it. Christ is a stone. Faith builds upon Christ for salvation. And how? but by laying its whole weight and expectation of mercy on him. What Paul, 2 Timothy 1:12, calls ‘believing’ in the former part of the verse, he calls in the latter part a ‘committing to him to be kept against that day.’ (4.) The fourth and last branch in the description, is the warrant and security that faith goes upon in this act. And this it takes from the promise. In­deed, there is no way how God can be conceived to contract a debt to his creature but by promise. There are ways for men to become debtors one to another, though never any promise passed from them. The fa­ther is a debtor to his child, and owes him love, provi­sion, and nurture. The child is a debtor to his parent, and owes him honour and obedience, though neither of them promised this to each other. Much more doth the creature stand deep in God’s debt-book, and owes himself with all he hath to God his Maker, though he hath not the grace voluntarily to make these over to God by promise and covenant. But the great God is so absolute a Sovereign, that none can make a law to bind him but himself. Till he be pleased to pass an act of grace, of his own good-will, to give this or do that good thing to and for his poor creatures, no claim can be laid to the least mercy at his hands. There are two things therefore that are greatly to be heeded by the soul that would believe. (1.) He must inquire for a promise to bear his faith out, and warrant him to expect such a mercy at God’s hand. (2.) Again, when he hath found a promise, and observed the terms well on which it runs, the Chris­tian is not to stay for any further encouragement, but upon the credit of the naked promise to set his faith on work. (a) He is to inquire out a promise, and observe well the terms on which it runs. Indeed upon the point it comes all to one; to believe without a promise, or to believe on a promise, but not observe the terms of it. Both are presumptuous, and speed alike. A prince hath as much reason to be angry with him that doth not keep close to his commission, as with another that acts without any commission. O how little considered is this by many who make bold of God’s arm to lean on for pardon and salvation, but never think that the promise, which presents Christ to leaned on as a Saviour, presents him at the same time to be chosen as a Lord and Prince! Such were the rebellious Israelites, who durst make God and his promise a leaning-stock for their foul elbows to rest on. ‘They call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is his name,’ Isaiah 48:2; but they were more bold than welcome. God rejected their confidence and loathed their sauciness. Though a prince would not disdain to let a poor wounded man, faint with bleeding, and unable to go alone, upon his humble request, make use of his arm, rather than he should perish in the streets; yet he would, with indignation, reject the same motion from a filthy drunkard that is be­smeared with his vomit, if he should desire leave to lean on him because he cannot go alone. I am sure, how welcome soever the poor humble soul—that lies bleeding for his sins at the very mouth of hell in his own thoughts—is to God when he comes upon the encouragement of the promise to lean on Christ, yet the profane wretch that emboldens himself to come to Christ, shall be kicked away with infinite disdain and abhorrency by a holy God for abusing his promise. (b) When a poor sinner hath found a promise, and observes the terms with a heart willing to embrace them, now he is to put forth an act of faith upon the credit of the naked promise, without staying for any other encouragement elsewhere. Faith is a right pilgrim-grace; it travels with us to heaven, and when it sees us safe got within our Father’s doors —heaven I mean—it takes leave of us. Now, the promise is this pilgrim’s staff with which it sets forth, though, like Jacob on his way to Padan-aram, it hath nothing else with it. ‘Remember the word unto thy servant,’ saith David, ‘upon which thou hast caused me to hope,’ Psalms 119:49. The word of promise was all he had to show, and he counts that enough to set his faith on work. But alas! some make comfort the ground of faith, and experience their warrant to believe. They will believe when God manifests him­self to them, and sends in some sensible demonstra­tion of his love to their souls; but, till this be done, the promise hath little authority to silence their unbe­lieving cavils, and quiet their misgiving hearts into a waiting on God for the performance of what there is spoken from God’s own mouth. It is like old Jacob, who gave no credit to his children when they told him Joseph was yet alive and governor over all the land of Egypt. This news was too good and great to enter into his belief, who had given him {up} for dead {for} so long; it is said, ‘his heart fainted, for he believed them not,’ Genesis 45:26. But when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him thither, then it is said, ‘the spirit of Jacob revived,’ Genesis 45:27. Truly thus, though the promise tells the poor humbled sinner Christ is alive, governor of heaven itself, with all power there and on earth put into his hand, that he may give eternal life unto all that believe on him, and he be therefore exhorted to rest upon Christ in the promise, yet his heart faints and believes not. It is the wagons he would fain see—some sensible expressions of God’s love that he listens after—if he did but know that he was an elect person, or were one that God did love, then he would believe. But God hath little reason to thank him in the meantime for suspending his faith till these come. This is, as I may so say, to believe for spiritual loves, and is rather sense than faith. [Why faith is compared to a shield.] Third Inquiry. Why is faith compared to a shield? It is so, because of a double resemblance that is between this grace and that piece of armour. First Resemblance. This shield is not for the de­fence of any particular part of the body—as almost all the other pieces are—the helmet fitted for the head, the plate designed for the breast, and so others having their several parts which they are fastened to—but is intended for the defence of the whole body. It was used therefore to be made very large, for its broadness called 2LD,ÎH, of {from} 2bD", a gate or door, because so long and large as in a manner to cover the whole body. To this that place alludes, ‘For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield,’ Psalms 5:12. And if the shield were not large enough at once to cover every part, yet, being a movable piece of armour, the skilful soldier might turn it this way or that way, to latch the blow or arrow from lighting on any part they were directed to. And this indeed doth excellently well set forth the universal use that faith is of to the Christian. It defends the whole man; every part of the Christian by it preserved. Sometimes the temptation is levelled at the head. Satan, he will be disputing against this truth and that, to make the Christian, if he can, call them into question, merely because his reason and understanding cannot comprehend them; and he pre­vails with some that do not think themselves the un­wisest in the world, upon this very account, to blot the deity of Christ, with other mysterious truths of the gospel, quite out of their creed. Now faith inter­poseth between the Christian and this arrow. It comes into the relief of the Christian’s weak under­standing as seasonably as Zeruiah did to David, when the giant Ishbi-benob thought to have slain him. I will trust the word of God, saith the believer, rather than my own purblind reason. ‘Abraham not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead,’ Romans 4:19. If sense should have had the hearing of that business, yea, if that holy man had put it to a reference between sense and reason also, what resolution his thoughts should come to concerning this strange message that was brought him, he would have been in danger of calling the truth of it in question, though God himself was the messenger; but faith brought him honourably off. Again, Is it conscience that the tempter assaults? —and it is not seldom that he is shooting his fiery darts of horror and terror at his mark. Faith receives the shock, and saves the creature harmless: ‘I had fainted, unless I had believed,’ saith David, Psalms 27:13. He means when false witnesses rose up against him, and such as breathed out cruelty, as appears, Psalms 27:12. Faith was his best fence against man’s charge; and so it is against Satan’s and conscience’s also. Never was a man in a sadder condition than the poor jailer, Acts 16:1-40. Much ado he had to keep his own hands from offering violence to himself. Who that had seen him fall trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas, with that sad question in his mouth, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ Acts 16:30, could have thought this deep wound that was now given his conscience, would so soon have been closed and cured as we find it, Acts 16:34. The earthquake of horror that did so dreadfully shake his conscience is gone, and his trembling turned into rejoicing. Now mark what made this blessed calm. ‘Believe,’ saith Paul, ‘on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,’ Acts 16:31; and Acts 16:34, it is said, he ‘rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.’ It is faith stills the storm which sin had raised—faith that changed his doleful note into joy and gladness. Hap­py man he was, that had such skilful chirurgeons so near him, who could direct him the nearest way to a cure. Again, Is it the will that the temptation is laid to catch? Some commands of God cannot be obeyed without much self-denial, because they cross us in that which our own wills are carried forth very strong­ly to desire; so that we must deny our will before we can do the will of God. Now a temptation comes very forcible, when it runs with the tide of our own wills. ‘What,’ saith Satan, ‘wilt thou serve a God that thus thwarts thee in everything?’ If thou lovest anything more than another, presently he must have that from thee. No lamb in all the flock will serve for a sacrifice, but Isaac, Abraham’s only child, he must be offered up. No place will content God, that Abraham should serve him in, but where he must live in ban­ishment from his dear relations and acquaintance. ‘Wilt thou,’ saith Satan, ‘yield to such hard terms as these?’ Now faith is the grace that doth the soul ad­mirable service at such a pinch as this. It is able to appease the tumult which such a temptation may raise in the soul, and dismiss the rout of all mutinous thoughts, yea, to keep the King of heaven’s peace so sweetly in the Christian’s bosom, that such a temptation, if it comes, shall find few or none to declare for it, ‘By faith,’ it saith, ‘Abraham obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither,’ Hebrews 11:8. And we do not read of one fond look that his heart cast back upon his dear native country, as he went from it, so well pleased had faith made him with his journey. It was hard work for Moses to strip himself of the magistrate’s robes, and put his hands on his servants head; hard to leave another to enter upon his labours, and reap the honour of lodging the Israelites’ colours in Canaan, after it had cost him so many a weary step to bring them within sight of it. Yet, faith made him willing; he saw better robes, that he should put on in heaven, than those he was called on to put off on earth. The lowest place in glory is, beyond all compare, greater preferment than the highest place of honour here below; to stand before the throne there, and minister to God in immediate service, than to sit in a throne on earth and have all the world waiting at his foot. Second Resemblance. The shield doth not only defend the whole body, but is a defence of the soldier’s armour also. It keeps the arrow from the hel­met as well as head, from the breast and breast-plate also. Thus faith it is armour upon armour, a grace that preserves all the other graces. But of this more hereafter. [The import of the expression ‘above all.’] Fourth Inquiry. What doth this ¦B4 BVF4<, ‘above all,’ import? There is variety among interpreters about it. Jerome reads it, in omnibus, sumentes scutum fidei —in all things taking the shield of faith, i.e. in all duties, enterprises, temptations, or afflictions—in whatever you are called to do or suffer, take faith. Indeed, faith to the Christian is like fire to the chem­ist; nothing can be done without it christianly. ‘But without faith it is impossible to please God,’ Hebrews 11:6. And how can the Christian please himself in that wherein he doth not please his God? Others read it, ‘Over all take the shield of faith,’ i.e. take it over all your graces, as that which will cover them. All other graces have their safety from faith; they lie secure under the shadow of faith, as an army lies safe under the protection and command of a strong castle planted round with cannon. But we shall follow our translation, as being most comprehensive, and that which will take these within its compass. ‘Above all, take,’ &c., that is, among all the pieces of armour which you are to provide and wear for your defence, let this have the pre-eminence of your care to get; and having got, to keep it. Now, that the apostle meant to give a preeminency to faith above the other graces appears, First. By the piece of armour he compares it to —the shield. This, of old, was prized above all other pieces by soldiers. They counted it greater shame to lose their shield, than to lose the field, and therefore when under the very foot of their enemy, they would not part with it, but esteemed it an honour to die with their shield in their hand. It was the charge that one laid upon her son, going into the wars, when she gave him a shield, ‘that he should either bring his shield home with him, or be brought home upon his shield.’ She had rather see him dead with it, than come home alive without it. Second. By the noble effect which is here ascribed to faith—‘by which ye shall quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.’ The other pieces are nakedly commended, ‘take the girdle of truth, breast-plate of righteousness,’ and so the rest; but there is nothing singly ascribed to any of them, what they can do, yet, when he speaks of faith, he ascribes the whole victory to it. This quencheth ‘all the fiery darts of the wicked.’ And why thus? Are the other graces of no use, and doth faith do all? What need then the Christian load himself with more than this one piece? I answer, every piece hath its necessary use in the Christian’s warfare: not any one part of the whole suit can be spared in the day of battle. But the reason, I humbly conceive, why no particular effect is annexed severally to each of these, but all ascribed to faith, is, to let us know that all these graces—their efficacy and our benefit from them—is in conjunction with faith, and the influence they receive from faith; so that this is plainly the design of the Spirit of God to give faith the precedency in our care above the rest. Only, take heed that you do not fancy any indifferency or negligence to be allowed you in your endeavours after the other graces, because you are more strongly provoked and excited up to the getting and keeping this. The apostle would intend your care here, but not remit it there. Cannot we bid a soldier above all parts of his body to beware of a wound at his heart, but he must needs think presently he need take no care to guard his head? Truly, such a one would deserve a cracked crown to cure him of his folly. The word thus op ened, we shall content ourselves with one general observation from them; and it is this. DIRECTION VIII.—FIRST GENERAL PART. [The pre-eminence of faith above other graces.] The exhortation—‘Above all, taking the shield of faith’ (Ephesians 6:16). Of all graces faith is the chief, and is chiefly to be laboured for. There is a precedency or pre-eminence peculiar to this above all other. It is among graces, as the sun is among the planets, or as Solomon’s ‘virtuous woman among the daughters,’ Proverbs 31:29. Though every grace had done virtuously, yet thou, O faith, excellest them all. The apostle indeed give the precedency to love, and sets faith on the lower hand. ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity,’ 1 Corinthians 13:13. Yet, you may observe, that this prelation of it before faith hath a particular respect to the saints’s blissful state in heaven, where love remains, and faith ceaseth. In that regard love indeed is the greater, because it is the end of our faith. We apprehend by faith that we may enjoy by love. But, if we consider the Christian’s present state, while militant on earth, in this respect love must give place to faith. It is true, love is the grace that shall triumph in heaven. But it is faith, not love, which is the conquering grace on earth. ‘This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith,’ 1 John 5:4. Love indeed hath its place in the battle, and doth excellent service, but is under faith its leader. ‘Faith which worketh by love,’ Galatians 5:6. Even as the captain fighteth by his soldiers whom he leads on, so faith works by love which it excites. Love, it is true, is the grace that at last possesseth the inheritance, but it is faith that gives the Christian right unto it. Without this he should never have enjoyed it, John 1:12. In a word, it is love that unites God and glorified saints together in heaven; but it was faith that first united them to Christ while they were on earth—‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,’ Ephesians 3:17. And if Christ had dwelt in them by faith on earth, they should never have dwelt with God in heaven. BRANCH FIRST. [Four Particulars in which faith stands pre-eminent above other graces.] I proceed to show wherein it appears that faith hath such a pre-eminence above other graces as we previously have indicated. This takes in the following particulars. First Particular. In the great inquiry that God makes after faith above all other graces. Nothing more speaks our esteem of persons or things than our inquiry after them. We ask first and most for those that stand highest in our thoughts. ‘Is your father well?’ said Joseph, ‘the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive?’ Genesis 43:27. No doubt there were others of whose welfare Joseph would have been glad to hear also, but being most pent and pained with a natural affection to his father, he easeth himself of this first. And when David asks for Absalom above all others, ‘Is the young man Absalom safe?’ and over again with it to Cush, 2 Samuel 18:1-33, it was easy to guess how highly he valued his life. Now you shall find the great inquiry that God makes is for faith: ‘When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?’ Luke 18:8—implying that this is the grace which he will especially look for and desires to find. We read, John 9:1-41, of a great miracle, a man by Christ restored to his sight that was born blind. This so enraged the malicious Pharisees that they excommunicate the poor man for no other fault but giving his merciful physician a good word. This brings Christ the sooner to him—so tender is he of those that suffer for him, that they shall not long want his sweet company—and he hath no cause to complain for being cast out of man’s society that gains Christ’s presence by the same. Now, observe what Christ saith to him at his first meet­ing, ver. 35, ‘Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?’ The man had already expressed some zeal for Christ, in vindicating him, and speaking well of him to the head of the bitterest enemies he had on earth, for which he was now made a sufferer at their hands. This was very commendable. But there is one thing Christ prizeth above all this, and that is faith. This he inquires after, ‘Dost thou believe on the Son of God?’ As if he had said, ‘All this thy zeal in speaking for me, and patience in suffering, are nothing worth in my account except thou hast faith also.’ Indeed most of God’s dealings with his people, what are they but inquiries after faith? either the truth or strength of it. When he af­flicts them, it is ‘for the trial of their faith,’ 1 Peter 1:7. Afflictions they are God’s spade and mattock, by which he digs into his people’s hearts to find out this gold of faith. Not but that he inquires for other graces also; but this is named for all as the chief; which found, all the other will soon appear. When God seems to delay, and makes, as it were, a halt in his providence, before he comes with the mercy he prom­iseth, and we pray for, it is exploratory to faith. ‘O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt,’ Matthew 15:28. She had received her answer without so much ado; only Christ had a mercy in store more than she thought of. With the granting of her suit in the cure of her daughter, he had a mind to give her the evidence of her faith also, and the high esteem God hath of his grace, as that which may have of him what it will. Second Particular. The commendations that are given to faith above other graces. You shall ob­serve, that in the same action wherein other graces are eminently exercised as well as faith, even then faith is taken notice of, and the crown set upon faith’s head rather than any of the other. We hear nothing almost of any other grace throughout the whole 11th of Hebrews but faith. ‘By faith Abraham,’ ‘by faith Ja­cob,’ and the rest of those worthies, did all those fa­mous exploits. There was a concurrence of the oth­er graces with faith in them all. But all goes under the name of faith. The whole army fight, yet the general or the captain hath the honour of the victory ascribed to him. Alexander and Cæsar’s names are transmitted to posterity as the great conquerors that overcame so many battles, not the private soldiers that fought under them. Faith is the captain grace. All those fa­mous acts of those saints are recorded as the achieve­ments of faith. Thus concerning the centurion, ‘Veri­ly,’ saith Christ, ‘I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,’ Matthew 8:10. There were other graces very eminent in the centurion besides his faith;—his con­scientious care of his poor servant, for whom he could have done no more if he had been his own child. There are some that call themselves Christians, yet would not have troubled themselves so much for a sick servant. Such, alas! are oft less regarded in sickness than their master’s beast. But, especially his humility; this shined forth very eminently in that self-abasing expression: ‘Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof,’ Matthew 8:8. Consider but his calling and degree therein, and it makes his humility more conspicuous. A swordsman, yea, a commander! such use to speak big and high. Power is seldom such a friend to humility. Surely he was a man of a rare humble spirit, that he, whose mouth was used so much to words of command over his sol­diers, could so demit[2] and humble himself in his ad­dress to Christ; yet his faith outshines his humility in its greatest strength. Not, I have not found such humility, but ‘such faith’ in all Israel. As if Christ had said, ‘There is not one believer in all Israel but I know him, and how rich he is in faith also; but I have not found so much of this heavenly treasure in any one hand as in this centurion’s.’ Indeed the Christian’s chief riches is in faith’s hand. ‘Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith?’ James 2:5. Why rich in faith, rather than rich in patience, rich in love, or any other grace? O great reason for it, when the creature comes to lay claim to pardon of sin, the favour of God, and heaven itself. It is not love, pa­tience, &c., but faith alone that lays down the price of all these. Not ‘Lord, pardon, save me, here is my love and patience for it;’ but ‘here is Christ, and the price of his blood, which faith presents thee for the full purchase of them all.’ This leads to a third particular, and indeed the chief of all. Third Particular. The high office that faith is set in above other graces, in the business of our jus­tification before God—‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God,’ Romans 5:1. Not justified by love, repentance, patience, or any other grace beside faith. O how harsh doth it sound in a Christian ear, justifying patience, justifying repentance! And if they were concerned with the act of justification, as faith is, the name would as well become them as it doth faith itself. But we find this appropriated to faith, and the rest hedged out from having to do in the act of justifi­cation, though included and supposed in the person who is justified. It is faith that justifies without works. This is Paul’s task to prove, Romans 3:1-31. But this faith which justifies is not dead or idle, but a lively working faith, which seems to be James’ design in the second chapter of his epistle. As God did single Christ out from all others to be the only mediator betwixt him and man, and his righteousness to be the meritorious cause of our justification; so he hath singled faith out from all the other graces, to be the instrument or means for appropriating this righ­teousness of Christ to ourselves. Therefore, as this righteousness is called ‘the righteousness of God,’ and opposed to our ‘own righteousness,’ though wrought by God in us, Romans 10:3, because it is wrought by Christ for us, but not inherent in us, as the other is; so also it is called ‘the righteousness of faith,’ Romans 4:11, Romans 4:13—not the righteousness of repentance, love, or any other grace. Now, wherefore is it called ‘the righteousness of faith,’ and not of love, repentance, &c.? Surely, not that faith itself is our righteousness. Then we should be justified by works, while we are justified by faith, contrary to the apostle, who oppos­eth faith and works, Romans 4:1-25. In a word, then, we should be justified by a righ­teousness of our own, for faith is a grace inherent in us, and as much our own work as any grace besides is. But this is contrary to the same apostle’s doctrine, Php 3:9, where our own righteousness, and the righteousness which is by faith, are declared to be inconsistent. It can therefore be called ‘the righteousness of faith’ for this reason and no other—because faith is the only grace whose office it is to lay hold on Christ, and so to appropriate his righteousness for the justification of our souls. Christ and faith are relatives which must not be severed. Christ, he is the treasure, and faith the hand which receives it. Christ’s righteousness is the robe, faith the hand that puts it on; so that it is Christ who is the treasure. By his blood he dischargeth our debt, and not by faith; whose office is only to receive Christ, whereby he becomes ours. It is Christ’s righteousness that is the robe which covers our nakedness, and makes us beau­tiful in God’s eye; only, faith hath the honour to put the robe on the soul, and it is no small honour that is therein put upon it above other graces. As God graced Moses exceedingly above the rest of his brethren the Israelites, when he was called up the mount to receive the law from God’s mouth, while they had their bounds set them—to stand waiting at the bot­tom of the hill till he brought it down to them; so doth God highly honour faith, to call this up as the grace by whose hand he will convey this glorious privilege of justification over to us. Question. But why is faith rather than any other grace else employed in this act? Answer First. Because there is no grace hath so proper a fitness for this office as faith. Why hath God appointed the eye to see and not the ear? why the hand to take our food rather than the foot? It is easily answered, because these members have a par­ticular fitness for these functions and not the other. Thus faith hath a fitness for this work peculiar to itself. We are justified not by giving anything to God of what we do, but by receiving from God what Christ hath done for us. Now faith is the only receiving grace, and therefore only fit for this office. Answer Second. There is no grace that God could trust his honour so safely with in this business of justification as with faith. The great design God hath in justifying a poor sinner is to magnify his free mercy in the eye of his creature. This is written in such fair characters in the word, that he who runs {to it} may read it. God was resolved that his free mercy should go away with all the honour, and the creature should be quite cut out from any pretensions to part­nership with him therein. Now there is no way like to this of being justified by faith, for the securing and safe-guarding of the glory of God’s free grace, Romans 3:25-26. When the apostle hath in some verses to­gether discoursed of the free justification of a sinner before God, he goes on to show how this cuts the very comb, yea throat, of all self-exalting thoughts, Romans 3:27: ‘Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.’ Princes, of all wrongs, most disdain and abhor to see their royal bed defiled. So jealous they have been of this, that, for the prevention of all suspicion of such a foul fact, it hath been of old the custom of the greatest monarchs, that those who were their favourites, and admitted into nearest attendance upon their own per­sons and queens, should be eunuchs—such whose very disability of nature might remove all suspicion of any such attempt by them. Truly, God is more jeal­ous of having the glory of his name ravished by the pride and self-glorying of the creature, than ever any prince was of having his queen deflowered. And therefore to secure it from any such horrid abuse, he hath chosen faith—this eunuch grace, as I may so call it—to stand so nigh him, and be employed by him in this high act of grace, whose very nature, being a self-emptying grace, renders it incapable of entering into any such design against the glory of God’s grace. Faith hath two hands; with one it pulls off its own righ­teousness and throws it away, as David did Saul’s ar­mour; with the other it puts on Christ’s righteousness over the soul’s shame, as that in which it dares alone see God or be seen of him. ‘This makes it impossible,’ saith learned and holy Master Ball, ‘how to conceive that faith and works should be conjoined as concauses in justification; seeing the one—that is faith—attributes all to the free grace of God; the other—that is works—challenge to themselves. The one, that is faith, will aspire no higher but to be the instrumental cause of free remission; the other can sit no lower, but to be the matter of justification, if any cause at all. For, if works be accounted to us in the room or place of exact obedience in free justification, do they not supply the place? are they not advanced to the dignity of works complete and perfect in jus­tification from justice?’ Treatise of Covenant of Grace, p. 70. Fourth Particular. The mighty influence, yea universal, that faith hath upon all her sister-graces, speaks her the chief of them all. What makes the sun so glorious a creature but because it is a com­mon good, and serves all the lower world with light and influence? Faith is a grace whose ministry God useth as much for the good of the spiritual world in the saints—called in Scripture the 6"4<­ 6JÂF4H, ‘the new creation,’ Galatians 6:15—as he doth the sun for the corporeal. Nothing is hid from the heat of the sun, Psalms 19:6, and there is no grace that faith’s influence reach­eth not unto. [The influence of faith reacheth unto all other graces.] First. Faith finds all the graces with work. As the rich tradesman gives out his wool, some to this man, and some to that, who all spin and work of the stock he gives them out, so that, when he ceaseth to trade, they must also, because they have no stock but what he affords them,—thus faith gives out to every grace what they act upon. If faith trades not, neither can they. To instance in one or two graces for all the rest. Repentance, this is a sweet grace, but set on work by faith. Nineveh’s repentance is attributed unto their faith: ‘The people of Nineveh believed God, and pro­claimed a fast, and put on sackcloth,’ Jonah 3:5. It is very like indeed that their repentance was no more than legal, but it was as good as their faith was. If their faith had been better, so would their repentance also. All is whist and quiet in an unbelieving soul; no news of repentance, nor noise of any complaint made against sin till faith begins to stir. When faith presents the threatening, and binds the truth and terror of it to the conscience, then the sinner hath something to work upon. As light accentuates colours and brings the eye acquainted with its object, whereupon it falls to work, so doth faith actuate sin in the conscience; now musing thoughts will soon arise, and, like clouds, thicken apace into a storm, till they bespread the soul with a universal blackness of horror and trembling for sin; but then also the creature is at a loss, and can go no further in the business of repentance, while faith sends in more work from the promise by presenting a pardon therein to the returning soul; which no sooner is heard and believed by the creature, but the work of repentance goes on apace. Now the cloud of horror and terror, which the fear of wrath, from con­sideration of the threatening, had gathered in the conscience, dissolves into a soft rain of evangelical sorrow, at the report which faith makes from the promise. Love is another heavenly grace; but faith gathers the fuel that makes this fire. Speak, Christian, whose soul now flames with love to God, was it always thus? No! sure there was a time, I dare say for thee, when thy heart was cold—not a spark of this fire to be found on the altar of thy heart. How is this then, Christian, that now thy soul loves God, whom before thou didst scorn and hate? Surely thou hast heard some good news from heaven, that hath changed thy thoughts of God, and turned the stream of thy love, which ran another way, into this happy channel. And who can be the messenger besides faith that brings any good news from heaven to the soul? It is faith that proclaims the promise; opens Christ’s excellencies; pours out his name, for which the virgins love him. When faith hath drawn a character of Christ out of the word, and presented him in his love and love­liness to the soul, now the creature is sweetly invei­gled in his affections to him; now the Christian hath a copious theme to enlarge upon in his thoughts, whereby to endear Christ more and more unto him —‘Unto him that believes, he is precious;’ and the more faith, the ‘more precious,’ 1 Peter 1:7. If we should sit in the same room by the dearest friend we had in all the world, and our eyes were held from seeing him, we would take no more notice of him, and give no more respect to him, than to a mere stranger. But if one should come and whisper {to} us in the ear, and tell us this is such a dear friend of yours, that once laid down his life to save yours, that hath made you heir to all the goodly estate that he hath, will you not show your respect to him? O how our hearts would work in our breasts, and make haste to come forth in some passionate expression of our dear affection to him! Yea, how heartily ashamed would we be for our uncivil and unbecoming behav­iour towards him, though occasioned by our ignor­ance of him. Truly thus it is here. So long as faith’s eye hath a mist before it, or is unactive and as it were asleep in the dull habit, the Christian may sit very nigh Christ in an ordinance, in a providence, and be very little affected with him, and drawn out in loves to him. But when faith is awake to see him as he pass­eth by in his love and loveliness, and active to make report to the soul of the sweet excellencies it sees in Christ, as also of his dear bleeding love to his soul, the Christian’s love now cannot choose but spring and leap in his bosom at the voice of faith, as the babe did in Elizabeth’s womb at the salutation of her cousin Mary. Second. As faith sets the other graces on work by actuating their objects, about which they are con­versant, so it helps them all to work, by fetching strength from Christ to act and reinforce them. Faith is not only the instrument to receive the righteousness of Christ for our justification, but it is also the great instrument to receive grace from Christ for our sanctification. ‘Of his fulness...we receive grace for grace,’ John 1:16. But how do we receive it? Even by faith. Faith unites the soul to Christ; and as by a pipe laid close to the mouth of a fountain water is carried to our houses for the supply of the whole family, so by faith is derived to the soul supply in abundance for the particular offices of all the several graces. He that believes, ‘out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water,’ John 7:38. That is, he that hath faith, and is careful to live in the exercise of it, shall have a flow and an increase of all other graces, called here ‘living waters.’ Hence it is that the saints, when they would advance to a high pitch in other graces, pray for the increase of their faith. Our Saviour, Luke 17:3-4, sets his apostles a very hard lesson when he would wind up their love to such a high pitch as to forgive their offending brother ‘seven times’ in a day. Now mark, Luke 17:5—‘The apostles,’ apprehending the difficulty of the duty, ‘said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.’ But why did they rather not say, ‘Increase our love,’ see­ing that was the grace they were to exercise in forgiving their brother? Surely it was not because love hath its increase from faith. If they could get more faith on Christ, they might be sure they should have more love to their brother also. The more strongly they could believe on Christ for the pardon of their own sins, not ‘seven,’ but ‘seventy times’ in a day committed against God, the more easy it would be to forgive their brother offending themselves seven times a day. This interpretation, our Saviour’s reply to their pray­er for faith favours, Luke 17:6 —‘And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.’ Where Christ shows the efficacy of justifying faith by the power of a faith of miracles. As if he had said, ‘You have hit on the right way to get a for­giving spirit; it is faith indeed that would enable you to conquer the unmercifulness of your hearts. Though it were as deeply rooted in you as this sycamore-tree is in the ground, yet by faith you should be able to pluck it up.’ When we would have the whole tree fruitful, we think we do enough to water the root, knowing what the root sucks from the earth it will soon disperse into the branches. Thus that sap and fatness, faith, which is the radical grace, draws from Christ, will be quickly diffused through the branches of the other graces, and tasted in the pleasantness of their fruit. Third. Faith defends the Christian in the exer­cise of all his graces. ‘By faith we stand,’ Romans 11:20. As a soldier under the protection of his shield stands his ground and does his duty, notwithstanding all the shot that are made against him to drive him back. When faith fails, then every grace is put to the run and rout. Abraham’s simplicity and sincerity, how was it put to disorder when he dissembled with Abim­elech concerning his wife? and why, but because his faith failed him. Job’s patience received a wound when his hand grew weary, and his shield of faith, which should have covered him, hung down. Indeed, no grace is safe if from under the wing of faith. There­fore, to secure Peter from falling from all grace, Christ tells him, ‘I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not,’ Luke 22:32. This was the reserve that Christ took care should be kept to recover his other graces when foiled by the enemy, and to bring him off that encounter wherein he was so badly bruised and broken. It is said that Christ could not do many mighty things in his own country ‘because of their unbelief,’ Matthew 13:58. Neither can Satan do any great hurt to the Christian so long as faith is upon the place. It is true he aims to fight faith above all, as that which keeps him from coming at the rest, but he is not able long to stand before it. Let a saint be never so humble, pa­tient, devout, alas! Satan will easily pick some hole or other in these graces, and break in upon him when he stands in the best array, if faith be not in the field to cover these. This is the grace that makes him face about and take him to his heels, 1 Peter 5:9. Fourth. Faith alone procures acceptance with God for all the other graces and their works. ‘By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice,’ Hebrews 11:4. When a Christian hath wrought hardest in a day, and hath spun the finest, evenest, thread of obedience at the wheel of duty, he is afraid to carry home his work at night with an expectation of any ac­ceptance at God’s hands for his work’s sake. No, it is faith he makes use of to present it through Christ to God for acceptance. We are said, 1 Peter 2:5, ‘To offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ;’ That is, by faith in Christ, for without faith Christ makes none of our sacrifices acceptable. God takes nothing kindly but what the hand of faith pre­sents. And so prevalent is faith with God, that he will take light gold—broken services—at her hand; which, were they to come alone, would be rejected with in­dignation. As a favourite that hath the ear of his prince, finds it easy to get his poor kindred entertained at court also (so Joseph brought his brethren into Pharaoh’s presence with great demonstrations of favour shown them by him for his sake; and Esther wound Mordecai into a high preferment in Ahasu­erus’ court, who upon his own credit could get no far­ther than to sit at the gate), thus faith brings those works and duties into God’s presence, which else were sure to be shut out, and, pleading the righteousness of Christ, procures them to be received into such high favour with God, that they become his delight, Proverbs 15:8, and as a pleasant perfume in his nostrils, Malachi 3:4. Fifth. Faith brings in succours when other graces fail. Two ways the Christian’s graces may fail—in their activity, or in their evidence. 1. In their activity, it is low water sometimes with the Christian. He cannot act so freely and vigorously then as at another time when the tide runs high, through divine assistances that flow in amain upon him. Those temptations which he could at one time snap asunder as easily as Samson did his cords of flax, at another time he is sadly hampered with that he cannot shake them off. Those duties which he performs with delight and joy, when his grace is in a healthful plight; at another time he pants and blows at, as much as a sick man doth to go up a hill—so heavily doth he find them come off. Were not the Christian, think you, ill now on it, if he had no com­ings in but from his own shop of duty? Here now is the excellency of faith; it succours the Christian in this his bankrupt condition. As Joseph got over his brethren to him, and nourished them out of his gran­aries all the time of famine, so doth faith the Christian in his penury of grace and duty. And this it doth in two ways. (1.) By laying claim to the fulness of that grace which is in Christ as its own. Why art thou dejected, O my soul, saith the Christian’s faith, for thy weak grace? There is enough in Christ, all fulness dwells in him, it pleased the Father it should be so, and that to pleasure thee in thy wants and weaknesses. It is a ministerial fulness; as the clouds carry rain not for themselves but the earth, so doth Christ his fulness of grace for thee. ‘He is made of God unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,’ 1 Corinthians 1:30. When the rags of the Christian’s own righteousness discourage and shame him, faith hath a robe to put on that covers all this unco meliness. ‘Christ is my righteousness,’ saith faith, and ‘in Him’ we are ‘complete,’ Colossians 2:10. Faith hath two hands, a working hand a receiving hand; and the receiving hand relieves the working hand, or else there would be a poor house kept in the Christian’s bosom. We find Paul himself but in a starving condition, for all the comfort his own graces could with their earnings afford him. He is a wretched man in his own account, if these be all he hath to live upon, Romans 7:24; yet even then, when he sees nothing in his own cup­board, his faith puts forth his receiving hand to Christ, and he is presently set at a rich feast, for which you find him giving thanks, Romans 7:25, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ (2.) Faith succours the Christian in the weakness and inactivity of his graces, by applying the promises for the saints’ perseverance in grace. It brings great comfort to a sick man, though very weak at present, to hear his physician tell him, that though he is low and feeble, yet there is no fear he will die. The present weakness of grace is sad, but the fear of falling quite away is far sadder. Now faith, and only faith, can be the messenger to bring the good news to the soul, that it shall persevere. Sense and reason are quite posed and dunced here. It seems impossible to them, that such a bruised reed should bear up against all the counterblasts of hell, because they consider only what grace itself can do, and finding it so over­matched by the power and policy of Satan, think it but rational to give the victory to the stronger side. But faith, when it seeth symptoms of death in the saint’s grace, finds life in the promise, and comforts the soul with this—that the faithful God will not suf­fer his grace to see corruption. He hath undertaken the physicking of his saints: ‘Every branch in me that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit’ John 15:2. When Hazael came to inquire of Elisha for his sick master, whether he should live or die; the prophet sent him with this answer back unto the king his master: ‘Thou mayest certainly recover: howbeit the Lord hath shewed me that he shall surely die,’ 2 Kings 8:10—that is, he might certainly recover for all his disease, but he should die by the traitorous bloody hand of Hazael his servant. Give me leave only to allude to this. When the Christian consults with his faith, and inquires of it, whether his weak grace will fail or hold out, die or live, faith’s answer is, ‘Thy weak grace may certainly die and fall away, but the Lord hath showed me it shall live and persevere’ —that is, in regard of its own weakness and the muta­bility of man’s nature, the Christian’s grace might certainly die and come to nothing; but God hath shown faith in the promise that it shall certainly live and recover out of its lowest weakness. What David said in regard of his house, that every Christian may say in regard of his grace. ‘Though his grace be not so with God (so strong, so unchangeable in itself), yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire,’ 2 Samuel 23:5. This salt of the covenant is it shall keep, saith faith, thy weak grace from corrup­tion. ‘Why art thou cast down,’ saith the psalmist, ‘O my soul? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God,’ Psalms 42:11. The health of David’s countenance was not in his countenance, but in his God, and this makes his faith silence his fears, and so peremptorily resolve upon it, that there is a time coming—how near soever he now lies to the grave’s mouth—when he shall yet praise him. ‘The health and life of thy grace lie both of them, not in thy grace,’ saith faith, ‘but in God, who is thy God, therefore I shall yet live and praise him.’ I do not wonder that the weak Christian is mel­ancholy and sad when he sees his sickly face in any other glass but this. 2. In the evidence of them the Christian’s grace may fail. It may disappear, as stars do in a cloudy night. How oft do we hear the Christian say in an hour of desertion and temptation, ‘I know not whet her I love God or no in sincerity; I dare not say I have any true godly sorrow for sin; indeed I have thought formerly these graces had a being in me, but now I am at a loss what to think, yea, sometimes I am ready to fear the worst.’ Now in this dark benighted state, faith undergirds the soul’s ship, and hath two anchors it casts forth, whereby the soul is stayed from being driven upon the devouring quicksands of despair and horror. (1.) Faith makes a discovery of the rich mercy in Christ to poor sinners, and calls the soul to look up to it, when it hath lost the sight of his own grace. It is no small comfort to a man, that hath lost his acquaintance for a debt paid, when he remembers that the man he deals with is a merciful good man, though his discharge be not presently to be found. That God whom thou hast to do with is very gracious; what thou hast lost he is ready to restore—the evidence of thy grace I mean. David begged this and obtained it, see Psalms 51:1-19. ‘Yea,’ saith faith, ‘if it were true what thou fear­est, that thy grace was never true, there is mercy enough in God’s heart to pardon all thy former hy­pocrisy, if now thou comest in the sincerity of thy heart.’ And so, faith persuades the soul by an act of adventure to cast itself upon God in Christ. ‘Wilt thou not,’ saith faith, ‘expect to find as much mercy at God’s hands as thou canst look for at a man’s?’ It is not beyond the line of created mercy to forgive many unkindnesses, much falseness and unfaithfulness, upon a humble sincere acknowledgment of the same. The world is not so bad, but it abounds with parents that can do thus much for their children, and masters for their servants; and is that hard for God to do which is so easy in his creature? Thus faith vindi­cates God’s name. And so long as we have not lost the sight of God’s merciful heart, our head will be kept above water, though we want the evidence of our own grace. (2.) Faith makes a discovery of the rich mercy in Christ to poor sinners, and calls the soul to look up to it, when it hath lost the sight of his own grace. And it is some comfort, though a man hath no bread in his cupboard, to hear there is some to be had in the market. ‘O,’ saith the complaining Christian, ‘there were some hope, if I could find but those relentings and meltings of soul which others have in their bos­oms for sin; then I could run under the shadow of that promise and take comfort, ‘Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted,’ Matthew 5:4. But alas! my heart is as hard as the flint.’ ‘Well,’ saith faith, ‘for thy comfort know, there are not only prom­ises to the mourning soul and broken heart, but there are promises that God will break the heart, and give a spirit of mourning.’ So for other graces; not only promises to those that fear God, but to ‘put the fear of God into our hearts;’ not only promises to those that walk in his statutes and keep his judgments, but also to ‘put his spirit within us, and cause us to walk in his statutes,’ Ezekiel 36:27. Why then, O my soul, dost thou sit there bemoaning thyself fruitlessly for what thou sayest thou hast not, when thou knowest where thou mayest have it for going? As Jacob said to his sons, ‘Why do ye look one upon another? Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt: get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we may live, and not die,’ Genesis 42:1-2. Thus faith rouseth the Christian out of his amazed thoughts upon which his troubled spirit dwells like one destitute of counsel, not knowing what to do; and turns his bootless com­plaints, wherein he must necessarily pine and starve, into fervent prayer for that grace he wants. ‘There is bread in the promise,’ saith faith. Sit not here languishing in a sluggish despondency, but get you down upon your knees, and humbly, but valiantly, besiege the throne of grace for grace in this time of need. And certainly, the Christian may sooner get a new evidence for his grace, by pleading the promise, and plying the throne of grace, than by yielding so far to his unbelieving thoughts as to sit down and melt away his strength and time in the bitterness of his spirit —which Satan dearly likes—without using the means, which he will never do to any purpose, till faith brings thus much encouragement from the promise, that what he wants is there to be had freely and fully. Sixth. As faith succours the Christian when his other graces fail him most, so it brings in his comfort when they most abound. Faith is to the Christian as Nehemiah was to Artaxerxes, Nehemiah 2:1. Of all the graces this is the Christian’s cup-bearer. The Christian takes the wine of joy out of faith’s hand, rather than any other grace. ‘Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,’ Romans 15:13. It is observable, 1 Peter 1:1-25, to see how the apostle therefore doth, as it were, cross his hands, as once Jacob did in blessing his son Joseph’s children, and gives the pre-eminence to faith, attributing the Christian’s joy to his faith, rather than to his love ver. 8: ‘Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’ Mark, ‘believing, ye rejoice.’ Here is the door, the Christian’s chief joy, yea, all his fiduciary joy comes in at. It is Christ that we are in this respect allowed only to rejoice in, ‘For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,’ Php 3:3,—where Christ is made the sole subject of our rejoicing fiduciarily, in opposition to all else, even our graces themselves, which become flesh when thus re­joiced and glorified in. Christ’s blood is the wine that only glads the heart of God by way of satisfaction to his justice, and therefore only that can bring true gladness into the heart of man. When Christ prom­iseth the Comforter, he tells his disciples from what vessel he should draw the wine of joy that he was to give them: ‘He shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you,’ John 16:15. No grape of our own vine is pressed into this sweet cup. As if Christ had said, When he comes to comfort you with the pardon of your sins, ‘he shall take of mine,’ not anything of yours—my blood by which I purchased your peace with God, not your own tears of repentance by which you have mourned for your sins. All the blessed priv­ileges which believers are instated into, they are the fruits of Christ’s purchase, not of our earnings. Now, the Christian’s joy flowing in from Christ, and not anything that he, poor creature, doth or hath; hence it comes to pass, that faith, above all the graces, brings in the Christian’s joy and comfort, because this is the grace that improves Christ and what is Christ’s for the soul’s advantage. As of grace, so of comfort. Faith is the good spy, that makes discovery of the excellences in Christ, and then makes report of all to the soul it sees in him and knows of him. It is faith that broaches the promises, turns the cock and sets them a running into the soul. It doth not only show the soul how excellent Christ is, and what dainties are in the promises; but it applies Christ to the soul, and carves out the sweet viands that are dished forth in the promises. Yea, it puts them into the very mouth of the soul; it masticates and grinds the promise so, that the Christian is filled with its strength and sweet­ness. Till faith comes and brings the news of the soul’s welcome, O how maidenly and uncomfortably do poor creatures sit at the table of the promise! Like Hannah, ‘they weep and eat not.’ No, alas! they dare not be so bold. But, when faith comes, then the soul falls to, and makes a satisfying meal indeed. No dish on the table but faith will taste of. Faith knows God sets them not on to go off untouched. It is though an humble yet a bold grace, because it knows it cannot be so bold with God in his own way as it is welcome. USE OR APPLICATION. [Unbelief hath the same pre-eminence among sins, as faith ‘above all’ graces.] Use First. Is faith the chief of graces? This may help us to conceive of the horrible nature of unbelief. This surely will deserve as high a place among sins as faith hath among the graces. Unbelief! It is the Beel­zebub, the prince of sins. As faith is the radical grace, so is unbelief a radical sin, a sinning sin. As of all sinners, those are most infamous who are ringleaders and make others sin—which is the brand that God hath set upon Jeroboam’s name, ‘Jeroboam, who did sin, and who made Israel to sin,’ 1 Kings 14:16—so among sins, they are most horrid that are most pro­ductive of other sins. Such a one is unbelief above any other. It is a ring-leading sin, a sin-making sin. The first poisonous breath which Eve sucked in from the tempter was sent in the words, ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ Genesis 3:1. As if he had said, ‘Consider well on the matter. Do you believe God meant so? Can you think so ill of God as to believe he would keep the best fruit of the whole garden from you?’ This was the traitor’s gate, at which all other sins entered into her heart; and it continues of the same use to Satan to this day, for the hurrying souls into other sins—called therefore, ‘an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God,’ Hebrews 3:12. The devil sets up this sin of un­belief as a blind betwixt the sinner and God, that the shot which come from the threatening, and are level­led at the sinner’s breast, may not may not be dre aded and feared by him. And then the wretch can be as bold with his lust, as the pioneer is at his work, when once he hath got his basket of earth between him and the enemies’ bullets. Nay, this unbelief doth not only choke the bullets of wrath which are sent out of the law’s fiery mouth, but it damps the motions of grace which come from the gospel. All the offers of love which God makes to an unbelieving heart, they fall like seed into dead earth, or, like sparks into a river, they are out as soon as they fall into it. ‘The word’—it is said—‘did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it,’ Hebrews 4:2. The strength of this whole body of sin lies in this lock of unbelief. There is no mastering of a sinner while unbelief is in power. This will carry all arguments away, whether they be from law or gospel, that are pressed upon him, as easily as Samson did the doors, posts, with bar and all, from the city of Gaza, Judges 16:2. It is a sin that doth keep the field—one of the last of all the others; that which the sinner is last con­vinced of, and the saint ordinarily last conqueror of. It is one of the chief strengths and fastnesses unto which the devil retreats when other sins are routed. O how oft do we hear a poor sinner confess and bewail other sins he hath lived in formerly, with brinish tears, but will not hearken yet to the offer of mercy in Christ. Bid him believe on Christ, and he shall be saved—which was the doctrine Paul and Silas preach­ed to the trembling jailor, Acts 16:31—alas! he dares not, he will not; you can hardly persuade him it is his duty to do so. The devil hath now betaken himself to this city of gates and bars, where he stands upon his guard; and, the more strongly to fortify himself in it, he hath the most specious pretenses for it of any other sin. It is a sin that he makes the humbled soul commit out of fear of sinning, and so stabs the good name of God, for fear of dishonouring him by a saucy presumptuous faith. Indeed it is a sin by which Satan intends to put the greatest scorn upon God, and unfold all his cankered malice against him at once. It is by faith that the saints ‘have obtained a good report.’ Yea, it is by the saints’ faith that God hath a good report in the world. And, by unbelief, the devil doth his worst to raise an evil report of God in the world; as if he were not what his own promise and his saints’ faith witness him to be. In a word, it is a sin that hell gapes for of all the others. There are two sins that claim a pre-eminence in hell—hypocrisy and unbelief; and therefore other sin­ners are threatened to ‘have their portion with the hypocrites,’ Matthew 24:51, and ‘with unbelievers,’ Luke 12:46; as if those infernal mansions were taken up principally for these, and all others were but inferior prisoners. But of the two unbelief is the greater, and that which may, with an emphasis, be called above this or any other, ‘the damning sin.’ ‘He that believeth not is condemned already,’ John 3:18. He hath his mittimus already to jail; yea, he is in it already in a sense—he hath the brand of a damned person on him. The Jews are said, Romans 11:32, to be shut up ‘in unbelief.’ A surer prison the devil cannot keep a sinner in. Faith shuts the soul up in the promise of life and happiness, as God shut Noah into the ark. It is said, ‘the Lord shut him in,’ Genesis 7:16. Thus faith shuts the soul up in Christ, and the ark of his covenant, from all fear of danger from heaven or hell; and [thus too,] on the contrary, unbelief shuts a soul up in guilt and wrath, that there is no more possibility for an unbeliever of escaping damnation, than for one to escape burning that is shut up in a fiery oven. No help can come to the sinner so long as this bolt of un­belief is on the door of his heart. As our salvation is attributed to faith, rather than to other graces —though none [be] wanting in a saved person—so sinners’ damnation and ruin is attributed to their unbelief, though the other sins [are] found with it in the person damned. The Spirit of God passeth over the Jews’ hypocrisy, murmuring, rebellion, and lays their destruction at the door of this one sin of unbelief. ‘They could not enter in because of unbelief,’ Hebrews 3:19. O sinners!—you who live under the gospel I mean—if you perish, know beforehand what is your undoing—it is your unbelief that does it. If a malefactor that is condemned to die be offered his life by the judge upon reading a psalm of mercy, and he reads not, we may say his not reading hangs him. The promise of the gospel is this psalm of mercy, which God offers in his son to law‑condemned sinners. Be­lieving is reading this psalm of mercy. If thou believ­est not and are damned, thou goest to hell rather for thy final unbelief than any of thy other sins, for which a discharge is offered thee upon thy receiving Christ and believing on him. Let this cause us all to rise up against this sin, as the Philistines did against Samson, whom they called the destroyer of their country,’ Judges 16:24. This is the destroyer of your souls, and that is worse; yea, it destroys them with a bloodier hand than other sins do that are not aggravated with this. We find two general heads of indictments upon which the whole world of sinners shall be condemned at the great day, 2 Thessalonians 1:8. There Christ’s coming to judgment is expressed; and those miserable undone creatures that shall fall under his condemning sentence, are comprised in these two [classes]—such as ‘know not God,’ and such as ‘obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ.’ The heathens’ negative unbelief of the gospel shall not be charged upon them, because they never had it preached to them. No; they shall be sent to hell for ‘not knowing God,’ and so shall escape with a lighter damnation by far, than Jews or Christian Gentiles to whom the gospel hath been preached —though to some of these with a stronger and longer continued beam of light than [has been the lot of] others. The dismal charge which shall be brought against these will be, that they have not obeyed the gospel of our Lord Jesus; that is, not believed on Christ—called therefore the ‘obedience of faith,’ Romans 16:26. And certainly, we cannot but think that there shall be a torment proper to these gospel refusers, which those that never had the offer of grace shall not feel, in hell. And among those that obey not the gospel the greatest vengeance waits for them that have had the longest and most passionate treaty of mercy allowed them. These are they that put God to the greatest expense of mercy, and therefore they must necessarily expect the greatest proportion of wrath and vengeance to be measured to them; yea, their unbelief puts Christ, and the grace of God in him, to the greatest shame and scorn that is possible for creatures to do; and it is but righteous that God should therefore put their unbelief and themselves with it to the greatest shame before men and angels, of any other sinners. [Reasons why we should be serious in the trial of our faith.] Use Second. Is faith the chief of graces? Let this make us the more curious and careful that we be not cheated in our faith. There are some things of so inconsiderable worth, that they will not pay us for the pains and care we take about them; and there to be choice and scrupulous is folly; to be negligent and incurious is wisdom. But there are other things of such worth and weighty consequence, that none but he that means to call his wisdom in question can be willing to be mistaken and cozened in them. Who that is wise would pay as for a precious stone, and have a pebble, or at best a Bristol-stone, put upon him for his money? Who, when his life is at stake, and knows no way to save it but by getting some one rich drug which is very scarce, but to be had, would not be very careful to have the right? O my dear friends, doth it not infinitely more concern you to be careful in your merchandise for this pearl of precious faith? Can you be willing to take the devil’s false sophisticated ware off his hand? a mock faith which he would cheat you with, rather than obtain the ‘faith unfeigned,’ which God hath to give unto his children —called therefore the ’faith of God’s elect?’ Will the devil’s drugs, that are sure to kill thee, serve thy turn, when thou art offered by God himself a rich drug that will cure thee? When thou goest to buy a garment, thou askest for the best piece of stuff of cloth in the shop. In the market thou wouldst have the best meat for thy belly; when with the lawyer the best counsel for thy estate; and of the physician the best directions for thy health. Art thou for the best in all but for thy soul? Wouldst thou not have a faith of the best kind also? If a man receives false money, who doth he wrong but himself? and if thou beest gulled with a false faith, the loss is thy own, and that no small one. Thyself will think so when thou comest to the bar, and God shall bid thee either pay the debt thou owest him, or go to rot and roar in hell’s prison. Then how wilt thou be confounded! When thou producest thy faith and hopest to save thyself with this—that thou believest on the Lord Jesus—but shalt have thy confi­dence rejected, and God tell thee to thy teeth it is not faith but a lie in thy right hand that thou hast got, and therefore he will not accept the payment, though it be Christ himself that offerest to lay down; nay, that he will give thee up into the tormentor’s hand, and that not only for believing, but also for counterfeiting the King of heaven’s coin, and setting his name on thy false money; which thou dost by pretending to faith, when it is a false one thou hast in thy bosom. This were enough to awaken your care in the trial of your faith, but to give some further weight to the exhorta­tion we shall cast in these three conditions. 1. Reason. Consider that as thy faith is, so are all thy other graces. As a man’s marriage is so are all his children, legitimate, or illegitimate. Thus, as our marriage is to Christ, so all our graces are. Now, it is faith by which we are married to Christ. ‘I have es­poused you to one husband,’ saith Paul to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 11:2. How, but by their faith? It is faith whereby the soul gives its consent to take Christ for her husband. Now, if our faith be false, then our mar­riage to Christ is feigned; and if that be feigned, then all our pretended graces are base-born. How goodly soever an outside they have—as a bastard may have a fair face—they are all illegitimate; our humility, patience, temperance—all bastards. And, you know, ‘a bastard was not to enter into the congregation,’ Deuteronomy 23:2. No more shall any bastard grace enter into the congregation of the just in heaven. He that hath children of his own will not make another’s bastard his heir. God hath children of his own to inherit heaven’s glory, in whose hearts he hath by his own Spirit begotten those heavenly graces which do truly resemble his own holy nature; surely he will never settle it upon strangers, counterfeit believers, that are the devil’s brats and by-blows. 2. Reason. Consider the excellency of true faith makes false faith so much the more odious. Because a king’s son is an extraordinary personage, therefore it is so high a crime for an ignoble person to counterfeit him­self to be such a one. It is by that we ‘become the sons of God,’ John 1:12. And what a high presumption is it then that, by a false faith, thou committest? Thou pretendedst to be a child of God, when no heaven-blood runs in thy veins, but hast more reason to look for thy kindred in hell and derive thy pedigree from Satan. This passeth for no less than blasphemy in the account of the Scripture. ‘I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan,’ Revelation 2:9. God loathes such with his heart. A false friend is worse than an open enemy in man’s judgment; and a hypocritical Judas more abhorred by God than a bloody Pilate. Either, therefore, get true faith, or pretend to none. The ape, because he hath the face of a man, but not the soul of a man, is therefore the most ridiculous of all creatures. And of all sinners, none will be put more to shame at the last day than such as have aped and imitated the believer in some exterior postures of profession, but never had the spirit of a believer so as to perform one vital act of faith. The psalmist tells us of some whose ‘image’ God will ‘despise,’ Psalms 73:20. It is spoken chiefly of the wicked man’s temporary pros­perity—which, for its short continuance, is compared to the image or representation of a thing in the fancy of a sleeping man, that then is busy and pl easeth us with many fine pleasing objects, but all are lost when our sleep leaves us—this God will despise at the great day; when he shall not give heaven and glory by the estates and honours that men had in the world, but tumble them down to hell if graceless, as well as the poorest beggar in the world. But, there is another sort of persons whose image God will at that day despise more than these, and that is the image of all temporary believers and unsound professors, who have a fantastical faith, which they set up like an image in their imaginations, and dance about it with as many self-pleasing thoughts as a man doth that is dreaming himself to be some great prince; but this great idol shall then be broken, and the worshippers of it hissed down to hell with the greatest shame of any other. 3. Reason. Consider that none stand at greater disadvantage for the obtaining of a true faith than he who flatters himself with a false one. ‘Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him,’ Proverbs 26:12, that is, there is more hope of persuading him. Of all fools the conceited fool is the worst. Pride makes a man incapable of receiving counsel. Nebuchadnezzar’s mind is said to be ‘hardened in pride,’ Daniel 5:20. There is no reasoning with a proud man. He castles himself in his own opinion of himself, and there stands upon his defence against all arguments that are brought. Bid a conceited professor labour for faith, or he is undone; and the man will tell you that you mistake and knock at the wrong door. It is the ignorant person, or profane, you should go to on the errand. He thanks God he is not now to seek for a faith, and thus blesseth himself in his good condition, when God knows ‘he feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?’ Isaiah 44:20. The ignorant profane person, like the psalmist’s ‘man of low degree,’ is plain ‘vanity.’ It is not hard to make themselves to acknowledge as much as that they have nothing, de­serve nothing, can look for nothing as they are but hell and damnation. But, such as pretend to faith, and content themselves with a false one, they are like the ‘men of high degree’ ‘a lie,’ which is vanity as well as the other, but with a specious cover over it that hides it. Therefore the devil is forward enough to put poor silly souls on believing, that he may forestall, if he can, the Spirit’s market, and prevent the creature’s obtaining of a true faith, by cheating of it with a counterfeit. It is like the wicked policy of Jeroboam, who, to keep the Israelites from going to Jerusalem, and hankering after the true worship of God there, set up something like a religious worship nearer hand, at home, in the ‘golden calves;’ and this pleased many well enough, that they missed not their walk to Jeru­salem. O friends, take heed therefore of being cheat­ed with a false faith. Every one, I know, would have the living child to be hers and not the dead one. We would all pass for such as have the true faith and not the false. But, be not your own judges; appeal to the Spirit of God, and let him, with the sword of his word, come and decide the controversy. Which faith is thine, the true or false? SECOND BRANCH. ‘The shield of faith’ itself, and how its truth may be judged of. By this time, possibly, you may be solicitous to know what your faith is, and how you may come to judge of the truth of it. Now for your help therein, take these two directions. One, taken from the manner of the Spirit’s working faith; the other, from the properties of faith, when it is wrought. [The manner of the Spirit’s working faith.] First Direction. We know what faith is, and how to judge of it, from the manner of the Spirit’s working it in the soul. It is incomparably the greatest work that passeth upon the soul from the Spirit of Christ; it is called the ßB,D$V88T< µX(,2@H J­H *L<µ­,TH –LJ@Ø—‘The exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe,’ Ephesians 1:19. Oh, observe with what a heap of expressions the Spirit of God loads our weak understandings, that labouring under the weight of them, and finding the difficulty of reach­ing the significancy of them, we might be the more widened to conceive of that power which can never be fully understood by us—being indeed infinite, and so too big to be inclosed within the narrow walls of our understandings—power,’ ‘greatness of power,’ ‘exceeding greatness,’ and lastly, ‘exceeding greatness of his power,’ that is, of God. What angel in heaven can tell us what all these amount to? God, with reverence be it spoken, sets his whole force to this work. It is compared to no less than ‘the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power,’ Ephesians 1:20-21. To raise anyone from the dead is a mighty, an almighty work; but to raise Christ from the dead, carries more wonder with it than to raise any other. He had a heavier grave-stone to keep him down than any besides—the weight of a world’s sin lay upon him—yet notwithstanding this he is raised with power by the Spirit, not only out of the grave, but into glory. Now the power God puts forth upon the soul in working faith, is according to this of raising Christ, for, indeed, the sinner’s soul is as really dead in sin as Christ’s body was in the grave for sin. Now, speak, poor creature, art thou any way acquainted with such a power of God to have been at work in thee? or dost thou think slightly of believing, and so show thyself a stranger to this mystery? Cer­tainly, this one thing might resolve many—if they desired to know their own state—that they have no faith, because they make faith so trivial and light a matter, as if they were as easy to believe as to say they do; and it were of no more difficulty to receive Christ into their souls by faith, than to put a bit of bread into their mouths with their hand. Ask some, wheth­er ever such a day or time of God’s power came over their heads, to humble them for sin, drive them out of themselves, and draw them effectually unto Christ? And they may answer you as those did Peter, when he asked—‘Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye be­lieved? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard wh ether there be any Holy Ghost,’ Acts 19:2. So these might say, ‘We know not whether there be any such power required to the working of faith or no.’ But to descend into a more particular consideration of this powerful work of the Spirit upon the soul for the production of faith, it will be necessary to consider—O what posture the Spirit of Christ finds the soul in before he begins this great work! and then how he makes his addresses to the soul, and what acts he puts forth upon the soul for the working faith. First. The posture of the soul when the Spirit begins his great work of grace in it. The Spirit finds the creature in such a state as it neither can, nor will, contribute the least help to the work. As the ‘prince of the world,’ when he came to tempt Christ, ‘found nothing in him’ to befriend and further his tempting design; so, when the Spirit of Christ comes, he finds as little encouragement from the sinner. No party within the castle of the soul to side with him when he comes first to set down before it, and lay siege to it, but all the powers of the whole man in arms against him! Hence it is that so many scornful answers are sent out to the summons that are given sinners to yield. ‘He came unto his own, and his own received him not,’ John 1:11. Never was a garrison more resolved to stand out against both the treaties and batteries of an assailing enemy, than the carnal heart is all means that God useth to reduce it into his obedience. The noblest operations of the soul, they are ‘earthly, sensual, devilish,’ James 3:15, so that except heaven and earth can meet—sensual and spir­itual please one palate, God and the devil agree —there is no hope that a sinner of himself should like the motion that Christ makes, or that with any argument he should be won over to like it, so long as the ground of dislike remains in his earthly, sensual, and devilish nature. Second. We proceed to show how the Spirit makes his addresses to the soul, and what acts he puts forth upon it for the working faith. Now the Spirit’s address is suited to the several facilities of the soul, the principal of which are these three, understanding, conscience, and will. These are like three forts, one within the other, which must all be reduced before the town be taken—the sinner, I mean, subdued to the obedience of faith—and to these the Spirit makes his particular addresses, putting forth an act of almighty power upon every one of them, and that in this order. [The Spirit’s particular addresses to the soul, when working faith in it.] 1. The Spirit makes his approach to the under­standing, and on it he puts forth an act of illumination. The Spirit will not work in a dark shop; the first thing he doth in order to faith, is to beat out a window in the soul, and let in some light from heaven into it. Hence, believers are said to be ‘renewed in the spirit of their minds,’ Ephesians 4:23, which the same apostle calleth being ‘renewed in knowledge,’ Colossians 3:10. By nature we know little of God, and nothing of Christ or the way of salvation by him. The eye of the creature therefore must be opened to see the way of life, before he can by faith get into it. God doth not use to waft souls to heaven, like passengers in a ship, who are shut under the hatches, and see nothing all the way they are sailing to their port. If [it had been] so, that prayer might have been spared which the psalmist, inspired of God, breathes forth in the behalf of the blind Gentiles ‘That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations,’ Psalms 67:2. As faith is not a naked assent without affiance[3] and innitency[4] on Christ; so neither is it a blind as­sent without some knowledge. If, therefore, thou continuest still in thy brutish ignorance, and knowest not so much as who Christ is, and what he hath done for the salvation of poor sinners, and what thou must do to get interest in him, thou art far enough from believing. If the day be not broken in thy soul, much less is the Sun of righteousness arisen by faith in thy soul. 2. Again, when the Spirit of God hath sprung with a divine light into the understanding, then he makes his address to the conscience, and the act which passeth upon that is an act of conviction; ‘he shall convince the world of sin,’ &c, John 16:8. Now this conviction is nothing but a reflection of the light that is in the understanding upon the conscience whereby the creature feels the weight and force of those truths he knows, so as to be brought into a deep sense of them. Light in a direct beam heats not, nor doth knowledge swimming in the brain affect. Most under the gospel know that unbelief is a damning sin, and that there is ‘no name’ to be saved by but the name of Christ; yet how few of those know this con­vincingly, so as to apply it to their own consciences, and to be affected with their own deplored state, who are the unbelievers and Christless persons? As he is a convicted drunkard in law, who, in open court, or before a lawful authority, upon clear testimony and deposition of witnesses, is found and judged to be such; so he, scripturally, is a convinced sinner, who, upon the clear evidence of the word brought against him by the Spirit, is found by his own conscience —God’s officer in his bosom—to be so. Speak now, poor creature, did ever such an act of the Spirit of God pass upon thee as this is? which that thou mayest the better discern of, try thyself by these few characters of a convinced person. (1.) A sinner truly convinced is not only convinced of this sin or that sin, but of the evil of all sin. It is an ill sign when a person seems in a passion to cry out of one sin, and to be senseless of another sin. A parboiled conscience is not right, soft in one part, and hard in another. The Spirit of God is uniform in its work. (2.) The convinced sinner is not only convinced of acts of sin, but of the state of sin also. He is not only affected [by] what he hath done—this law bro­ken, and that mercy abused by him—but with what his state and present condition is. Peter leads Simon Magus from that one horrid act he committed to the consideration of that which was worse—the dismal state that he discovered him to be in. ‘I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity,’ Acts 8:23. Many will confess they do not do as they should, who will not think by any means so ill of themselves that their state is na ught—a state of sin and death; whereas the convinced soul freely puts himself under this sentence of death, owns his condition, and dissembles not his pedigree. ‘I am a most vile wretch,’ saith he, ‘a limb of Satan, full of sin as the toad is of rank poison. My whole nature lies in wickedness, even as the dead rotten carcass doth its slime and putrefaction. I am a child of wrath, born to no other inheritance than hell-flames; and if God will now tread me down thither, I have not one righteous syllable to object against his proceedings, but there is that in my own conscience which will clear him from having done me any wrong in my doom.’ (3.) The convinced sinner doth not only condemn himself for what he hath done and is, but he despairs of himself as to anything he can now do to save himself. Many, though they go so far as to con­fess they are vile wretches, and have lived wickedly, and for this deserve to die; yet, when they have put the rope around their neck by a self-condemning act, they are so far from being convinced of their own im­potency, that they hope to cut the rope with their re­pentance, reformation, and I know not what bundle of good works, which they think shall redeem their credit with God and recover his favour, which their former sins have unhappily lost them. And this comes to pass, because the plough of conviction did not go deep enough to tear up those secret roots of self-confidence with which the heart of every sinner is woefully tainted. Whereas every soul, thoroughly convinced by the Spirit, is a self-despairing soul; he sees himself beyond his own help, like a poor condemned prisoner, laden with so many heavy irons, that he sees it is impossible for him to make an es­cape, with all his skill or strength, out of the hands of justice. O friends! look whether the work be gone thus far in your souls or no. Most that perish, it is not their disease that kills them, but their physician. They think to cure themselves, and this leaves them uncurable. Speak, soul, did the Lord ever ferret thee out of this burrow where so many earth themselves? Art thou as much at a loss what to do, as sensible for what thou hast done? Dost thou see hell in thy sin and despair in thyself? Hath God got thee out of this Keilah, and convinced thee if thou wouldst stay in the self-confidence of thy repentance, reformation, and duties, they would all deliver thee up into the hands of God’s justice and wrath, when they shall come against thee? Then, indeed, thou hast escaped one of the finest snares that the wit of hell can weave. (4.) The convinced sinner is not only convinced of sin, so as to condemn himself, and despair of himself, but he is convinced of a full provision laid up in Christ for self-condemned and self-despairing ones. ‘He shall convince the world of sin, and of righteousness,’ John 16:9-10. And this is as necessary an antecedent for faith as any of the former. Without this, the soul convinced of sin is more like to go to the gallows with Judas, or fall on the sword of the law—as the jailer attempted to do on his when he thought his condition desperate—than think of com­ing to Christ. Who will go to his door that hath not wherewithal to relieve him? 3. The third and last faculty to be dealt with is the will, and on this, for the production of faith, the Spirit puts forth an act of renovation, whereby he doth sweetly, but powerfully, incline the will, which before was rebellious and refractory, to accept of Christ, and make a free deliberate choice of him for his Lord and Saviour. I say a ‘free’ choice, not only cudgelled into him with apprehensions of wrath, as one may run under an enemy’s pent-house in a storm, whose door he would have passed by in fair weather, and never looked that way. Speak, soul, dost thou please thyself in choosing Christ? dost thou go to Christ, not only for safety, but delight? So the spouse: ‘I sat under his shadow with great delight,’ Song of Solomon 2:3. I say a ‘deliberate’ choice, wherein the soul well weighs the terms Christ is offered on, and when it hath considered all seriously, likes them, and clos­eth with him. Like [as it was with] Ruth, who when Naomi spake the worst she could to discourage her, yet liked her mother’s company too well to lose it for those troubles that attended her. Speak, soul, hath the Spirit of God thus put his golden key into the lock of thy will, to open the everlasting door of thy heart to let Christ the King of glory in? Hath he not only opened the eye of thy understanding, as he awaked Peter asleep in prison, and caused the chains of senselessness and stupidity to fall off thy conscience, but also opened the iron gate of thy will, to let thee out of the prison of impenitency, where even now thou wert fast bolted in; yea, brought thee to knock at heaven-door for entertainment, as Peter did at the house of Mary, where the church was met. Be of good comfort, thou mayest know assuredly that God hath sent, not his angel, but his own Spirit, and hath delivered thee out of the hand of sin, Satan, and justice. [The properties of true faith, when it is wrought.] Second Direction. We know what faith is, and how to judge of it, from its properties when it is wrought in us buy the Spirit. We shall content ourselves by noticing three. First. True faith is obediential. Second. It is prayerful. Third. It is uni­form in its acting. [True faith is obediential.] First Property. This choice excellent faith is an obediential faith; that is, true faith on the promise works obedience to the command. Abraham is fa­mous for his obedience; no command, how difficult soever, came amiss to him. He is an obedient servant indeed, that, when he doth but hear his master knock with his foot, leaves all and runs presently to know his master’s will and pleasure. Such a servant had God of Abraham: ‘Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot,’ Isaiah 41:2. But what was the spring that set Abraham’s obedience a going? See for this, Hebrews 11:8 ‘By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheri’tance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.’ As it is impossible to please God without faith, so it is impossible not to desire to please God with faith. It may well go for an idol faith, that hath hands but doth not work, feet, but doth not walk in the statutes of God. No sooner had Christ cured the woman in the gospel of her fever, but it is said, ‘She arose, and ministered unto them,’ Matthew 8:15. Thus the believing soul stands up and ministers unto Christ in gratitude and obedience. Faith is not lazy; it inclines not the soul to sleep, but work; it sends the creature not to bed, there to snort away his time in ease and sloth, but into the field. The night of ignorance and unbelief, that was the creature’s sleeping time; but, when the Sun of righteousness ariseth, and it is day in the soul, then the creature riseth and goeth forth to his labour. The first words that break out faith’s lips, are those of Saul in his hour of conversion: ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’ Acts 9:6. Faith turns the Jordan, and alters the whole course of a man. ‘We were,’ saith the apostle, ‘foolish’ and ‘disobedient,’ ‘but after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,’ Titus 3:3-4, then the case was altered, as it follows. And, therefore, take your foul fingers off the promise, and pretend no more to faith, if ye be chil­dren of Belial—such whose necks do not freely stoop to this yoke of obedience. The devil himself may as soon pass for a believer as a disobedient soul. Other things he can show as much as you. Dost thou pre­tend to knowledge? thou wilt not deny the devil to be a greater scholar than thyself, I hope, and that in Scripture knowledge. Dost thou believe the Scripture to be true? and doth not he more strongly? Dost thou tremble? he much more. It is obedience he wants, and this makes him a devil, and it will make thee like him also. [Two characters distinguishing true faith’s obedience.] Question. But, you may ask, what stamp is there to be found on faith’s obedience which will distinguish it from all counterfeits—for there are many fair semblances of obedience, which the devil will never grudge us the having? Answer. Take these two characters of the obedi­ence of faith. 1. Character. Faith’s obedience begins at the heart, and from thence it diffuseth and dilates itself to the outward man, till it overspreads the whole man in a sincere endeavour. As in natural life, the first part that lives in the heart, so the first that faith sub­dues into obedience is the heart. It is called a ‘faith which purifieth the heart,’ Acts 15:9. And the believing Romans ‘obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to them,’ Romans 6:17. Whereas a false faith, which apes this true faith—as art imitates nature—begins without, and there ends. All the seeming good works of a counterfeit believer, they are like the beautiful colour in a picture’s face, which comes not from a principle of life within, but the painter’s pencil without. Such were those, John 2:23, who are said to ‘believe on Christ,’ ‘but Jesus did not commit himself unto them,’ John 2:24. And why? ‘for he knew what was in man,’ John 2:25. He cared not for the painted porch and goodly outside: ‘for he knew what was in man,’ and by that knowledge he knew them to be rotten at core, naught at heart, before they were specked on the skin of their exterior conversation. Question (1.) But how may I know my obedience is the obedience of the heart? Answer. If it comes from love then it is the obedience of the heart. He commands the heart that is the master of its love. The castle must needs yield when he that keeps it, and hath the keys of it, submits. Love is the affection that governs this royal fort of man’s heart. We give our hearts to them we give our love to. And indeed thus it is that faith brings the heart over into subjection and obedience to God, by putting it under a law of love; ‘faith worketh by love,’ Galatians 5:6. First, faith worketh love, and then it worketh by it. As first the workman sets an edge on his tools, and then carves and cuts with them; so faith sharpens the soul’s love to God, and then acts by it. Or, as a statuary, to make some difficult piece, before he goes about it, finding his hands numb with cold, that he cannot handle his tools so nimbly as he should, goes first to the fire, and, with the help of its heat, chafes them till they of stiff and numb become agile and active, then to work he falls; so faith brings the soul—awk and listless enough, God knows, to any duty—unto the meditation of the peerless, matchless love of God in Christ to it; and at this fire faith stays the Christian’s thoughts till his affections begin to kindle and come to some sense of this love of God, and now the Christian bestirs himself for God with might and main. Question (2.) But how may I know my obedience is from love? Answer. I will send to St. John to be resolved of this question, ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous,’ 1 John 5:3. Speak, soul, what account have you of the commandments? Do you look upon them as an iron chain about your legs, and think yourselves prisoners because you are tied to them? or do you value them as a chain of gold about your neck, and esteem yourselves favourites of the King of heaven, that he will honour you to honour him by serving of him? So did as great a prince as the world had: ‘Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly,’ 1 Chronicles 29:1-30. Not, ‘Who am I, that I should be a king over my people?’ but ‘that I should have a heart so gracious to offer willingly with my people.’ Not, ‘Who am I, that they should serve me?’ but, ‘that thou wilt honour me with a heart to serve thee with them?’ The same holy man in another place speak of sin as his prison, and his obedience as his liberty: ‘I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts,’ Psalms 119:45. When God gives him a large heart for duty, he is as thankful as a man that was bound in prison is when he is set at liberty, that he may visit his friends and follow his calling. The only grievous thing to a loving soul is to be hindered in his obedience. This is that which makes such a one out of love with the world, and with being in it —because it cumbers him in his work, and many times keeps him from it. As a conscionable faithful servant, that is lame or sickly, and can do his master little service, O how it grieves him! Thus the loving soul bemoans itself, that it should put God to so much cost, and be so unprofitable under it. Speak, is this thy temper? Blessed art thou of the Lord! There is a jewel of two diamonds, which this will prove thou art owner of, that the crown-jewels of all the princes of the world are not so worthy to be valued with, as a heap of dust or dung is to be compared with them. The jewel I mean, is made of this pair of graces —faith and love. They are thine, and, with them, God and all that he hath and is. But, if the commandments if the commandments of God be ‘grievous,’ as they are to every carnal heart, and thou countest thyself at ease when thou canst make an escape from a duty to commit a sin, as the beast doth when his collar is off and he in his fat pasture again; now thou art where thou wouldst be, and can show some spirits that thou hast. But when conscience puts on the trace again, thou art dull and heavy again. O, it speaks thee to have no love to God, and therefore no faith on God, that is true. That is a jade indeed who hath no mettle but in the pasture. 2. Character. The obedience of faith is full of self-denial. Faith keeps the creature low; as in what he hath, so he doth. ‘I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ Galatians 2:20. As if he had said, ‘I pray, mistake me not; when I say, ‘I live,’ I mean, not that I live by myself, but Christ in me. I live, and that de­liciously, but it is Christ that keeps the house, not I. I mortify my corruptions, and vanquish temptations, but I am debtor to Christ for the strength.’ None can write here, as one did under Pope Adrian’s statue —where the place of his birth was named, and those princes that had preferred him from step to step till he mounted the pope’s chair, but God left out of all the story—‘nihil hic Deus fecit’—God did nothing for this man. No, blessed Paul, and in him every be­liever, acknowledgeth God for sole foun­der, and benefactor too, of all the good he hath and doth. They are not ashamed to acknowledge who they are beholden to for all. ‘These are the children which God hath graciously given me,’ said Jacob. And these the services which God hath graciously assisted me in, saith Paul; ‘I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me,’ 1 Corinthians 15:10. All is ex dono Dei—from the gift of God. O how chary are saints of writing themselves the authors of their own good works, parts, or abilities! ‘Art thou able,’ said the king to Daniel, ‘to make known unto me the dream which I have seen?’ Daniel 2:26. Now mark, he doth not say, as the proud astrologers, ‘We will show the interpretation,’ Daniel 2:4. That fitted their mouths well enough who had no acquaintance with God, but not Daniel’s—the servant of the living God. Though at the very time he had the secret revealed to him and could tell the king his dream, yet he was careful to stand clear from any filching of God’s glory from him; and therefore he answers the king by telling him what his God could do rather than himself. ‘There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets,’ &c. And what makes Daniel so self‑denying? Truly it was because he had obtained this secret of God by faith at the throne of grace; as you may perceive by Daniel 2:15-17 compared. That faith which taught him to beg the mercy of God, enabled him to deny himself, and give the entire glory of it from himself to God. As rivers empty their streams again into the bosom of the sea, whence they at first received them; so men give the praise of what they do unto that by which they do it. If they attempt any enterprise with their own wit or industry, you shall have them bring their sacrifice to their wit or net. No wonder to hear Nebuchadnezzar—who looked no higher than himself in building his great Babylon—ascribe the honour of it to himself, ‘Is not this great Babylon, that I have built...by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?’ Daniel 4:30. But faith teacheth the creature to blot out his own name, and write the name of God in its room, upon all he hath and doth. When the servants came to give up their accounts to their Lord, every one for his pound; those that were faithful to improve it how humbly and self-denyingly do they speak! ‘Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds,’ saith the first, Luke 19:16. ‘Thy pound hath gained five,’ saith another, ver. 18. Mark, not ‘I have gained,’ but, ‘thy pound hath gained ten and five.’ They do not applaud themselves, but ascribe both principal and increase to God; thy talent hath gained, that is, thy gifts and grace, through thy assistance and blessing, have gained thus much more. Only he that did least comes in with a brag, and tells his Lord what he had done. ‘Behold, here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin.’ Least doers are greatest boasters. [True faith is prayerful.] Second Property. True faith is prayerful. Prayer, it is the child of faith; and as the child bears his father’s name upon him, so doth prayer the name of faith. What is it known by but by ‘the prayer of faith?’ James 5:15. Prayer, it is the very natural breath of faith. Supplication and thanksgiving—the two parts of prayer—by these, as the body by the double motion of the lungs, doth the Christian suck in mercy from God, and breathe back again that mercy in praise to God. But, without faith he could do neither; he could not by supplication draw mercy from God; ‘for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,’ Hebrews 11:6. Neither could he return praises to God without faith. David’s heart must be fixed before he can sing and give thanks, Psalms 56:1-13. Thanksgiving is an act of self-denial, and it is faith alone that will show us the way out of our own doors; and as the creature cannot pray—I mean acceptably—without faith, so with faith he cannot but pray. The new creature, like our infants in their natural birth, comes crying into the world; and therefore Christ tells it for great news to Ananias of Saul, a new-born believer, ‘Behold he prayeth.’ But is that so strange, that one brought up at the foot of Gamaliel, and so precise a Pharisee as he was, should be found upon his knees at prayer? Truly no, it was that his sect gloried in—their fasting and praying—and therefore, he, being strict in his way, was no doubt acquainted with this work as to the exterior part of it, but he never had the spirit of prayer, till he now had the Spirit of grace, whereby he believed on Jesus Christ. And therefore, if you will try your faith, it must not be by bare praying, but by some peculiar characters which faith imprints prayer withal. Now there are three acts by which faith dis­covers itself in reference to this duty of prayer. 1. Faith puts forth an exciting act, whereby it stirs up the Christian to pray. 2. Faith hath an assisting act in prayer. 3. Faith hath a supporting act after prayer. [Three acts by which faith discovers itself in reference to prayer.] 1. Act. Faith puts forth an exciting act, whereby it provokes the Christian and strongly presseth him to pray. And this it doth, (1.) By discovering to the creature his own beggary and want, as also the fulness that is to be had from God in Christ for his supply—both which faith useth as powerful motives to quicken the soul up to pray. As the lepers said to one another, ‘Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: come, and let us fall into the host of the Syrians,’ 2 Kings 7:3-4. Thus faith rouseth up the soul to prayer. If thou stayest at thy own door, O my soul, thou art sure to starve and die. What seest thou in thyself but hunger and famine? No bread there; no money to buy any in thy own purse. Up therefore, haste thee to thy God, and thy soul shall live. O sirs, are you pressed with this inward feeling of your own wants? Press to the throne of grace as the only way left for your supply. You may hope it is faith that sends you. Faith is the principle of our new life. ‘I live,’ said Paul, ‘by the faith of the Son of God,’ Galatians 2:20. This life being weak, is craving and crying for nourishment, and that naturally, as the new-born babe doth for the milk. If therefore you find this inward sense prompting and provoking of you to cry to God, it shows this prin­ciple of life—faith I mean —is in thee. Objection. But, may not an unbeliever pray in the sense of his wants, and be inwardly pinched with them, which may make him pray very feelingly? Answer. We must distinguish of wants. They are either spiritual or carnal. It cannot be denied, but an unbeliever may be very sensible of outward carnal wants, and knock loud at heaven-gate for supply. We find them ‘howling on their beds, and assembling themselves for corn and wine,’ Hosea 7:14. There is the cry of the creature, and the cry of the new crea­ture. Every creature hath a natural cry for that which suits their nature. Hence, ‘The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God,’ Psalms 104:21. But, give the lion flesh, and he will not roar for want of grass; give the ox grass, and you shall not hear him lowing for flesh; so give the faithless, graceless person his fill of his carnal food—sensual enjoyments—and you shall have little complaint of spiritual wants from him. They are therefore spiritual wants you must try your faith by. If thou canst heartily pray for love to Christ, faith on him, or any other grace—feeling the want of them, as a hungry man doth of his food —thou mayest conclude safely there is this principle of new life, which, like the veins at the bottom of the stomach, by its sucking, puts thee to pain till it be heard and satisfied; for these graces being proper to the new creature, can be truly desired of none but one that is a new creature. (2.) Faith excites to prayer from an inward de­light it hath in communion with God. ‘It is good for me,’ saith the psalmist, ‘to draw near to God.’ Now mark the next words, ‘I have put my trust in the Lord,’ Psalms 73:28. We take delight to be often looking where we have laid up our treasures. This holy man had laid up his soul, and all he had, in God, by faith, to be kept safely for him; and now he delights oft to be with God. He hath that which invites him into his presence with sweet content. By faith the soul is contracted to Christ. Now, being espoused to Christ, there is no wonder at all that it should desire com­munion with him. And prayer, being the place of meeting where Christ and the soul can come the near­est on this side of heaven, therefore the believer is seen so oft walking that way. Canst thou say, poor soul, that this is thy errand when praying—to see the face of God? Can nothing less, and needest thou nothing more to satisfy, and recreate thy soul in prayer, than communion with God? Certainly God hath thy faith, or else thou couldst not so freely bestow thy love on him and take delight in him. 2. Act. Faith puts forth an assisting act in prayer. To instance only in two particulars. (1.) It assists the soul with importunity. Faith is the wrestling grace. It comes up close to God; takes hold of God, and will not easily take a denial. It in­fires all the affections, and sets them on work. This is the soul’s eye, by which it sees the filth, the hell, that is in every sin. And seeing affects the heart, and puts it into a passion of sorrow when the soul spreads its abominations before the Lord. The creature now needs no onion to make it weep. Tears come alone freely, as water from a flowing spring. It makes a discovery of Christ to the soul in the excellencies of his person, love, and graces, from the glass of the promise, at the sight of which it is even sick with longing after them, and such pangs of love come upon it, as make it send forth strong cries and supplications for that it so impatiently desires. Yea, further, faith doth not barely set the creature’s teeth on edge by displaying the excellency of Christ and his grace; but it supplies him with arguments, and helps the soul to wield and use them both valiantly and victoriously upon the Almighty. Never could he tell what to do with a promise in prayer, till now that faith teacheth him to press God with it, humbly, yet boldly. ‘What wilt thou do unto thy great name?’ Joshua 7:9. As if he had said, ‘Thou art so fast bound to thy people by promise and oath, that thou canst not leave them to perish, but thy name will suffer with them.’ Faith melts promises into arguments, as the soldier doth lead into bullets, and then helps the Christian to send them with a force to heaven in a fervent prayer; whereas a promise in an unbeliever’s mouth is like a shot in a gun’s mouth without any fire to put to it. O how cold and dead doth a promise drop from him in prayer! He speaks promises, but cannot pray prom­ises or press promises. And therefore, try thyself not by naked praying, but by importunity in prayer; and that, not by the agitation of thy bodily spirits, but the inward working of thy soul and spirit, whether carried out to plead the promise and urge it upon God with an humble importunity, or not. (2.) Faith enables the soul to persevere in the work. False faith may show some mettle at hand, but it will jade at length. Will the hypocrite pray always? Job 27:10. No; as the wheel wears with turning, till it breaks at last; so doth the hypocrite. He prays himself weary of praying. Something or other will in time make him quarrel with that duty which he never inwardly liked; whereas the sincere believer hath that in him which makes it impossible he should quite give over praying, except he should also cease believing. Prayer, it is the very breath of faith. Stop a man’s breath, and where is he then? It is true the believer through his own negligence may find some more dif­ficulty of fetching his prayer-breath at one time than at another—as a man in a cold doth for his natural breath. Alas! who is so careful of his soul’s health that needs not to bewail this? But for faith to live, and this breath of prayer to be quite cut off, is impossible. We see David did but hold his breath a little longer than ordinary, and what a distemper it put him into, till he gave himself ease again by venting his soul in prayer. ‘I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue, Lord, make me to know mine end,’ Psalms 39:2. Dost thou, O man, find thyself under a necessity of praying? As the little babe who cannot choose but cry when it ails or wants anything—because it hath no other way to help itself than by crying to hasten its mother or nurse to its help—[so] the Chris­tian’s wants, sins, and temptations continuing to return upon him, he cannot but continue also to pray against them. ‘From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee,’ saith David, Psalms 61:2. Wherever I am I will find thee out. Prison me, banish me, or do with me what thou wilt, thou shalt never be rid of me, ‘I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever,’ ver. 4. But how could David do that when banished from it? Surely he means by prayer. The praying Christian carries a ‘tabernacle’ with him. As long as David can come at the tabernacle he will not neglect it; and when he cannot through sickness, banishment, &c., then he will look towards it, and as devoutly worship God in the open fields as if he were in it. ‘Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice,’ Psalms 141:2. He speaks of such a time when he could not come to of­fer sacrifice at the tabernacle. 3. Act. Faith hath a supporting act after prayer. (1.) It supports the soul to expect a gracious an­swer. ‘I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up,’ Psalms 5:3. Or, ‘I will look’ for what, but for a return? An unbelieving heart shoots at random, and never minds where his arrow lights, or what comes of his praying; but faith fill the soul with expectation. As a merchant, when he casts up his estate, counts what he hath sent beyond sea, as well as what he hath in hand; so doth faith reckon upon what he hath sent to heaven in prayer and not received, as well as those mercies which he hath received, and are in hand at present. Now this expectation which faith raiseth in the soul after prayer, appears in the power that it hath to quiet and compose the soul in the interim between the sending forth, as I may say, the ship of prayer, and its return home with its rich lading it goes for. And it is more or less, according as faith’s strength is. Sometimes faith comes from prayer in triumph, and cries victoria—victory. It gives such a being and exis­tence to the mercy prayed for in the Christian’s soul, before any likelihood of it appears to sense and reason, that the Christian can silence all his troubled thoughts with the expectation of its coming. So Hannah prayed, and ‘was no more sad,’ 1 Samuel 1:18. Yea, it will make the Christian disburse his praises for the mercy long before it is received. Thus high faith wrought in David, ‘What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee;’ and in the next words, ‘In God I will praise his word,’ Psalms 56:3, 4; that is, he would praise God for his promise, before there were any performance of it to him, when it had no existence but in God’s faithfulness and David’s faith. This holy man had such a piercing eye of faith, as he could see the promise, when he was at lowest ebb of misery, so certain and unquestionable in the power and truth of God, that he could then praise God, as if the promised mercy had actually been fulfilled to him. But I would not have thee, Christian, try the truth of thy faith by this heroic high strain it mounts to in some eminent believers. Thou mayest be a faithful soldier to Christ, though thou attainest not to the degree of a few worthies in his army, more honourable in this respect than the rest of their brethren. (2.) There is a lower act of faith, which, if thou canst find, may certify thee of its truth: that, I mean, which, though it doth not presently, upon praying, disburden the soul of all its anxious disquieting thoughts, yet keeps the soul’s head above their waves and gives a check to them, that they abate, though by little and little, as the stream in a channel doth at a falling tide. When God took the deluge from the earth, he did not do it in a moment. It is said, ‘The waters returned from off the earth continually,’ Genesis 8:3; that is, it was falling water from day to day, till all was gone. Canst thou not find, Christian, that some of thy tumultuous disquieting thoughts are let out at the sluice of prayer, and that it is some ease to thy encumbered spirit, that thou hast the bosom of a gra­cious God to empty thy sorrowful heart into? and, though praying doth not drain away all thy fears, yet it keeps thee, doth it not, from being overflown with them, which thou couldst not avoid without faith? A soul wholly void of faith, prays, and leaves none of its burden with God, but carries all back with it that it brought, and more too. Calling on God gives no more relief to him, than throwing out an anchor that hath no hooks to take hold on the firm earth, doth the sinking ship. If, therefore, poor soul, thou find­est, upon throwing thy anchor of faith in prayer, that it takes such hold on Christ in the promise as to stay thee from being driven by the fury of Satan’s affright­ing temptations, or thy own despairing thoughts, bless God for it. The ship that rides at anchor is safe —though it may be a little tossed to and fro—so long as the anchor keeps its hold. And so art thou, poor soul. That faith will save from hell, that will not wholly free the soul here from fears[5]. [True faith is uniform.] Third Property. True faith is uniform. As sin­cere obedience doth not pick and choose—take this commandment, and leave that—but hath respect to all the precepts of God; so, faith unfeigned hath re­spect to all the truths of God. It believes one promise as well as another. As the true Christian must not have ‘the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ James 2:1, so, not with respect to truths. To pretend to believe one promise, and to give no credit to another, this is to be partial in the promises, as the priests are charged to be in the duties of the law, Malachi 2:9. The honour of God is as deeply engaged to perform one promise as another. Indeed, as the breach of but one command­ment would put us under the guilt of the whole; so God’s failing in one promise—which is blasphemy to think—would be the breaking of his whole covenant. Promises are copulative as well as commands; and therefore, neither can God keep one, except he per­form all; nor we believe one, except we believe all. God hath spoken all these words of promises, as he did those of precepts; his seal is to all, and he looks that we should compass all within the embraces of our faith. David bears witness to the whole truth of God, ‘Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever,’ Psalms 119:160. Try now thy faith here. Possibly, thou pre­tendest to believe the promise for pardon, and art oft pleasing thyself with the thoughts of it; but, what faith hast thou on the promise, for sanctifying thy nature and subduing thy corruptions? May be thou mindest not these, improvest not these. This fruit may hang long enough on the branches of the promises before thou gatherest it. The other is for thy tooth, not these; whereas true faith would like one as well as the other. See how David heartily prays for the perform­ance of this promise, ‘Be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name. Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have do­minion over me,’ Psalms 119:132-133. David would not lose any privilege that God hath by promise settled on his children. ‘Do with me,’ saith he, ‘as thou usest to do.’ this is no more than family fare—what thou promisest to do for all that love thee; and let me not go worse clad than the rest of my brethren. May be thou fanciest thou hast a faith for the eternal salva­tion of thy soul. But, hast thou faith to rely on God for the things of this life? A strange believer, is he not, that lives by faith for heaven, and by his wits and sin­ful policy for the world? Christ proves that they, John 5:44, did not believe on him, because they durst not trust him with their names and credits. If we cannot trust him with the less, how can we in the greater? I deny not, but he that hath a true faith, yea, a strong faith for heaven, may be put to a plunge and his faith foiled about a temporal promise; but we must not from an hour of temptation, wherein God leaves his most eminent saints to humble them, judge of the constant ordinary frame of the believer’s heart. Though Abraham dissembled once to save his life, which he thought in some danger for his wife’s beauty; yet he did, at other times, give eminent testimony that he trusted God for his temporal life, as well as for his eternal salvation. I do not therefore bid thee question the truth of thy faith for every fainting fit that comes over it, as to the good things of the promise of this life. A man may, in a time of war, have some of his estate lie under the enemy’s power for a time, and he, so long, have no profits from it; but still he reckons it as his estate, is troubled for his present great loss, and endeavours, as soon as he can, to re­cover it again out of his enemy’s hand. So, in the hurry of a temptation, when Satan—the soul’s great enemy—is abroad, and God withdraws his assistance, the believer may have little support from some partic­ular promise; but he ever counts that as his portion as well as any other, mourns he can act his faith no more upon it, and labours to reinforce his faith with new strength from heaven when he can, that he may be able to live upon it, and improve it more to his com­fort. So that still it holds true, if we believe not God for this life, neither do we for the other. In a word, may be thou pretendest for a faith for thy temporals, and seemest to trust God for things of this life; but art a mere stranger to those prime acts of faith, whereby the believing soul closeth with Christ, and receiveth him as his Lord and Saviour, and so seals to the cov­enant that in the gospel is tendered to poor sinners. Canst thou so far fight against thy own reason, as to think that any temporal promise belongs to thee with­out these? What gives the woman the right to her jointure[6] but her marriage covenant? And what gives the creature a true claim to these promises, or any other in the covenant of grace, but its union to Christ, and accepting of him as he is offered? The first act of God’s love to the creature is that whereby he chooseth such a one to be his, and sets him apart, in his un­changeable purpose, to be an object of his special love in Christ, and therefore called ‘the foundation,’ as that on which God lays the superstructure of all other mercies: ‘The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his,’ 2 Timothy 2:19. First, God chooseth a person to be his, and on this foundation he builds, and bestows all his further cost of mercy upon the creature, as one that is his. So on the creature’s part, fist, faith closeth with Christ, severs him in his thoughts from all others, and chooseth him to be his Saviour, in whom alone he will trust, and whom alone he will serve; which done, then it trades with this promise and that, as the portion which falls to him by marriage with Christ. And therefore see how preposterous thy course is, who snatchest these promises to thyself, before there hath passed any good-will from thee to Christ. BRANCH THIRD. [Exhortation to unbelievers, to obtain ‘the shield of faith.’] Is faith so precious a grace? Let it provoke you, who want it, to get it. Can you hear of this pearl and not wish it were yours? Wherefore hath the Spirit spoken such great and glorious things of faith in the Word but to make it the more desirable in your eye? Is there any way to get Christ, but by getting faith? or dost not thou think that thou needest Christ as much as any other? There is a generation of men in the world would almost make one think this was their judgment, who, because their corruptions have not, by breaking out into plague-sores of profaneness, left such a brand of ignominy upon their name as some others lie under, but their conversations have been strewed with some flowers of morality, whereby their names have kept sweet among their neighbours; and, therefore, they do not at all listen to the offers of Christ, neither do their consciences check them for this neglect. And why so? Surely it is not because they are more willing to go to hell than others; but because the way they think they are in will bring them in good time to heaven, without any more ado. Poor deluded creatures! Is Christ then sent to help only some more debauched sinners to heaven, such as drunkards, swearers, and of that rank? And are civil, moral men, left to walk thither on their own legs? I am sure, if the word may be believed, we have the case resolved clear enough. That tells of but one way to heaven for all that mean to come there. As there is but ‘one God,’ so but ‘one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,’ 1 Timothy 2:5. And if there is but one bridge over the gulf, judge what is like to become of the civil, righteous man, for all his sweet-scented life, if he miss this one bridge, and goes on in the road he hath set out in for heaven? O remember, proud man, who thou art, and cease thy vain attempt. Art thou not of Adam’s seed? Hast thou not traitor’s blood in thy veins? If ‘every mouth be stopped,’ Romans 3:19-20, how darest thou open thine? If ‘all the world become guilty before God,’ that ‘by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified in his sight,’ where then shalt thou stand to plead thy innocency before him who sees thy black skin under thy white feathers, thy foul heart through thy fair carriage? It is faith on Christ that alone can purify thy heart. Without it thy washed face and hands—exter­nal righteousness I mean—will never commend thee to God. And therefore thou art under a horrible de­lusion if thou dost not think that thou needest Christ and a faith to interest thee in him, as much as the bloodiest murderer or filthiest Sodomite in the world. If a company of men and children in a journey were to wade through some brook, not beyond a man’s depth, the men would have the advantage of the chil­dren. But if to cross the seas, the men would need a ship to waft them over, as well as the children. And they might well pass for madmen, if they should think to wade through, without the help of a ship, that is offered them as well as the other, because they are a little taller than the rest are. Such a foolish, desper­ate adventure wouldst thou give for thy soul, if thou shouldst think to make thy way through the justice of God to heaven, without shipping thyself by faith in Christ, because thou art not so bad in thy external conversation as others. Let me therefore again and again beseech all that are yet destitute of faith, to endeavour for it, and that speedily. There is nothing deserves the precedency in your thoughts before this. David resolved not to ‘give sleep to his eyes, or slum­ber to his eyelids, till he find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob,’ Psalms 132:4-5. The habitation which pleaseth God most is thy heart; but it must be a believing heart, ‘That Christ may dwell in your heart by faith,’ Ephesians 3:17. O how dare yo sleep a night in that house where God doth not dwell? and he dwells not in thee, if thou carriest an unbelieving heart in thy bosom. There is never a gospel sermon thou hearest, but he stands at thy door to be let in. Take heed of multiplying unkindnesses in denying him entertainment. How knowest thou but God may, finding thy heart shut so oft by unbelief against his knocks, suddenly seal thee up under final unbelief? [Directions to unbelievers for attaining faith.] But possibly thou wilt ask now, how thou mayest get this precious grace of faith? The answer to this question, take in these following directions. First. Labour to get thy heart convinced of, and affect­ed with, thy unbelief. Second. Take heed of resisting or opposing his help to the Spirit of God, when he offers his help to the work. Third. Lift up thy cry aloud in prayer to God for faith. Fourth. Converse much with the promises, and be fre­quently pondering them in thy musing thoughts. Fifth. Press and urge thy soul home with that strong obligation that lies on thee, a poor humbled sinner, to believe. [The unbeliever must get his heart convinced of its unbelief.] First Direction. Labour to get thy heart con­vinced of, and affected with, thy unbelief. Till this be done, thou wilt be but sluggish and slighty in thy en­deavours for faith. A man may be convinced of other sins and never think of coming to Christ. Convince a drunkard of his drunkenness, and upon leaving his drunken trade his mind is pacified; yea, he blesseth himself in his reformation, because all the quarrel his conscience had with him was for that particular sin. But, when the Spirit of God convinceth the creature of his unbelief, he gets between him and those bur­rows in which he did use to earth and hide himself. He hath no ease in his spirit from those plasters now, which formerly had relieved him, and so kept him from coming over to Christ. Before, it served the turn to bring his conscience to sleep when it accused him for such a sin, that he had left the practice of it; and, for the neglect of a duty, that now he had taken it up without an inquiry into his state, whether good or bad, pardoned or unpardoned. Thus many make a shift to daub and patch up the peace of their con­sciences, even as some do to keep up an old rotten house, by stopping in, here a tile and there a stone, till a loud wind comes and blows the whole house down. But, when once the creature hath the load of its unbelief laid upon his spirit, then it is little ease to him to think he is no drunkard as he was, no atheist in his family—without the worship of God—as he was. ‘Thy present state,’ saith the Spirit of God, ‘is as damning, in that thou art an unbeliever, as if thou wert these still.’ Yea, what thou wert, thou art; and wilt be found at the great day, to be the drunkard and atheist, for all thy seeming reformation, except by an intervening faith thou gainest a new name. What though thou beest drunk no more? yet the guilt re­mains upon thee till faith strikes it off with the blood of Christ. God will be paid his debt; by thee, or Christ for thee; and Christ pays no reckoning for unbelievers. Again, as the guilt remains, so the power of those lusts remains, so long as thou art an unbeliever —however they may disappear in the outward act. Thy heart is not emptied of one sin, but the vent stopped by restraining grace. A bottle full of wine, close stopped, shows no more what it hath in it than one that is empty. And that is thy case. How is it possible thou shouldst truly mortify any one lust, that hast no faith, which is the only victory of the world? In a word, if under the convincement of thy unbelief thou wilt find—how little a sin soever now it is thought by thee—that there is more malignity in it than in all thy other sins. Hast thou been a liar? That is a grievous sin indeed. Hell gapes for every one that loveth and telleth a lie, Revelation 22:15. But know, poor wretch, the loudest lie which ever thou toldest is that which by thy unbelief thou tellest. Here thou bearest false witness against God himself, and tellest a lie, not to the Holy Ghost, as Ananias did, but a lie of the Holy Ghost; as if not a word were true he saith in the promises of the gospel. If ‘he that believeth setteth to his seal that God is true,’ judge you whether the unbe­liever makes him not a liar? Hast thou been a mur­derer, yea, had thy hand in the blood of saints—the best of men? This is a dreadful sin, I confess. But by thy unbelief, thou art a more bloody murderer by how much the blood of God is more precious than the blood of mere men. Thou killest Christ over again by thy unbelief, and treadest his blood under thy feet, yea, throwest it under Satan’s feet to be trampled on by him. Question. But how can unbelief be so great a sin, when it is not in the sinner’s power to believe? Answer. By this reason the unregenerate person might wipe off any other sin and shake off the guilt of it with but saying, ‘It is not my fault that I do not keep this commandment or that, for I have no power of myself to do them.’ This is true; he cannot per­form one holy action holily and acceptably. ‘They that are in the flesh cannot please God,’ Romans 8:8. But, it is a false inference, that therefore he doth not sin because he can do no other. 1. Because his inability is not created by God, but con­tracted by the creature himself. ‘God hath made man up­right; but they have sought out many in­ventions,’ Ecclesiastes 7:29. Man had not his lame hand from God. No, he was made a creature fit and able for any service his Maker would please to employ him in. But man crippled himself. And man’s fault cannot preju­dice God’s right. Though he hath lost his ability to obey, yet God hath not lost his power to command. Who, among ourselves, thinks his debtor discharged, by wasting that estate whereby he was able to have paid us? It is confessed, had man stood, he should not, indeed could not, have believed on Christ for salvation, as now he is held forth in the gospel; but this was not from any disability in man, but from the unmeetness of such an object to Adam’s holy state. If it had been a duty meet for God to command, there was ability in man to have obeyed. 2. Man’s present impotency to yield obedience to the commands of God, and in particular to this of believing—where it is promulgated—doth afford him no excuse; because it is not a single inability, but complicated with an inward enmity against the com­mand. It is true man can not believe. But it is as true man will not believe. ‘Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life,’ John 5:40. It is possible, yea, ordinary, that a man may, through some feebleness and deficiency of strength, be disabled to do that which he is very willing to do; and this draws out our pity. Such a one was the poor cripple, who lay so long at ‘the pool,’ John 5:5. He was willing enough to have stepped down if he could have but crept thither; or that any other should have helped him in, if they would have been so kind. But, what would you think of such a cripple that can neither go himself into the pool for healing, nor is willing any should help him in; but flees in the face of him that would do him this friendly office? Every unbeliever is this cripple. He is not only impotent himself, but a resister of the Holy Ghost that comes to woo and draw him unto Christ. Indeed, every one that believes believes will­ingly. But he is beholden, not to nature, but to grace, for this willingness. None are willing till ‘the day of power’ comes, Psalms 110:3, in which the Spirit of God ov­ershadows the soul, and by his incubation, as once upon the waters, new‑forms and moulds the will into a sweet compliance with the call of God in the gospel. [The Spirit of God must not be resisted when proffering his help to the work of faith.] Second Direction. Take heed of resisting or op­posing the Spirit of God when he offers his help to the work. If ever thou believest, he must enable thee; take heed of opposing him. Master workmen love not to be controlled. Now, two ways the Spirit of God may be opposed. First. When the creature waits not on the Spirit, where he ordinarily works faith. Second. When the creature, though he attends on him in the way and means, yet controls him in his work. First. Take heed thou opposest not the Spirit by not attending on him in the way and means by which he ordinarily works faith. Thou knowest where Jesus used to pass, and his Spirit breathe, and that is in the great gospel ordinance—the ministry of the word. Christ’s sheep ordinarily conceive when they are drinking the water of life here. The hearing of the gospel it is called, Galatians 3:2, ‘The hearing of faith;’ because by hearing the doctrine of faith, the Spirit works the grace of faith in them. This is the still voice he speaks to the souls of sinners in. ‘Thine eyes shall see thy teachers: and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it,’ Isaiah 30:20. Here are God and man teaching togeth­er. Thou canst not neglect man’s teaching, but thou resist the Spirit’s also. It was for some­thing that the apostle placed them so near, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20. He bids us ‘quench not the Spirit;’ and in the next words, ‘Despise not prophesyings.’ Surely he would have us know that the Spirit is dangerously quenched when prophesying, or preaching of the gospel, is despised. Now the most notorious way of despising prophesying or preaching, is to is to turn our back off the ordin­ance and not attend on it. When God sets up the ministry of the word in a place, his Spirit then opens his school, and expects that all who would be taught for heaven should come thither. O take heed of play­ing the truant, and absenting thyself from the ordin­ance upon any unnecessary occasion, much less of casting off the ordinance. If he tempts God that would be kept from sin, and yet will not keep out of the circle of the occasion that leads to the sin; then he tempts God as much that would have faith, and pre­tends his desire is that the Spirit should work it, but will not come within the ordinary walk of the Spirit where he doth the work. Whether it is more fitting that the scholar should wait on his master at school to be taught, or that the master should run after the his truant scholar at play in the field to teach him there, judge you? Second. Take heed that in thy attendance on the word thou dost not control the Spirit in those several steps he takes in thy soul in order to the pro­duction of faith. Though there are no preparatory works of our own to grace, yet the Holy Spirit hath his preparatory works whereby he disposeth souls to grace. Observe therefore carefully the gradual ap­proaches he makes by the word to thy soul, for want of complying with him in which he may withdraw in a distaste and leave the work at a sad stand for a time, if not quite give it over, never more to return to it. We read, Acts 7:23, how ‘it came into the heart of Moses to visit his brethren the children of Israel’ —stirred up no doubt by God himself to the journey. There he begins to show his good-will to them, and zeal for them, in slaying an Egyptian that had wronged an Israelite; which, though no great matter towards their full deliverance out of Egypt, yet ‘he supposed’ (it is said, ver. 25) ‘his brethren would have un­derstood,’ by that hint, ‘how that God by his hand would deliver them.’ But they did not comply with him, nay, rather opposed him; and therefore he with­drew, and they hear no more of Moses or their deliv­erance for ‘forty years’’ space, ver. 30. Thus, may be, the Spirit of God gives thee a visit in an ordinance —directs a word that speaks to thy particular condi­tion. He would have thee understand by this, sinner, how ready he is to help thee out of thy house of bond­age—thy state of sin and wrath —if now thou wilt hearken to his counsel and kindly entertain his mo­tions. [But], carry thyself rebelliously now against him, and God knows when thou mayest hear of him again knocking at thy door upon such an errand. God makes short work with some in his judiciary proceedings. If he finds a repulse once, sometimes he departs, and leaves a dismal curse behind him as the punishment of it. ‘I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper,’ Luke 14:24. They were but once invited, and, for their first denial, this curse [is] clapped upon their heads. It is not said they shall never come where the supper stands on the board, but they shall never ‘taste.’ Many sit under the ordinances, where Christ in gospel-dishes is set forth admirably, but, through the efficacy of this curse upon them, never taste of these dainties all their life. They hear precious truths, but their hearts are sealed up in unbelief, and their minds made reprobate and injudicious, that they are not moved at all by them. There is a kind of frenzy and madness I have heard of, in which a man will dis­course soberly and rationally, till you come to speak of some one particular subject that was the occasion of his distemper, and first broke his brain; here he is quite out, and presently loses his reason, not able to speak with any understanding of it. O how many men and women are there among us—frequent at­tenders on the word—who, in any matter of the world are able to discourse very understandingly and ration­ally; but, when you come to speak of the things of God, Christ, and heaven, it is strange to see how soon their reason is lost and all understanding gone from them! they are not able to speak of these matters with any judgement. Truly I am afraid, in many —who have sat long under the means, and the Spirit hath been making some attempts on them—th is injudiciousness of mind in the things of God is but the consequence of that spiritual curse which God hath passed upon them for resisting these essays of his Spirit. I beseech you, therefore, beware of opposing the Spirit. Doth he beam any light from his word into thy understanding, whereby thou, who wert before an ig­norant sot, comest to something of the evil of sin, the excellency of Christ, and canst discourse rationally of the truths of the Scripture? Look now to it, what thou canst with this candle of the Lord is lighted in thy mind; take heed thou beest not found sinning with it, or priding thyself in it, lest it goes out in a snuff, and thou, for ‘rebelling against the light,’ com­est at last to ‘die without knowledge,’ as is threatened, Job 36:12. If the Spirit of God goes yet further, and [so] fortifies the light in thy understanding that it sets thy conscience on fire with the sense of thy sins, and apprehensions of the wrath due to them; now, take heed of resisting him when in mercy to thy soul he is kindling this fire in thy bosom, to keep thee out of a worse in hell, if thou wilt be ruled by him. Thou must expect that Satan, now his house is on fire over his head, will bestir him what he can to quench it; thy danger is lest thou shouldst listen to him for thy pres­ent ease. Take heed therefore where thou drawest thy water with which thou quenchest this fire; that it be out of no well, but out of the word of God. In thinking to quiet thy conscience, thou mayest quench the Spirit of God in thy conscience; which is the mis­chief the devil longs thou shouldst pull upon thy own head. There is more hope of a sick man when his disease comes out, than when it lies at the heart and nothing is seen outwardly. You know how Hazael helped his master to his sad end, who might have lived for all his disease. ‘He took a thick cloth, and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face, so that he died;’ and it follows, ‘and Hazael reigned in his stead,’ 2 Kings 8:15. Thus the wretch came to the crown. He saw the king like to recover, and he squat­ted his disease, in all probability, to his heart by the wet cloth, and so by his death made a way for himself to the throne. And truly Satan will not much fear to recover the throne of thy heart—which this present combustion in thy conscience puts him in great fear of losing—can he but persuade thee to apply some carnal coolings to it, thereby to quench the Spirit in his convincing work. These convictions are sent thee mercifully in order to thy spiritual delivery, and they should be as welcome to thee as the kindly bearing pains of a woman in travail are to her. Without them she could not be delivered of her child, nor without these, more or less, can the new creature be brought forth in thy soul. Again, may be the Spirit of God goes yet further, and doth not only dart light into thy mind, hell-fire into thy conscience, but heaven-fire also into thy affections. My meaning is, he from the word displays Christ so in his own excellencies, and the fitness of him in all his offices to thy wants, that thy affections begin to work after him. The frequent discourses of him, and the mercy of God through him to poor sin­ners, are so luscious, that thou beginnest to taste some sweetness in hearing of them, which stirs up some passionate desires, whereby thou art in hearing the word often sallying forth in such‑like breathings as these, ‘O that Christ were mine! Shall I ever be the happy soul whom God will pardon and save?’ Yea, possibly in the heat of thy affections thou art cursing thy lusts and Satan, who have held thee so long from Christ; and sudden purposes are taken up by thee that thou wilt bid adieu to thy former ways, and break through all the entreaties of thy dearest lusts, to come to Christ. O soul! now the kingdom of God is nigh indeed unto thee. Thou art, as I may so say, even upon thy quickening, and therefore, above all, this is the chief season of thy care, lest thou shouldst miscarry. If these sudden desires did but ripen into a deliberate choice of Christ; and these purposes settle into a permanent resolution to re­nounce sin and self, and so thou cast thyself on Christ; I durst be the messenger to joy thee with the birth of this babe of grace—faith I mean—in thy soul. I confess, affections are up and down; yea, like the wind, how strongly soever they seem to blow the soul one way at present, [they] are often found in the quite contrary point very soon after. A man may be drunk with passion and affection, as really as with wine or beer. And as it is ordinary for a man to make a bargain, when he is in beer or wine, which he re­pents of as soon as he is sober again; so it is as ordi­nary for poor creatures, who make choice of Christ and his ways in a sermon—while their affections have been elevated above their ordinary pitch by some moving discourse—to repent of all they have done a while after, when the impression of the word, which heated their affection in hearing, is worn off. Then they come to themselves again and are what they were —as far from any such desires after Christ as ever. Content not therefore thyself with some sudden pangs of affection in an ordinance, but labour to pre­serve those impressions which then the Spirit makes on thy soul, that hey be not defaced and rubbed off —like colours newly laid on before they are dry—by the next temptation that comes. This is the caveat of the apostle, Hebrews 2:1, ‘Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip’—or run out as leaking vessels. May be, at present, thy heart is melting, and in a flow with sorrow for thy sins, and thou thinkest, Surely now I shall never give my lust a kind look more—indeed one might wonder, to see the solemn mournful countenances under a sermon, which of these could be the man or woman that would afterwards be seen walking hand in hand with those sins they now weep to hear mentioned—but, as thou lovest thy life, watch thy soul, lest this prove but ‘as the early dew,’ none of which is to be seen at noon. Do thou therefore as those do who have stood some while in a hot bath, out of which when they come they do not presently go into the open air (that were enough to kill them), but betake themselves to their warm bed, that they may nourish this kindly heat; and now while their pores are open, by a gentle sweat breathe out more effectually the remaining dregs of their distemper. Thus betake thyself to thy closet, and there labour to take the advantage of thy present relenting frame for the more free pouring out of thy soul to God, now the ordinance hath thawed the tap; and, with all thy soul, beg of God he would not leave thee short of faith, and suffer thee to mis­carry now he hath thee upon the wheel, but make thee a ‘vessel unto honour;’ which follows as the third direction. [The unbeliever must cry in prayer for faith.] Third Direction. Lift up thy cry aloud in prayer to God for faith. Question. But may an unbeliever pray? Some think he ought not. Answer. This is ill news, if it were true, even for some who do believe, but dare not say they are be­lievers. It were enough to scare them from prayer too; and so it would be as Satan would have it—that God would have few or none to vouch him in this sol­emn part of his worship; for they are but the fewest of believers that can walk to the throne of grace in view of their own faith. Prayer, it is medium cultus, and also medium gratiæ—means, whereby we give worship to God, and also wait to receive grace from God; so that to say a wicked man ought not to pray, is to say he ought not to worship God and acknowledge him to be his Maker; and also, that he ought not to wait on the means whereby he may obtain grace and receive faith. ‘Prayer is the soul’s motion God-ward,’ saith Rev. Mr. Baxter; and to say an unbeliever should not pray, is to say he should not turn to God, who yet saith to the wicked, ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near.’ ‘Desire is the soul of prayer,’ saith the same learned author, ‘and who dares say to the wicked, Desire not faith, desire not Christ or God?’ (Right Method for Peace of Conscience, p. 63) It cannot indeed be denied, but that an unbe­liever sins when he prays. But it is not his praying is his sin, but his praying unbelievingly. And therefore, he sins less in praying than in neglecting to pray; be­cause, when he prays, his sin lies in the circumstance and manner, but when he doth not pray, then he stands in a total defiance to the duty God hath com­manded him to perform, and means God hath ap­pointed him to use, for obtaining grace. I must there­fore, poor soul, bid thee go on, for all these bugbears, and neglect not this grand duty which lies upon all the sons and daughters of men. Only go in the sense of thy own vileness, and take heed of carrying pur­poses of going on in sin with thee to the throne of grace. This were a horrible wickedness indeed. As if a traitor should put on the livery which the prince’s servants wear, for no other end but to gain more easy access to his person, that he might stab him with a dagger he hath under that cloak. Is it not enough to sin, but wouldst thou make God accessory to his own dishonour also? By this bold enterprise thou dost what lies in thee to do it. Should this be thy temper —which, God forbid —if I send thee to pray, it must be with Peter’s counsel to Simon Magus, ‘Repent of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee,’ Acts 8:22. But I suppose thee, to whom now I am directing my advice, to be of a far different complexion—one brought to some sense of thy deplored state, and so softened by the word that thou couldst be content to have Christ upon any terms; only thou art at a loss in thy own thoughts, how such an impotent creature, yea impudent sinner, as thou hast been, should ever come to believe on him. So that it is not the love of any present sin in thy heart, but the fear of thy past sins in thy conscience, that keeps thee from believing. Now for thee it is that I would gather the best encour­agements I can out of the word, and with them strew thy way to the throne of grace. Go, poor soul, to prayer for faith. I do not fear a chiding for sending such customers to God’s door. He that sends us to call sinners home unto him, can­not be angry to hear thee call upon him. He is not so thronged with such suitors as that he can find in his heart to send them away with a denial that come with this request in their mouths. Christ complains that sinners ‘will not come unto him that they may have eternal life;’ and dost thou think he will let any com­plain of him, that they desire to come, and he is un­willing they should? Cheer up thy heart, poor crea­ture, and knock boldly; thou hast a friend in God’s own bosom that will procure thy welcome. He that could, without any prayer made to him, give Christ for thee, will not be unwilling, now thou so earnestly prayest, to give faith unto thee. When thou prayest God to give, he commands thee to do. ‘And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ,’ 1 John 3:23. So that, in praying for faith, thou prayest that his will may be done by thee; yea, that part of his will which above all he desires should be done—called therefore with an emphasis ‘the work of God.’ ‘This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent,’ John 6:29. As if Christ had said, ‘If ye do not this, ye do nothing for God;’ and surely Christ knew his Father’s mind best. O how welcome must that prayer be to God which falls in with his chiefest design. Joab found his request, in the mouth of the woman of Tekoah, to take as he would have it. How could it do otherwise, when he asks nothing but what the king liked better than himself did or could? And doth it not please God more, thinkest thou—how strong soever thy desires for faith are—that a poor humbled sinner should believe, than it can do to the creature himself? Methinks, by this time, thou shouldst begin to promise thyself, poor soul, a happy return of this thy adventure, which thou hast now sent to heaven. But for thy further encouragement know that this grace, which thou so wantest and makest thy moan to God for, is a principal part of Christ’s purchase. That blood, which is the price of pardon, is the price of faith also, by which poor sin­ners may come to have the benefit of that pardon. As he has bought off that wrath which man’s sin had justly kindled in God’s heart against him, so hath also that enmity which the heart of the creature is filled with against God, and paid for a new stock of grace, wherewith his bankrupt creature may again set up; so that, poor soul, when thou goest to pray for faith, look up unto Christ, as having a bank of grace lying by him, to give out to poor sinners who see they have nothing of their own to begin with, and in the sense of this their beggary repair to him. ‘Thou hast as­cended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them,’ Psalms 68:18. This is beyond all doubt meant of Christ, and to him applied, Ephesians 4:8. Now observe, First. There is a bank and treasure of gifts in the hand of Christ—‘Thou hast.’ Second. Who trusts him with them; and that is his Father—‘Thou hast received gifts;’ that is, Christ of his Father. Third. When, or upon what consideration, doth the Father deposit this treasure into Christ’s hands? ‘Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received,’ &c. That is, when Christ had vanquished sin and Satan by his death and rode in the triumphant chariot of his ascension into heav­en’s glorious city, then did Christ receive these gifts. They were the purchase of his blood, and the pay­ment of an old debt which God, before the foun­dation of the world—when the covenant was trans­acted and struck—promised his Son, upon the con­dition of his discharging sinful man’s debt with the effusion of his own precious blood unto death. Fourth. The persons for whose use Christ received these gifts—‘for men,’ not angels—for ‘rebellious’ men, not men without sin; so that, poor soul, thy sinful nature and life do not make thee an excepted person, and shut thee out from receiving any of this dole. Fifth. Observe the nature of these gifts, and the end they are given Christ for; ‘that God may dwell in them or with them.’ Now, nothing but faith can make a soul that hath been rebellious a place meet for the holy God to dwell in. This is the gift indeed he re­ceived all other gifts for, in a manner. Wherefore the gifts of the Spirit and ministry, ‘apostles, teachers, pastors,’ &c., but that by these he might work faith in the hearts of poor sinners? Let this give thee bold­ness, poor soul, humbly to press God for that which Christ hath paid for. Say, ‘Lord, I have been a rebel­lious wretch indeed; but did Christ receive nothing for such? I have an unbelieving heart; but I hear there is faith paid for in thy covenant. Christ shed his blood that thou mightest shed forth thy Spirit on poor sinners.’ Dost thou think, that while thou art thus pleading with God, and using Christ’s name in prayer to move him, that Christ himself can sit within hear­ing of all this, and not befriend thy motion to his Father? Surely he is willing that what God is indebted to him should be paid; and therefore, when thou beggest faith upon the account of his death, thou shalt find him ready to join issue with thee in the same prayer to his Father. Indeed, he went to heaven on purpose that poor returning souls might not want a friend at court, when they come with their humble petitions thither. [The unbeliever should, for faith, converse much with the promises.] Fourth Direction. Converse much with the promises, and be frequently pondering them in thy musing thoughts. It is indeed the Spirit’s work, and only his, to bottom thy soul upon the promise, and give his word a being by faith in thy heart. This thou canst not do. Yet, as fire came down from heaven upon Elijah’s sacrifice, when he had laid the wood in order and gone as far as he could; so thou mayest comfortably hope that then the Spirit of God will come with spiritual light and life to quicken the promise upon thy heart, when thou hast been consci­onably diligent in meditating on the promise; if withal thou ownest God in the thing as he did. For when he had laid all in order, he lift up his heart to God in prayer, expecting all from him, 1 Kings 18:36. I know no more speedy way to invite the Spirit of God into our assistance than this. As he tempts the devil to tempt him that lets his eyes gaze, or thoughts gad, upon a lustful object, so he bespeaks the Holy Spirit’s company that lets out his thoughts upon holy heav­enly objects. We need not doubt but the Spirit of God is as willing to cherish any good motion, as the infernal spirit is to nourish that which is evil. We find the spouse sitting under the shadow of her be­loved, as one under an apple‑tree, Song of Solomon 2:3, and presently she tells us ‘his fruit was sweet to her taste.’ What doth this her sitting under his shadow better signify, than a soul sitting under the thoughts of Christ and the precious promises, that grow out of him as branches out of a tree? Do but, O Christian, place thyself here awhile, and it were strange if the Spirit should not shake some fruit from one branch or another into thy lap. Thou knowest not but, as Isaac met his bride when he went into the fields to meditate, so thou mayest meet thy beloved while walking by thy meditations in this garden of the promises. [The unbeliever should press his soul with the strong obligation we are under to believe.] Fifth Direction. Press and urge thy soul home with that strong obligation that lies upon thee, a poor humbled sinner, to believe. Possibly, God hath [so] shamed thee in the sight of thy own con­science for other sins, that thou loathest the very thought of them, and durst as well run thy head into the fire as allow thyself in them. If thou shouldst wrong thy neighbour in his person, name, or estate, it would kindle a fire in thy conscience and make thee afraid to look within doors—converse, I mean, with thy own thoughts—till thou hadst repented of it. And is faith the only indifferent thing—a business left to thy own choice, whether thou wilt be so good to thy­self as to believe or no? Truly, the tenderness of con­science which many humbled sinners express in trem­bling at, and smiting them for, other sins, compared with the little sense they express for this of unbelief, speaks as if they thought that they offended God in them, and only wronged themselves by this their un­belief. O how greatly thou art deceived and abused in thy own thoughts if these be thy apprehensions!—yea, if thou dost not think thou dishon ourest God and of­fendest him in a more transcendent manner by thy unbelief than by all thy other sins! What Bernard saith of a hard heart I may say of an unbelieving heart, illud cor verè durum, quod non trepidat, ad nomen cordis duri—that is a hard heart indeed, saith he, that trembles not at the name of a hard heart. And that is an unbelieving heart indeed, that trembles not at the name of an unbelieving heart. Call thyself, O man, to the bar, and hear what thy soul hath to say for its not closing with Christ, and thou shalt then see what an unreasonable reason it will give. It must be either because thou likest not the terms, or else because thou fearest they are too good ever to be performed. Is the first of these thy reason, because thou likest not the terms on which Christ is offered? Possibly, might thou but have had Christ and thy lusts with him, thou wouldst have been better pleased. But to part with thy lusts to gain a Christ, this thou thinkest is ‘a hard saying.’ It is strange this should offend thee, which God could not have left out and truly loved us. Thou art a sot, a devil, if thou dost not think thy sins the worst piece of thy misery. O what is Christ worth in thy thoughts if thou darest not trust him to recompense the loss of a base lust? That man values Gold little who thinks he shall pay too dear for it by throwing the dirt or dung out of his hands, with which they are full, to receive it. Well sinner, the terms for having Christ, it seems, content thee not. Ask then thy soul how the terms on which thou holdest thy lusts like thee? Canst thou, doth thou think, better spare the blissful presence of God and Christ in hell, where thy lusts, if thou hold­est of this mind, are sure enough to leave thee at last, than the company of thy lusts in heaven, whither faith in Christ would as certainly bring thee? Then take thy choice, and leave it for thy work in hell to repent of thy folly. But I should think, if thou wouldst be so faithful to thyself as to state the case right, and then seriously acquaint thy soul with it, giving it time and leisure to dwell upon it daily, that thou wouldst soon come to have better thoughts of Christ, and worse of thy sins. But may be this is not the reason that keeps thee from believing. The terms thou likest highly, but it cannot enter into thy heart to think that ever such great things as are promised should be performed to such a one as thou art. Well, of the two, it is better the rub in thy way to Christ should lie in the difficulty that thy understanding finds to conceive, than in the obstinacy of thy will not to receive, what God in Christ offers. But this must be removed also. And therefore fall to work with thy soul, and labour to bring it to reason in this particular, for, indeed, nothing can be more irrational than to object against the reality and certainty of God’s promises. Two things well wrought on thy soul, would satisfy thy doubts and scatter thy fears as to this. First. Labour to get a right notion of God in thy understanding, and it will not appear strange at all that a great God should do so great things for poor sinners. If a beggar should promise you a thousand pounds a year, you might indeed slight it, and ask where should he have it? But if a prince should promise more, you would listen after it, because he hath an estate that bears proportion to his promise. God is not engaged for more by promise than infinite mercy, power, and faithfulness can see discharged. ’Be still, and know that I am God,’ Psalms 46:10. Of this psalm Luther would say, in times of great confusion in the church, ‘Let us sing the six and fortieth psalm, in spite of the devil and all his instruments.’ And this clause of it, poor humbled soul, thou mayest sing with comfort, in spite of Satan and sin also, ‘Be still, O my soul, and know that he who offers thee mercy is God.’ ‘They that know his name will trust in him.’ Second. Peruse well the securities which this great God gives for the performance of his promise to the believer, and thou shalt find them so many and great—though his bare word deserves to be taken for more than our souls are worth—that if we had the most slippery cheating companion in the world under such bonds for the paying of a sum of money, we should think it were sure enough; and wilt thou not rest satisfied when the true and faithful God puts himself under these for thy security, whose truth is so immutable that it is more possible for light to send forth darkness, than it is that a lie should come out of his blessed lips? BRANCH FOURTH. [Exhortation to believers to preserve the ‘shield of faith.’] I now turn myself to you that are believers in a double exhortation. First. Seeing faith is such a choice grace, be stirred up to a more than ordinary care to preserve it. Second. If faith be such a choice grace, and thou hast it, dent not what God hath done for thee. [Faith is to be preserved with exceeding care because of its pre-eminence among graces.] Exhortation First. Seeing faith is such a choice grace, be stirred up to a more than ordinary care to preserve it. Keep that, and it will keep thee and all thy other graces. Thou standest by faith; if that fails thou fallest. Where shall we find thee then but under thy enemies’ feet? Be sensible of any dan­ger thy faith is in; like that Grecian captain who, being knocked down in fight, asked as soon as he came to himself where his shield was. This he was solicitous for above anything else. O be asking, in this temptation, and that duty, where is thy faith, and how it fares? This is the grace which God would have us chiefly judge and value ourselves by, because there is the least danger of priding in this self-emptying grace above any other. ‘I say through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith,’ Romans 12:3. There were many gifts which the Corinthians received from God, but he would have them think of themselves rather by their faith, and the reason is, that they may ‘think soberly.’ Indeed all other graces are to be tried by our faith; if they be not fruits of faith they are of no true worth. This is the difference between a Christian and an honest heathen. He values himself by his pa­tience, temperance, liberality, and other moral virtues which he hath to show above others. These he ex­pects will commend him to God and procure him a happiness after death; and in these he glories and makes his boast while he lives. But the Christian, he is kept sober in the sight of these—though they com­mence graces in him that were but virtues in the heathen—because he hath a discovery of Christ, whose righteousness and holiness by faith become his; and he values himself by these more than what is in­herent in him. I cannot better illustrate this than by two men—the one a courtier, the other a countryman and a stranger to the court, both having fair estates, but the courtier the greatest by far. Ask the country gentleman, that hath no relation to court or place in the prince’s favour, what he is worth; and he will tell you as much as his lands and monies amount to. These he values himself by. But, ask the courtier what he is worth; and he—though he hath more land and money by far than the other—will tell you he values himself by the favour of his prince more than by all his other estate. I can speak a big word, saith he: ‘What my prince hath is mine, except his crown and royalty; his purse mine to maintain me, his love to embrace me, his power to defend me.’ The poor heathens, being strangers to God and his favour in Christ, they blessed themselves in the improvement of their natural stock, and that treasure of moral virtues which they had gathered together with their industry, and the restraint that was laid upon their corruptions by a secret hand they were not aware of. But the believer, having access by faith into this grace wherein he stands so high in court favour with God by Jesus Christ, he doth and ought to value himself chiefly by his faith rather than any other grace. Though none can show these graces in their true heavenly beauty besides himself, yet, they are not these, but Christ, who is his by faith, that he blesseth himself in. The believer, he can say through mercy, that he hath a heart beautified with those heavenly graces, to which the heathen’s mock-virtue’s and the proud self-justiciary’s mock-graces also, are no more to be compared, than the image in the glass is to the face, or the shadow to the man himself. He can say he that hath holiness in truth, which they have but in show and semblance. And this grace of God in him he values infinitely above all the world’s treasure or pleasure—he had rather be the ragged saint than the robed sinner—yea, above his natural life, which he can be willing to lose, and count himself no loser, may he thereby but secure this his spiritual life. But this is not the biggest word a believer can say. He is not only partaker of the divine nature by that princi­ple of holiness infused to him; but he is heir to all the holiness, yea, to all the glorious perfections, that are in God himself. All that God is, hath, or doth, he hath leave to call his own. God is pleased to be called his people’s God—‘The God of Israel,’ 2 Samuel 23:3. As a man’s house and land bears the owner’s name upon it, so God is graciously pleased to carry his people’s name upon him, that all the world may know who are they he belongs to. Naboth’s field is called ‘the portion of Naboth,’ 2 Kings 11:21; so God is called ‘the portion of Jacob,’ Jeremiah 10:16. Nothing hath God kept from his people, saving his crown and glory. That, indeed, he ‘will not give to another,’ Isaiah 42:8. If the Christian wants strength, God would have him make use of his; and that he may do boldly and confidently, the Lord calls himself his people’s strength, ‘the strength of Israel will not lie,’ 1 Samuel 15:29. Is it righ­teousness and holiness he is scanted in? Behold, where it is brought unto his hand—Christ ‘is made unto us righteousness,’ 1 Corinthians 1:30, called therefore ‘the Lord our righteousness,’ Jeremiah 33:16. Is it love and mer­cy they would have? All the mercy in God is at their service. ‘Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee!’ Psalms 31:19. Mark the phrase, ‘laid up for them.’ His mercy and good­ness—it is intended for them. As a father that lays up such a sum of money, and writes on the bag, ‘This is a portion for such a child.’ But how comes the Christian to have this right to God, and all that vast and untold treasure of happiness which is in him? This indeed is greatly to be heeded. It is faith that gives him a good title unto all this. That which makes him a child makes him an heir. Now faith makes him a child of God, ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,’ John 1:12. As there­fore, if you would not call your birthright into ques­tion, and bring your interest in Christ, and those glorious privileges that come along with him, under a sad dispute in your souls, look to your faith. Question. But what counsel, may the Christian say, can you give for the preserving of my faith? Answer. To this I answer in these following par­ticulars. First. That which was instrumental to beget thy faith will be helpful to preserve it, viz. the word of God. Second. Wouldst thou preserve thy faith, look to thy conscience. Third. Exercise it. Fourth. Take special notice of that unbelief which yet remains in thee. Fifth. If thou wouldst preserve thy faith, labour to increase it. [Directions to believers for the preserving of faith.] First Direction. That which was instrumental to beget thy faith will be helpful to preserve it—I mean the word of God. As it was seed for the former pur­pose in thy conversion, so now it is milk for the present sustentation of thy faith. Lie sucking at this breast, and that often. Children cannot suck long, nor digest much at a time, and therefore need the more frequent returns of their meals. Such children are all believers in this world. ‘Precept’ must be ‘upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little.’ The breast [must be] often drawn out for the nourishing of them up in their spiritual life, or else they cannot subsist. It was not ordinary that Moses should look so well as he did after he had fasted so long, Exodus 34:28-29. And truly it is a miraculous faith they must have who will undertake to keep their faith alive without taking any spiritual repast from the word. I have heard of some children that have been taken from their mother’s breast as soon almost as born, and brought up by hand, who yet have done well for their natural life. But I shall not believe a creature can thrive in his spiritual life, who cast off ordinances, and weans himself from the word, till I hear of some other way of provision that God hath made for the ordinary maintenance of it besides this; and I despair of living so long as to see this proved. I know some, that we may hope well of, have been for a time persuaded to turn their backs on the word and ordinances; but they have turned well hunger-bit to their old fare again, yea, with Naomi’s bitter com­plaint in their mouths, ‘I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty,’ Ruth 1:21. And happy are them that they are come to their stomachs in this life, before this food be taken off the table, never more to be set on. He that taught Christians to pray for their daily bread, did suppose they had need of it; and surely he did not mean only or chiefly corporal bread, who, in the same chapter bids them, ‘But seek ye first the kingdom of God,’ Matthew 6:33. Well, Christian, prize thou the word, fed savourily on the word, whether it be dished forth in a sermon at the public, or in a conference with some Christian friend in private, or in a more secret duty of reading and meditation by thy solitary self. Let none of these be disused, or carnally used, by thee, and with God’s blessing thou shalt reap the benefit of it in thy faith. When thy stomach fails to the word, thy faith must needs begin to fail on the word. O that Christians, who are so much in complaints of their weak faith, would but turn their complaints into inquiries why it is so weak and declining! Is it not because faith hath missed its wonted meals from the word? Thou, hap­ly, formerly broken through many straits to keep thy acquaintance with God in his word, and wert well paid for that time which thou didst borrow of thy other occasions for this end, by that sweet temper that thou foundest thy heart in to trust God and rely upon him in all conditions; but now, since thou hast dis­continued thy acquaintance with God in those ordin­ances, thou perceivest a sad change. Where thou couldst have trusted God, now thou art suspicious of him. Those promises that were able in a mutiny and hubbub of thy unruly passions, to have hushed and quieted all in thy soul at their appearing in thy thoughts, have now, alas! but little authority over thy murmuring unbelieving heart, to keep it in any toler­able order. If it be thus with thee, poor soul, thy case is sad; and I cannot give thee better counsel for thy soul, than that which physicians give men in a consumption for their bodies. They ask them where they were born and bred up, and to that their native air they send them, as the best means to recover them. Thus, soul, let me ask thee, if thou ever hadst faith, where it was born and bred up? was it not in the sweet air of ordinances, hearing, meditating, conferring of the word, and praying over the word? Go, poor creature, and get thee as fast as thou canst into thy native air, where thou didst draw thy first Chris­tian breath, and where thy faith did so thrive and grow for a time. No means more hopeful to set thy feeble faith on its legs again than this. Second Direction. Wouldst thou preserve thy faith, look to thy conscience. A good conscience is the bottom faith sails in. If the conscience be wrecked, how can it be thought that faith should be safe? If faith be the jewel, a good conscience is the cabinet in which it is kept; and if the cabinet be broken, the jewel must needs be in danger of losing. Now you know what sins waste the conscience—sins either deliberately committed, or impudently contin­ued in. O take heed of deliberate sins! Like a stone thrown into a clear stream, they will so roil thy soul and muddy it, that thou, who even now couldst see thy interest in the promise, wilt be at a loss and not know what to think of thyself. They are like the fire on the top of the house; it will be no easy matter to quench it. But, if thou hast been so unhappy as to fall into such a slough, take heed of lying in it by im­penitency. The sheep may fall into a ditch, but it is the swine that wallows in it; and therefore, how hard wilt thou find it, thinkest thou, to act thy faith on the promise, when thou art, by thy filthy garments and besmeared countenance, so unlike one of God’s holy one’s? It is dangerous to drink poison, but far more to let it lie in the body long. Thou canst not act thy faith, though a believer, on the promise, so as to ap­ply the pardon it presents to thy soul, till thou hast renewed thy repentance. Third Direction. Exercise thy faith, if thou meanest to preserve it. We live by faith, and faith lives by exercise. As we say of some stirring men, they are never well but at work—confine them in their bed or chair and you kill them; so here, hinder faith from working, and you are enemies to the very life and being of it. Why do we act faith so little in prayer, but because we are no more frequent in it? Let the child seldom see its father or mother, and when he comes into their presence he will not make much after them. Why are we no more able to live on a promise when at a plunge? Surely because we live no more with the promise. The more we converse with the promise, the more confidence we shall put in it. We do not strangers as we do our neighbours, in whose company we are almost every day. It were a rare way to secure our faith, yea, to advance it and all our other graces, would we, in our daily course labour to do all our ac­tions, as in obedience to the command, so in faith on the promise. But alas! how many enterprises are un­dertaken where faith is not called in, nor the promise consulted with, from one end of the business to the other? And therefore, when we would make use of faith in some particular strait, wherein we think our­selves to be more than ordinary at a loss, our faith itself is at a loss, and to seek, like a servant who, be­cause his master very seldom employs him, makes bold to be gadding abroad, and so when his master doth call him upon some extraordinary occasion, he is out of the way and not to be found. O Christian! take heed of letting your faith be long out of work. If you do not use it when you ought, it might fail you when you desire most to act it. Fourth Direction. Take special notice of that unbelief which yet reMal. in thee and, as it is putting forth daily its head in thy Christian course, be sure thou loadest thy soul with the sense of it, and deeply humblest thyself before God for it. What thy faith loseth by every act of unbelief, it recovers again by renewing thy repentance. David’s faith was on a mending hand when he could shame himself heartily for his unbelief, Psalms 73:22. He confesseth how ‘foolish and ignorant’ he was; yea, saith he, ‘I was as a beast before thee’—so irrational and brutish his unbelieving thoughts now appeared to him—and, by this ingenuous, humble confession, the malignity of his distemper breathes out [so] that he is presently in his old temper again, and his faith is able to act as high as ever. ‘Thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory,’ Psalms 73:23-24. But so long as thy unbelief is sure to grow upon thee as thou beest unhumbled for it. We have the reason why the people of Laish were so bad. ‘There was no magistrate in the land, that might put them to shame in anything,’ Judges 18:7. Christian, thou hast a magistrate in thy bosom com­missioned by God himself to check, reprove, and shame thee, when thou sinnest. Indeed, all things go to wreck in that soul where this [one] doth his office. Hear therefore what this hath to charge thee with, that thou mayest be ashamed. There is no sin dis­honours God more than unbelief; and this sword cuts his name deepest when in the hand of a saint. O to be wounded in the house of his friends, this goes near the tender heart of God. And there is reason enough why God should take this sin so unkindly at a saint’s hand, if we consider the near relation such a one stands in to God. It would grieve an indulgent father to see his own child come into court, and there bear witness against him and charge him of some untruth in his words, more than if a stranger should do it; because the testimony of a child, though, when it is for the vindication of a parent it may lose some credit in the opinion of those that hear it, upon the suspi­cion of partiality, yet, when against a parent, it seems to carry some more probability of truth than what is another that is a stranger says against him; because the band of natural affection with which the child is bound to his parent is so sacred that it will not be easily suspected. He can offer violence to it, but upon the more inviolable necessity of bearing witness to the truth. O think of this, Christian, again and again—by thy unbelief thou bearest false witness against God! And if thou, a child of God, speakest no better of thy heavenly Father, and presentest him in no fairer char­acter to the world, it will be no wonder if it be con­firmed in its hard thoughts of God, even to final im­penitency and unbelief, when it shall se how little credit he finds with thee, for all thy great profession of him and near relation to him. When we would sink the reputation of a man the lowest possible, we cannot think of an expression that will do it more effectually than to say, ‘He is such a one as those that are nearest to him, even his own children, dare not trust, or will not give him a good word.’ O Christian, ask thyself whether thou couldst be willing to be the unhappy instrument to defame God, and take away his good name in the world. Certainly thy heart trem­bles at the thought of it if a saint; and if it doth, then surely thy unbelief, by which thou hast done this so oft, will wound thee to the very heart; and, bleeding for what thou hast done, thou wilt beware of taking that sword into thy hand again, with which thou hast given so many a wound to the name of God and thy own peace. Fifth Direction. If thou wouldst preserve thy faith, labour to increase it. None [are] in more dan­ger of losing what they have than those poor-spirited men who are content with what they have. A spark is sooner smothered than a flame; a drop more easily drunk up and dried than a river. The stronger thy faith is, the safer thy faith is from the enemies’ as­saults. The intelligence which an enemy hath of a castle’s being weakly provided for a siege, is enough to bring him against it, which else should not have been troubled with his company. The devil is a coward, and he loves to fight on the greatest advantage; and greater he cannot have than the weakness of the Christian’s faith. Didst thou but know, Christian, the many privileges of a strong faith above a weak, thou wouldst never rest till thou hadst it. Strong faith comes conqueror out of those temptations where weak faith is foiled and taken prisoner. Those Philis­tines could not stand before Samson in his strength, who durst dance about him scornfully in his weak­ness. When David’s faith was up how undauntedly did he look death in the face! 1 Samuel 30:6. But, when that was out of heart, O how poor-spirited is he! —ready to run his head into every hole, though never so dishonourably, to save himself, 1 Samuel 21:13. Strong faith frees the Christian from those heart-rending thoughts which weak faith must needs be op­pressed with. ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee,’ Isaiah 26:3. So much faith, so much inward peace and quietness. If little faith, then little peace and serenity, through the storms that our unbelieving fears will necessarily gather. If strong faith, then strong peace; for so the ingemination in the Hebrew, ‘peace, peace,’ imports. It is confessed that weak faith hath as much peace with God through Christ as the other hath by his strong faith, but not so much bosom peace. Weak faith will as surely land the Christian in heaven as strong faith; for it is impossible the least dram of true grace should perish, being all incorruptible seed. But the weak doubting Christian is not like to have so pleasant a voyage thither as another with strong faith. Though all in the ship come safe to shore, yet he that is all the way sea‑sick hath not so comfortable a voy­age as he that is strong and healthful. There are many delightful prospects occur in a journey which he that is sick and weak loseth the pleasure of. But the strong man views all with abundance of delight; and though he wisheth with all his heart he was at home, yet the entertainment he hath from these do much shorten and sweeten his way to him. Thus, Christian, there are many previous delights which saints travel­ling to heaven meet on their way thither—besides what God hath for them at their journey’s end—but it is the Christian whose faith is strong and active on the promise that finds them. This is he who sees the spiritual glories in the promise that ravish his soul with unspeakable delight; while the doubting Chris­tian’s eye of faith is so gummed up with unbelieving fears that he can see little to affect him in it. This is he that goes singing all the way with the promise in his eye; while the weak Christian, kept in continual pain with his own doubts and jealousies, goes sighing and mourning with a heavy heart, because his interest in the promise is yet under a dispute in his own thoughts. As you would not therefore live uncomfortably, and have a dull melancholy walk of it to heaven, labour to strengthen your faith. Question. But may be you will ask, How may I know whether my faith be strong or weak? I answer by these following characters. [Characters by which we may know whether faith be strong or weak.] 1. Character. The more entirely the Christian can rely on God, upon his naked word in the promise, the stronger his faith is. He, surely, putteth great­er confidence in a man that will take his own word or single bond for a sum of money, than he who dares not, except some others will be bound for him. When we trust God for his bare promise, we trust him on his own credit, and this is faith indeed. He that walks without staff or crutch is stronger than he that needs these to lean on. Sense and reason, these are the crutches which weak faith leans on too much in its acting. Now, soul, inquire, (1.) Canst thou bear up thyself on the promise, though the crutch of sense and present feeling be not at hand? May be thou hast had some discoveries of God’s love and beamings forth of his favour upon thee; and so long as the sun shined thus in at thy window thy heart was lightsome, and thou thoughtest thou shouldst never distrust God more, or listen to thy unbelieving thoughts more; but how findest thou thy heart now, since those sensible demonstrations are withdrawn, and may be some frowning providence sent in the room of them? Dost thou presently dis­pute the promise in thy thoughts, as not knowing whether thou mayest venture to cast anchor on it or no? Because thou hast lost the sense of his love, does thy eye of faith fail thee also, that thou hast lost the sight of his mercy and truth in the promise? Surely thy eye of faith is weak, or else it would read the promise without these spectacles. The little child, in­deed, thinks the mother is quite lost if she goes but out of the room where he is; but as it grows older so it will be wiser. And truly so will the believer also. Christian, bless God for the experiences and sensible tastes thou hast at any time of his love; but know, that we cannot judge of our faith, whether weak or strong, by them. Experiences, saith Parisiensis, are like crutches, which do indeed help a lame man to go, but they do not make the lame man sound or strong; food and physic must do that. And therefore, Christian, labour to lean more on the promise, and less on sen­sible expressions of God’s love, whether it be in the present feeling or past experiences of it. I would not take you off from improving these, but [from] leaning on these, and limiting the actings of our faith to these. A strong man, though he doth not lean on his staff all the way he goes—as the lame man doth on his crutch, which bears his whole weight—yet he may make good use of it now and then to defend himself when set upon by a thief or dog in his way. Thus the strong Christian may make good use of his experi­ences in some temptations, though he doth not lay the weight of his faith upon them, but [upon] the promise. (2.) Canst thou bear thyself upon the promise, when the other crutch of reason breaks under thee? or does thy faith ever fall to the ground with it? That is a strong faith indeed that can trample upon the im­probabilities and impossibilities which reason would be objecting against the performance of the promise, and give credit to the truth of it with a non obstante —notwithstanding. Thus Noah fell hard to work about the ark, upon the credit he gave both the threatening and promissory part of God’s word, and never troubled his head to clear the matter to his reason how these strange things could come to pass. And it is imputed to the strength of Abraham’s faith, that he could not suffer his own narrow reason to have the hearing of the business, when God promised him a Michaelmas[7] spring—as I may say—a son in his old age. ‘And being not weak in faith, he consid­ered not his own body now dead,’ Romans 4:19. Skilful swimmers are not afraid to go above their depth, whereas young learners feel for the ground, and are loath to go far from the bank-side. Strong faith fears not when God carries the creature beyond the depth of his reason: ‘We know not what to do,’ said good Jehoshaphat, ‘but our eyes are upon thee,’ 2 Chronicles 20:1-37. As if he had said, ‘We are in a sea of troubles; beyond our own help, or any thought how we can wind out of these straits; but our eyes are upon thee. We dare not give our case for desperate so long as there is strength in thine arm, tenderness in thy bowels, and truth in thy promise.’ Whereas weak faith, that is groping for some footing for reason to stand on, it is taken up how to reconcile the promise and the crea­ture’s understanding. Hence those many questions which drop from its mouth. When Christ said, ‘Give ye them to eat,’ Mark 6:1-56, his disciples ask him, ‘Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread?’ As if Christ’s bare word could not spare that cost and trouble! ‘Whereby shall I know this?’ saith Zacharias to the angel, ‘for I am an old man,’ Luke 1:18. Alas! his faith was not strong enough to digest, at present, this strange news. 2. Character. The more composed and content­ed the heart is under the changes which providence brings upon the Christian’s state and condition in the world, the stronger his faith is. Weak bodies cannot bear the change of weather so well as healthful and strong ones do. Hot and cold, fair or foul, cause no great alteration in the strong man’s temper; but alas! the other is laid up by them, or at best goes complain­ing of them. Thus strong faith can live in any cli­mate, travel in all weather, and fadge with any condi­tion. ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, there­with to be content,’ Php 4:11. Alas! all Christ’s schol­ars are not of Paul’s form; weak faith hath not yet got the mastery of this hard lesson. When God turns thy health into sickness, thy abundance into penury, thy honour into scorn and contempt, into what language dost thou now make thy condition known to him? Is thy spirit embittered into discontent, which thou ventest in murmuring complaints? or art thou well satisfied with God’s dealings, so as to acquiesce cheer­fully in thy present portion, not from an unsensible­ness of the affliction, but approbation of divine ap­pointment? If the latter, thy faith is strong. (1.) It shows God hath a throne in thy heart. Thou reverencest his authority and ownest his sover­eignty, or else thou wouldst not acquiesce in his or­ders. ‘I was dumb, because thou didst it,’ Psalms 39:9. If the blow had come from any other hand he could not have taken it so silently. When the servant strike the child, he runs to his father and makes his complaint; but, though the father doth more to him, he com­plains not of his father, nor seeks redress from any other, because it is his father whose authority he re­veres. Thus thou comportest thyself toward God; and what but a strong faith can enable thee? ‘Be still, and know that I am God,’ Psalms 46:10. We must know God believingly to be what he is, before our hearts will be ‘still.’ (2.) This acquiescency of spirit under the dispo­sition of providence shows that thou dost not only stand in awe of his sovereignty, but hast amiable comfortable thoughts of his mercy and goodness in Christ. Thou believest he can soon, and will certainly make thee amends, or else thou couldst not so easily part with these enjoyments. The child goes willingly to bed when others, may be, are going to supper at a great feast in the family; but the mother promiseth the child to save something for him against the morn­ing; this the child believes and is content. Surely thou hast something in the eye of thy faith which will rec­ompense all thy present loss; and this makes thee fast so willingly when others feast, be sick when others are well. Paul tells us why he and his brethren in afflic­tion did not faint, 2 Corinthians 4:16-17. They saw heaven coming to them while earth was going from them. ‘For which cause we faint not, ...for our light afflic­tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’ 3. Character. The more able to wait long for answers to our desires nd prayers, the stronger faith is. It shows the tradesman to be poor and needy when he must have ready money for what he sells. They that are forehanded are willing to give time, and able to forbear long. Weak faith is all for the present; if it hath not presently its desires answered, then it grows jealous and lays down sad conclusions against itself—his prayer was not heard, or he is not one God loves, and the like. Much ado to be kept out of a fainting fit—‘I said in my haste that all men were liars.’ But strong faith that can trade with God for time, yea, waits God’s leisure—‘He that believeth shall not make haste,’ Isaiah 28:16. He knows his money is in a good hand, and he is not over-quick to call for it home, knowing well that the longest voyages have the richest returns. As rich lusty ground can forbear rain longer than lean or sandy [ground], which must have a shower ever and anon, or the corn on it fades; or as a strong healthful man can fast longer without faintness, than the sickly and weak,—so the Christian of strong faith can stay longer for spiritual refreshing from the presence of the Lord, in the returns of his mercy and discoveries of his love to him, than one of weak faith. 4. Character. The more the Christian can lose or suffer upon the credit of the promise, the stronger his faith is. If you should see a man part with a fair inheritance, and leave his kindred and country where he might pass his days in the embracements of his dear friends and the delicious fare which a plentiful estate would afford him every day, to follow a friend to the other end of the world, with hunger and hard­ship, through sea and land, and a thousand perils that meet him on every hand, you would say that this man had a strong confidence of his friend, and a dear love to him, would you not? Nay, if he should do all this for a friend whom he never saw, upon the bare credit of a letter which he sends to invite him to come over to him, with a promise of great things he will do for him; now, to throw all his present possessions and enjoyments at his heels, and willingly put himself into the condition of a poor pilgrim and traveller, with the loss of all he hath, that he may come to his dear friend, this adds to the wonder of his confidence. Such gallant spirits we read of—‘Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice,’ 1 Peter 1:6-8. Observe the place, and you shall find them in sorrowful plight —‘in heaviness through manifold temptations’—yet, because their way lies through the sloughs to the en­joyment of God and Christ, whom they never saw or knew, but by the report the word makes of them, they can turn their back off the world’s friendship and enjoyments—with which it courted them as well as others—and go with a merry heart through the deep­est of them all. Here is glorious faith indeed. It is not praising of heaven, and wishing we were there, but a cheerful abandoning the dearest pleasures, and embracing the greatest sufferings of the world when called to the same, that will evidence our faith to be both true and strong. 5. Character. The more easily that the Christian can repel motions, and resist temptations to sin, the stronger is his faith. The snare or net which holds the little fish fast, the greater and stronger fish easily breaks through. The Christian’s faith is strong or weak as he finds it easy or hard to break from temptations to sin. When an ordinary temptation holds thee by the heel, and thou art entangled in like the fly in the spider’s web—much ado to get off, and per­suade thy heart from yielding—truly it speaks faith very feeble. To have no strength to oppose the as­saults of sin and lust, speaks the heart void of faith. Where faith hath not a hand to prostrate an enemy, it yet hath a hand to lift up against it, and a voice to cry out for help to heaven. Some way or other faith will show its dislike and enter its protest against sin. And to have little strength to resist, evidenceth a weak faith. Peter’s faith was weak when a maid’s voice dashed him out of countenance; but it was well amended when he could withstand, and, with a noble constancy, disdain the threats of a whole counsel, Acts 4:1-37. Christian, compare thyself with thyself, and give righteous judgment on thyself. Do now thy lusts as powerfully inveigle thy heart, and carry it away from God, as they did some months or years ago; or canst thou in truth say thy heart is got above them. Since thou hast known more of Christ, and had a view of his spiritual glories, canst thou now pass by their door and not look in; yea, when they knock at thy door in a temptation, thou canst shut it upon them, and dis­dain the motion? Surely thou mayest know thy faith is grown stronger. When we see that the clothes which a year or two ago were even fit for the person, will not now come on him, they are so little, we may easily be persuaded to believe the person is much grown since that time. If thy faith were no more grown, those temptations which fitted thee would like thee as well now. Find but the power of sin die, and thou mayest know that faith is more lively and vigor­ous. The harder the blow, the stronger the arm that gives it. A child cannot strike such a blow as a man. Weak faith cannot give such a home-blow to sin as a strong faith can. 6. Character. The more ingenuity and love is in thy obediential walking, the stronger thy faith is. Faith works by love, and therefore its strength or weakness may be discovered by the strength or weakness of that love it puts forth in the Christian’s actings. The strength of a man’s arm that draws a bow, is seen by the force the arrow which he shoots flies with. And certainly the strength of our faith may be known by the force our love mounts to God with. It is impossible that weak faith—which is unable to draw the promise as a strong faith can—should leave such a forcible impression on the heart to love God to aban­don sin, perform duty, and exert acts of obedience to his command, know thy place, and take it with hum­ble thankfulness, thou art a graduate in the art of be­lieving. The Christian’s love advanceth by equal paces with his faith, as the heat of the day increaseth with the climbing sun; the higher that mounts towards its meridian, the hotter the day grows. So the higher faith lifts Christ up in the Christian, the more intense his love to Christ grows, which now sets him on work after another sort than he was wont. Before, when he was to mourn for his sins, he was acted by a slavish fear, and made an ugly face at the work, as one doth that drinks some unpleasing potion; but now acts of repentance are not distasteful and formidable, since faith hath discovered mercy to sit on the brow of jus­tice, and undeceived the creature of those false and cruel thoughts of God which ignorantly he had taken up concerning him. He doth not now ‘hate the word repentance’—as Luther said he once did before he understood that place, Romans 1:17—but goes about the work with amiable sweet apprehensions of a good God, that stands ready with the sponge of his mercy dipped in Christ’s mercy, to blot out his sins as fast as he scores them up by his humble sorrowful confession of them. And the same might be said concerning all other offices of Christian piety. Strong faith makes the soul ingenuous. It doth not pay the performance of any duty, as an oppressed subject doth a heavy tax —with a deep sigh, to think how much he parts with —but as freely as a child would present his father with an apple of that orchard which he holds by gift from him. Indeed, the child when young is much ser­vile and selfish, forbearing what his father forbids for fear of the rod, and doing what he commands for some fine thing or other that his father bribes him with, more than for pure love to his person or obedi­ence to his will and pleasure. But, as he grows up and comes to understand himself better, and the relation he stands in, with the many obligations of it to filial obedience, then his servility and selfishness wear off, and his FJ`D(¬—natural affection—will prevail more with him to please his father than any other argument whatever. And so will it with the Christian where faith is of any growth and ripeness. 7. Character. To name no more, the more able faith is to sweeten the thoughts of death, and make it desirable to the Christian, the stronger his faith. Things that are very sharp or sour will take much sugar to make them sweet. Death is one of those things which hath the most ungrateful taste to the creature’s palate that can be. O it requires a strong faith to make the serious thoughts of it sweet and de­sirable! I know some in a pet and a passion have pro­fessed great desires of dying, but it hath been as a sick man desires to change his place, merely out of a wea­riness of, and discontent with, his present condition, without any due consideration of what they desire. But a soul that knows the consequences of death, and the unchangeableness of that state, whether of bliss or misery, that it certainly marries us to, will never cheerfully call for death in his cordial desires, till he be in some measure resolved from the promise what entertainment he may expect from God when he comes into that other world—and that weak faith will not do without abundance of fears and doubts. I con­fess, that sometimes a Christian of very weak faith may meet death with as little fear upon his spirit, yea, more joy, than one of a far stronger faith, when he is held up by the chin by some extraordinary comfort poured into his soul from God immediately. Should God withdraw this, however, his fears would return upon him, and he feel again his faintings; as a sick man, that hath been strangely cheered with a strong cordial, does his feebleness when the efficacy of it is spent. But we speak of the ordinary way how Chris­tians come to have their hearts raised above the fear, yea, into a strong desire, of death, and that is by attaining to a strong faith. God can indeed make a feast of a few loaves, and multiply the weak Chris­tian’s little faith on a sudden, as he lives on a sick-bed, into a spread table of all varieties of consola­tions. But I fear that God will not do this miracle for that man or woman who, upon the expectation of this, contents himself with the little provision of faith he hath, and labours not to increase his store against that spending time. [Faith or the graces of God in a believer must be acknowledged.] Exhortation Second. We come to the second word of exhortation we have to speak to the saints:—If faith be such a choice grace, and thou hast it, deny not what God hath done for thee. Which is worst, thinkest thou?—the sinner to hide his sin and deny it, or the Christian to hide and deny his faith? I confess the first does worst, if we look to the inten­tion of the persons; for the sinner hides his sin out of a wicked end. The doubting soul [however] means well:—he is afraid to play the hypocrite and be found a liar in saying he hath what he fears he hath not. But, if we consider the consequence of the Christian’s dis­owning the grace of God in him, and what use the devil makes of it for the leading him into many other sins, it will not be so easy to resolve whose sin is the greatest. Good Joseph meant piously when he had thought of putting away secretly his es­poused Mary —thinking no other but that she had played the whore—and yet, it would have been a sad act if he had persisted in his thoughts, especially after the angel had told him that which was conceived in her to be of the Holy Ghost. Thus thou, poor mourning soul, may be, art oft thinking to put away thy faith as some by-blow of Satan, and base-born counterfeit grace begot on thy hypocritical heart by the father of lies. Well, take heed what thou dost. Hast thou had no vision—not extraordinary of and angel or immedi­ate revelation, but ordinary of the Spirit of God—I mean in his word and ordinances, encouraging thee from those characters which are in the Scripture given of faith, and the conformity thy faith hath to them, to take and own thy faith as that which is conceived in thee by the Holy Ghost, and not a brat formed by the delusion of Satan in the womb of thy own groundless imagination? If so, be afraid of bearing false-witness against the grace of God in thee. As there is that makes himself rich in faith that hath nothing of this grace, so there is that maketh himself poor that hath great store of this riches. Let us therefore hear what are the grounds of this thy suspicion, that we may see whether thy fears or thy faith be imaginary and false. First. Saith the poor soul, I am afraid I have no true faith because I have not those joys and consolations which others have who believe. Second. O but can there be any true faith where there is so much doubt­ing as I find in myself? Third. O but I fear mine is a presumptuous faith, and if so, to be sure it cannot be right. [Grounds of suspicion which lead to a believer’s denying his faith.] First Ground of Suspicion. I am afraid, saith the poor soul, I have no true faith, because I have not those joys and consolations which others have who believe. Answer First. Thou mayest have inward peace though not joy. The day may be still and calm though not glorious and sunshine. Though the Comforter be not come with his ravishing consolations, yet he may have hushed the storm of thy troubled spirit; and true peace, as well as joy, is the consequent of ‘faith un­feigned.’ Answer Second. Suppose thou hast not yet at­tained so much as to this inward peace, yet know, thou hast no reason to question the truth of thy faith for want of this. We have peace with God as soon as we believe, but not always with ourselves. The par­don may be past the prince’s hand and seal, and yet not put into the prisoner’s hand. Thou thinkest them too rash, dost thou not, who judged Paul a murderer by the viper that fastened on his hand? And what art thou who condemnest thyself for an unbeliever, be­cause of those troubles and inward agonies which may fasten for a time on the spirit of the most gracious child God hath on earth? Second Ground of Suspicion. O but can there be any true faith where there is so much doubting as I find in myself? Answer. There is a doubting which the Scripture opposeth to the least degree of faith. Our blessed Saviour tells them what wonder they shall do if they believe and ‘doubt not,’ Matthew 21:21; and, Luke 17:6, he tells his disciples if they have faith as a grain of mustard-seed,’ they shall do as much. That which is a faith without doubting in Matthew is faith as a grain of mustard-seed in Luke. But again, there is a doubt­ing which the Scripture opposeth not to the truth of faith, but to the strength of faith, ‘O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’ Matthew 14:31. They are the words of Christ to sinking Peter, in which he so chides his doubting as yet to acknowledge the truth of his faith, though weak. All doubting is evil in its nature, yet some doubting, though evil in itself, doth evidence some grace that is good to be in the person so doubting; as smoke proves some fire. And peev­ishness and pettishness in a sick person that before lay senseless, is a good sign of some mending, though itself a thing bad enough. But the thing here desir­able, I conceive, would be to give some help to the doubting soul, that he may what his doubting is symptomatical of; whether of true faith, though weak, or of no faith. Now for this I shall lay down four characters of those doubtings which accompany true faith. 1. Character. The doubtings of a true believer are attended with much shame and sorrow of spirit, even for those doubtings. I appeal to thy conscience, poor doubting soul, whether the consideration of this one sin doth not cost thee many a salt tear and heavy sigh which others know not of? Now, I pray, from whence come these? Will unbelief mourn for unbe­lief? or sin put itself to shame? No, sure, it shows there is a principle of faith in the soul that takes God’s part, and cannot see his promises and name wronged by unbelief without protesting against it, and mourning under it, though the hands of this grace be too weak at present to drive the enemy out of the soul. The law cleared the damsel that ‘cried’ out ‘in the field,’ and so will the gospel thee who sincerely mournest for thy unbelief, Deuteronomy 22:27. That holy man, whoever he was, was far gone in his doubting disease, Psalms 77:1-20. How many times do we find his unbelief putting the mercy and faithfulness of God—which should be beyond all dispute in our hearts—to the question and dubious vote in his distempered soul? He might with as much reason have asked his soul whether there was a God? as whether his mercy was clean gone and his promise failed? yet so far did his fears in this hurry carry him aside. But at last you have him acknowledging his folly, Psalms 77:10, ‘And I said this in my infirmity.’ This I may thank thee for, O my unbelief! thou enemy of God and my soul, thou wilt be puzzling me with needless fears, and make me think and speak so unworthily of my God. This proved there was faith at the bottom of his unbelief. 2. Character. The doubtings of a sincere believer are accompanied with ardent desires those things which it most calls in question and doubts of. The weak believer, he questions whether God loves him or no, but he desires it more than life. And this is the language of a gracious soul, ‘Thy lovingkindness is better than life,’ Psalms 63:3. He doubts whether Christ be his; yet, if you should ask him what value he sets upon Christ, and what he would give for Christ, he can tell you, and that truly, that no price should be too great if he were to be bought. No condition that God offers Christ upon appears to him hard, but all easy and cheap. And this is the judgment which only the believing soul can have of Christ. ‘Unto you therefore which believe, he is precious,’ 1 Peter 2:7. In a word, he doubts whether he be truly holy or only counterfeit; but his soul pants and thirsts after those graces most which he can see least. He to him should be the more welcome messenger that brings him the news of a broken heart, than another that tells him of a whole crown and kingdom fallen to him. He dis­putes every duty and action he doth, whether it be ac­cording to the rule of the word; and yet he passion­ately desires that he could walk without one wry step from it; and doth not quarrel with the word because it is so strict, but with his heart because it is so loose. And how great a testimony these give of a gracious frame of heart! See Psalms 119:20, Psalms 119:140 where David brings these as the evidence of his grace. Canst thou there­fore, poor soul, let out thy heart strongly after Christ and his graces, while thou dost not see thy interest in either? Be of good cheer, thou art not so great a stranger with these as thou thinkest thyself. These strong desires are the consequent of some taste thou hast had of them already; and these doubts may pro­ceed, not from an absolute want, as if thou wert wholly destitute of them, but [from] the violence of thy desires, which are not satisfied with what thou hast. It is very ordinary for excessive love to beget excessive fear, and that groundless. The wife, because she loves her husband dearly, fears when he is abroad she shall never see him more. One while she thinks he is sick; another while killed; and thus her love torments her without any just cause, when her hus­band is all the while well and on his way home. A jewel of great price, or ring that we highly value, if but laid out of sight, our extreme estimate we set on them makes us presently think them lost. It is the nature of passions in this our imperfect state, when strong and violent, to disturb our reason, and hide things from our eye which else were easy to be seen. Thus many poor doubting souls are looking and hunting to find that faith which they have already in their bosoms—[it] being hid from them merely by the vehemency of their desire of it, and [by the] fear they should be cheated with a false one for a true. As the damsel ‘opened not the gate for gladness’ to Peter Acts 12:14—her joy at [the time then] present made her forget what she did—so the high value the poor doubting Christian sets on faith, together with an ex­cess of longing after it, suffer him not to entertain so high an opinion of himself as to think he at present hath that jewel in his bosom which he so infinitely prizeth. 3. Character. The doubtings of a truly believing soul make him more inquisitive how he may get what he sometimes he fears he hath not. Many sad thoughts pass to and fro in his soul whether Christ be his or no, whether he may lay claim to the promise or no; and these cause such a commotion in his spirit, that he cannot rest till he come to some resolution in his own thoughts from the word concerning this great case. Therefore, as Ahasuerus, when he could not sleep, called for the records and chronicles of his kingdom, so the doubting the doubting soul betakes himself to the records of heaven—the word of God in the Scripture—and one while he is reading there, another while looking into his own heart, if he can find anything that answers the characters of Scrip­ture—faith, as the face in the glass doth the face of man. David, Psalms 77:1-20, when he was at a loss what to think of himself, and many doubts did clog his faith —insomuch that the thinking of God increased his trouble—did not sit down and let the ship drive, as we say, not regarding whether God loved him or no. No; he ‘communes with his own heart, and his spirit makes diligent search.’ Thus it is with every sincere soul under doubtings. He dares no more sit down contented in that unresolved condition, than one who thinks he smells fire in his house dares settle himself to sleep till he hath looked into every room and cor­ner, and satisfied himself that all is safe, lest he should be waked with the fire about his ears in the night. The poor doubting soul [is indeed] much more afraid, lest it should awake with hell‑fire about it; whereas a soul in a state and under the power of unbelief, is secure and careless. The old world did not believe the threatening of the flood, and they spend no thoughts about the matter. It is at their doors and windows before they had used any means how to escape it. 4. Character. In the midst of the true believer’s doubtings there is an innitency of his heart on Christ, and a secret purpose still to cleave to him. At the same time that Peter’s feet were sinking into the waters, he was lifting up a prayer to Christ; and this proved the truth of his faith, as the other its weak­ness. So Jonah, he had many fears, and sometimes so predominant, that as bad humours settle into a sore, so they gathered into a hasty unbelieving conclusion, yet then his faith had some little secret hold on God. ‘Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple,’ Jonah 2:4. And, ‘When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord,’ Jonah 2:7. Holy David also, though he could not rid his soul of all those fears which got into it through his weak faith, as water into a leaking ship, yet he hath his hand at the pump, and takes up a firm resolution against them. ‘What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee,’ Psalms 56:3. The doubting Christian sinks, but, as a traveller in a slough where the bottom is firm, and so recovers himself. But the unbeliever, he sinks in his fears, as a man in a quick-sand, lower and lower till he be swallowed up into despair. The weak Chris­tian’s doubting is like the wavering of a ship at anchor —he is moved, yet not removed from his hold on Christ; but the unbeliever’s, like the wavering of a wave, which, having nothing to stay it, is wholly at the mercy of the wind. ‘Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed,’ James 1:6. Third Ground of Suspicion. O but, saith another, I fear mine is a presumptuous faith, and if so, to be sure it cannot be right. Answer. For the fuller assoiling [i.e. clearing] this objection, I shall lay down three characters of a presumptuous faith. 1. Character. A presumptuous faith is an easy faith. It hath no enemy of Satan or our own corrupt hearts to oppose it, and so, like a stinking weed, shoots up and grows rank on a sudden. The devil never hath the sinner surer than when dreaming in this fool’s paradise, and walking in his sleep, amidst his vain fantastical hopes of Christ and salvation. And therefore he is so far from waking him, that he draws the curtains close about him, that no light nor noise in his conscience may break his rest. Did you ever know the thief call up him in the night whom he meant to rob and kill? No, sleep is his advantage. But true faith he is a sworn enemy against. He persecutes it in the very cradle, as Herod did Christ in the cratch;[8] he pours a flood of wrath after it as soon as it betrays its own birth by crying and lamenting after the Lord. If thy faith be legitimate Naphtali may be its name; and thou mayest say, ‘With great wrestlings have I wrestled with Satan and my own base heart, and at last have prevailed.’ You know the answer that Rebecca had when she inquired of God about the scuffle and striving of the children in her womb, ‘Two nations,’ God told her, ‘were in her womb.’ If thou canst find the like strife in thy soul, thou mayest comfort thyself that it is from two con­trary principles, faith and unbelief, which are lusting one against another; and thy unbelief, which is the elder —however now it strives for the mastery—shall serve the younger. 2. Character. Presumptuous faith is lame of one hand; it hath a hand to receive pardon and heaven from God, but no hand to give up itself to God. True faith hath the use of both her hands. ‘My beloved is mine’—there the soul takes Christ; ‘and I am his’ —there she surrenders herself to the use and service of Christ. Now, didst thou ever pass over thyself freely to Christ? I know none but will profess they do this. But the presumptuous soul, like Ananias, lies to the Holy Ghost, by keeping back part, yea, the chief part, of that he promised to lay at Christ’s feet. This lust he sends out of the way, when he should deliver it up to justice; and that creature enjoyment he twines about, and cannot persuade his heart to trust God with the disposure of it, but cries out when the Lord calls for it, ‘Benjamin shall not go.’ Life is bound up in it, and if God will have it from him he must take it by force, for there is no hope of gaining his consent. Is this the true picture of thy faith, and [of the] temper of thy soul? then verily thou blessest thyself in an idol, and mistake a bold face for a believing heart. But, if thou beest as willing to be faithful to Christ, as to pitch thy faith on Christ; if thou countest it as great a privilege that Christ should have a throne in thy heart and love, as that thou shouldst have a place and room in his mercy; in a word, if thou beest plain-hearted and wouldst not hide a sin, nor lock up a creature enjoyment, from him, but desirest freely to give up thy dearest lust to the gibbet, and thy sweetest enjoyments to stay with, or go from thee, as thy God thinks fit to allow thee—though all this be with much regret and discontent from a malignant party of the flesh within thee—thou provest thyself a sound believer; and the devil may as well say that himself believeth as that thou presumest. If this be to pre­sume, be thou yet more presumptuous. Let the devil nickname thee and thy faith as he pleaseth; the rose-water is not the less sweet because one writes ‘worm­wood water’ on the glass. The Lord knows who are his, and will own them for his true children, and their graces for the sweet fruits of his Spirit, though a false title be set on them by Satan and the world, yea, sometimes by believers on themselves. The father will not deny his child because he is a violent fit of a fever talks idle and denies him to be his father. 3. Character. The presumptuous faith is a sap­less and unsavoury faith. When an unsound heart pretends to greatest faith on Christ, even then it finds little savour, tastes little sweetness in Christ. No, he hath his old tooth in his head, which makes him relish still the gross food of sensual enjoyments above Christ and his spiritual dainties. Would he but freely speak what he thinks, he must confess that if he were put to his choice whether he would sit with Christ and his children, to be entertained with the pleasures that they enjoy from spiritual communion with him in his promises, ordinances, and holy ways; or had rather sit with the servants, and have the scraps which God al­lows the men of the world in their full bags and bellies of carnal treasure; that he would prefer the latter before the former. He brags of his interest in God, but he care not how little he is in the presence of God in any duty or ordinance. Certainly, if he were such a favourite as he speaks, he would be more at court than he is. He hopes to be saved, he saith, but he draws not his wine of joy at this tap. It is not the thoughts of heaven that comfort him; but what he hath in the world and of the world, these maintain his joy. When the world’s vessel is out, and the creature joy spent, alas, the poor wretch can find little relief from, or relish in, his pretended hopes of heaven and interest in Christ, but he is still whining after the other. Whereas true faith alters the very creature’s palate. No feast so sweet to the believer as Christ is. Let God take all other dishes off the board and leave but Christ, he counts his feast is not gone—he hath what he likes; but let all else stand, health, estate, friends, and what else the world sets a high value on, if Christ be withdrawn he soon misseth his dish, and makes his moan, and saith, ‘Alas! who hath taken away my Lord?’ It is Christ that seasons these and all his enjoyments, and makes them savoury meat to his palate; but without him they have no more taste than the white of an egg without salt. [1]Precedaneous: Preceding; antecedent; anterior. From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. — SDB [2]Demit: dismiss; resign, to withdraw from office or membership. From Webster’s — SDB [3]Affiance, trust or faith. [4]Innitency, act of leaning on. [5]Can anyone, at this point, avoid thinking of the fol­lowing verses from Hebrews? — SDB 17Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: 18that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: 19which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; 20whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. — Hebrews 6:1-20 [6]Jointure — 1. [Now Rare] an act or instance of joining; 2. Law a) an arrangement by which a husband grants real property to his wife for her use after her death. b) the property thus settled; widow’s portion c) [Obs] the holding of property jointly. — From Webster’s [7]Michaelmas — the feast of the archangel Michael, cele­brated chiefly in England, on September 29: also Mi­chaelmas Day. — from Webster’s. SDB [8]Cratch, i.e. manger or crib. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 02.02 - THE SAINT'S ENEMY DESCRIBED ======================================================================== DIRECTION VIII.—SECOND GENERAL PART. [Argument pressing the exhortation.] ‘Whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked’ (Ephesians 6:16) We have done with the exhortation, and now come to the second general part of the verse, viz. a powerful argument pressing this exhortation, contained in these words—‘Whereby ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.’ ‘Ye shall be able.’ Not an uncertain ‘may be ye shall;’ but he is peremptory and absolute—‘ye shall be able.’ But what to do? ‘able to quench’—not only to resist and repel, but ‘to quench.’ But what shall they ‘quench?’ Not ordinary temptations only, but the worst arrows the devil hath in his quiver—‘fiery darts;’ and not some few of them, but ’all the fiery darts of the wicked.’ In this second general there are two particulars. first. The saint’s enemy described—‘The wicked.’ second. The power and puissance of faith over the enemy—‘Ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.’ Division First.—The Saint’s Enemy Described. ‘The Wicked.’ Here we have the saint’s enemy described in three particulars. First. In their nature—‘wicked.’ Second. In their unity—‘wicked,’ or ‘wicked one,’ J@Ø B@\" pleonexia {pleh‑on‑ex‑ee’‑ah} from 4123; TDNT 6:266,864; n f AV ‑ covetousness 8, greediness 1, covetous practice 1; 10 1) greedy desire to have more, covetousness, avarice gen. pleonexias, fem. noun from pleion (4119), more, and écho (2192) to have. Covetousness, greediness (Luke 12:15; Romans 1:29 [cf. 1 Corinthians 5:10-11]; 2 Corinthians 9:5, “as bounty or blessing on your part, and not as covetousness on ours, not as extorted by us from you” (a.t.); Ephesians 4:19; 1 Thessalonians 2:5; 2 Peter 2:3, 2 Peter 2:14; LXX, Jeremiah 22:7; Habakkuk 2:9). Pleonexia is a larger term which includes philarguria (5365), love of money to hoard away, avarice. It is con­nected with extortioners (1 Corinthians 5:10); with thefts (Mark 7:22, covetous thoughts, plans of fraud and extortion); with sins of the flesh (Ephesians 5:3, Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:5). Pleonexia may be said to be the root from which these sins grow, the longing of the creature which has forsaken God to fill itself with the lower objects of nature. From The Complete Word Study New Testament Dictionary By Spiros Zodhiates © 1992 And Vine notes that this Greek word is used always in the bad or evil sense. — From Vine’s: under “covetousness,” no. 3. [5]Callow, bare, wanting feathers—Ed. [6]Cologued: intrigue, conspire; to talk privately, confer. [7]ebullition; violent boiling over. — SDB [8]Refel; an obsolete term meaning to reject, repulse. — SDB [9]Fardel: bundle or burden. From Webster’s — SDB ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 02.03 - FIFTH PIECE - THE CHRISTIAN'S HELMET ======================================================================== Direction Ninth. The Several Pieces of the Whole Armour of God. Fifth Piece—The Christian’s Helmet. ‘And take the helmet of salvation’ (Ephesians 6:17). These words present us with another piece of the Christian’s panoply—a helmet to cover his head in the day of battle—the helmet of salvation. It makes the fifth in the apostle’s order. And, which is observ­able, this, with most of the pieces in this magazine, are defensive arms, and all to defend the Christian from sin, none to secure him from suffering. First. They are most defensive arms. Indeed, there is but one of all the pieces in the whole panoply for offence, i.e. ‘the sword.’ It may be to give us this hint, that this spiritual war of the Christian lies chiefly on the defence, and therefore requires arms most of this kind to wage it. God hath deposited a rich treasure of grace in every saint’s heart. At this is the devil’s great spite; to plunder him of it, and with it of his happi­ness, he commenceth a bloody war against him. So that the Christian overcomes his enemy when himself is not overcome by him. He wins the day when he doth not lose his grace, his work being rather to keep what is his own than to get what is his enemy’s. And truly this one thing well heeded, that the saint’s war lies chiefly on the defence, would be of singular use to direct the Christian how to manage his combats both with Satan and also his instruments. First. With Satan. Look, Christian, thou standest always in a defensive posture, with thy armour on, as a soldier, upon thy works, ready to defend the castle of thy soul which God hath set thee to keep, and valiantly to repel Satan’s assaults whenever he makes his approach. But be not persuaded out of the line of thy place, and calling that God hath drawn about thee; no, not under the specious pretence of zeal and hope to get the greater victory by falling into the enemies’ quarters. Let Satan be the assailant, and come if he will to tempt thee; but go not thou in a bravado to tempt him to do it. It is just he should be foiled that seeks his own danger. This got Peter his fall in the high‑priest’s hall, who was left therefore cowardly to deny his master, that he might learn humbly to deny himself ever after. Second. With Satan’s instruments. May be they revile and reproach thee. Remember thy part lies on the defence. Give not railing for railing, reproach for reproach. The gospel allows thee no liberty to use their weapons, and return them quid pro quo—stroke for stroke. ‘Be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing,’ 1 Peter 3:8-9. Thou hast here a girdle and breastplate to defend thee from their bullets—the comfort of thy own sincerity and holy walking, with which thou mayest wipe off the dirt thrown upon thy own face—but no weapon for self-revenge. A shield is put into thy hand, which thou mayest lift up to quench their fiery darts, but no darts of bitter words to retort upon them. Thou art ‘shod with peace,’ that thou mayest walk safely upon the injuries they do thee, without any prick or pain to thy spirit, but not with pride to trample upon the persons that wrong thee. Second. As most of the pieces are defensive, so all of them to defend from sin, none to secure the Christian from suffering. They are to defend him in suffering, not privilege him from it. He must prepare the more for suffering, because he is so well furnished with armour to bear it. Armour is not given for men to wear by the fireside at home, but in the field. How shall the maker be praised, if the metal of his arms be not known? And where shall it be put to the proof, but amidst swords and bullets? He that desires to live all his days in an isle of providence, where the whole year is summer, will never make a good Christian. Re­solve for hardship, or lay down thine arms. Here is the true reason why so few come at the beat of Christ’s drum to his standard; and so many of those few that have listed themselves by an external profession under him, do within a while drop away, and leave his colours; it is suffering work they are sick of. Most men are more tender of their skin than conscience; and had rather the gospel had provided armour to defend their bodies from death and danger, than their souls from sin and Satan. But I come to the words—‘and take the helmet of salvation;’ in which—after we notice the copulative that clasps this to the former piece of armour, viz. ‘and,’ showing the connection between the various pieces, we pass to observe—FIRST. The piece of armour itself—the helmet of salvation. SECOND. The use of this ‘helmet,’ or the offices of hope in the Christian’s warfare. THIRD. Several applications of the doc­trine of the helmet of salvation, alike to those who have and to those who have it not. Connection of the Helmet with the Shield, and the previous pieces of the Armour. Let us notice the copulative ‘and.’ ‘And take the helmet of salvation;’ that is, with the shield of faith, and all the other pieces of armour here set down, take this also into the field with you. See here how every grace is lovingly coupled to its fellow; and all at last, though many pieces, make but one suit; though many links, yet make but one chain. The note which this points at is the concatenation of graces. [The concatenation of graces, in their birth, growth, and decay.] Note. The sanctifying saving graces of God’s Spirit are linked inseparably together; there is a con­nection of them one to the other, and that in their birth, growth, and decay. First Connection. In their birth. Where one sanctifying grace is, the rest are all to be found in its company. It is not so in common gifts and graces. These are parcelled out like the gifts Abraham bestowed on the children he had by his concubines, Genesis 25:6. One hath this gift, another hath that, none hath all. He that hath a gift of knowledge may want a gift of utterance, and so of the rest. But sanctifying graces are like the inheritance he gave to Isaac; every true believer hath them all given him. ‘He that is in Christ is a new creature.’ And, ‘Behold all things are be­come new,’ 2 Corinthians 5:17. Now, the new creature con­tains all. As natural corruption is a universal princi­ple of all sin, that sours the whole lump of man’s na­ture; so is sanctifying grace an universal principle, that sweetly seasons and renews the whole man at once, though not wholly. Grace comes, saith one, into the soul, as the soul into the body at once. In­deed, it grows by steps, but is born at once. The new creature hath all its parts formed together, though not its degrees. Some one grace may, we confess, be per­ceived to stir, and so come under the Christian’s notice, before another. He may feel his fear of God putting forth itself in a holy trembling, and awe upon his spirit, at the thoughts of God, before he sees his faith in the fiduciary recumbency of his soul upon God; yet the one grace is not in its production before the other. One part of the world hath been discov­ered to us long after the other; yet all the world was made together. Now this connection of graces in their birth is of double use. 1. Use. To relieve the sincere Christian when in doubt of his gracious state, because some one grace which he inquires for, cannot at present be discerned in his soul by him. Possibly it is faith thou hast been looking for, and it is not at any hand to be heard of. Well, Christian, do not presently unsaint thyself till thou hast made further trial of thyself. Send out therefore thy spies to search for some other grace—as thy love to Christ; may be thou wilt hear some tidings of this grace, though the other is not in view. Hath not thy love to God and Christ been seen by thee in such a temptation, chasing it away with Joseph’s answer to his wanton mistress, ‘How...can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ Yea, mayest thou not see it all the day long, either in thy sincere care to please him, or hearty sorrow when thou hast done anything that grieves him? in which two veins run the life‑blood of a soul’s love to Christ. Now, know to thy comfort, that thy love can tell thee news of thy faith. As Christ said in another case, ‘He that hath seen me hath seen my Father,’ John 14:9; so say I to thee, ‘Thou that hast seen thy love to Christ, hast seen thy faith in the face of thy love.’ But, may be, thy love to Christ is also lodged in a cloud. Well, then, see whether thou canst spy no evangelical repentance, loathing thee with the sight of thy sins, as also enfiring thee with revenge against them, as those enemies which drew thee into rebel­lion against God, yea, were the bloody weapon with which thou hast so oft wounded the name and mur­dered the Son of God. Behold, the grace thou look­est for stands before thee. What is love to God, if zeal against sin as God’s enemy be not? Did not Abi­shai love David, when his heart boiled so over with rage against Shimei for cursing David, that he could not contain, but breaks out into a passion, saying, ‘Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head?’ 2 Samuel 16:9. And by thy own acknowledgment it troubles thee as much to hear thy lusts bark against God, and thy will is as good to be the death of them, if God would but say his fiat to it, as ever Abishai’s was to strike that traitor’s head off his shoulders; and yet art thou in doubt whether thou lovest God or no? Truly then thou canst not see fire for flame, love for zeal. Thus, as by taking hold of one link you may draw up the rest of the chain that lies under water, so by discovering one grace, thou mayest bring all to sight. Joseph and Mary were indeed deceived, when they supposed their son to be in the company of their kin­dred, Luke 2:44. But so canst thou not here. For this holy kindred of graces go ever together, they are knit, as members of the body, one to another. Though you see only the face of a man, yet you doubt not but the whole man is there. 2. Use. As it may relieve the sincere Christian, so it will help to uncase and put the hypocrite to shame, who makes great pretensions to some one grace when he hates another at the same time—a certain note of a false heart. He never had any grace that loves not all graces. Moses would not out of Egypt with half his company, Exodus 10:1-29. Either all must go or none shall stir. Neither will the Spirit of God come into a soul with half of his sanctifying graces, but with all his train. If therefore thy heart be set against any one grace, it proves thou art a stranger to the rest; and though thou mayest seem a great ad­mirer and lover of one grace, yet the defiance thou standest in to others washeth off the paint of this fair cover. Love and hatred are of the whole kind; he that loves or hates one saint as such, doth the same by ev­ery saint; so he that cordially closeth with one grace, will find every grace endeared to him upon the same account; for they are as like one to another, as one beam of the sun is to another beam. Second Connection. Sanctifying graces are con­nected in their growth and decay. Increase one grace, and you strengthen all; impair one, and you will be a loser in all; and the reason is, because they are recip­rocally helpful each to other. So that when one grace is wounded, the assistance it should and would, if in temper, contribute to the Christian’s common stock, is either wholly detained or much lessened. When love cools, obedience slacks and drives heavily, be­cause it wants the oil on its wheel that love used to drop. Obedience faltering, faith weakens apace. How can there be great faith when there is little faithful­ness? Faith weakening, hope presently wavers; for it is the credit of faith’s report, that hope goes on to ex­pect good from God. And hope wavering, patience breaks, and can keep shop windows open no longer, because it trades with the stock hope lends it. In the body you observe there are many members, yet all make but one body; and every member so useful, that the others are beholden to it. So in the Christian there are many graces, but one new creature. And the eye of knowledge cannot say to the hand of faith, ‘I have no need of thee,’ nor the hand of faith to the foot of obedience, but all are preserved by the mutual care they have of one another. For, as ruin to the whole city may enter at a breach in one part of its wall, and the soul run out through a wound in a par­ticular member of the body; so the ruin of all the graces may, yea must needs, follow on the ruin of any one. There is indeed a stronger bond of necessity between graces of our souls than there is between the members of our body. It is possible, yea ordinary, for some member to be cut off from the body without the death of the whole, because all the members of the body are not vital parts. But every grace is a vital part in the new creature, and so essential to its very being that its absence cannot be supplied per vicarium—by substitution. In the body one eye can make a shift to do the office of it fellow which is put out; and one hand do the other’s work that is cut off, though may not be so exactly; but faith cannot do the office of love, nor love the work of obedience. The lack of one wheel spoils the motion of the whole clock. And if one grace should be wanting, the end would not be attained for which this rare piece of workmanship is set up in the saint’s heart. [Two inferences to be drawn from the connection of graces.] First Inference. Let it learn thee, Christian, this wisdom, whenever thou findest any grace weakened, either through thy negligence not tending it, or Sa­tan’s temptations wounding it, speedily to endeavour to recovery of it; because thou dost not only lose the comfort which the exercise of this one grace might bring, but thou weakenest all the others. Is he a bad husband who hazards the fall of his house by suffering a hole or two in the roof go unmended? What, then, art thou that puttest thy whole gracious state in dan­ger, by neglecting a timely repair of the breach made in any one of thy graces? And so when thou art temp­ted to any sin, look not on it as a single sin, but as having all other sins in its belly. Consider what thou dost before thou gratifiest Satan in any one motion; for by one sin thou strengthenest the whole body of sin. Give to one sin, and that will send more beggars to your door; and they will come with a stronger plea than the former; another, why mayest thou not do this for them, as well as that? Thy best way is to keep the door shut to all; lest, while thou intendest to en­tertain only one, all crowd in with it. But if it were possible that thou couldst break this connection of sin, so as to take off one link that pleaseth thee best, and not draw the whole chain after thee by commit­ting this, yet know there is a connection of guilt also. ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all,’ James 2:10. As he that administereth to the estate of one deceased, though it be never so little that he takes into his hands, be­comes liable to pay all his debts, and brings all his creditors upon him; so by tampering but with one sin, and that a little one, thou bringest the whole law upon thy back, which will arrest thee upon God’s suit, as a trespasser and transgressor of all its commands. A man cannot stab any part of the face but he will disfigure the whole countenance, and wrong the whole man. Thus the law is copulative; an affront done to one redounds to the dishonour of all, and so is resented by God the lawgiver, whose authority is equally in all. Second Inference. This may comfort those who trouble themselves with the thoughts of future chan­ges which may befall them, and so alter the scene of their affairs, as to call them to act a part they never much thought upon; and what shall they do then, say they? Now, blessed be God, they make a shift to serve God in their place. But what if straits come? poverty, sickness, or other crosses, make a breach in their bank? How, alas! shall they then behave them­selves? Where is their faith, patience, contentment, and other suffering graces, that should enable them to walk on these waves without sinking? They fear, alas! little of these suffering graces is in their hands for such a time. Well, Christian, for thy encouragement know, that if the graces of thy present condition —those I mean which God calls thee to exercise now in thy prosperous state—be lively, and quit them­selves well, thou mayest comfortably hope the other suffering graces, which now stand unseen behind the curtain, will do the same, when God changeth the scene of thy affairs and calls them upon the stage to act their part. The more humble thou art now with thy abundance, the more patient thou wilt certainly show thyself in thy penury. So much as thy heart is now above the world’s enjoyments, even so much thou wilt then be above the troubles and sorrows of it. Trees, they say, grow proportionably under ground to what they do above ground; and the Christian will find something like this in his graces. DIRECTION IX.—FIRST GENERAL PART. [The Helmet of Salvation, what it is.] ‘Take the helmet of salvation’ (Ephesians 6:17). We have done with the connective particle, whereby this piece is coupled to the former, and now come to address our discourse to the piece of armour itself—‘take the helmet of salvation.’ Though we have not here, as in all the other [pieces], the grace expressed, yet we need not be long at a loss for it, if we consult with another place, where our apostle lends us a key to decipher his meaning in this. And none so fit to be interpreter of the apostle’s words as himself. The place is, 1 Thessalonians 5:8, ‘And for an helmet, the hope of salvation:’ so that, without any further scruple, we shall fasten the grace of ‘hope,’ as in­tended by the Holy Ghost in this place. Now, in or­der to a treatise of this grace, it is requisite that some­thing be said by explication that may serve as a light set up in the entry, to lead us the better into the several rooms of the point which is to be the subject of our discourse; and this I shall do by showing—First. What ‘hope’ is. Second. Why called ‘the hope of salvation.’ Third. Why this ‘hope’ is compared to ’a helmet.’ [The nature of the hope that forms the helmet.] First Inquiry. What is the nature of the hope that forms the Christian’s helmet? A little to open the nature of this grace of hope, we shall do so as it will best be done, by laying down a plain description of it, and briefly explicating the parts. Hope is a su­pernatural grace of God, whereby the believer, through Christ, expects and waits for all those good things of the promise, which at present he hath not received, or not fully. First. Here is the author or efficient of hope —God; who is called ‘the God of all grace,’ 1 Peter 5:10 —that is, the giver and worker of all grace, both as to the first seed and the further growth of it. It is impos­sible for the creature to make the least pile of grass, or being made, to make it grow; and as impossible to produce the least seed of grace in the heart, or to add one cubit to the stature of it. No, as God is the father of the rain, by which the herbs in the fields spring and grow, so also of those spiritual dews and influences that must make every grace thrive and flourish. The apostle, in the former place, teacheth us this when he prays that God would ‘perfect, establish, strengthen, settle them.’ And as of all grace in general, so of this in particular, Romans 15:13, where he is styled ‘the God of hope;’ and ‘by whom we abound in hope’ also. It is a supernatural hope; and thereby we distinguish it from the heathens’ hope, which, with the rest of their moral virtues, so far as any excellency was found in them, came from God—to whom every man that cometh into the world is beholden for all the light he hath, John 1:9—and is but the remains of man’s first noble principles, as sometimes we shall see a broken turret or two stand in the midst of the ruins of some stately palace demolished, that serves for little more than to help the spectator to give a guess what godly buildings once stood there. Second. Here is hope’s subject—the believer. True hope is a jewel that none wears but Christ’s bride; a grace with which none is graced but the be­liever’s soul. Christless and hopeless are joined together, Ephesians 2:12. And here it is not amiss to observe the order in which hope stands to faith. In regard of time, they are not one before another; but in order of nature and operation, faith hath preced ency of hope. First, faith closeth with the promise as a true and faithful word, then hope lifts up the soul to wait for the performance of it. Who goes out to meet him that he believes will not come? The promise is, as it were, God’s love‑letter to his church and spouse, in which he opens his very heart, and tells all he means to do for her. Faith reads and embraceth it with joy, whereupon the believing soul by hope looks out at his window with a longing expectation to see her hus­band’s chariot come in the accomplishment thereof. So Paul gives a reason for his own hope from his faith, Acts 24:14-15, and prays for the Romans’ faith in order to their hope, Romans 15:13. Third. Here is hope’s object. 1. In general, something that is good. If a thing be evil, we fear and flee from it; if good, we hope and wait for it. And here is one note of difference be­tween it and faith. Faith believes evil as well as good; hope is conversant about good. 2. It is the good of the promise. And in this faith and hope agree; both their lines are drawn from the same centre of the promise. Hope without a promise is like an anchor without ground to hold by; it bears the promise on its name. ‘I stand and am judged,’ saith Paul, ‘for the hope of the promise,’ Acts 26:6. So David shows where he moors his ship and casts his anchor. ‘I hope in thy word,’ Psalms 119:81. True hope will trade only for true good. And we can all nothing so that the good God hath not promised; for the promise runs thus, ‘No good thing will he withhold from them that walk up­rightly,’ Psalms 84:11. 3. All good things of the promise. As God hath encircled all good in the promise, so he hath prom­ised nothing but good; and therefore hope’s object is all that the promise holds forth. Only, as the matter of the promise hath more degrees of goodness, so hope intends its act, and longs more earnestly for it. God, he is the chief good, and the fruition of him is promised as the utmost happiness of the creature. Therefore true hope takes her chief aim at God, and makes after all other promises in a subserviency to heave and lift the soul nearer unto him. He is called ’the Hope of Israel,’ Jeremiah 17:13. There is nothing be­yond God the enjoying of which the believer projects; and nothing short of God that he can be so content with as, for the enjoying of it, to be willing to give God a general and full discharge of what by promise he stands engaged to him for. Now, because God is only enjoyed fully and securely in heaven’s blissful state, therefore it is called ‘the hope of glory,’ Colossians 1:27, ‘the hope of eternal life,’ Titus 3:7, and ‘the hope of salvation,’ 1 Thessalonians 5:8. 4. The object of hope is the good of the prom­ise, not in hand, but yet to be performed. ‘Hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?’ Romans 8:24. Futurity is intrinsical to hope’s object, and distinguisheth it from faith, which gives a present being to the promise, and is §8B\>@­µX@F\" and *b<"µ4H —the authority and strength to hope comes from Christ; the former by the effusion of his blood for us, the latter by the infusion of his Spirit into us. [Why this hope is called the hope of salvation.] Second Inquiry. Why is the Christian’s hope styled a ‘hope of salvation?’ A double reason is ob­vious. First Reason. Because salvation comprehends and takes within its circle the whole object of his hope. ‘Salvation’ imports such a state of bliss, where­in meet eminently the mercies and enjoyments of the promises, scattered some in one and some in an­other; as at the creation, the light which was first diffused through the firmament was gathered into the sun. Cast up the particular sums of all good things promised in the covenant, and the total which they amount unto is, salvation. The ultima unitas—final whole, or unity, gives the denomination to the num­ber, because it comprehends all; so salvation the ul­timate object of the Christian’s expectation, and that which comprehends the rest, denominates his hope. Second Reason. It is called ‘a hope of salva­tion,’ to distinguish it from the worldling’s hope, whose portion, Psalms 16:1-11, is in this life, and so his hope also. It is confessed that many of these will pretend to a hope of salvation; but the truth is, they neither have right to it, nor are they very eager of it. They think themselves so well seated in this world, that if they might have their wish, it should be that God would not remove them hence. Even when they say they hope to be saved, their consciences tell them that they had rather stay here than part with this world in hope to mend themselves in the other. They blow up themselves into a hope and desire of salvation, more out of a dread of hell than liking of heaven. None I think so mad among them but had rather be saved than damned—live in heaven than lie in hell—yet the best of the whole pack likes this world better than them both. [Why hope is compared to a helmet.] Third Inquiry. Why is hope compared to a helmet? For this conceive a double reason. First Reason. The helmet defends the head, a principal part of the body, from dint of bullet and sword; so this ‘hope of salvation’ defends the soul, the principal part of man, and the principal faculties of that, whereby no dangerous, to be sure no deadly, impression by Satan or sin be made on it. Tempta­tions may trouble but cannot hurt, except their darts enter the will and leave a wound there, by drawing it to some consent and liking of them; from which this helmet of hope, if it be of the right make, and fits sure on the Christian’s head, will defend him. It is hard to draw him into any treasonable practice against his prince, who is both well satisfied of his favour at pres­ent, and stands also on the stairs of hope, expecting assuredly to be called up within a while to the highest preferment that the court can afford or his king give. No, the weapons of rebellion and treason are usually forged and fashioned in discontent’s shop. When subject’s take themselves to be neglected and slighted by their prince—think that their preferments are now at an end, and [that they] must look for no great favours more to come from him—this softens them to receive every impression of disloyalty that any enemy to the king shall attempt to stamp them withal. As we see in the Israelites; thinking the men of Judah, of whose tribe the king was, had got a monopoly of his favour, and themselves to be shut out from sharing, at least equally, with them therein; how soon are they —even at a blast or two of Sheba’s seditious trumpet —made rebels against their sovereign? ‘We have no part in David,’ saith Sheba, ‘neither have we inheri­tance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel!’ 2 Samuel 20:1. And see how this treason runs, even like a squib upon a rope. ‘Every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba,’ 2 Samuel 20:2. Thus, if once the soul fears it hath no part in God, and expects no inheritance from him, I know no sin so great but it may at the sound of the tempter’s trumpet be drawn to commit. Second Reason. As the helmet defends the soldier’s head from wounding, so his heart also from swooning. It makes him bold and fearless in battle though amidst swords and bullets. Goliath with his helmet of brass and other furniture, how confidently and daringly did the man come on! As if he had been so enclosed in his armour that it was impossible that any we apon could come near to deliver a message of death unto him! This made him carry his crest so high, and defy a whole host, till at last he paid his life for his pride and folly. But here is a helmet that whoever wears it need never be put to shame for his holy boasting. God himself allows him so to do, and will bear him out in this rejoicing of his hope. ‘Thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me,’ Isaiah 49:23. This made holy David so undaunted in the midst of his enemies, ‘Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear,’ Psalms 27:3. His hope would not suffer his heart so much as beat within him for any fear of what they could do to him. He had this ‘helmet of salva­tion’ on, and therefore he saith, ‘Mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me,’ ver. 6. A man cannot drown so long as his head is above water. Now it is the proper office of hope to do this for the Christian in times of any danger. ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh,’ Luke 21:28. A strange time, one would think, for Christ then to bid his disciples lift up their heads in, when they see other ‘men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth,’ Luke 21:26, yet, now is the time of the rising of their sun when others’ is setting, and blackness of darkness overtaking them; because now the Christian’s feast is coming, for which hope hath saved its stomach so long—‘your redemption draweth nigh.’ Two things make the head hang down—fear and shame. Hope easeth the Christian’s heart of both these; and so forbids him to give any sign of a desponding mind by a dejected countenance. And so much may suffice for explication of the words. I come now to lay down the one general point of doctrine, from which our whole dis­course on this one piece of armour shall be drawn. DIRECTION IX.—SECOND GENERAL PART. [Use of the Helmet, or the Offices of Hope in the Christian Warfare.] The doctrine now then is, that hope is a grace of singular use and service to us all along our spiritual warfare and Christian course. We are directed to take the helmet of salvation—and this, not for some particular occasion and then hang it by till another extraordinary strait calls us to take it down and use it again—but we must take it so as never to lay it aside till God shall take off this helmet to put on a crown of glory in the room of it. ‘Be sober and hope to the end,’ is the apostle Peter’s counsel, 1 Peter 1:13. There are some engines of war that are of use but now and then, as ladders for scaling of a town or fort; which done, [they] are laid aside for a long time and not missed. But the helmet is of continual use. We shall need it as long as our war with sin and Satan lasts. The Christian is not beneath hope so long as above ground, nor above hope so long as beneath heaven. Indeed when once he enters the gates of that glorious city, then ‘farewell hope and welcome love forever.’ He may say, with the holy martyr, Armour becomes earth, but robes heaven. Hope goes into the field and waits on the Christian till the last battle be fought and the field cleared, and then faith and hope together carry him in the chariot of the promise to heaven door, where they deliver up his soul into the hands of love and joy, which stand ready to conduct him into the blissful presence of God. But that I may speak more particularly of hope’s serviceableness to the Christian, and the several offices it performeth for him, I shall reduce all to these four heads. First. Hope puts the Christian upon high and noble ex­ploits. Second. Hope makes him diligent and faith­ful in the meanest services. Third. Hope keeps him patient amidst the greatest sufferings. Fourth. Hope composeth and quiets the spirit, when God stays longest before he comes to perform promises. First of the first. FIRST OFFICE. [Hope, as the Christian’s helmet, stirs him to noble exploits.] Hope of salvation puts the Christian upon high and noble exploits. It is a grace born for great ac­tions. Faith and hope are the two poles on which all the Christian’s noble enterprises turn. As carnal hope excites carnal men to their achievements which gain them any renown in the world, so is this heav­enly hope influential unto the saints’ undertakings. What makes the merchant sell house and land, and ship his whole estate away to the other end almost of the world—and this amidst a thousand hazards from pirates, waves and winds—but hope to get a greater by this bold adventure? What makes the daring soldier rush into the furious battle, upon the very mouth of death itself, but hope to snatch honour and spoil out of its jaws? Hope is his helmet, shield, and all, which makes him laugh on the face of all danger. In a word, what makes the scholar beat his brains so hard —sometimes with the hazard of breaking them, by overstraining his parts with too eager and hot a pur­suit of learning—but hope but hope of commencing some degrees higher in the knowledge of those secrets in nature that are locked up from vulgar under­standings?—who, when he hath attained his desire, is paid but little better for all his pains and study, that have worn nature in him to the stumps, than he is that tears the flesh off his hands and knees with creeping up some craggy mountain, which proves but a barren bleak place to stand in, and wraps him up in the clouds from the sight of others, leaving him little more to please himself with but this, that he can look over other men’s heads, and see a little farther than they. Now if these peddling hopes can prevail with men to such fixed resolutions for the obtaining of these poor sorry things, which borrow part of their goodness from men’s fancy and imagination, how much more effectual must the Christian’s hope of eternal life be to provoke him to the achievement of more noble exploits! Let a few instances suffice. First. This hope raiseth in the Christian a heroic res­olution against those lusts that held him before in bondage. Second. This hope ennobles and enables the Christian to contemn the present world with all its pomp, treasure, and pleasure, to which the rest of the sons of men are, every man of them, basely enslaved. Third. This hope, where it is steadfast, makes the Christian active and zealous for God. Fourth. It begets in the Christian a holy impatience after further attainments, especially when it grows to some strength. [Instances wherein hope has raised the Christian to noble exploits.] First Instance. This hope raiseth in the Chris­tian heroic resolution against those lusts that held him before in bondage. The Israelites who couched so tamely under the Egyptian burdens, without any attempt made by them to shake off the oppressor’s yoke, when once Moses came from God to give them hope of an approaching salvation, and his report had gained some credit to be believed by them, it is strange to see what a mighty change the impression of their new‑conceived hope made upon them. On a sudden their mettle returns, and their blood, that with anguish and despair had so long chilled, and been even frozen in their veins, grows warm again. They who had hardly durst let their groans be heard —so cowed were their spirits with hard labour—dare now, fortified with hope, break open their prison doors, and march out of Egypt towards the place of rest promised, maugre [in spite of] all the power and wrath of enraged Pharaoh, who pursued them. Truly, thus it is with a soul in regard of sin’s bondage. O how impotent and poor‑spirited is a soul void of this heavenly hope! what a tame slave hath Satan of him! He is the footstool for every base lust to trample upon. He suffers the devil to back and ride him whither he pleaseth, without wincing. No puddle so filthy, but Satan may draw him through it with a twine thread. The poor wretch is well enough con­tented with his ignoble servitude, because he knows no better master than him he serves, nor better wages than the swill of his sensual pleasures which his lusts allow him. But, let the news of salvation come to the ear of this sin‑deluded soul, and a spiritual eye be given him to see the transcendent glory thereof, with a crevice of hope set open to him, that he is the per­son that shall inherit it, if willing to make an ex­change of Satan for Christ, and of the slavery of his lusts for the liberty of his Redeemer’s service—O what havoc then doth the soul begin to make among his lusts! He presently vows the death of them all, and sets his head at work how he may soonest and most effectually rid his hands of them. ‘Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure,’ 1 John 3:3. He now looks upon his lusts with no better eye than a captive prince would do on his cruel keepers, out of whose hands could he but make an escape, he would presently enjoy his crown and kingdom; and therefore meditates his utmost revenge upon them. There may be some hasty pur­poses taken up by carnal men against their lusts, upon some accidental discontent they meet with now and then in the prosecution of them; but, alas! the swords they draw against them are soon in their sheaths again, and all the seeming fray comes to nothing in the end. They, like Esau, go out full and angry in a sudden mood, but a present comes from their lusts that bribes them from hurting them; yea, so reconciles them to them, that, as he did by his broth­er, they can fall upon the necks of those lusts to kiss them, which a while before they threatened to kill; and all for want of a true hope of heaven to outbid the proffers their lusts make to appease their anger, which would never yield a peace should be patched up with them on such infinite hard terms as it must needs be, the loss of eternal salvation. He that hath a mind to provide himself with arguments to arm him against sin’s motions, need not go far to seek them; but he that handles this one well, and drives it home to the head, will not need many more. What is the sin this would not prostrate? Art thou tempted to any sensual lust? Ask thy hope what thou lookest to be in heaven. And canst thou yield to play the beast on earth, who hopest to be made like the pure and holy angels in heaven? Is it a sin of profit that bewitcheth thee? Is not a hope of heaven a spell strong enough to charm this devil? Can gold bear any sway with thee that hopest to be heir of that city where gold bears no price? Wherefore is that blissful place said to be paved with gold, but to let us know it shall be there trampled up­on as of no account? And wilt thou let that now lie in thy heart, that will ere long be laid under thy feet? Is it a sin of revenge? Dost thou not hope for a day when thy dear Saviour will plead thy cause, and what needest thou then take his work out of his hand? Let him be his own judge that hath no hope; the Judge, when he comes, will take his part. Second Instance. This hope ennobles and en­ables the Christian to contemn the present world, with all its pomp, treasure, and pleasure, to which the rest of the sons of men are, every man of them, basely enslaved and held by the leg as a prisoner by this chain. When once faith makes a discovery of land that the Christian hath lying in heaven, and, by hope, he begins to lot upon it as that which he shall shortly take up at his remove from earth; truly then the price of this world’s felicity falls low in his account; he can sell all his hopes from it very cheap, yea, he can part with what he hath in hand of this world’s growth, when God calls him to it, more freely than Alexander did the cities he took; because, when all this is gone, he shall leave himself a better hope than that great monarch had to live upon. The hopes of heaven leave a blot upon the world in the Christian’s thoughts. It is no more now to him, than the asses were to anointed Saul. Story tells us of some Turks who have, upon the sight of Mahomet’s tomb, put their eyes out, that they might not defile them, forsooth! with any common object after they had been blessed with seeing one so sacred. I am sure many a gracious soul there hath been, who by a prospect of heaven’s glory—the palace of the great God—set before the eye of their faith, have been so ravished with the sight, that they have desired God even to seal up their eyes by death, with Simeon, who would not by his good‑will have lived a day after that blessed hour in which his eyes had be­held the ‘salvation’ of God. Abraham was under the hope of this salvation, and therefore ‘he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country;...for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,’ Hebrews 11:9-10. Canaan would have liked [pleased] him well enough, if God had not told him of a heaven that he meant to give him, in comparison to which, Canaan is now but Cabul—a dirty land, in his judgment. So Paul tells us not only the low thoughts he hath himself of the world, but as they agree with the common sense of all believers, whose hope is come to any consistency and settlement, ‘for our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour,’ Php 3:20. Mark, he sets the saint with his back upon earth; and draws his reason from their hope—‘from whence we look,’ &c. Indeed, he that looks on heaven must needs look off earth. The soul’s eye can as little as the body’s eye be above and below at the same time. Every man converseth most where he hopes for to receive his greatest gains and advantage. The publican sits at the receipt of custom: there come in his gains. The courtier stands at his prince’s elbow. The merchant, if you will find him, look for him in his warehouse or at the exchange. But the Christian’s hope carries him by all these doors. Here is not my hope, saith the soul; and therefore not my haunt. My hope is in heaven, from whence I look for the Saviour to come, and my salvation to come with him; there I live, walk, and wait. Nothing but a steadfast well‑grounded hope of salvation can buy off the creature’s worldly hopes. The heart of man cannot be in this world without a hope; and if it hath no hope for heaven, it must of necessity take in at earth, and borrow one there such as it can afford. What indeed can suit an earthly heart better than an earthly hope? And that which is a man’s hope—though poor and peddling—is highly prized, and hardly parted with. As we see in a man like to drown, and [who] hath only some weed or bough by the bank’s side to hold by; he will die with it in his hand rather than let go; he will endure blows and wounds rather than lose his hold. Nothing can take him from it, but that which he hopes may serve better to save him from drowning. Thus it is with a man whose hope is set upon the world, and whose happiness [is] expected to be paid in from thence. O how such a one hugs and hangs about the world! You may as soon persuade a fox to come out of his hole, where he hath taken sanctuary from the dogs. Such a one to cast off his hopes! No, he is undone without this pelf and that honour; it is that he hath a lid up his hopes in, and hope and life are ever kept in the same hand. Scare and threaten him with what you will, still the man’s heart will hold its own. Yea, throw hell‑fire into his bosom, and tell him this love of the world, and making gold his hope, will damn him another day, still he will hold to his way. Felix is a fit instance for this, Acts 24:26. Paul preached a thundering sermon before him; and though the preacher was at the bar, and Felix on the bench, yet God so armed the word, that he ‘trembled’ to hear the prisoner speak ‘of righteousness, temper­ance, and judgment to come.’ Yet this man, notwith­standing his conscience was struggling with the fears of judgement, and some sparks of divine vengeance had taken fire on him, could at the same time be sending out his heart on a covetous errand, to look for a bribe, for want of which he left that blessed servant of God in his bloody enemies’ hands; for it is said, Acts 24:26, ‘he hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him.’ But he missed his market; for, as a sordid hope of a little money made him basely refuse to deliver Paul, so the blessed hope which Paul had for another world made him more honourably disdain to purchase his deliver­ance at his hands with a bribe. Third Instance. This hope of salvation, where it is steadfast, makes the Christian active and zealous for God. It is called ‘a lively hope,’ 1 Peter 1:3. They are men of mettle that have it. You may expect more from him than many others, and not be deceived. Why are men dull and heavy in their service of God? Truly because their hopes are so. Hopeless and life­less go together. No marvel the work goes hardly off a‑hand, when men have no hope, or but little, to be well paid for their labour in doing of it. He that thinks he works for a song, as we say, will not sing at his work—I mean, be forward and cheery in it. The best customer is sure to be served best and first, and him we count the best customer that we hope will be the best paymaster. If God be thought so, we will leave all to do his business. This made Paul engage so deep in the service of the gospel, [as] even to lose his worldly friends, and lay his own life to stake, it was ‘for the hope of the promise,’ Acts 26:6. This made the other Israelites that feared God follow the trade of godliness so close, ‘unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come,’ Acts 26:7. Mark, they are both instant, and con­stant, ¦< ¦6J,<,\‘. They run with full speed, stretch­ing themselves forth as in a race; and this, at night and day—no stop or halt in their way, but ever put­ting on. And what is it that keeps them in breath? even the hope that they shall at last come to that salvation promised. Nothing better to expectorate and clear the soul of this dull phlegm of sloth and listlessness of spirit in the service of God, than hope well improved and strengthened. It is the very physic which the apostle prescribes for this disease: ‘We desire that every one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end; that ye be not slothful,’ Hebrews 6:11-12. Fourth Instance. Hope begets in the Chris­tian a holy impatience after further attainments, espe­cially when it grows to some strength. The higher our hopes of salvation rise, the more will our hearts widen and distend themselves in holy desires. ‘Not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,’ Romans 8:23. Methinks rejoicing would better become them for what they have already, than groan­ing for what they have not. Who may better stay long for their dinner, than they who have their stomachs stayed with a good breakfast? This would hold in bodily food, but not spiritual. No doubt, the sweet­ness which they tasted from their first‑fruits in hand did cheer their spirits; but the thoughts of what was behind made them groan. Hope waits for all, and will not let the soul sit down contented till all the dishes be on the board—till the whole harvest that stands on the field of the promise be reaped and well inned; yea, the more the Christian hath received in partial payments, the deeper groans hope makes the soul fetch for what is behind. And that, First. Because these foretastes do acquaint the Christian more with the nature of those joys which are in heaven, and so enlarge his understanding to have more raised conceptions of the felicity those en­joy that are arrived there. And the increasing of his knowledge must needs enlarge his desires; and those desires break out into sad groans, to think what sweet wine is drunk in full bowls by glorified saints, and he living where only a sip is allowed, that doth not satisfy but kindle his thirst. It is harder now for him to live on this side heaven than before he knew so much. He is like one that stands at the door within which is a rich feast. He hears them how merry they are. Through the keyhole he sees what variety they have; and by a little which he licks from the trenchers that are brought out is sensible how delicious their fare is. O how such a one’s teeth would water after their cheer; which another misse th not that hears not of it, or only hears, and tastes not of their dainties! The nearer the soul stands to heaven, and the more he knows of their joys, the more he blesseth them and pities himself. None long for heaven more than those who enjoy most of heaven. All delays now are exceed­ingly tedious to such. Their continual moan is, ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?’ The last year is thought longer by the apprentice than all his time before, because it is nearer out. And if delays be so tedious, what then are desertions to such a soul, who hath his hopes of salva­tion raised high by the sweet illapses of the Spirit and foretastes of glory! No doubt Moses’ death so nigh Canaan, after he had tasted of the fruit of the land at the spies’ hand, was exceeding grievous. To lose a child grown up, when we seem ready to reap our hopes conceived of him, is more than to part with two in the cradle, that have not yet drawn our conceptions far. The Christian indeed, cannot quite lose his hopes. Yet he may have them nipped and set back, as a forward spring, by after‑claps of winter weather, which pinches so much the more because the warm beams of the sun had made the herbs come forth and disclose themselves. And so desertions from God do make the saddest impression upon those, above all others, whose expectation had advanced far, and, by the present sense of divine goodness, been unfolded into a kind of rejoicing through hope of glory. Now to meet with a damp from the frowns of the Almighty, and to be benighted by the withdrawing of that light which did so ravish it, O how dreadful must this sudden change be to the soul! Second. These present attainments of grace or comfort, they do embolden the soul to expect yet more; and so provoke the Christian to press on for the full payment of all. See both these in David: ‘Be­cause thou hast been my help, therefore in the sha­dow of thy wings will I rejoice,’ Psalms 63:7. The present boon he hath got makes him rejoice in hope of what is yet to come, and by this scent he is carried out with full cry to pursue the chase for more, as appears in the very next words, ‘my soul followeth hard after thee,’ ver. 8. And no wonder, if we consider that God gives his people their experiences with this very no­tion stamped on them, i.e. to raise their expectations for further mercies at his hand: ‘I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope,’ Hosea 2:15. God is there speaking to a soul converted and newly taken into covenant, what blessings he will bestow on it, as the happy effects of its reconciliation to God and marriage with Christ, and he alludes to his dealing with Israel, who came out of a desolate wilderness—where they had wan­dered, and endured unspeakable hardship, forty years —into a pleasant fruitful country, in the very en­trance where whereof this Achor lay, which, when God gave them, he would not have them look on it as in itself it was a little spot of ground, and not so much worth, but as the opening of a door through which he would undertake to let them into the possession of the whole land in process of time; which circum­stance, believed by them, made Joshua advance his banners with so much courage against the proudest of his enemies, well knowing that man could not shut that door upon them which God had opened to them. Thus every particular assistance God gives the Christian against one corruption, is intended by God to be an Achor—‘a door of hope,’ from which he may expect the total overthrow of that cursed seed in his bosom. When he adds the least degree of strength to his grace or comfort he gives us an Achor, or door of hope, that he will consummate both in glory. O what courage this must needs bring to thee, poor heart, in thy fears and faintings! Paul had many enemies at Ephesus to oppose him, but having ‘an effectual door opened unto him,’ for his encouragement, he went on undauntedly, 1 Corinthians 16:9. As an army, when, after stub­born resistance by the enemy, who labour what they can to keep them out, the door or gate of the city flies open, then the soldiers press in amain with a shout, ‘the city is our own.’ Thus when, after long tugging, and much wrestling with God for pardon of sin, or strength against sin, the door of the promise flies open, and God comes in with some assisting, com­forting presence, now hope takes heart, and makes the soul fall on with double force and zeal. SECOND OFFICE. [Hope, as the Christian’s helmet, makes him faithful in the meanest services.] As hope raiseth the Christian’s spirit to attempt great exploits, so it makes him diligent and faithful in the meanest and lowest services that the providence of God calls him to;—for the same providence lays out every one his work and calling, which sets bounds for their habitations on the earth. Some he sets on the high places of the earth, and appoints them hon­ourable employments, suitable to their place. Others he pitcheth down on lower ground, and orders them in some obscure corner, to employ themselves about work of an inferior nature all their life, and we need not be ashamed to do that work which the great God sets us about. The Italians say true, ‘No man fouls his hands in doing his own business.’ Now, to en­courage every Christian to be faithful in his particular place, he hath made promises that are applicable to them all. Promises are like the beams of the sun: they shine in as freely at the window of the poor man’s cottage as of the prince’s palace. And these hope trades with, and from these animates the Chris­tian at his work. Indeed, we are no more faithful in our callings than [we are] acted by faith and hope therein. Now, you shall observe, God lays his promise, so as it may strengthen our hands and hearts against the chief discouragement that is most like to weaken them in their callings. The great discouragement of those high and public employments—magistracy and ministry—is the difficulty of the province, and oppo­sition they find from the angry world. These there­fore are guarded and supported with such promises as may fortify their hearts against the force and fury with which the world comes forth to oppose them. ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee: be strong and of a good courage,’ Joshua 1:5, [a promise] which was given to Israel’s chief magistrate. And the minister’s prom­ise suits well with this, as having ordinarily the same difficulties, enemies, and discouragements: ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations;...and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,’ Matthew 28:19-20. Again, the temptation which usually haunts persons in low and more ignoble callings, is the very meanness of them; which occasions discontent and envy in some, to see themselves on the floor, and their brother preferred to more honourable services; in others, dejection of spirit, as if they were, like the eunuch, but dry trees, unprofitable, and brought no glory to God, while others, by their more eminent places and callings, have the advantage of being highly serviceable to God in their generations. Now, to arm the Christian against this temptation, and remove this discouragement, God hath annexed as great a reward in the promise to his faithfulness in the meanest em­ployment, as the most honourable is capable of. What more mean and despicable than the servant’s employ­ment? yet no less than heaven itself is promised to them if faithful. He is speaking there to such. ‘What­soever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ,’ Colossians 3:23-24. Where observe, First. What honour he puts on the poor serv­ants’ work. He serves the Lord Christ; yea, in the lowest piece of work that belongs to his office. His drudgery is divine service, as well as his praying and hearing; for he saith, ‘Whatsoever ye do.’ Again observe, Second. The reward that is laid up for such; and that is as great as he shall receive that hath been faith­ful in ruling kingdoms, ‘the reward of the inherit­ance.’ As if God had said, ‘Be not, O my child, out of love with thy coarse homely work. Ere long thou shalt sit as high as he that sways sceptres. Though your employment now be not the same with his, yet your acceptation is the same, and so shall your reward also be.’ Thus we see, as we bestow more abundant honour on those members which we think less hon­ourable; so doth Christ with those members of his body which, by reason of their low place in the world, may be thought to be most despised—he puts an abundant honour upon them in his promise. And where hope is raised, the Christian cannot but take sweet satisfaction from the expectation thereof. The poor ploughman that is a saint, and plows in hope of reaping salvation, would be as well contented with his place and work as the bravest courtier is with his. Think of this, when any of you have a servant to choose; if you would have your work faithfully and heartily done, employ such about it—if they be to be had—as have a hope of salvation. This will not suffer them to wrong you, though they could. Their helmet will defend them from such temptations. Jacob was a true drudge for his master Laban by day and by night, though he used him none of the best in chop­ping and changing his wages so oft. But Jacob served in hope, and expected his reward from a better master than Laban; and this made him faithful to an unfaith­ful man. Joseph would not wrong his master, though at the request of his mistress. He chose to suffer his unjust anger, rather than accept of her unchaste love. The evidence of this grace in a servant is better se­curity for his faithfulness than a bond of a thousand pounds. THIRD OFFICE. [Hope, as the Christian’s helmet, supports him in the greatest afflictions.] This hope of salvation supports the soul in the greatest afflictions. The Christian’s patience is, as it were, his back, on which he bears his burdens; and some afflictions are so heavy, that he needs a broad one to carry them well. But if hope lay not the pillow of the promise between his back and his burden, the least cross will prove insupportable; therefore it is called ‘the patience of hope,’ 1 Thessalonians 1:3. There is a patience, I confess, and many know not a better, when men force themselves into a kind of quietness in their troubles because they cannot help it, and there is no hope. This I may call a desperate pa­tience, and it may do them some service for a while, and but for a while. If despair were a good cure for troubles, the damned would have more ease; for they have despair enough, if that would help them. There is another patience also very common in the world, and that is a blockish stupid patience, which, like Nabal’s mirth, lasts no longer than they are drunk with ignorance and senselessness; for they no sooner come to themselves to understand the true state they are in, but their hearts die within them. But ‘the patience of hope,’ we are now treating of, is a sober grace, and abides as long as hope lasts; when hope is lively and active, then it floats, yea even danceth aloft the waters of affliction, as a tight sound ship doth in a tempestuous sea; but when hope springs a leak, then the billows break into the Chris­tian’s bosom, and he sinks apace, till hope, with much labour at the pump of the promise, clears the soul again. This was David’s very case. ‘Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul,’ Psalms 69:1. What means he by ‘coming unto his soul?’ Sure­ly no other than this, that they oppressed his spirit, and as it were sued into his very conscience, raising fears and perplexities there, by reason of his sins, which at present put his faith and hope to some dis­order, that he could not for a while see to the com­fortable end of his affliction, but was as one under water, and covered with his fears; as appears by what follows, ‘I sink in deep mire, where there is no stand­ing,’ Psalms 69:2. He compares himself to one in a quag­mire, that can feel no firm ground to bear him up. And observe whence his trouble rose, and where the waters made their entrance: ‘O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee,’ Psalms 69:5. This holy man lay under some fresh guilt, and this made him so uncomfortable under his affliction, because he saw his sin in the face of that and tasted some displeasure from God for it in his outward trouble, which made it so bitter in the going down; and therefore, when once he hath humbled himself in a mournful confession of his sin, and was able to see the coast clear betwixt heaven and him, so as to be­lieve the pardon of his sin, and hope for good news from God again, he then returns to the sweet temper, and can sing in the same affliction where before he did sink. But more particularly I shall show what powerful influence hope hath on the Christian in af­fliction, and how. First. What influence it hath. Second. Whence and how hope hath this virtue. [The influence of hope on the Christian in affliction.] First. What influence hope hath on the Christian in affliction. First Influence. Hope stills and silenceth the Christian under affliction. It keeps the king’s peace in the heart, which else would soon be in an uproar. A hopeless soul is clamorous. One while it chargeth God, another while it reviles instruments. It cannot long rest, and no wonder, when hope is not there to rock it asleep. Hope hath a rare art in stilling a fro­ward spirit when nothing else can; as the mother can make the crying child quiet by laying it to the breast, when the rod makes it cry worse. This way David took, and found it effectual. When his soul was out of quiet, by reason of his present affliction, he lays his soul to the breast of the promise. ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God,’ Psalms 43:5. And here his soul sweetly sleeps, as the child with the teat in his mouth. And that this was his usual way, we may think by the fre­quent instances we find to this purpose. Thrice we find him taking this course in two psalms, Psalms 42:1-11 and Psalms 43:1-5. When Aaron and Miriam were so uncivil with Moses, and used him so ill in their foul language, no doubt it was a heavy affliction to the spirit of that holy man, and aggravation of his sorrow, to consider out of whose bow these sharp arrows came; yet it is said, ‘Moses held his peace’—waiting for God to clear his innocency. And his patience made God, no doubt, the more angry to see this meek man wronged, who durst trust him with the righting of his name; and therefore [it was that] with such speed he wiped off the dirt they had thrown on him, before it could soak in to the prejudice of his good name in the thoughts of others. Indeed this waiting on God for deliverance in an afflicted state, consists much in a holy silence. ‘Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation,’ Psalms 62:1—or, as the Hebrew, ‘my soul is silent.’ It is a great mercy, in an affliction that is sharp, to have our bodily senses, so as not to lie rav­ing or roaring, but still and quiet; much more to have the heart silent and patient. And we find the heart is as soon heat into a distemper, as the head. Now, what the sponge is to the cannon when hot with often shooting, that is hope to the soul in multiplied afflic­tions; it cools the spirit, and meekens it, that it doth not fly apieces, and break out into distempered thoughts or words against God. Second Influence. This hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation, that it can laugh while tears are in the eye—sigh and sing all in a breath. It is called ‘the rejoicing of hope,’ Hebrews 3:6. And hope never affords more joy than in affliction. It is on a watery cloud that the sun paints those curious colours in the rainbow. ‘Rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations,’ Romans 5:2-3. Glorying is rejoicing in a ravishment —when it is so great that it cannot contain itself with­in the Christian’s own breast, but comes forth in some outward expression, and lets others know what a feast it sits at within. The springs of comfort lie high indeed when his joy pours out at the mouth. And all this joy with which the suffering saint is entertained, is sent in by hope at the cost of Christ, who hath provided such unspeakable glory for them in heaven as will not suffer them to pity or bemoan themselves for those tribulations that befall them on the way to it. Dum mala pungunt, bona promissa un­guunt—while calamities smite with oppression, the gracious promises anoint with their blessings. Hope breaks the alabaster box of the promise over the Christian’s head, and so diffuseth the consolations thereof abroad the soul, which, like a precious oint­ment, have a virtue, as to exhilarate and refresh the spirit in its faintings, so to heal the wounds and re­move the smart which the Christian’s poor heart may feel from its affliction, according to the apostle in the aforementioned place: ‘Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts,’ Romans 5:5. There are two graces which Christ useth above any other to fill the soul with joy; and they are faith and hope, because these two fetch all their wine of joy without doors. Faith tells the soul what Christ hath done for it, and so comforts it. Hope revives the soul with news of what Christ will do. Both draw at one tap—Christ and his promise. Whereas the other gra­ces present the soul with its own inherent excellencies —what it doth and suffers for him, rather than what he does for them; so that it were neither honourable for Christ, nor safe for the saint, to draw his joy from this vessel. Not honourable to Christ! This were the way to have the king’s crown set on the subject’s head, and cry Hosanna! to the grace of Christ in us, which is due only to the mercy of God in us. For thither we will carry our praise whence we have our joy; and therefore upon our allegiance we are only to ‘rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,’ Php 3:3. And it would be no more safe for us than honourable for him, because of the instability of our hearts, and unconstant actings of our graces, which are as oft ebbing as flowing. And so our joy could not be constant, because our graces are not; but as these springs lie high or low, so would this rise and fall. Yea, we were sure to drink more water than wine —oftener want joy than have it. Whereas now, the Christian’s cup need never be empty, because he draws his wine from an undrainable Fountain that never sends any poor soul away ashamed, as the brook of our inherent grace would certainly, at one time or other, do. [Whence and how hope hath its supporting influence in affliction.] Second. Whence and how hope hath its virtue; or what are the ingredients in hope’s cordial that thus exhilarates the saint’s spirit in affliction. First Answer. Hope brings certain news of a happy issue, that shall shortly close up all the wounds made by his present sufferings. When God comes to save his afflicted servants, though he may antedate their hopes, and surprise them before they looked for him, yet he doth not come unlooked for. Salvation is that they lot upon: ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end,’ Jeremiah 29:11—that is, an end suitable to the hopes and expec­tations taken up by you. Hope is a prying grace; it is able to look beyond the exterior transactions of provi­dence. It can, by the help of the promise, peep into the very bosom of God, and read what thoughts and purposes are written there concerning the Christian’s particular estate, and this it imparts to him, bidding him not to be at all troubled to hear God speaking roughly to him in the language of his providence. ‘For,’ saith hope, ‘I can assure thee he means thee well, whatever he saith that sounds otherwise. For as the law, which came hundreds of years after the promise made to Abraham, could not disannul it, so neither can any intervening afflictions make void those thoughts and counsels of love which so long before have been set upon his heart for thy deliver­ance and salvation.’ Now, such a one must needs have a great advantage above others for the pacifying and satisfying his spirit concerning the present pro­ceedings of God towards him; because, though the actings of God on the outward stage of providence be now sad and grievous, yet he is acquainted with heaven’s plot therein, and is admitted as it were into the attiring room of his secret counsel, where he sees garments of salvation preparing, in which he shall at last be clad, and come forth with joy. The traveller, when taken in a storm, can stand patiently under a tree while it rains, because he hopes it is but a show­er, and sees it clear up in one part of the heavens, while it is dark in another. Providence, I am sure, is never so dark and cloudy but hope can see fair weather a‑coming from the promise. ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh,’ Luke 21:28. And this is as black a day as can come. When the Christian’s affairs are most disconso­late, he may soon meet with a happy change. The joy of that blessed day, 1 Corinthians 15:52, comes ¦< •J@µå ¦< Õ4B­ ÏN2V8µ@Ø—‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,’ we shall be ‘changed.’ In one moment sick and sad, in the next well and glad, never to know more what groans and tears mean. Now clad with the rags of mortal flesh, made miserable with the thou­sand troubles that attend it; ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ arrayed with robes of immortality, embossed and enriched with a thousand times more glory than the sun itself wears in the garment of light which now dazzleth our eyes to look on. ‘It is but winking,’ said a holy martyr to his fellow‑sufferer in the fire with him, ‘and our pain and sorrow is all over with.’ Who can wonder to see a saint cheerful in his afflictions that knows what good news he looks to hear from heaven, and how soon he knows not? You have heard of the weapon‑salve, that cures wounds at a distance. Such a kind of salve is hope. The saints’ hope is laid up in heaven, and yet it heals all their wounds they receive on earth. But this is not all. For, as hope prophesies well concerning the happy end of the Christian’s afflictions, so it assures him he will be well tended and looked to while he lies under them. If Christ sends his disciples to sea, he means to be with them when they most need his company. The well child may be left a while by the mother, but the sick one she will by no means stir from. ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,’ Isaiah 43:2. You know what God said to Moses when he was sick of his employment, and made so many mannerly or rather unmannerly excuses from his own inability —and all that he might have leave to lay down his commission: ‘Go,’ saith God, ‘and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say,’ Exodus 4:12. And again, ‘Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee,’ Exodus 4:14. Thus God did ani­mate him, and toll [draw] him on to like that hard province he was called to. Methinks I hear hope, as God’s messenger, speaking after the same sort to the drooping soul oppressed with the thoughts of some great affliction, and ready to conclude he shall be able to stem so rough a tide—bear up cheerfully and lift up his head above such surging waves. ‘Go, O my soul,’ saith hope, ‘for thy God will be with thee, and thou shalt suffer at his charge. Is not Christ thy brother? yea, is he not thy husband? He, thou thinkest, can tell how to suffer, who was brought up to the trade from the cradle to the cross. Behold, even he comes forth to meet thee, glad to see thy face, and willing to impart some of his suffering skill unto thee.’ That man indeed must needs carry a heavy heart to prison with him, who knows neither how he can be maintained there nor delivered thence. But hope easeth the heart of both these, which taken away, suffering is a harmless thing and not to be dreaded. Second Answer. Hope assures the Christian not only of the certainty of salvation coming, but also of the transcendency of this salvation to be such, as the sorrow of his present sufferings bears no proportion to the joy of that. This kept the primitive Christians from swooning while their enemies let out their blood. They had the scent of this hope to exhilarate their spirits: ‘For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,’ 2 Corinthians 4:16. Is not this strange, that their spirit and courage should increase with the losing of their blood? What rare unheard‑of cordial was this? ‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,’ 2 Corinthians 4:17. Behold here the dif­ference betwixt hopes of heaven and hopes of the world. These latter, they are fanciful and slighty, seem great in hope but prove nothing in hand; like Eve’s apple, fair to look on as they hang on the tree, but sour in the juice, and of bad nourishment in the eating. They are, as one calls them wittily, ‘nothing between two dishes.’ It were well if men could in their worldly hopes come but to the unjust steward’s reckoning, and for a hundred felicities they promise themselves from the enjoyments they pursue, find but fifty at last paid them. No, alas! they must not look to come to so good a market, or have such fair deal­ings, that have to do with the creature, which will certainly put them to greater disappointments than so. They may bless themselves if they please for a while in their hopes, as the husbandman sometimes doth in the goodly show he hath of corn standing upon his ground; but by that time they have reaped their crop and thrashed out their hopes, they will find little besides straw and chaff—emptiness and vanity —to be left them. A poor return, God knows, to pay them for the expense of their time and strength which they have laid out upon them! Much less suitable to recompense the loss he is put to in his conscience; for there are few who are greedy hunters after the world’s enjoyments, that do drive this worldly trade without running in debt to their consciences. And I am sure he buys gold too dear, that pays the peace of his conscience for the purchase. But heaven is had cheap, though it be with the loss of all our carnal interests, even life itself. Who will grudge with a sorry lease of a low-rented farm, in which he also hath but a few days left before it expires (and such our temporal life is), for the perpetuity of such an inherit­ance as is to be had with the saints in light? This hath ever made the faithful servants of God carry their lives in their hands, willing to lay them down, ‘while they look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal,’ 2 Corinthians 4:18. Third Answer. As hope assures the soul of the certainty and transcendency of heaven’s salvation, so also of the necessary subserviency that his afflictions have towards his obtaining this salvation. ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?’ Luke 24:26. As if Christ had said, ‘What reason have you so to mourn, and take on for your Master’s death, as if all your hopes were now split and split? Ought he not to suffer? Was there any other way he could get home, and take possession of his glory that waited for him in heaven? And if you do not grudge him his preferment, never be so inordi­nately troubled to see him onwards to it, though through the deep and miry land of suffering.’ And truly the saint’s way to salvation lies in the same road that Christ went in: ‘If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together,’ Romans 8:17; only with this advantage, that his going before hath beaten it plain, so that now it may be forded, which but for him had been utterly impassable to us. Afflictions understood with this notion upon them—that they are as necessary for our waftage to glory as water is to carry the ship to her port, which may as soon sail without water, as a saint land in heaven without the subserviency of afflictions—this notion, I say, well understood, would reconcile the greatest afflictions to our thoughts, and make us delight to walk in their company. This knowledge Parisiensis calls unus de septem radiis divini scientiæ—one of the seven beams of divine knowledge; for the want of which we call good evil, and evil good—think God blesseth us when we are in the sunshine of prosperity, and curs­eth when our condition is overcast with a few clouds of adversity. But hope hath an eye that can see heav­en in a cloudy day, and an anchor that can find firm land under a weight of waters to hold by; it can expect good out of evil. The Jews open their windows when it thunders and lightens, expecting, they say, their Messiah to come at such a time to them. I am sure hope opens her window widest in a day of storm and tempest: ‘I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord,’ Zephaniah 3:12, and, Micah 7:7, ‘There­fore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.’ See what strong hold hope’s anchor takes. And it is a remark­able ‘therefore,’ if you observe the place. Because all things were at so desperate a pass in the church’s affairs—as there you will find them to be in man’s thinking—‘therefore,’ saith the saint, ‘I will look, I will wait.’ Indeed, God doth not take the axe into his hand to make chips. His people, when he is hewing them, and the axe goes deepest, they may expect some beautiful piece at the end of the work. It is a sweet meditation Parisiensis hath upon ‘We know that all things work together for good to them that love God,’ Romans 8:28. Ubi magis intrepida magis pensata esse debes, quàm inter cooperarios meos, et coadjutores meos?—Where, O my soul, shouldst thou be more satisfied, free of care and fear, then when thou art among thy fellow‑labourers, and those that come to help thee to attain thy so‑much desired salvation, which thy afflictions do? They work together with ordinances and other providential dealings of God for good; yea, thy chief good, and thou couldst ill spare their help as any other means which God appoints thee. Should one find, as soon as he riseth in the morning, some on his house‑top tearing off the tiles, and with axes and hammers taking down the roof thereof, he might at first be amazed and troubled at the sight, yea, think they are a company of thieves and enemies come to do him some mischief; but when he understands they are workmen sent by his father to mend his house, and make it better than it is—which cannot be done without taking some of it down he is satisfied and content to endure the present noise and trouble, yea thankful to his father for the care and cost he bestows on him. The very hope of what advantage will come of their work makes him very willing to dwell a while amidst the ruins and rubbish of his old house. I do not wonder to see hopeless souls so impatient in their sufferings—sometimes even to distraction of mind. Alas! they fear presently—and have reason so to do —that they come to pull all their worldly joys and comforts down about their ears; which gone, what, alas! have they left to comfort them, who can look for nothing but hell in another world? But the believer’s heart is eased of all this, because assured from the promise that they are sent on a better errand to him from his heavenly Father, who intends him no hurt, but rather good—even to build the ruinous frame of a his soul into a glorious temple at last; and these af­flictions come, among other means, to have a hand in the work; and this satisfies him, that can say, ‘Lord, cut and hew me how thou wilt, that at last I may be polished and framed according to the platform [pat­tern] which love hath drawn in thy heart for me.’ Though some ignorant man would think his clothes spoiled when besmeared with fuller’s earth or soap, yet one that knows the cleansing nature of them will not be afraid to have them so used. FOURTH OFFICE. [Hope, as the Christian’s helmet, quiets his spirit when God delays to perform his promise.] The fourth and last office of hope propounded is, to quiet and compose the Christian’s spirit when God stays long before he come to perform promises. Patience, I told you, is the back on which the Chris­tian’s burdens are carried, and hope the pillow between the back and the burden, to make it sit easy. Now patience hath two shoulders; one to bear the present evil, and another to forbear the future good promised, but not yet paid. And as hope makes the burden of the present evil of the cross light, so it makes the longest stay of the future good promised short. Whereas, without this, the creature could have neither the strength to bear the one, nor forbear and wait for the other. ‘And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord,’ Lamentations 3:18; implying thus much, that where there is no hope there is no strength. The soul’s comfort lies drawing on, and soon gives up the ghost, where all hope fails. God un­dertook for Israel’s protection and provision in the wilderness, but when their dough was spent, and their store ended, which they brought out of Egypt, they fall foul with God and Moses. And why? but because their hope was spent as soon as their dough. Moses ascends the mount, and is but a few days out of their sight, and in all haste they must have a golden calf. And why? but because they gave him for lost, and never hoped to see him more. This is the reason why God hath so few servants that will stick fast to him, because God puts them to wait for what he means to give, and most are short-spirited, and cannot stay. You know what Naomi said to her daughters, ‘If I should have an husband also to night, and should also bear sons; would ye tarry for them till they were grown? would ye stay for them from having hus­bands?’ Ruth 1:12-13. The promise hath salvation in the womb of it; but will the unbeliever, a soul without heavenly hope, stay till the promise ripens, and this happiness be, as I may so say, grown up? No, sure, they will rather make some match with the beggarly creature, or any base lust that will pay them in some pleasure at present, than wait so long, though it be for heaven itself. Thus as Tamar played the strumpet be­cause the husband promised was not given her so soon as she desired, Genesis 38:1-30, so it is the undoing of many souls because the comfort, joy, and bliss of the promise is withheld at present, and his people are made to wait for their reward; therefore they throw themselves into the embraces of this adulterous world that is present. ‘Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world,’ 2 Timothy 4:10. The soul only that hath this divine hope will be found patiently to stay for the good of the promise. Now, in handling this last office of hope, I shall do these three things— First. I shall show you that God oft stays long before he pays in the good things of the promise. Second. That when God stays longest before he performs his promises, it is our duty to wait. Third. That hope will enable the soul to wait when he stays longest. [God oft stays long before he fulfills his promise.] First. God oft stays long before he pays in the good things of the promise. The promise contains the matter of all our hopes;—called therefore ‘the hope of the promise.’ To hope without a promise is to claim a debt that never was owing. Now the good things of the promise are not paid down presently; in­deed, then there would be not such use of the prom­ises. What need of a bond where the money is pres­ently paid down? God promised Abraham a son, but he stayed many years for him after the bond of the promise was given him. He promised Canaan to him and his seed, yet hundreds of years interposed be­tween the promise and performance. Esau was spread into a kingdom before the heirs of promise had their inheritance, or one foot of land [was] given them in it. Yea, all the patriarchs, who were the third genera­tion after Abraham, died, ‘not having received the promises,’ Hebrews 11:13. Simeon had a promise ‘he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ,’ Luke 2:26. But this was not performed till he had one foot in the grave, and was even taking his leave of the world. In a word, those promises which are the portion of all the saints, and may be claimed by one as well as by another, their date is set in the book of God’s de­cree, when to be paid in to a day; some sooner, some later; but not expressed in the promise. He hath engaged to answer the prayers of his people, and ‘ful­fil the desires of those that fear him,’ Psalms 145:19. But it proves a long voyage sometimes before the praying saint hath the return of his adventure. There comes oft a long and sharp winter between the sowing time of prayer and the reaping. He hears us indeed as soon as we pray, but we oft do not hear him so soon. Prayers are not long on their journey to heaven, but long a‑coming thence in a full answer. Christ at this day in heaven hath not a full answer to some of those prayers which he put up on earth. Therefore he is said to ‘expect till his enemies be made a footstool,’ Hebrews 10:13. Promises we have for the subduing sin and Satan under our feet, yet we find these enemies still skulking within us; and many a sad scuffle we have with them before they are routed and outed our hearts. And so with others. We may find sometime the Christian—as great an heir as he is to joy and comfort—hardly able to show a penny of his heavenly treasure in his purse. And for want of well pondering this one clause, poor souls are oft led into tempta­tion, even to question their saintship. ‘Such promises are the saints’ portion,’ saith one; ‘but I cannot find them performed to me, therefore I am none of them. Many a prayer I have sent to heaven, but I hear no news of them. The saints are conquerors over their lusts; but I am yet often foiled and worsted by mine. There is a heaven of comfort in the promise, but I am as it were in the belly of hell, swallowed up with fears and terrors.’ Such as these are the reasonings of poor souls in the distress of their spirits; whereas all this trouble they put themselves to might be prevented, if they had faith to believe this one principle of un­doubted truth—that God performs not his promises all at once, and that what they want in hand they may see on the way coming to them. [Our duty is to wait, when God stays his longest before fulfilling his promise.] Second. When God stays long before he makes payment of the promise, then it is the believer’s duty to wait for it. ‘Though it tarry, wait for it,’ Habakkuk 2:3. He is speaking there of the good of the promise, which God intended to perform in the appointed time; and because it might tarry longer than their hasty hearts would, he bids them wait for it. As one that promiseth to come to a friend’s house sends him word to sit up for him, though he tarry later than or­dinary, for he will come at last assuredly. This is hard work indeed! What! wait? When we have stayed so long, and no sight of God’s coming after this prayer, and that sermon! So many long looks given at the window of his ordinances and providences, and no tidings to be heard of his approach in mercy and comfort to my soul; and after this, still am I bid wait? This is wearisome work. True, to flesh and blood it is; yea, weak faith is oft out of breath, and prone to sit down, or turn back, when it hath gone long to meet God in the returns of his mercy, and misseth of him; and therefore the apostle ushers in his duty with an affectionate prayer. ‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ,’ 2 Thessalonians 3:5. He had laid down a strong ground of consolation for them in the preceding chapter, in that they were ‘chosen to salvation,’ and ‘called by the gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14, and assured them that God, who is ‘faithful,’ would ‘stablish them, and keep them from evil,’ 2 Thessalonians 3:3. He means [this] so as they should not miscarry, and at last fall short of the glory promised; but, being sensible how difficult a work it was for them amidst their own present weaknesses, the apostasies of others, and the assaults of Satan upon themselves, to hold fast the assurance of their hope unto the end, he turns himself from them to speak to God for them. ‘The Lord direct your hearts.’ And, as if he had said, it is a way you will never find, a work you will never be able to do of yourselves—thus to wait patiently till Christ come, and bring the full reward of the promise with him; the Lord therefore direct your hearts into it. And Moses, it seems, before he ascended the mount, had a fear and jealousy of what afterward proved too true, that the Israelites’ unbelieving hearts would not have the patience to wait for his return, when he should stay some while with God there out of their sight; to prevent which, he gave express command before he went up that they should tarry there for him, Exodus 14:14. Indeed, a duty more contrary than this of waiting quietly and silently on God, bear our manners, and lackey after us, before we do what he commands: but if the promise comes not galloping full speed to us, we think it will never be at us. Question. But why doth God, when he hath made a promise, make his people wait so long? Answer. I shall answer this question by asking another. Why doth God make any promise at all to his creature? This may be well asked, considering how free God was from owing any such kindness to his creature; till, by the mere good pleasure of his will, he put himself into bonds, and made himself, by his promise, a debtor to his elect. And this proves the former question to be saucy and over-bold. As if some great rich man should make a poor beggar that is a stranger to him his heir, and when he tells him this, he should ask, ‘But why must I stay so long for it?’ Truly, any time is too soon for him to receive a mercy from God that thinks God’s time in sending it too late. This hasty spirit is as grievous to God as his stay can be to us. And no wonder God takes it so hei­nously, if we consider the bitter root that bears it. First. It proceeds from a selfishness of spirit, whereby we prefer our own content and satisfaction before the glory of God, and this becomes not a gra­cious soul. Our comfort flows in by the performance of the promise, but the revenue of God’s honour is paid into him by our humble waiting on him in the interval between the promise and the performance, and is the main end why he forbears the paying it in hastily. Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and God sure may better make us wait, before the promise is given in to our embraces by the full accomplishment of it. ‘For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the prom­ise,’ Hebrews 10:36. It is very fit the master should dine before the man. And if he would not like a servant that would think much to stay so long from his meal as is required at his hands for waiting at his master’s table, how much more must God dislike the rudeness of our impatient spirits, that would be set at our meal, and have our turn served in the comfort of the prom­ise, before he hath the honour of our waiting on him! Second. It proceeds from deep ingratitude; and this is a sin odious to God and man. ‘They soon for­gat his works; they waited not for his counsel,’ Psalms 106:13. God was not behindhand with his people. It was not so long since he had given them an experi­ment of his power and truth. He had but newly lent them his hand, and led them dry‑shod through a sea, with which they seemed to be much confirmed in their faith, and enlarged in their acknowledgments, when they came safe to shore: ‘then believed they his words; they sang his praise,’ Psalms 106:12. One would have thought that God’s credit now would have gone for a great sum with them ever after. But it proved nothing so. They dare not trust God with so much as their bill of fare—what they shall eat and drink; and therefore it is said, ‘they waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness.’ That is, they prevented the wisdom and providence of God, which would have provided well for them, if they could but have stayed to see how God would have spread their table for them. And why all this haste? ‘They forgat his works.’ They had lost the thankful sense of what was past, and therefore cannot wait for what was to come. [Hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest.] Third. Hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest. It is the very nature of hope so to do. ‘It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord,’ Lamentations 3:26. Hope groans when the mercy promised comes not, but does not grumble. Hope’s groans are from the spirit sighed out to God in prayer, Romans 8:26, and these lighten the soul of its burden of fear and solicitous care; whereas the groans of a hopeless soul are vented in discontented passions against God, and these are like a loud wind to a fire, that makes it rage more. ‘They shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them,’ Jeremiah 25:16. It is spoken of the enemies of God and his people. God had prepared them a draught which should have strange effects—‘they should be moved;’ as a man, whose brain is disturbed with strong drink, is restless and unquiet: yea, ‘be mad.’ As some, when they are drunk, quarrel with every one they meet, so should their hearts be filled with rage even at God himself, who runs his sword into their sides, because they had no hope to look for any healing of their wounds at his hand. But now where there is hope, the heart is soon quieted and pacified. Hope is the handkerchief that God puts into his people’s hands to wipe the tears from their eyes, which their present troubles, and long stay of expected mercies, draw from them. ‘Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy, and there is hope in thine end,’ Jeremiah 31:16-17. This, with some other comfortable promises which God gave his prophet Jeremiah in a vision, did so overrun and fill his heart with joy, that, he was as much recruited and comforted as a sick or weary man is after a night of sweet sleep: ‘Upon this I awaked,...and my sleep was sweet unto me,’ Jeremiah 31:26. When, however, the promise seems to stay long, hope pacifies the Christian with a threefold assurance. First. Hope assures the soul, that though God stays a while before he performs the promise, yet he doth not delay. Second. That when he comes he will abun­dantly recompense his longest stay. Third. That while he stays to perform one promise, he will leave the comfort of another promise, to bear the Christian company in the absence of that. [A threefold assurance which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise.] First Assurance. Hope assures the soul that though God stays a while before he performs the promise, yet he doth not delay. ‘The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will sure­ly come, it will not tarry,’ Habakkuk 2:3. How is this? ‘Though it tarry it will not tarry!’ How shall we rec­oncile this tarrying and not tarrying? Very well. Though the promise tarries till the appointed time, yet it will not tarry beyond it. ‘When the time of the promise drew nigh,’ it is said, ‘which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,’ Acts 7:17. As the herbs and flowers which sleep all winter in their roots underground without any mention of them, when the time of spring ap­proacheth, presently they start forth of their beds, where they had lain so long unperceived. Thus will the promise in its season do. He delays who passeth the time appointed, but he only stays that waits for the appointed time, and then comes. Every promise is dated, but with a mysterious character; and for want of skill in God’s chronology, we are prone to think God forgets us, when, indeed, we forget our­selves, in being so bold to set God a time of our own, and in being angry that he comes not just then to us. As if a man should set his watch by his own hungry stomach rather than by the sun, and then say it is noon, and chide because his dinner is not ready. We are over greedy of comfort, and expect the promise should keep time with our hasty desires, which be­cause it doth not we are discontented. A high piece of folly! The sun will not go the faster for setting our watch forward, nor the promise come the sooner for our antedating it. It is most true what one saith, ‘Though God seldom comes at our day, because we seldom reckon right, yet he never fails his own day.’ That of the apostle is observable. He exhorts the Thessalonian church there, ‘that they would not be shaken in mind, or be troubled, as that the day of Christ were at hand,’ 2 Thessalonians 2:2-3. But what need of this exhortation to saints, that look for their greatest joy to come with the approach of that day? Can their hearts be troubled to hear the day of their redemption draws nigh, the day of refreshing is at hand? It was not therefore, I conceive, the coming of that day which was so unpleasing and affrighting, but the time in which some seducers would have persuaded them to expect it, as if it had been at the very doors, and presently would have surprised them in their genera­tion, which had been very sad indeed, because then it should have come before many prophecies and prom­ises had received their accomplishment, and by that means the truth of God would have gone off the stage with a slur, which must not, shall not be, as he tells them, ‘For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,’ 2 Thessalonians 2:3. And as that promise stays but till those intermediate truths, which have a shorter period, be fulfilled, and then comes without any possible stay or stop; so do all the rest but wait till their reckoning be out, and what God hath ap­pointed to intervene be despatched, and they punctu­ally shall have their delivery in their set time. Thou art, may be, bleeding under a wounded spirit, a poor broken‑hearted creature that liest steep­ing in thy tears for sin. The promise tells thee that God is nigh thee to revive thee, thee I say by name, Isaiah 57:15. Yet thou comest from this prayer, and that sermon, but hast no sight of him, nor canst hear more news of his coming than what the promise gives thee. Look now that God suffers no prejudice by his stay in thy thoughts, but conclude that his time is not come, or else he had been ere this with thee; and take heed of measuring God’s miles by thy own scale, for his nigh may be thy far. God could have told his people the time when he meant to come with the perfor­mance of every promise as easily as set it down in his own purpose, but he hath concealed it in most, as a happy advantage to our faith, whereby we may more fully express our confidence in waiting for that which we know not when we shall receive. Abraham’s faith was great and strong to follow God when he con­cealed the place he meant to lead him to. For he went, ‘he knew not whither,’ Hebrews 11:8. So it requires great faith to rest satisfied with the promise when the time of payment is hid. But if we consider who we trade with we can have no reason to be the least jealous, no not when he stays longest, that he will fail or delay us a moment longer than the set time of the promise. There are three [why] men break their times of payment, and come not at their day. 1. Forgetfulness. 2. Unfaithfulness. 3. Impotency. 1. Cause. Forgetfulness. Many remember not what they promise. The day comes and it is quite out of their minds. Men seldom forget when they are to receive, but too oft when they are to pay, debts. An extraordinary occasion must be sent to rub up the butler’s memory, or else he will never think of his prison promise. But God’s promise is never out of his thoughts, ‘he remembers his covenant,’ Psalms 105:8; his people and their affairs are ‘graven on the palms of his hands, and their walls are continually before him,’ Isaiah 49:16. Though the preferment of the Pha­raoh’s court made the butler forget his promise to Jo­seph, yet all the glory that Christ sees and enjoys in heaven hath not the power to blot the remembrance of his promise to his people who lie in chains of affliction here below. And God would have his saints take notice of this to comfort themselves with, while [i.e. until] he comes. ‘I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end,’ Jeremiah 29:11. 2. Cause. Unfaithfulness. A promise with some is no more than a collar on an ape’s neck. You have them not a whit the faster by it; for they can slip off the obligation at their pleasure. May be they never intended performance, when they passed it, but made use of a promise only as a key, to lock up their inten­tion of deceiving from your present knowledge. Others haply mean at present as they say, but soon grow sick of their engagement, upon sight of some disadvantage which their after-thoughts discover like­ly to befall them upon the performance, and therefore their wits are set a-work to coin some handsome evasion to delude their engagement, or at least delay the payment. This made Lysander say of some men, that they played with oaths and promises sicut pueri cum astragalis—as children do at nine pins. They will keep them if they can get by the per­formance; but if it be like to prove a losing game, they will rather run debt to their conscience by breaking them, than to their purse, or any other worldly inter­est, by their performance. But no fear of God in this matter. (1.) His name is truth and faithfulness. Now can truth itself lie, or faithfulness deceive? ‘In my Fa­ther’s house,’ saith Christ, ‘are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go,...I will come again and receive you,’ John 14:2-3. See here the candour and nakedness of our Saviour’s heart. As if he had said, ‘This is no shift to be gone, that so I may by a fair tale leave you in hopes of that which shall never come to pass. No; did I know it otherwise than I speak, my heart is so full of love to you, that it would not have suffered me to put such a cheat upon you for a thous­and worlds. You may trust me to go; for as surely as you see me go, shall your eyes see me come again to your everlasting joy.’ The promises are none of them yea and nay, but ‘yea and amen’ in him. (2.) He is wisdom as well as truth. As he is truth, he cannot wrong or deceive us in breaking his word; and being wisdom, it is impossible he should promise that which should prejudice himself. And therefore, he makes no blots in his purposes or promises, but what he doth in either is immutable. Repentance is indeed an act of wisdom in the crea­ture, but it presupposeth folly, which is incompatible to God. In a word, men too oft are rash in promising; and therefore what they in haste promise they per­form at leisure. They consider not before they vow, and therefore inquire afterward whether they had best stand to it. But the all‑wise God needs not this after-game. As in the creation he looked back upon the several pieces of that goodly frame, and saw them so exact that he took not up his pencil the second time to mend anything of the first draft; so in his promises, they are made with such infinite judgment and wis­dom, that what he hath writ he will stand to for ever. ‘I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judg­ment,’ Hosea 2:19. Therefore for ever, because in righ­teousness and in mercy. 3. Cause. Impotency. Men’s promises, alas! de­pend upon many contingencies. The man haply is rich when he seals the bond, and poor before the day of payment comes about. A wreck at sea, a fire by land, or some other sad accident, intervenes, either quite impoverisheth him, or necessitates him to beg further time, with him in the gospel, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all,’ Matthew 18:26. But the great God cannot be put to such straits. ‘The Strength of Israel will not lie,’ 1 Samuel 15:29. As there is a lie of wickedness, when one promiseth what he will not perform; so there is a lie that proceeds from weakness, when a person or thing cannot perform what they promise. Thus indeed all men, yea, all creatures, will be found liars to all that lean on them, called therefore ‘lying vanities.’ ‘Vanities,’ as empty and insufficient; ‘lying vanities,’ because they promise what they have not to give. But God, he is propound­ed as a sure bottom for our faith to rest on in this respect. ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is strength, or everlasting strength,’ Isaiah 26:4. Such strength his is that needs not another’s strength to uphold it. One man’s ability to perform his promises leans on others’ ability to pay theirs to him. If they him, he is forced to fail them. Thus we see, the breaking of one merchant proves the breaking of many others whose estates were in his hands. But God’s power is independent. Let the whole creation break, yet God is the same as he was, as able to help as ever. ‘Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.’ And, ‘yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva­tion. The Lord God is my strength,’ Habakkuk 3:17-19. O how happy are the saints! a people that can never be undone, no, not when the whole world turns bank­rupt, because they have his promise whose power fails not when that doth. The Christian cannot come to God when he hath not by him what he wants. ‘How great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,’ Psalms 31:19. It is laid up, as a father hath his child’s portion, in bags, ready to be paid him when the time comes. The saint shall not stay a moment beyond the date of the promise. ‘There is forgiveness with thee,’ saith the psalmist. It stands ready for thee against thou comest to claim the promise. Second Assurance. Hope assures the Christian, that though God stays long, yet, when he does come, he will abundantly recompense his longest stay. As the wicked get nothing by God’s forbearing to execute his threatening, but the treasuring up more wrath for the day of wrath; so the saints lose nothing by not having the promise presently paid into them, but ra­ther do, by their forbearing God a while, treasure up more joy against the joyful day, when the promise shall be performed. ‘To them who by patient con­tinuance...seek for glory and honour,...eternal life,’ Romans 2:7. Mark, it is not enough to do well, but to ‘continue’ therein; nor that neither, except it be ‘pa­tient continuing in well-doing’—in the midst of God’s seeming delays; and whoever he be that can do this, shall be rewarded at last for all his patience. Plough­ing is hungry work, yet because it is in hope of reaping such an abundant increase, the husbandman faints not. O my soul, saith hope, though thou wantest thy dinner, hold but out a while, and thou shalt have din­ner and supper served in together when night comes. The sick fits and qualms which the Christian hath in the absence of the promise are all forgot, and the trouble of them over, when once it comes and he is feasted with the joy it brings. ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life;’ Proverbs 13:12—that is, when it cometh in God’s time after long waiting, then it causeth an overflowing joy. As there is a time which God hath set for the ripening the fruits of the earth, before which, if they be gathered, it is to our loss; so there is a time set by God for the good things of the promise, which we are to wait for, and not unseasonably pluck, like green apples, off the tree—as too many do, who, having no faith or hope to quiet their spirits while [until] God’s time comes, do therefore snatch that by unwarrant­able means, which would in time drop ripe into their bosoms. And what get these short‑spirited men by their haste? Alas! they find their enjoyments thin and lank, like corn reaped before it is fit for the sickle, wherewith he that bindeth the sheaves, filleth not his bosom. Therefore we find this duty of waiting press­ed under this very metaphor. ‘Be patient, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord,’ James 5:7. Stay God’s time, till he comes according to his promise, and takes you off your suffering work, and be not hasty to shift yourselves out of trouble. And why so? ‘Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’ The husbandman who, the proverb saith, is, dives in novum annum—rich in hope of the next year’s crop —though he gladly would have his corn in the barn, yet waits for its ripening in the ordinary course of God’s providence. When the former rain comes he is joyful, but yet desires the latter rain also, and stays for it, though long in coming. And do not we see, that a shower sometimes falls close to the time of harvest, that plumps the ear to the great increase of the crop, which some lose, that, through distrust of providence, put in their sickle too soon? I am sure mercies come fullest when most waited for. Christ did not so soon supply them with wine at the marriage of Cana, as his mother desired, but they had the more for staying a while. There is a double fullness, which the Christian may hope to find in those enjoyments that he hath with long patience waited for, above another that can­not stay God’s leisure. 1. A fulness of duration. Enjoyments snatched out of God’s hand, and not given by it, are but guests come, not to stay long; like David’s child born in adultery, they commonly die in the cradle. They are like some fruit gathered green, which soon rots. Is it riches that is thus got? Some are said to ‘make haste to be rich,’ Proverbs 28:20. They cannot, by a conscionable diligence in their particular calling, and exercise of godliness in their general, wait upon God. No; the promise doth not gallop fast enough for them; on therefore they spur, and, by sordid prac­tices, make haste to be rich. But God makes as much haste to melt their estate, as they do to gather. No salt will keep that meat long from corrupting which was overheated in the driving, nor any care and prov­idence of man keep that estate from God’s curse which is got by so hot and sinful a pursuit. ‘Wealth gotten by vanity’—that is, vain, unwarrantable courses —‘shall be diminished,’ Proverbs 13:11. Like the unsound fat which great drinkers and greedy eaters gain to themselves, it hath that in it that will hasten its ruin. ‘The getting of treasure by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death,’ Proverbs 21:6. The meaning is, such estates are tossed like a ball, from one to another, and are not to stay long in any hand, till it comes into the godly man’s, whom God oft, by his providence, makes heir to such men’s riches, as you may see, Job 27:11-23; Ecclesiastes 2:26. Again, is it comfort and inward joy? Some make too much haste for this. They are not like other Christians, who use to have a wet seed-time, and are content to wait for joy till harvest, or at least till it be in some forwardness, and the seed of grace, which was sown in tears of humiliation, appears above ground in such solid evidences as do in some degree satisfy them concerning the reality and truth of the same. Then indeed the sincere Christian’s spirit begins to cheer up, and his comfort holds, yea increaseth more and more, as the sun that, after a contest with some thick mist, breaks forth, and gets a full victory of those vapours which for a while darkened it. ‘The light of the righteous rejoiceth,’ Proverbs 13:9—that is, over all his fears and doubts. But there are others so hasty that they are catching at comfort before they were ever led into acquaintance with godly sorrow. They are delivered without pain, and their faith flames forth into the joy of assurance, before any smoke of doubtings and fears were seen to arise in their hearts. But alas! it is as soon lost as got, like too forward a snibbing spring, that makes the husband­man weep at harvest; or a fair sunshine day in winter, that is the breeder of many foul ones after it. The stony ground is a clear instance of this, Mark 4:1-41, whose joy was a quickly down as up. A storm of persecution or temptation comes, and immediately he is offend­ed. In a word, take but one instance more, and that is in point of deliverance. Such hasty spirits that can­not wait for the promise to open their prison door, and God to give them a release in his time, but break prison, and by some unwarrantable practice wind themselves out of trouble; do we not see how miser­ably they befool themselves? For while they think, by the midwifery of their sinful policy, to hasten their deliverance, they kill it in the birth, which, had it come in God’s time, might have stayed many a fair day with them. The Jews are a sad instance of this; who, though God gave them such full security for their deliverance from the Babylonian hand, would yet take their own course, hoping, it seems, to com­pass it sooner by policy than they could expect it to be effected by providence, and therefore to Egypt they will post in all haste, not doubting but they shall thence bring their deliverance. But alas! it proved far otherwise; for all they got was to have more links add­ed to their chain of bondage, and their lordly masters to use greater rigour upon them, which God, by his prophet, bids them thank their own hasty unbelieving spirits for. ‘Thus saith the Lord God, the holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength, and ye would not,’ Isaiah 30:15. Indeed, if we look on such as have quietly waited by hope for God’s coming to their help, we shall find they ever sped well. Joshua, who bore up against all discouragements from God and man, steadfastly believing, and patiently waiting, for the land God had promised, did he not live to walk over their graves in the wilderness that would have turned back to Egypt? and to be witness to their destruction also, who presumptuously went up the hill to fight the enemy and take the land—as they vainly hoped—before God’s time was come? Deuteronomy 1:1-46. Yea, did not he at last divide the land, and lay his bones in a bed of honour, after he had lived to see the promise of God happily performed to his people? So David, whose hope and patience was admirable in waiting for the kingdom after he had the promise of it; especially if we consider what fair opportunities he had to take cruel Saul out of the way, whose life alone did stand betwixt him and the throne. Neither did he want matter to fill up a declaration for the satisfaction and pacifying the minds of the people, if he had a mind to have gone this way to the crown; but he knew those plausible arguments for such a fact, which would have pleased the multitude, would not have pa­cified his own conscience, and this stayed his hand from any such ripping open the womb of the promise, to come by the crown with which it was big, but left it to go its full time, and he lost nothing by it. 2. There flows in a fulness of benediction, with an enjoyment reaped in God’s full time, which is lost for want of patience to wait thereunto. Now this ben­ediction is paid into the waiting soul’s bosom two ways. (1.) He hath that enjoyment sweetened to him with God’s love and favour for his comfort. (2.) He hath it sanctified to him in the happy fruit it bears for his good. (1.) He hath it sweetened to him with God’s love and favour for his comfort; which he cannot so well expect that carves for himself, and cannot stay for God in his own time to lay it on his trencher. There is guilt ever to be found in the company of impatience and distrust. And where guilt is contracted in the get­ting of an enjoyment, there can be little sweetness tasted when it comes to be used. O guilt is an embit­tering thing! It keeps the soul in a continual fear of hearing ill news from heaven; and a soul in fear is not in case to relish the sweetness of a mercy. Such a one may happily have a little tumultuous joy, and warm himself awhile at this rash fire of his own kindling, till he comes to have some serious discourse with his own heart in cold blood, about the way and manner of getting the enjoyment and this is sure to send such a dampness to the heart of the poor creature as will not suffer that fire long to burn clear. O what a stab it is to the heart of an oppressor, to say of his great wealth, as that king of his crown, ‘Here is a fair estate, but God knows how I came by it!’ What a wound to the joy of a hypocrite! ‘I have pretended to a great deal of comfort, but God knows how I came by it!’ Whereas the Christian who receives any comfort, in­ward or outward, from God’s hand, as a return for his patient waiting, hath none of these sad thoughts to scare him and break his drought when the cup is in his mouth. He knows where he had his outward es­tate and inward comfort. He can bring God to vouch them both, that they with his leave and liking. There is a great odds between the joy of the husbandman, at the happy inning of his corn in harvest, and the thief’s joy, who hath stolen some sheaves out of an­other’s field, and is making merry with his booty as soon as he is got home. Possibly you may hear a greater noise and outis[1] of joy in the thief’s house than the honest husbandman’s, yet no compare be­tween them. One knock at the thief’s door by an of­ficer that comes to search his house for stolen goods, spoils the mirth of the whole house—who run, one this way and another that. O what fear and shame must then take hold on his guilty heart, that hears God coming to search for his stolen mercies and comforts! (2.) The waiting soul hath enjoyments sanctified to him for his good; and this another wants with all he hath. And what is the blessing of mercy, but to have it do us good? Hasty spirits grow worse by en­joyments gathered out of season. This is a sore evil indeed, to have wealth for our hurt, and comfort for our hurt. It was the sin of Israel that ‘they waited not for his counsel,’ Psalms 106:13. God had taken them as his charge, and undertook to provide for them if they would have stood to his allowance; but they could not stay his leisure, ‘but lusted exceedingly in the wilder­ness, and tempted God in the desert,’ Psalms 106:14. They must have what pleaseth their palate, and when their own impatient hearts call, or not at all. And so they had: ‘He gave them their request,’ Psalms 106:15. But they had better been without their feast, for they did not thrive by it, ‘he sent leanness into their soul,’ Psalms 106:15. A secret curse came with their enjoyments, which soon appeared in those great sins they thereupon were left to commit—‘they envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord,’ Psalms 106:16—as also in the heavy judgments by which God did testify against them for the same, Numbers 11:31. Whereas mer­cies that are received in God’s way and time, prove meat of better juice and purer nourishment to the waiting soul. They do not break out into such bot­ches and plague-sores as these. As the other are fuel for lust, so these food to the saints’ graces, and make them more humble and holy. See this in Isaiah 30:18-19, compared with Isaiah 30:22, where they, as a fruit of their patient waiting on God for their outward deliv­erance, have with it that which is more worth than the deliverance itself, i.e. grace to improve and use it hol­ily. It was a great mercy that Hannah had, after her many prayers and long waiting, ‘a son;’ but a greater, that she had a heart to give up her son again to God, that gave him to her. To have estate, health, or any other enjoyment upon waiting on God for the same, is mercy, but not to be compared with that blessing which seasons and sanctifies the heart to use them for God’s glory. And this is the ordinary portion of the waiting soul, and that not only in outward comforts, but inward also. The joy and inward peace which the sincere soul hath thus, makes it more humble, holy, heavenly; whereas the comfort which the hypocrite comes so quickly by, either degenerates into pride and self-conceit, or empties itself into some other fil­thy sink—sometimes even of open profaneness it­self—before it hath run far. Third Assurance. Hope assures the soul, that while God stays the performance of one promise, he shall have the absence thereof supplied with the pres­ence of another. And this is enough to quiet the heart of any that understands himself. God hath laid things in such a sweet method, that there is not one point of time wherein the soul of a believer is left wholly des­titute of comfort, but there is one promise or other that stands to minister unto his present wants. Some­times, haply, he may want what he strongly desires, yet even then care is taken for his present subsistence; one promise bears the Christian company while another comes. And what cause hath the sick man to complain, though all his friends do not sit up with him together, if they take it by turns, and never leave him without a sufficient number to look to him? We read of a ‘tree of life,’ Revelation 22:2, ‘which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yieldeth her fruit every month,’ so that it is never without some hanging on it which is fit for the eater. What can this tree be bet­ter conceived to be than Christ, who yields all manner of fruit in his promises, and comfort for all times, all conditions? The believer can never come but he shall find some promise ripe to be eaten, with which he may well stay his stomach till the other—whose time to be gathered is not yet come—hangs for further ri­pening. Here you see the Christian hath provision for all the year long. When Christ returned to heaven he gave his disciples this to comfort them, that he would come again, and carry them with him unto his father’s house, where no he lives himself in glory, John 14:2-3. This is sweet indeed. But, alas! what shall they do in the meantime to weather out those many storms which were to intervene between this promise and the time when it shall be performed? This also our Sav­iour considered, and tells them he does not mean to leave them comfortless, but gives them another promise to keep house with, in the meantime, i.e. a promise of his Spirit—who should be with them on earth, while [until] he took them to be with him in heaven, John 14:16. The Christian is never at such a loss wherein hope cannot relieve it. ‘Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit,’ Jeremiah 17:7-8. These waters are the promises from which the be­liever draws continual matter of comfort, that as a tree planted by a river flourisheth, however the year goes, so doth he, whatever the temper of God’s ex­terior providence is. Possibly the Christian is in an afflicted state, and the promise for deliverance comes not, yet then hope can entertain him in the absence of that, at the cost of another promise—that though God doth not at present deliver him out of the afflic­tion, yet he will support him under it, 1 Corinthians 10:13. If yet the Christian cannot find this promise paid into such a height as to discharge him of all impatience, distrust, and other sinful distempers—which to his grief he finds too busy in him for all the promise —then hope hath another window to let out the smoke at, and that is by presenting the soul with those promises which assure the weak Christian that pardoning mercy shall cover those defects which as­sisting grace did not fully conquer. ‘I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him,’ Malachi 3:1. So, Micah 7:18 ‘Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever.’ And certainly God would not have suffered so much impatience to have broken out in Job, but that he would have something left for par­doning mercy to do at the close of all, to which that holy man should see himself beholden, both for his deliverance, and that honourable testimony also which God himself gave of him before his uncharit­able friends, who from his great afflictions, and some discomposure of spirit in them, did so unmercifully burden him with the heavy charge of being a hypocrite. DIRECTION IX.—THIRD GENERAL PART. [Application of the Doctrine of the Christian Helmet, alike to those who have, and to those who have it not.] Having shown now what the helmet of salvation is, and several of its offices to the Christian, we pro­ceed to bring out how its doctrine applies alike to those who have, and to those who have it not, and the several points of improvement which naturally flow from it. These may be classed as four. First. A trial of what metal our helmet of hope is made. Second. An exhortation to those who, upon trial, find it genu­ine, in which two duties are pressed on them. Third. Arguments why we should strengthen our hope, with directions how we may do so. Fourth. An exhorta­tion to those who want this helmet of hope. FIRST POINT OF IMPROVEMENT. [Trial of what metal our helmet of hope is made.] For trial, whether we have this helmet of hope on our heads or no—this helmet, I say, commended to us in the text. As for such paltry ware, that most are contended with for cheapness’ sake, it, alas! de­serves not the name of a true hope, no more than a paper cap doth of a helmet. O, look to the metal and temper of your helmet in an especial manner, for at this most blows are made. He that seeks chiefly to defend his own head—the serpent I mean—will aim most to wound yours. None but fools and children are so credulous as to be blown up with great hopes upon any light occasion and slight ground. They who are wise, and have their wits about them, will be as wary as how they place their hopes, especially for sal­vation, as a prudent pilot, that hath a rich lading, would be where he moors his ship and casts his anchor. There is reason for our utmost care herein, because nothing exposeth men to more shame than to meet with disappointment in their hopes. ‘They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thith­er and were ashamed,’ Job 6:20; that is, to miss of what they hoped to have found in those brooks. But there is no shame like to that which a false hope for eternal salvation will put sinners to at last; some shall rise ‘to shame everlasting,’ Daniel 10:1-21. They shall awake out of their graves, and out of that fool’s paradise also, wherein their vain hopes had entertained them all their lives, and see, instead of a heaven they expected, hell to be in expectation of them, and gaping with full mouth for them. If the servants of Eglon were so ashamed after their waiting awhile at their prince’s door, from whom they expected all their preferment, to find him, and their hopes with him, dead on the floor, Judges 3:25; O, whose heart then can think what a mixture of shame and horror shall meet in their faces and hearts at the great day, who shall see all their hopes for heaven hop headless, and leave them in the hands of tormenting devils to all eternity! Hannibal’s soldiers did not so confidently divide the goldsmiths’ shops in Rome among themselves —which yet they never took—as many presumptuous sinners do promise themselves heaven’s bliss and happiness, who must instead thereof sit down with shame in hell, except they can, before they die, show better ground for their hope than now they are able to do. O what will those fond dreamers do in the day of the Lord’s anger, when they shall see the whole world in a light flame round about them, and hear God —whose piercing eyes will look them through and through—calling them forth before men and angels to the scrutiny! Will they stand to their hope, and vouch it to the face of Christ, which now they bless themselves so in? Surely their hearts will fail them for such an enterprise. None then will speak so ill of them as their own consciences shall do. God will in that day use their own tongues to accuse them, and set forth the folly of their ridiculous hope to the confusion of their faces before all the world. The prophet foretells a time when the false prophets ‘shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive, but he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman,’ &c., Zechariah 13:4-5. Truly the most notorious false prophet that the world hath, and deceives most, is this vain hope which men take up for their salvation. This proph­esies of peace, pardon, and heaven, to be the portion of such as [it] never once entered into God’s heart to make heirs thereof. But the day is coming, and it hastens, wherein this false prophet shall be con­founded. Then the hypocrite shall confess he never had any hope for salvation but what was the idol of his own fancy’s making; and the formalist shall throw off the garment of his profession by which he de­ceived himself and others, and appear to himself and to all the world in his naked colours. It behooves therefore everyone to be strict and curious in the search of his own heart, to find what his hope is built upon. Now, hope of the right make, is a rational well-grounded hope. ‘Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you,’ 1 Peter 3:15. Alas! how can they give an ans­wer to others, that have not any to give to their own consciences to this question, ‘Why dost thou hope to be saved, O my soul?’ There is no Christian, be he never so weak in grace, but hath some reason bot­tomed on the Scripture—for other I mean not—for the hope he professeth. Do you think, yea, can you be so absurd as to think, your own bold presumption, without any word of promise to build upon, can en­title your souls to the inheritance in God’s kingdom? Should one come and say your house and land were his, and show you no writing under your hand by which you did ever grant him a right thereunto, but all he can say is, he dreamed the last night your house and land were his, and therefore now he demands it; would you not think the man mad, and had more to the bedlam than to your estate? And yet there are many hope to be saved, that can give no better reason than this comes to for the same, and such are all grossly ignorant and profane sinners. As it is enough for a saint to end the trouble which his fears put him into, to ask his soul why it is disquieted within him, would he but observe how little reason his heart can give for the same; so [would it be enough] to dis­mount the bold sinner from his prancing hopes, if he might be prevailed with to call himself to an account, and thus to accost his soul sometimes, and resolve not to stir without a satisfactory answer. ‘In sober sadness tell me, O my soul! what reason findest thou in the whole Bible, for thee to hope for salvation, what livest in ignorance of God, or a trade of sin against God?’ Certainly he should find his soul as mute and speechless as the man without the wedding garment was at Christ’s question. This is the reason why men are such strangers to themselves, and dare not enter into any discourse upon this subject with their own hearts, because they know they should soon make an uproar in their consciences that would not be stilled in haste. They cocker their false hearts as much as David did his Adonijah, who in all his life never displeased him so much as to ask him, ‘Why dost thou so?’ Nor they their souls to the day of their death by asking them, ‘Soul, why hopest thou so?’ Or if they have, it hath been as Pilate, who asked Christ what was truth, John 18:38, but had no mind to stay for an answer. May be thou art an ignorant, soul, who knowest neither who Christ is, nor what in Christ hope is to fasten its hold upon; but only with a blind surmise thou hopest God will be better to thee than to damn thee at last. But why thou thus hopest, thou canst give no reason, nor I neither. If he will save thee as now thou art, he must make a new gospel for thy sake; for in this Bible it damns thee without hope or help. The gospel is ‘hid to them that are lost,’ 2 Corinthians 4:3. But if knowledge will do it, thou haply canst show good store of that. This is the breast-work un­der which thou liest, and keepest off those shot which are made at thee from the word, for those lusts which thou livest and liest in as a beast in his dung, defiling thyself with them daily. And is this all thou hast to prove thy hopes for salvation for hopes true and solid? Indeed, many make no better use of their knowledge of the Scripture, than thieves do of the knowledge they have of the law of the land, who study it not that they mean to keep it, but to make them more cunning to evade the charge of it when called in question by it. So many acquaint themselves with the word—especially those passages in it that display the mercy of God to sinners at the greatest breadth—that with these they may stuff a pillow to lay their wretch­ed heads on, when the cry of the abominations in which they live begins to break their rest. God deliver you, my dear friends, from such a hope as this. Sure­ly you mean to provide a better answer to give unto Christ at the great day than this, why ye hope to be saved by him; do you not? Will thy knowledge, thinkest thou, be as strong a plea for salvation, as thy sins which thou wallowest in, against that knowledge, will be for thy damnation? If there be hope for such as thee, then come Judas and Jezebel, yea devils, and all ye infernal spirits, and strike in for this good com­pany for a part with them, for some of you can plead more of this than any of them all. But may be thou hast more yet to say for thyself than this comes to. Thou art not only a knowing per­son but a reformed also; the pollutions in which once thou layest, now thou hast escaped; yea, thy reformation is embellished and set forth with a very gaudy profession of religion, both which have gained thee a very high opinion in the thoughts of all thy neigh­bours; so that if heaven might be carried by thy hands, thou couldst haply have a testimonial for thy unblam­able and saint-like behaviour among them; yet, let me tell thee, if thou meanest to be faithful to thy own soul, thou must not rest in their charitable opinion of thee, nor judge of thy hopes for heaven by what comes under their cognizance, to wit, the behaviour of thy outward man—for further their eye and observation reacheth not—but art to look inward to thy own bos­om, and inquire what spring thou canst find thereto have been the cause of this change and new motion that hath appeared in thy external conversation. This, and this alone, must decide the controversy, and bring thy thoughts to an issue, what to judge of thy hope, whether spurious or legitimate. It is not a new face that colours our outward behaviour, but a new principle that changeth the frame of the heart within, will evince thy hope to be good and genuine. ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope,’ 1 Peter 1:3. The new birth entitles to a new hope. If the soul be dead, the hope cannot be alive. And the soul may be dead, and yet put into a very handsome dress of external reformation and profession, as well as a dead body may be clad with rich clothes. A beggar’s son got into the clothes of a rich man’s child, may as well hope to be heir to the rich man’s land, as thou, by an external reformation and profession, to be God’s heir in glory. The child’s hopes are from his own father, not from a stranger. Now, while thou art in a natural estate —though never so finished—old Adam is thy father; and what canst thou hope from him who proved worse than nought, and left his poor posterity noth­ing, except we should put a crazy mortal body, a sinful nature, and a fearful expectation of death tem­poral and eternal from the wrathful hand of a pro­voked God—which indeed he left all his children —into his inventory? O sirs, how can you give way that any sleep should fall upon your eyes, till you get into this relation to God! Hannah was a woman of a bitter spirit till she got a child from God; and hast not thou more reason to be so, till thou canst get to be a child of God? Better a thousand times over that thou shouldst die childless than fatherless; my meaning is, that thou shouldst leave no child to inherit thy estate on earth, than to have no father to give thee an inher­itance in heaven when thou art taken hence. SECOND POINT OF IMPROVEMENT. [Exhortation to those who have this helmet of hope.] For exhortation of you, believers, who upon trial are found to have this helmet of hope. Several duties are to be pressed upon you as such. First. Be thankful for this unspeakable gift. Second. Live up to your hopes. [Duties which possession of the helmet of hope involves.] First Duty. Be thankful for this unspeakable gift. I will not believe thou hast it if thy heart be not abundantly let out in thankfulness for it. Blessed Peter cannot speak of this but in a doxology. ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which hath begotten us again unto a lively hope,...to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away,’ 1 Peter 1:3-4[2]. The usual proem to Paul’s epistles is of this strain, Colossians 1:5; Ephesians 1:3. Hast thou hope in heaven? It is more than if thou hadst the whole world in hand. The greatest monarch the earth hath will be glad, in a dying hour, to change his crown for thy helmet. His crown will not procure him this helmet, but thy helmet will bring thee to a crown, when he shall have none to wear—a crown, not of gold, but of glory, which once on shall never be taken off, as his is sure to be. O remember, Christian, what but a while since thou wert—so far from having any hope of heaven, that thou wert under a fearful expec­tation of hell and damnation. And are those chains of guilt with which thy trembling conscience was weighed down unto despair, taken off, and thy head lift up to look for such high preferment in the celes­tial court of that God whose wrath thou hadst, by thy horrid treasons, most justly incensed against thee? Certainly, of all the men in the world, thou art deep­est in debt to the mercy of God. If he will be thanked for a crust, he looks, sure, thou shouldst give him more for a crown. If food and raiment, though coarse and mean—suppose but roots and rags—be gratefully to be acknowledged; O with what ravishment of love and thankfulness are you to think and speak of those rarities and robes with which you hope to be fed and clad in this heavenly kingdom! especially if you cast your eye aside, and behold those that were once your fellow-prisoners—in what a sad and dismal condition they continue—while all this happiness has befallen you! It could not, sure, but affect his heart into ad­miration of his prince’s mercy and undeserved favour to him, who is saved from the gibbet only by his gra­cious pardon, if, as he is riding in a coach towards his prince’s court—there to live in wealth and honour —he should meet some of his fellow‑traitors on sleds, as they are dragging full of shame and horror to exe­cution for the same treason in which they had as deep a hand as any of them all. And dost thou not see, Christian, many of thy poor neighbours, with whom haply thou hast had a partnership in sin, pinioned with impenitency and unbelief, driving apace to hell and destruction, while thou, by the free distinguishing mercy of God, art on thy way for heaven and glory? O down on thy knees, and cry out, ‘Lord, why wilt thou show thyself to me, and not to these?’ How easy had it been, and righteous for God, to have directed the pardon to them, and the warrant for damnation unto thee! When thou hast spent thy own breath and spir­its in praising God, thou hadst need beg a collection of praises of all thy friends that have a heart to contribute to such charitable work, that they would help thee in paying this debt; and get all this, with what in heaven thou shalt disburse thyself to all eternity, in better coin than can be expected from thee here—where thy soul is embased with sinful mix­tures—it must be accounted rather an acknowledg­ment of what thou owest to thy God, than any pay­ment of the least part of the debt. Second Duty. Live up to thy hopes, Christian. Let there be a decorum kept between thy principles and thy practices, thy hope of heaven and walk on earth. The eye should direct the foot. Thou lookest for salvation; walk the same way thy eye looks. This is so often pressed in the word, as shows both its ne­cessity and difficulty. Some times we are stirred up to act ‘as becometh saints,’ Romans 16:2; Ephesians 5:3. Sometimes ‘as becometh the gospel of Christ,’ Php 1:27. Sometimes ‘as becometh those who profess godli­ness,’ 1 Timothy 2:10. There is a JÎ BDXB@<—a decorum, and comely behaviour, which, if a Christian doth not observe in his walking he betrays his high calling and hopes unto scorn and contempt. To look high, and to live low, O how ridiculous it appears to all men! When a man is dressed on purpose to be laughed at and made a jeering‑stock, they put on him some­thing of the king and something of the beggar, that, by this patchery of mock‑majesty with sordid baseness to­gether, he may appear the greater fool to all the company. And certainly, if the devil might have the dressing of a man, so as to cast the greatest shame and ignominy upon him, yea, upon Christ and the profession of his gospel, he could not think of a read­ier way than to persuade a wretch to pretend to high and glorious hopes of heaven, and then to have noth­ing suitable to the high‑flown hopes in his conversa­tion, but all base and unworthy of such royal claims. If ye should see one going into the field with a helmet of brass on his head, but a wooden sword in one hand, and a paper shield on the other, and the rest of his armour like to these, you would expect he was not likely to hurt his enemies, except they should break their sides with laughing at him. Such a goodly spec­tacle is the brag professor, who lifts up his head on high with a bold expectation of salvation, but can show never a grace beside to suit with the great hope he hath taken up; he may make the devil sport, but never do him any great hurt, or himself good. Question. But may be you will ask, How is the Christian to live up to his hopes? Answer. I answer, in general, he is to be careful to do nothing in which he may not freely act his hope, and from the promise expect that God will, for Christ’s sake, both approve the action, and reward his person for it. Ask thy soul this question seriously before thou engagest in any work, ‘May I hope that God will bid me good speed? Can I look for his countenance in it, and his blessing on it?’ It is very unworthy of a Christian to do anything sneakingly, as if he were afraid God or his conscience should be privy to his work. ‘Whatsoever is not of hope is sin, because it cannot be of faith.’ O how would this hedge in the Christian’s heart from all by-paths! Pos­sibly thou hast a grudge against thy neighbour. The fire is kindled in thy heart, though it flames not presently out into bitter words and angry behaviour; and thou art going to pray. Ask now thy soul, wheth­er God will accept that sacrifice which is kindled with such strange fire? Yea, bid thy soul bethink herself how thy hopes of pardoning and saving mercy from God can agree with thy wrathful unforgiving spirit towards thy brother? Certainly, as the sun cannot well be seen through a disturbed air, so neither can the eye of hope well see her object—heaven’s salva­tion—when the soul is tumultuous and roiled with anger and unchristian passion. But, to instance in some particulars wherein you must comport with your hopes of salvation. [Instances wherein the Christian should live up to his hopes.] First Instance. In your company. Man is a so­ciable creature—made for fellowship. And what com­pany is fit for thee to consort with, but those of the same breeding and hopes with thyself? The saints are a distinct society from the world. ‘Let ours also learn to maintain good works,’ Titus 3:14. ‘Ours,’ i.e. of our fellowship. And it becomes them to seek their com­pany among themselves. That of Peter and John is observable, ‘being let go, they went to their own com­pany,’ Acts 4:23. When among the ungodly world they made account they were not in their own company, and therefore stayed no longer than needs must among them. There were enough surely in the land of Canaan with whom Abraham might have associ­ated; but he knew they were not company for him to be linked to in any intimacy of acquaintance, and therefore it is said of him, that ‘he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise,’ Hebrews 11:9. We find him indeed confederate with Mamre, the Amorite, and Eshcol, and Aner, his brethren, Genesis 14:13, which presup­poseth more than ordinary acquaintance. But these, in all probability, were proselytes, and had, by Abraham’s godly persuasions, renounced their idolatry, to worship with him the true God. And we may the ra­ther be induced to think so, because we find them so deeply engaged with Abraham in battle with those idolatrous neighbour princes, which, had they them­selves been idolaters, it is like they would not have done for a stranger, and him of a strange religion also. We find how dearly some of the saints have paid for their acquaintance with the wicked, as Jehoshaphat for his intimacy with Ahab, and many others. And if, knowing this, we shall yet associate ourselves with such, we cannot in reason look to pay less than they have done; yea, well, if we come off so cheap, because we have their follies recorded to make us wiser. O consider, Christian, whither thou art going in thy hopes! Is it not to heaven? and do not men seek for such company as go their way? And are the wicked of thy way? When heaven’s way and hell’s meet in one road, then, and not till then, can that be. And if thy companion will not walk in heaven-way, what wilt thou do that walkest with him? It is to be feared thou must comply too much in his way. In a word, Christian, thy hope points to heaven; and is it not one thing thou hopest for, when thou comest there, to be delivered from all company with the wicked? and what thou then hopest for, doth thou not now pray for? Sure enough thou dost, if a true saint. Whatever is the object of a saint’s hope is the subject of his prayer. As oft as thou sayest, ‘Thy kingdom come,’ thou prayest thus much. And will hoping and praying to be delivered from them, stand with throw­ing thyself upon them, and intimate familiarity with them? Second Instance. Then thou comportest with thy hopes of salvation, when thou labourest to be as holy in thy conversation as thou art high in thy expec­tation. This the apostle urgeth from the condescency of the thing: ‘What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God,’ 2 Peter 3:11-12. Certainly it becomes such to be holy even to admiration, who look for such a blessed day! We hope then to be like the angels in glory, and therefore should, if possible, live now like angels in holiness. Every believing soul is Christ’s spouse. The day of conversion is the day of espousals, wherein she is contracted and betrothed by faith to Christ; and as such, lives in hope for the marriage-day, when he shall come and fetch her home unto his Father’s house—as Isaac did Rebecca into his mother’s tent —there to cohabit with him and live in his sweet em­braces of love, world without end. Now, would the bride have her bridegroom find her, when he comes, in her fluttery and vile raiment? No, sure. ‘Can a bride forget her attire?’ Jeremiah 2:32. Was it ever known that a bride forgot to have her wedding‑clothes made against the marriage‑day? or to put them on when she looks for her bridegroom’s coming? Holiness is the ‘raiment of needle-work,’ in which, Christian, thou art to be ‘brought unto thy king and husband,’ Psalms 45:14. Wherefore is the wedding-day put off so long, but because this garment is so long a making? When this is once wrought, and thou ready dressed, then that joyful day comes: ‘The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready,’ Revelation 19:7. Thou hast not, Christian, a weightier argument to knock down all temptations to sin, nor a more honourable way to get the victory of them, than by setting thy hope to grapple with them. I confess it is well when this enemy is worsted, what hand soever he falls by; though it be the fear of hell that clubs it down in the lives of men, it is better than not at all. Yet I must tell you, that as the Israelites’ state was poor and servile, when they were fain to borrow the Philis­tines’ grindstone ‘to sharpen every man his axe and mattock,’ 1 Samuel 13:20, so it speaks the Christian to be in no very good state as to his spiritual affairs when he is fain to use the wicked man’s argument to keep him from sinning, and nothing will set an edge upon his spirit to cut through temptation, but what the un­circumcised world themselves use. Thou, Christian, art of a nobler spirit, and more refined temper than these, I trow. And as we have a finer stone to sharpen a razor with that we use for a butcher’s knife, so, certainly, a more spiritual and ingenuous argument would become thee better, to make thee keen and sharp against sin, than what prevails with the worst of men sometimes to forbear at least acting their wicked­ness. Go thou, Christian, to thy hope, and while the slavish sinner scares and terrifies himself from his lust with fire and brimstone, do thou shame thyself out of all acquaintance with it from the great and glorious things thou lookest for in heaven. Is it a sin of sensual pleasure that assaults thy castle? Say then to thy soul, ‘Shall I play the beast on earth, that hope to be such a glorious creature in heaven?’ Shall that head be found now in a Delilah’s lap, that ere long I hope to be laid in Abraham’s bosom? Can I now yield to defile that body with lust and vomit, which is the gar­ment my soul hopes to wear in heaven? O no! Avaunt, Satan! I will have nothing to do with thee, or anything that will make me unmeet for that blessed place and holy state I wait for. Third Instance. Let thy hope of heaven moder­ate thy affections to earth. ‘Be sober, and hope,’ saith the apostle, 1 Peter 1:13. You that look for so much in another world, may very well be content with a little in this. Nothing more unbecomes a heavenly hope than an earthly heart. You would think it an un­seemly thing for some rich man, that hath a vast es­tate, among the poor gleaners at harvest‑time, as busy to pick up the ears of corn that are left in the field, as the most miserable beggar in the company. O how all the world would cry shame of such a sordid‑spirited man! Well, Christian, be not angry if I tell thee that thou dost a more shameful thing to thyself by far; if thou, that pretendest to hope for heaven, beest as eager in the pursuit of this world’s trash as the poor carnal wretch is who expects no portion but what God hath left him to pick up in the field of this world. Certainly thy hope is either false, or at best very little. The higher that the summer sun mounts above the horizon, the more force it bears both to clear and also heat the air with his beams. And if thy hope of salva­tion were advanced to any ordinary pitch and height in thy soul, it would scatter these inordinate desires after this world with which now thou art choked up, and put thee into a greater heat of affection after heaven, than now thou feelest to things below. I remember Augustine, relating what sweet dis­course passed once between his mother and himself concerning the joys of heaven, breaks forth into this apostrophe, ‘Lord, thou knowest quàm viluit nobis in illo die hic mundus—how vile and contemptible this sorry world was in our eye in that day when our hearts were warmed with some sweet discourse of that bless­ed place.’ And I doubt not but every gracious person finds the same by himself; the nearer to heaven he gets in his hopes, the further he goes from earth in his desires. When he stands upon these battlements of heaven, he can look down upon this dunghill world as a nigrum nihil, a little dust‑heap next to nothing. It is Scultetus’ observation, that though there are many blemishes by which the eminent saints and servants of God recorded in Scripture are set forth as instan­ces of human frailty, yet not one godly man in all the Scripture is to be found, whose story is blotted with the charge of covetousness. If that hold true, which, as yet, I am not able to disprove, we may wonder how it comes about that it should, now‑a‑days, be called the professors’ sin, and become a common charge laid by the profane upon those that pretend to heaven more than themselves. O woe to those wretched men who, by their scandalous practices in this kind, put the coal into wicked men’s hands, with which they now black the names of all the godly, as if to be covetous were a necessary consequent of profession. Fourth Instance. Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death. Why shouldst thou be afraid to die, who hopest to live by dying? Is the apprentice afraid of the day when his time comes out?—he that runs a race, of coming too soon to his goal?—the pilot troubled when he sees his harbour?—or the betrothed virgin grieved when the wedding‑day approacheth? Death is all this to thee. When that comes, thy in­den­ture expires, and thy jubilee is come. Thy race is run, and the crown won—sure to drop on thy head when thy soul goes out of thy body. Thy voyage, how troublesome soever it was in the sailing, is now hap­pily finished, and death doth but this friendly office for thee, to uncover and open the ark of thy body, that it may safely land thy soul on the shore of eter­nity at thy heavenly Father’s door—yea, in his sweet embraces, never to be put to sea more. In a word, thy husband is come for thee, and knocks with death’s hand at thy door, to come forth unto him, that he may perform his promise, which, in the day of thy be­trothing, he made to thee; and thou lovest him but little, if thou beest not willing to be at the trouble of a remove hence, for to enjoy his blissful presence, in his Father’s royal palace of heaven, where such prep­aration is made for thy entertainment, that thou canst not know here, though an angel were sent on purpose to inform thee. O what tongue can express that felicity which infinite mercy bespeaks, infinite wisdom deviseth, in­finite merit purchaseth, and infinite power makes ready! I have read that the Turks say, ‘They do not think we Christians believe heaven to be such a glori­ous place as we profess and talk of; for if we did, we would not be so afraid to go thither, as we see many that profess themselves Christians to be.’ It cannot be denied, but all inordinate fears of death betray great unbelief and little hope. We do not look upon death under a right notion, and so we start at it; which, were we by faith but able to see through, and assure ourselves it comes to do us a good turn, we should feel as comfortably on the thoughts of it, as now we are scared at the apparition of it. The horse eats that hay in the rack, which he is afraid of when a little lies at a distance on the road; because there he knows it, but on the way he doth not. Christian, un­derstand aright what message death brings to thee, and the fear of it will be over. It snatcheth thee in­deed from this world’s enjoyments, but it leads thee to the felicities of another incomparably better. And who, at a feast, will chide the servant that takes away the first course, of which enough is eaten, to make room for the second to be set on, that consists of far greater delicacies? Fifth Instance. Then thou comportest with thy hope when thou livest in the joy of thy hope. A sad uncheerful heart does not become a lively hope. Let him follow his master with a heavy countenance, that looks to get nothing by his service. Thou art out of this fear, and therefore wrongest both thyself and thy God too by thy disconsolate spirit. ‘Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end,’ Hebrews 3:6. Christ takes no more delight to dwell in a sad uncheerful heart, than we in a dark melancholy house. Open thy shuts therefore, and let in the light which sheds its beams upon thee from the promise, or else thy sweet Saviour will be gone. We do not use to entertain our friends in a dark room, or sit by those that visit us, mopish and melancholic, lest they should think we are weary of their company. Christ brings such good news with him, as may bespeak better welcome with thee than a dejected countenance and a disconsolate spirit. I tell thee, Christian, could such a message be carried to the damned as might give them any hope—though never so little—of salvation, it would make hell itself a lightsome place, and tune those miserable souls into a rejoicing temper in the midst of their present tor­ments. Blush then, and be ashamed, O ye drooping saints! that a few thin clouds of some short afflictions, coming over your heads, should so wrap you up in the darkness of your spirits, as that the hope of heaven, whither you look at last to come, should not be able, in a moment, to dispel and turn your sorrow into a ravishment of joy and comfort. Sixth Instance. Thou livest up to thy hopes when, with thy rejoicing of hope, thou preservest an awful fear of God. ‘The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy,’ Psalms 147:11. We too often see that children forget to pay that respect and reverence which is due to their par­ents, when once the estate is made sure into them. And truly, though the doctrine of assurance cannot be charged with any such bitter fruit to grow naturally from it, as the Remonstrants and Papists would have us believe; yet we are too prone to abuse it; yea, the best of saints may, after they have the love of God with eternal life passed over to them under the privy-seal of hope’s assurance, be led so far into tempta­tion, as to fall foully, and carry themselves very undu­tifully. Witness David and Solomon, whose saddest miscarriages were after God had obliged them by opening his very heart to them in such manifestations of his love to them, as few are to be found that had the like. Both father and son are checked by God for this, and a blot left upon their history, on purpose to show what a sad accent this gave to their sin—that they fell after such discoveries of divine love made to them—and also to leave us instances not barely of human frailty, but of grace’s frailty in this life (and that in the most eminent saints, such as were penmen of holy writ), that when our hope grows into greatest assurance, and this assurance spreads itself into high­est rejoicing from the certainty of our expected glory, we should yet nourish a holy fear of God in our hearts, lest we grow crank[3] and forget God in the abundance of our peace. This holy fear will be to our joy as the continual dropping of water on the iron work in the fuller’s wheel—which keeps it from firing; or, as the pericardium with which the God of nature hath moated about the heart in our bodies, that by the water of it, the heart, which is perpetually in motion, might be kept from being inflamed into a distempered heat. The devil is pleased if he can at any time get a saint to sin, but he glorieth most when he can lay them in the dirt in their holiday clothes, as I may so say, and make them defile themselves when they have their garments of salvation on, I mean those which God hath in some more than ordinary discovery of himself clothed them withal. If at such a time he can be too hard for them, then he hath, he thinks, a fair occasion given him to go, and insultingly show God what pickle his child is in, and hold up the Christian’s assurance and comfort mockingly—as they their brother’s coat to their father—besmeared with the blood and filth of some beastly sin he hath thrown him into, and ask God, ‘Is this the assurance thou hast given him of heaven? and this the garment of sal­vation which thou didst put on him? See where he hath laid it, and what a case he hath made it in.’ O what gracious soul trembles not at the thought of putting such blasphemy into the mouth of the devil to reproach the living God by! That, Christian, is the be­loved child, and shall be most made of by his heav­enly Father, who sits not down to loiter in the sun­shine of divine love, but gathers up his feet the nimb­ler in the way of duty, because his God is so kind to make his walk more cheerful and comfortable than others find it, and who loseth not his reverential fear of God in God’s familiarity with him. Moses is a rare instance for this. Did ever the great God treat a mor­tal man, a saint in flesh, with the like familiarity and condescension, as he did that holy man, with whom he spake mouth to mouth, and before whom he caused all his goodness to pass? Exodus 34:6. And how bears he this transcending act of grace? Doth he grow bold, and forget his distance between God and him, by this low stoop of the divine Majesty to converse with him in such a humble manner, if I may so say? No; his heart was never in all his life more filled with the reverence of God than now. He trembled, in­deed, and quaked more, it is very likely, on Mount Sinai; but his filial fear was as conspicuous now as then. It is true, this extraordinary manifestation of those soul-ravishing attributes of God’s love and goodness—especially his pardoning mercy to him that knew himself a sinner, and at that time made much more sensible thereof by the terror which the dreadful promulgation of the law had left on his spirit—could not but exceedingly heighten his joy, and overrun his soul with a sweet love to so gracious a God. Yet, was not Moses’ awful fear of God drowned or lost in the high tide of these sweeter affections; for it follows, ‘and Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped,’ Exodus 34:8. This favourite of heaven, mark how he shows his fear of God most, when God expresseth his love to him most. THIRD POINT OF IMPROVEMENT. [Arguments why we should strengthen our hope, with directions how.] Labour, O ye saints! to strengthen your hope. There is, as a weak faith, so a wavering unsteadfast hope. This you are by the diligent use of all means to establish and consolidate. Now, then, hope is firm and solid when the Christian doth not fluctuate formidine opposti—with the fear of being opposed, but, by this anchor‑hold that hope hath on the prom­ise, is kept from those dejections and tumultuous fears with which they that have no hope are swallowed up, and they whose hope is but weak are sadly dis­composed and shaken. Solidum est quod sui solius est plenum—that is a solid body which is compact and free from heterogeneal mixtures. The more pure gold is from dross, and whatever is of a different na­ture to itself, the more solid it is. So hope, the more it is refined from groundless presumption on the one hand, or slavish fear and distrust on the other, the more solid and strong it is. This in Scripture is called ‘the assurance of hope.’ Now to provoke you to a holy zeal in your endeavour after this, consider, First. It is thy duty so to do. Second. If thou do not thou wilt show thou little esteemest Christ and his salvation. Third. Thou knowest not what stress thy hope may be put to before thou diest. [Arguments why we should strengthen our hope.] First Argument. Consider it is thy duty so to do. Indeed by the Papist’s doctrine, no man is bound to labour for such an assurance. But whether we should believe God or them, judge ye. What saith the Spirit of God, ‘We desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.’ Observe, First. The thing he exhorts to endeavour for, BDÎH J¬< B80D@N@D\"< J0H ²8B\*@H –PD4 JX8@LH —‘to the full assurance of hope.’ They whose hope is weak sail with but a scant side-wind. The apostle would have them go before the wind, and be carried with a full gale to heaven, which then is done when the soul, like a sail spread to the wind, is so filled with the truth and goodness of the promise, that it swells into an assured hope of what is promised, and rejoiceth in a certain expectation of what it shall have when it comes to the shore of eternity, though it be now tossed and weather-beaten with a thousand temptations and trials in its passage thither. Second. Observe whom he presseth this duty upon; not some few choice Christians, as an enter­prise laid out for them above the rest of their fellow-soldiers, but every person that will prove himself a Christian. ‘We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence,’ &c. In our civil trade, and partic­ular worldly calling, it were sinful for every poor man to propound such a vast estate to himself in his own desires as he sees some few—the wealthiest mer­chants in a city—have got by their trade, so as no less shall content him. But in the spiritual trade of a Christian it is very warrantable for every Christian to covet to be as rich in grace as the best. Paul himself will not think himself wronged if thou desirest to be as holy man as himself was, and labourest after as strong a faith and steadfast a hope as he had; yea, thou oughtest not to content thyself with what thou hast, if there were but one degree of grace more to be had than what at present thou hast obtained. And, Third. Observe what he imputes the weakness of the saints’ grace to; not an impossibility of attain­ing to more, but their sloth and laziness. And there­fore he opposeth this to that blessed frame of heart he so much wisheth them, ‘That ye be not slothful,’ Hebrews 6:12. Indeed it is the diligent hand makes rich; as in this world’s goods, so in this heavenly treasure also. Second Argument. Labour to strengthen thy hope of salvation, or thou wilt show thou little es­teemest Christ and his salvation. As we prize any good, so we labour more or less to assure ourselves of it. If a prince should lose a pin from his sleeve, or a penny out of his purse, and one should bring him news they are found; the things are so inconsiderable that he would not care whether it were true or not. But if his kingdom lay at stake in the field, and intel­ligence comes that his army hath got the day and beat the enemy, O how he would long to have his hope, that is now raised a little, confirmed more strongly by another post! Is heaven worth so little that you can be satisfied with a few probabilities and uncertain maybees you shall come thither? Thou basely despis­eth that blessed place if thou beest no more solicitous to know the truth of thy title to it. When Micaiah seemed to give Ahab—now advancing his army against Ramoth-gilead—some hope of a victory, by bidding him ‘go up and prosper,’ the thing being pas­sionately desired by the king, he fears the worst—as indeed he had reason, for the prophet’s speech was ironical—and therefore cannot rest till he know more of this matter. ‘And the king said unto him, How many times shall I adjure thee that thou tell me noth­ing but that which is true in the name of the Lord?’ 1 Kings 22:16. Maybe thou hast some loose wavering hopes of heaven floating in thy soul. If now, thou didst think thy eternal woe lay in the truth or falsehood of that hope, certainly thou wouldst search thy heart by the word, and adjure thy conscience after an impartial review to tell thee the naked truth, what thy state is, and whether thou mayest in God’s name, and with the leave of his word, hope it shall be thy portion or not; and this thou wouldst do, not hypocritically, as that wretched king did—who adjured Micaiah to tell him the truth, and then would not believe him though he did it faithfully—but with great plainness of heart; it being about a business of no less importance than what shall become of thee to eternity. Peter, when surprised with the tidings of Christ’s resurrection, though the report did not find such credit with him as it might, yet, by his speedy running to, and looking into, the sepulchre, he showed both how dearly he loved his Lord, as also how joyful a man he should be, if the news held true that he was alive. Thus, Chris­tian, though the promise of eternal life hath not hitherto produced such an assurance of hope that thou art the person that shalt undoubtedly enjoy it, yet show what appreciating thoughts thou hast of that blissful state, by endeavouring to strengthen thy hope and put thee out of doubt thereof. Third Argument. Consider this also in the last place, that thou knowest not what stress thy hope may be put to before thou diest. The wise mariner doth victual his ship for the longest day. He reckons on foul weather and cross winds which may retard his voyage, and make it more troublesome, though some find it a shorter cut and fairer passage, and therefore he stores himself accordingly, knowing well it is easier carrying provision to sea than getting it there. Non facilè inveniuntur in adversitate præsidia, quænon fuerint in pace quæsita—protection is not readily found in adversity, which has not been sought out in time of peace—a good speech of Austin. God himself tells us we have ‘need of patience;’ he means great store of patience, ‘that after we have done the will of God, we may receive the promise,’ Hebrews 10:36. And if of patience, then of hope; because patience bears all on hope’s back. Now, because we know not the cer­tain degree of hope that will serve our turn—God having purposely concealed the weight of affliction and temptation he intends to lay on us—therefore we should never cease our endeavour to strengthen it. There are hard duties to be performed, and strong trials to be endured, and these require a hope propor­tionable. We are to ‘hold fast...the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end,’ Hebrews 3:6. Now, will the Christian of weak hope do this? He, alas! is like a leaky ship with a rich lading; the fear of sinking be­fore she gets the port takes away the owner’s joy of the treasure she carries. Bid such a one rejoice in his inheritance that is laid up in heaven for him, and he will tell you he questions whether ever he shall come there. Patient waiting for mercy prorogued and defer­red is another hard duty, ‘It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord,’ Lamentations 3:26. Now weak hope is short-breathed, and cannot stay long with any quietness. Omne invalidum est querulum—weak persons are commonly hardest to please; soon peevish and fro­ward if they have not what they would, and that when they desire it also. When David’s faith and hope were under a dis­temper, then he falls out with all. The prophet him­self that brought him the news of a kingdom cannot escape his censure, and all because the promise stayed longer before it was delivered than he expected —‘I said in my haste, All men are liars,’ Psalms 116:11 —whereas the promise went not a day beyond its due time, but he missed of its true reckoning through his inordinate desire. But take David in his healthful temper—when his faith and hope are strong—and he is not so hasty then to call for a mercy out of God’s hands; but thinks his estate in God’s hands as safe as if it were paid into his own. ‘Praise waiteth for thee, O God,’ or, ‘praise is silent for thee,’ so the Hebrew, %-%( %*/$ (dumiyah thehillah), will bear it, Psalms 65:1. As if the holy man had said, ‘Lord, I do quietly wait for a time to praise thee. My soul is not in an uproar because thou stayest. I am not murmuring, but rather stringing my harp, and tuning my instrument with much patience and confidence, that I may be ready to strike up when the joyful news of my deliverance first comes.’ You have much ado to make the child quiet till dinner, though he sees preparations for a great feast; but one that is grown up will be soon pacified when he is kept a little longer than ordinary for his meal upon such an occasion. O Christian, it is our childishness and weakness of grace—especially of our hope—that makes us so soon out of patience to wait God’s leisure. Strengthen hope, and patience will grow with it. In a word, Christian, thou hast great trials and strong temptations to conquer before you enter heav­en gates and be clothed with your garments of salva­tion there. Now defend thy hope, and that will de­fend thee in these; strengthen that, and that will carry thee through them. The head, every member is offi­cious to preserve it. The hands are lift up to keep off the blow, the feet run to carry the head from danger, the mouth will receive any unsavoury pill to draw fumes and humours from the head. Salvation is to the soul what the head is to the body—the principal thing it should labour to secure; and hope is to our salvation what the helmet is to the head. Now if he be unwise that ventures his head under a weak helmet in the midst of bullets at the time of battle, then much more unwise he that hazards his salvation with a weak hope. Know, O Christian, the issue of the battle with thy enemy depends on thy hope; if that fail all is lost. Thy hope is in conflicts with temptations and suffer­ings, as a prince is amidst his army, who puts life into them all while he looks on and encourageth them to the battle, but if a report of the king’s being slain comes to their ears, their courage fails and hearts faint. Therefore Ahab would be held up in his chariot to conceal his danger from the people, the knowledge of which would have cast a damp on their courage. Thy hope is the mark Satan’s arrows are leveled at. If possible keep that from wounding. Or if at any time his dart reacheth it, and thy spirit begins to bleed of the wound which he hath given thee by ques­tioning ‘Whether such great sins can be pardoned as thou hast committed? such old festered sores as thy lusts have been can be ever cured? or afflictions that are so heavy and have continued so long can possibly be either endured or removed?’ Now labour, as for thy life, to hold up thy hope though wounded in the chariot of the promise, and bow not by despairing to let the devil trample on thy soul. So soon as thy hope gives up the ghost will this cursed fiend stamp thee under his foul feet, and take his full revenge of thee, and that without any power of thy soul to strike a stroke for thy defence. This will so dispirit thee that thou wilt be ready to throw up all endeavour and at­tendance on the means of salvation; yea, desperately say, ‘To what purpose is it to think of praying, hear­ing, and meditating, when there is no hope?’ What! should we send for the physician when our friend is dead? What good will the chafing and rubbing the body do when the head is severed from it? The army broke up, and every one was sent to his city, as soon as it was known that Ahab was dead. And so wilt thou cast off all thought of making any head against sin and Satan when thy hope is gone, but fall either into Judas’ horror of conscience, or with Cain, turn atheist, and bury the thoughts of thy desperate con­dition in a heap of worldly projects. I come now to give a few words of counsel, how a Christian may best strengthen his hope. Take them in these six particulars following. 1. If thou meanest thy hope of salvation should rise to any strength and solidness, study the word of God diligently. 2. Keep thy conscience pure. 3. Resort to God daily, and beg a stronger hope of him. 4. Labour to increase your love. 5. Be much in the exercise of your hope. 6. File up thy experiences of past mercies, and thy hope will grow stronger for the future. [Six directions how we may strengthen our hope.] First Direction. If thou meanest thy hope of salvation should rise to any strength and solidness, study the word of God diligently. The Christian is bred by the word, and he must be fed by it also, or else his grace will die. That is the growing child that lies libbing oftenest at the breast. Now as God hath provided food in his word to nourish every grace, so in the composition of the Scriptures he had a particu­lar respect to the welfare and growth of the saint’s hope, as one principal end of their writing. ‘That we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope,’ Romans 15:4. The devil knows this so well, that his great labour is spent to deprive the Christian of the help which the word is stored with; and indeed therein he is not mistaken, for so long as this river is unblocked up which makes glad the City of God, with the succours which are brought in to them on the stream of its precious promises, he can never besiege them round or put them to any great straits. Some, therefore, he deprives of their relief by mere sloth and laziness. They make a few fruitless complaints of their doubts and fears, like sluggards crying out of their wants and poverty as they lie in bed, but are loath to rise and take any pains to be resolved of them by searching of the word for their satisfaction; and these sell their comfort of all others the cheapest. Who will pity him, though he should starve to death, that hath bread before him, but loath to put his hand out of his bosom to carry it to his mouth! Others he abuseth by false applications of the word to their souls, partly through their weak understandings, and troubled spirits also, which discolour the truths of God and misrepresent them to their judgments, whereby they come to be beaten with their own staff —even those promises which a skilful hand would knock down Satan’s temptations withal. The devil is a great student in divinity, and makes no other use of his Scripture-knowledge than may serve his turn by sophistry to do the Christian a mischief, either by drawing him to sin, or into despair for sinning; like some wrangling barrister, who gets what skill he can in the law merely to make him the more able to put honest men to trouble by his vexatious suit. Well, if Satan be so conversant in the word to weaken thy hope, and deprive thee of thy inheritance, what rea­son hast thou then to furnish thyself with a holy skill to maintain thy right and defend thy hope? Now, in thy study of the word, propound these two ends, and closely pursue them till thou hast obtained them. 1. End. Labour to clear up thy understanding from the word, what are the conditions required by God of every soul that hath his grant and warrant to hope assuredly for life and salvation in the other world. Some conditions there are required to be found in all such is without all doubt, or else it were free for all, be they what they will, and live how they list, actually to lay claim to a right in heaven and sal­vation. If God had set no bounds at Sinai, and said nothing who should come up the mount, and who not, it had been no more presumption in any of the company to have gone up than in Moses; and if God requires no conditions in the person that is to hope, then heaven is a common for one as well as other to crowd into; then the beastly sinner may touch God’s holy mount as well as the saint, and fear no stoning for his bold adventure. But this sure is too fulsome doctrine for any judicious conscience to digest. Well, having satisfied thyself that if ever thou hast true hope thou must also have the conditions, inquire what they are. Now the word holds forth two sorts of conditions according to the two different covenants. (1.) There is a covenant of nature, or law-covenant, which God made with innocent Adam; and the condition of this was perfect obedience of the per­son that claimed happiness by it. This is not the con­dition now required; and he that stands groping in at this door in hope to enter into life by it, shall not only find it nailed up and no entrance that way to be had, but he also deprives himself of any benefit of the true door which stands open, and by which all pass that get thither. ‘Whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace,’ Galatians 5:4. You must therefore inquire what the other covenant is; and that is, (2.) A covenant of grace, as that other was of na­ture; of reconciliation to make God and man friends, as that was a covenant to preserve those friends who had never fallen out. Now the condition of this covenant is, repen­tance and faith. See for this Luke 24:47; John 3:36; Acts 2:38; Acts 5:31; Acts 20:21; Galatians 5:5. Labour therefore to give a firm as­sent to the truth of these promises, and hold it as an indisputable and inviolable principle, that ‘whoever sincerely repents of his sins, and with a ‘faith un­feigned’ receiveth Christ to be his Lord and Saviour, this is the person that hath the word and oath of a God that cannot possibly lie, for the pardon of his sins and the salvation of his soul.’ What service a strong assent to this will do thee towards exerting thy hope thou wilt by and by see. It is the very basis thereof. The weight of the Christian’s whole building bears so much on it that the Spirit of God, when he speaks in Scripture of evangelical truths and prom­ises, on which poor sinners must build their hopes for salvation, doth it with the greatest averment of any other truths, and usually adds some circumstance or other that may put us out of all doubt concerning the certainty and unalterableness of them. ‘Surely he hath borne our griefs,’ Isaiah 53:4. There is no question to be made of it; but it was our potion he drank, our debt he paid. What end could he have besides this in so great sufferings? Was it to give us a pattern of pa­tience how we should suffer? This is true, but not all; for some of our fellow-saints have been admirable instances of this. ‘He carried our sorrows,’ and ‘was wounded for our transgressions.’ This, this was the great business worthy of the Son of God’s undertak­ing, which none of our fellow-saints could do for us. So, ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all accep­tation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ 1 Timothy 1:15. As if he had said, ‘Fear no cheat or imposture here; it is as true as truth itself; for such is he that said it.’ If you believe not this you are worse than a devil. He cannot shut this truth out of his conscience, though the unwelcomest that ever came to his knowledge. ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,’ 1 John 1:9. What can the poor penitent fear when that attribute is become his friend that first made God angry with him. Yea, so fast a friend as to stand bound for the performance of the promise, which even now was so deeply engaged to execute the threatening on him? ‘Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath,’ Hebrews 6:17. What security could we have asked more of a deceitful man, than the faithful God of his own accord gives? The Ro­mans did not give their magistrates oaths—supposing the dignity and honour of their persons and place were bond strong enough to make them true and righ­teous. Surely then God’s word would have deserved credit, though it had not an oath to be its surety, yet God condescends to this, that he may sink the truth of what he saith deeper into our minds, and leave the print fairer and fuller in our assents to the same when set on with the weight of asseverations[4] and oaths. 2. End. Having found what is the condition of the covenant, rest not satisfied till thou findest this condition to be wrought in thy own soul, and art able to say thou art this repenting and believing sinner. A strong hope results from the clear evidence it hath for both these. We read in Scripture of a threefold assurance. (1.) An assurance of understanding, Colossians 2:2. (2.) An assurance of faith, Hebrews 10:22. (3.) An assurance of hope, Hebrews 6:11. And it is a good note which an acute doctor of our own hath upon them, ‘That these three make up one practical syllogism; wherein knowledge forms the proposition, faith makes the assumption, and hope draws the conclu­sion’ (D. A. Tac. Sa. p. 126). ‘I do,’ saith the Christian, ‘assuredly know from the word, that the repenting believing sinner shall be saved; my conscience also tells me that I do unfeignedly repent and believe; therefore I do hope firmly that I shall, however un­worthy otherwise, be saved.’ Now we know there can be no more in the conclusion than is in the premises; so that, as the force is, which the Christian puts forth in his assent to the truth of the promise, and the evi­dence which he hath, that the condition of the prom­ise—viz. faith and repentance—is wrought in his soul, so will his hope be, weak or strong. Indeed it can be no otherwise. If his assent to the truth of the promise be weak, or his evidence for the truth of his faith and repentance be dark and uncertain, his hope that is born—as I may so say—of these, must needs partake of its parent’s infirmities, and be itself weak and wavering, as they are from that which it results. Second Direction. Wouldst thou have thy hope strong? then, keep thy conscience pure. Thou canst not defile this, but thou wilt weaken that, ‘Living godly in this present world,’ and ‘looking for that blessed hope’ laid up for us in the other, are both conjoined, Titus 2:12-13. A soul wholly void of godli­ness needs be as destitute of all true hope, and the godly person that is loose and careless in his holy walking, will soon find his hope languishing. All sin is aguish meat; it disposeth the soul that tampers with it to trembling fears and shakings of heart. But such sins as are deliberately committed and plotted, they are to the Christian’s hope as poison to the spirits of his body, which presently drinks them up. They, in a manner, exanimate the Christian. They make the thoughts of God terrible to the soul; which, when he is in a holy frame, are his greatest joy and solace. ‘I remembered God, and was troubled,’ Psalms 77:3. They make him afraid to look on God in a duty, much more to look for God in the day of judgment. Can the servant be willing his master should come home when he is in his riot and excess? Mr. Calvin, when some wished him to forbear some of his labours, es­pecially his night studies, asked those his friends, ‘whether they would have his Lord find him idle when He came?’ O, God forbid! Christian, that death should find thee wanton and negligent in thy walking; that he should surprise thee lying in the puddle of some sin unrepented of! This would be a sad meet­ing! O how loath wouldst thou then be to die, and go to the great audit where thou must give up thy ac­counts for eternity! Will thy hope then be in case to carry thee up with joy to that solemn work? Can a bird fly when one of her wings is broke? Faith and a good conscience are hope’s two wings. If, therefore, thou hast wounded thy conscience by any sin, renew thy repentance, that so thou mayest act faith for the pardon of it, and, acting faith, mayest redeem thy hope, when the mortgage that is now upon it shall be taken off. If a Jew had pawned his bed‑clothes, God provided mercifully, it should be restored before night: ‘For,’ saith he, ‘that is his covering, wherein shall he sleep?’ Exodus 22:27. Truly, hope is the saint’s covering, wherein he wraps himself when he lays his body down to sleep in the grave. ‘My flesh,’ saith David, ‘shall rest in hope,’ Psalms 16:9. O Christian! bestir thyself to redeem thy hope before this sun of thy temporal life go down upon thee, or else thou art sure to lie down in sorrow. A sad going to the bed of the grave he hath, that hath no hope of a resurrection to life. Third Direction. Resort to God daily, and beg a stronger hope of him. That is the way the apostle took to help the saints at Rome to more of this pre­cious grace. ‘Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost,’ Romans 15:13. God, you see, is the God of hope; and not only of the first seed and habit, but of the whole increment and abounding of it in us also. He doth not give a saint the first grace of conversion, and then leave the improvement of it wholly to his skill and care; as sometimes a child hath a stock at first to set up, and never hath more help from his father, but, by his own good husbandry, advanceth his little beginnings into a great estate at last; but rather as the corn in the field, that needs the influences of heaven to flower and ripen for harvest, as much as to quicken in the clods when first thrown in. And therefore, be sure thou humbly acknowledgest God by a constant wait­ing on him for growth. ‘The young lions,’ are said to, ‘seek their meat from God,’ Psalms 104:21. That is, God hath taught them, when hungry, to express their wants by crying and lifting up their voice, which, did they know God to be their Maker, they would direct to him for supply; as we see the little babe that at first only expresseth its wants by crying, doth, so soon as it knows the mother, directs his moan to her. Thou knowest, Christian, that thou art at thy heavenly Fa­ther’s finding. He knows indeed what thou wantest, but he stays his supplies till thou criest, and this will make him draw forth his breast presently. Doth God take care for the beasts in the field? Surely then much more will he for thee his child in his house, and for thy soul above all. Thou mayest possibly pray for more riches, and be denied; but a prayer for more grace is sure to speed. Fourth Direction. If you would strengthen your hope, labour to increase your love. There is a secret, yet powerful, influence that love hath on hope. Mo­ses, we will easily grant, greatly befriended the Israel­ite, when he slew the Egyptian that fought with him. Love kills slavish fear—one of the worst enemies hope hath in the Christian’s heart—and thereby strengthens hope’s hand. He that plucks up the weeds helps the corn to grow, and he that purges out the disease makes way for nature’s strengthening. It is slavish fear oppresseth the Christian’s spirit that he cannot act hope strongly. Now, ‘love casteth out fear,’ 1 John 4:18. The free‑woman will cast out the bond-woman. Slavish fear is one of Hagar’s breed —an affection that keeps all in bondage that hath it. This love cannot brook. ‘Shall I,’ saith the loving soul, ‘fear he will hurt me, or be hard to me, that loves me, and I him so dearly? Away, unworthy thoughts, here is no room for such company as you are in my bosom.’ ‘Love thinketh no evil,’ 1 Corinthians 13:5. That is, it neither wisheth evil to, nor suspects evil of, another. The more thou lovest Christ, the less thou wilt be jealous of him; and the less jealous thou art of him, the more strongly thou wilt hope in him, and comfortably wait for him. Hence, these two graces are so often mated in Scripture. ‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ,’ 2 Thessalonians 3:5. Love him, and you will wait for him. So, ‘keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life,’ Jude 1:21. Fifth Direction. Be much in the exercise of your hope. Repeated acts strengthen habits. Thus the little waddling child comes to go strongly by going often. You have no more money in your chest at the year’s end than when you laid it there; nay, it is well if rust or thieves have not made it less. But you have more by trading with it than your first stock amoun­ted unto. ‘Thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury,’ said Christ to the ‘slothful servant,’ Matthew 25:27. Now the promises are hope’s object to act upon. A man can as well live without air, as faith and hope without a promise; yea, without frequent sucking in the refreshment of the promises. And, therefore, be much in meditation of them; set some time apart for the purpose. You that love your healths, do not content yourselves with the air that comes to you as you sit at work in your house or shop, but you will walk out into the fields some­times, to take the air more fresh and full. And if thou beest a wise Christian, thou wilt not satisfy thyself with the short converse thou hast by the by with the promises, as now and then they come into thy mind in thy calling, and when thou art about other employ­ments, but wilt walk aside on purpose to enjoy a more fixed and solitary meditation of them. This were of admirable use; especially if the Christian hath skill to sort the promises, and lay aside the provision made in them suitable to his case in particular. Sometimes the Christian is at a stand when he remembers his past sins, and his hope is quite dashed out of countenance while they stare on his conscience with their grim looks. Now it were excellent for the Christian to pick out a promise where he may see this objection answered and hope triumphing over it. This was David’s very case, Psalms 130:1-8. He grants himself to be in a most deplored condition, if God should reckon with him strictly, and give him quid pro quo—wages suitable to his work. ‘If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?’ Psalms 130:3. But then, he puts his soul out of all fear of God’s taking this course with poor penitent souls, by laying down this comfortable conclusion as an indubitable truth. ‘But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared;’ Psalms 130:4, that is, ‘there is forgiveness in thy nature; thou carriest a pardoning heart in thy bosom; yea, there is forgiveness in thy promise, thy merciful heart doth not only incline thee to thoughts of forgiv­ing, but thy faithful promise binds thee to draw forth the same unto all that humbly and seasonably lay claim thereunto. Now, this foundation laid, see what superstructure this holy man raiseth, ‘I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope,’ Psalms 130:5. As if he had said, ‘Lord, I take thee at thy word, and am resolved by thy grace to wait at this door of thy promise, never to stir thence till I have my promised dole—forgiveness of my sins—sent out unto me.’ And this is so sweet a morsel, that he is loath to eat it alone, and therefore he sets down the dish, even to the lower end of the table, that every godly person may taste with him of it—‘Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities,’ Psalms 130:7-8. As if he had said, ‘That which is a ground of hope to me, not­withstanding the clamour of my sins, affords as solid and firm a bottom to any true Israelite or sincere soul in the world, did he but rightly understand himself, and the mind of God in his promise. Yea, I have as strong a faith for such as my own soul, and durst pawn the eternity of its happiness upon this princi­ple—that God shall redeem every sincere Israelite from all his iniquities.’ This, this is the way to knock down our sins indeed. And Satan, when he comes to reproach us with them, and, by their batteries, to dis­mount our hope, sometimes a qualm comes over the Christian’s heart merely from the greatness of the things hoped for. ‘What!’ saith the poor soul, ‘seems it a small thing for me to hope, that of an enemy I should become a son and heir to the great God! What! a rebel? and not only hope to be pardoned, but prove a favourite, yea such a one, as to have robes of glory making for me in heaven, where I shall stand among those that minister about the throne of God in his heavenly court, and that before I have done him any more service here on earth? O, it is too great good news to prove true.’ Thus the poor soul stands amazed—as the disciples, when the first tidings of the Lord’s resurrection surprised them—and is ready to think its hope but an idle tale with which Satan abuseth it, ut præsumendo speret et sperando pereat —that he may presume to hope, and perish with his presumption. Now, Christian, that thou mayest be able to stride over this stumbling‑block, be sure to observe those prints of God’s greatness and infinitude that are stamped upon the promise. Sometimes you have them expressed, on purpose to free our thoughts, and ease our hearts of this scruple. When God promised what great things he would do for Abraham, to make them more credible, and easily believed, he adds, ‘I am the Almighty God,’ Genesis 17:1; and so, Isaiah 55:7, ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’ But how can this possibly be done, that in the turn of a hand, as it were, such a great favour can be obtained, which among men could hardly be done in a lifetime spent suing for it? O that is easily answered. He tells you he is not a sorry man, but a God, and hath a way by himself in pardoning wrongs, which none can follow him in; for it is as far above our ways as the heavens are above the earth. This, Christian, observe, and it will be a key to unlock all promises, and let you in unto the untold treasures that are in them; yea, [will] make the greatest prom­ise in the Bible easy to be believed. Whenever you read any promise, remember whose bond it is—the word of no other than God. And when you think of God, be sure you do not narrow him up in the little compass of you finite apprehensions, but conceive of him always as an infinite being, whose center is every­where, and circumference is nowhere. When you have raised your thoughts to the highest, then know you are as far yea infinitely farther, from reaching his glory and immensity, than a man is from touching the body of the sun with his hand when got upon a hill or mountain. This is to ascribe greatness to God,’ as we are commanded, Deuteronomy 32:3. And it will admirably facilitate the work of believing. Suppose a poor cripple should be sent for by a prince to court, with a promise to adopt him for his son and make him heir to his crown, this might well seem incredible to the poor man, when he considers what a leap it is from his beggar’s cottage to the state of a prince. No doubt if the promise had been to pre­fer him to a place in a hospital, or some ordinary pen­sion for his maintenance, it would be more easily credited by him, as more proportional to his low con­dition; yet, the greatness of the prince, and the de­light such take to be like God himself, by showing a kind of creating power to raise some as it were from nothing unto the highest honours a subject is capable of—thereby to oblige them as their creatures to their service—this, I say, might help such a one think this strange accident not altogether impossible. Thus here. Should a poor soul spend all his thoughts on his own unmeetness and unworthiness to have heaven and eternal life conferred on him, it were not possible he should ever think so well of himself as that he should be one of those glorious creatures that were to enjoy it. But, when the greatness of God is believed, and the infinite pleasure he takes to demonstrate that greatness this way—by making miserable creatures happy, rather than by perpetuating their miseries in an eternal state of damnation—and what cost he hath been at to clear a way for his mercy to freely act in, and, in a word, what a glorious name this will gain him in the thoughts he thus exalts; these things —which are all to be found in the word of promise —well weighed, and acknowledged, cannot but open the heart, though shut with a thousand bolts, to enter­tain the promise and believe all is truth that God there saith, without any more questioning the same. A taste I have given in one or two particulars, you see, how the promises may be suited to answer the partic­ular objections raised against our hope. It were easy here to multiply instances, and to pattern any other case with promises for the purpose; but this will most effectually be done by you who know your own scru­ples better than another can. And be such true friends to your own souls, as to take a little pains therein. The labour of gathering a few simples in the field, and making them up into a medicine by the direction of the physician, is very well paid for, if the poor man finds it doth him good and restores him to health. Sixth Direction. File up thy experiences of past mercies, and thy hope will grow stronger for the fu­ture. Experience worketh hope, Romans 5:4. He is the best Christian that keeps the history of God’s gracious dealings with him most carefully, so that he may read in it his past experiences, when at any time his thoughts trouble him and his spiritual rest is broken with distracting fears for the future. This is he that will pass the night of affliction and temptation with comfort and hope; while others that have taken no care to pen down—in their memories at least—the remarkable instances of God’s love and favour to them in the course of their lives, will find the want of this sweet companion in their sorrowful hours, and be put to sad plunges; yea, well, if they be not driven to think their case desperate, and past all hope. Some­times a little writing is found in a man’s study that helps to save his estate; for want of which he had gone to prison and there ended his days. And some one experience remembered keeps the soul from despair —a prison which the devil longs to have the Christian in. ‘This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope,’ Lamentations 3:21. David was famous for his hope, and not less eminent for his care to observe preserve, the experi­ences he had of God’s goodness. He was able to re­count the dealings of God to him. They were so often the subject of his meditation and matter of his dis­course, that he had made them familiar to him. When his hope is at a loss, he doth but rub his memory up a little and he recovers himself presently, and chides himself for his weakness. ‘I said, This is my infir­mity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High,’ Psalms 77:10. The hound, when he hath lost the scent, hunts backward and so recovers it, and pursues his game with louder cry than ever. Thus, Christian, when thy hope is at a loss for the life to come, and thou questionest thy salvation in another world, then look backward and see what God hath already done for thee in this world. Some promises have their day of payment here, and others we must stay to receive in heaven. Now the payment which God makes of some promises here, is an earnest given to our faith, that the other also shall be faithfully discharged when their date ex­pires; as every judgment inflicted here on the wicked is sent as a penny in hand of that wrath the full sum whereof God will make up in hell. Go therefore, Christian, and look over thy receipts. God hath promised ‘sin shall not have dominion over you;’ no, not in this life, Romans 6:14. It is the present state of a saint in this life that is intended there. Canst thou find this promise made good to thee? is the power of sin broken and the sceptre wrung out of this king’s hand, whom once thou didst willingly obey as ever subject his prince? yea, canst thou find he hath but begun to fall by thy unthroning him in thy heart and affections? Dost thou now look on sin not as thou wert wont, for thy prince, but as a usurper, whose tyranny, by the grace of God, thou art resolved to shake off, both as intolerable to thee and dishonour­able to God, whom thou now acknowledgest to be thy rightful Lord, and to whose holy laws thy heart most freely promiseth obedience? This, poor soul, may assure thee that thou shalt have a full dominion over sin in heaven ere long, which hath begun already to lose his power over thee on earth. It is observable how David rears up his hope to expect heaven’s per­fect state of holiness from his begun sanctification on earth. First, he declares his holy resolution for God, and then his high expectation from God. ‘As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be sat­isfied, when I awake, with thy likeness,’ Psalms 17:15. Hast thou found God’s supporting hand in all thy tempta­tions and troubles, whereby thou art kept from sink­ing under them? A David would feed his hope for eternal salvation with this, ‘thou hast holden me by my right hand,’ Psalms 73:23. Now observe hope’s infer­ence, ‘Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and af­terward receive me to glory,’ Psalms 73:24. And as experiences carefully kept and wisely im­proved, would conduce much to strengthening the Christian’s hope on its chief object—salvation; so also would they lift up its head above all those dis­tracting fears which arise in the Christian’s heart, and put him to much trouble from those cross and af­flicting providences that befall him in this life. Cer­tainly David would have been more scared with the big looks and brag deportment of that proud Goliath, had not the remembrance of the bear and the lion which he slew brought relief to him and kept them down. But he had slain this uncircumcised Philistine in a figure when he tore in pieces those unclean beasts. And therefore when he marches to him, this is the shield which he lifts up to cover himself with, ‘The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine,’ 1 Samuel 17:37. If experiences were no ground for hope in future straits —temporary now I mean—then they would not have the force of an argument in prayer. But saints use their experiences to do them service in this case, and make account they urge God very close and home when they humbly tell him what he hath already done for them, and expect he should therefore go on in his fatherly care over them. ‘Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns,’ Psalms 22:21. And no doubt a gracious soul may pray in faith from his past experience, and expect a satisfactory answer to that prayer wherein former mercies are his plea for what he wants at present. God himself intends his people more comfort from every mercy he gives them, than the mercy itself singly and abstractly considered amounts to. Suppose, Chris­tian, thou hast been sick, and God hath, at thy hum­ble prayer, plucked thee out of the very jaws of death, when thou wert even going down his throat almost; the comfort of this particular mercy is the least God means thee therein; for he would have thee make it a help to thy faith, and a shore [support] to thy hope, when shaken by any future strait whatever. ‘Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilder­ness,’ Psalms 74:14. God in that mercy at the Red Sea, we see, is thinking what Israel should have to live on for forty years together, and looked that they should not only feast themselves at present with the joy of this stupendous mercy; but powder it up in their memo­ries, that their faith might not want a meal in that hungry wilderness all the while they were to be in it. Experiences are like a cold dish reserved at a feast. Sometimes the saint sits down with nothing else on his table but the promise and his experience; and he that cannot make a soul‑refreshing meal with these two dishes deserves to fast. Be sure, Christian, thou observest this in every mercy—what is the matter of present thankfulness, and what is ground of future hope. Achor is called ‘a door of hope,’ Hosea 2:15. God, when he gives one mercy, opens a door for him to give, and us to expect more mercy through it. God compares his promise to ‘the rain,’ which maketh the earth ‘bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,’ Isaiah 55:10. Why shouldst thou, O Christian, content thyself with half the bene­fit of a mercy? When God performs his promise, and delivers thee out of this trouble and that strait, thou art exceedingly comforted, may be, with the mercy, and thy heart possibly enlarged at present into thank­fulness for the same. It is well. Here is ‘bread for the eater’—something at present feasts thee. But where is the ‘seed for the sower?’ The husbandman doth not spend all his corn that he reaps, but saves some for seed, which may bring him another crop. So, Christian, thou shouldst feast thyself with the joy of thy mercy, but save the remembrance of it as hope-seed, to strengthen thee to wait on God for another mercy and further help in a needful time. [An objection answered, with some practical reflections.] But, you will possibly say, how can a saint’s past experience be so helpful to his hope for the future, when God, we see, often crosseth the saint’s experi­ences? He delivers them out of one sickness, and takes them away, may be, with the next; he saves them in one battle without a scratch or hurt, and in another a while after they are killed or wounded; how then can a saint ground and bottom his hope from a past deliverance to expect deliverance in the like strait again? Answer 1. There is the same power still in God that was then. What he did once for thee he can with as much ease do again; and this is one way thy experi­ences may help thee. Thou hast seen God make bare his arm, so that except thou thinkest that he since hath lost the strength or use of it, and is become at last a God with a lame hand, hope hath an object to act upon, and such one as will lift thy head above water. Indeed, the soul never drowns in despair till it hath lost its hold on the power of God. When it questions whether God will deliver, this is a sad leak, I confess, and will let in a thousand fears into thy soul; yet so long as the Christian can use this pump —I mean, act faith on the power of God, and believe that God can deliver when he pleases—thou gh it will not clear the ship of his soul of all its fears, yet it will keep it from quite sinking, because it will preserve him in a seeking posture. ‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,’ Mark 1:40. And for thee to say God cannot deliver, who hast been an eyewitness to what he hath done, were not only to betray thy great unbelief, but to forfeit thy reason as a man also. But, Answer 2. To give a more close answer to the question, the saint, from his former experiences, even of temporal salvations, may, yea ought, not only be­lieve that God can, but also that he will, save him in all future straits and dangers of this nature; only, he cannot conclude that he will do it in the same way as in former deliverances. And none I hope will say, if he hath deliverance, that his experiences are crossed because God doth use another method in the convey­ance of it to him. A debt may be fully satisfied, as with money, so with that which is money worth, ex­cept the bond restrains the payment otherwise. Now there is no clause to be found in any promise for tem­poral mercies, that binds God to give them in specie or in kind. Spiritual mercies—such I mean as are saving and essential to the saint’s happiness—these indeed are promised to be given in kind, because there is nothing equivalent that can be paid in lieu of them; but temporal mercies are of such an inferior nature, that a compensation and recompense may be easily given in their stead; yea, God never denies these to a saint, but for his gain and abundant advan­tage. Who will say the poor saint is a loser whose purse God denieth to fill with gold and silver, but filleth his heart with contentation? or the sick saint, when God saves him not by restoring to former health, but by translating to heaven? And so much may suffice for answer to the objection propounded. I shall wind up this head with two or three reflections to be used by the Christian for his better improving past experiences when he is at a plunge. (1.) Reflection. Look back, Christian, to thy past experiences, and inquire whether thou canst not find that thy God hath done greater matters for thee than this which thou now hast so many disquieting fears and despairing thoughts about. I suppose thy present strait great; but wert thou never in a greater, and yet God did at last set thy feet in a large place? Thou art now in a sad and mournful posture; but hath not he brightened a darker cloud than this thou art now under, and let thee out of it into a state of light and joy? Surely thy staggering hope may prevent a fall by catching hold of this experience. Art thou not ashamed to give thyself for lost, and think of nothing but drowning, in a less storm than that out of which God hath formerly brought thee safe to land? See David relieving his hope by recognizing such an experiment as this, ‘Thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from fall­ing,’ Psalms 56:13. Hast thou given me the greater, and wilt thou stand with me for the less? Haply thy present fear, Christian, is apostasy. Thou shalt one day fall by the hand of thy sins; this runs in thy thoughts, and thou canst not be persuaded otherwise. Now it is a fit time to recall the day of God’s convert­ing grace. Darest thou deny such a work to have passed upon thee? If not, why then shouldst thou despair of perseverance? That was day wherein he saved thy soul. ‘This day,’ saith Christ to Zacchaeus, ‘is salvation come to this house,’ Luke 19:9. And did God save thy soul by converting grace, and will he not keep thy feet from falling by his sustaining grace? Was it not both more mercy and power to take thee out of the power of sin and Satan, than it will cost him to preserve thee from falling into their hands again? Surely the Israelites would not so often have feared provision in the wilderness, had they remem­bered with what a high hand God did bring them out of Egypt. But, may be it is some outward affliction that distresseth thee. Is it greater than the church’s was in cruel bondage and captivity? yet she had some­thing to recall that put a new life into her hope. ‘The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him,’ Lamentations 3:24. See, she makes a spiritual mercy—because incomparably greater of the two—a ground of hope for temporal salvation, which is less. And hast not thou, Christian, chosen him for thy por­tion? Dost thou not look for a heaven to enjoy him in for ever? And can any dungeon of outward afflic­tion be so dark that this hope will not enlighten? Recall thy experiences of his love to thy soul, and thou canst not be out of hope for thy body and outward condition. He that hath laid up a portion in heaven for thee, will lay out surely all the expenses thou needest in thy way thither. (2.) Reflection. Remember how oft God hath confuted thy fears and proved thy unbelief a false prophet. Hath he not knocked at thy door with in­ward comfort and outward deliverances, when thou hadst put out the candle of hope, given over looking for him, and been ready to lay thyself down on the bed of despair? Thus he came to Hezekiah, after he had peremptorily concluded his case desperate, Isaiah 38:10-11. Thus to the disciples in their unbelieving dumps, ‘We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel,’ Luke 24:21. They speak as if now they were in doubt whether they should own their former faith or no. Hath it not been formerly thus with thee? wert thou never at so sad a pass—the storm of thy fears so great—that the anchor of hope even came home, and left thee to feed with misgiving and despairing thoughts, as if now thy everlasting night were come, and no morning tale more expected by thee? yet even then thy God proved them all liars, by an unlooked for surprise of mercy with which he stole sweetly upon thee? If so, press and urge this experience home upon thyself, to encourage thy hope in all future temptations. What, O my soul! thou wouldst say, wilt thou again be seared with these false alarms?—again lend an ear to thy distrustful de­sponding thoughts, which so oft thou hast found liars, rather than believe the report of the promise, which never put thy hope to shame as these have done? The saints are oft feeding their hopes on the carcass of their slain fears. The time which God chose, and the instrument he used, to give the captive Jews their jail-delivery and liberty to return home, were so incredi­ble to them—who now looked rather to be ground in pieces by those two millstones, the Babylonians with­in, and the Persians without the city—that when it came to pass, like Peter whom the angel had carried out of prison, Acts 12:1-17, it was some time before they could come to themselves, and resolve whether it was a real truth or but a pleasing dream, Psalms 126:1. Now, see what effect this strange disappointment of their fears had upon their hope for afterward. It sends them to the throne of grace for the accomplish­ment of what of what was so marvellously begun. ‘The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord,’ Psalms 126:3-4. They have got a hand-hold by this experiment of his power and mercy; and they will not now let him go till they have more. Yea, their hope is raised to such a pitch of confidence, that they draw a general conclusion from this particular experience for the comfort of themselves or others in any future distress. ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him,’ Psalms 126:5-6. (3.) Reflection. Remember what sinful distem­pers have broke out in thy afflictions and tempta­tions, and how God hath, notwithstanding these, car­ried on a work of deliverance for thee. So that thou mayest say, in respect of these enemies in thy bosom, what David spake triumphantly in regard of his ene­mies without, that ‘God hath prepared a table before me in the presence of thy enemies,’ yea, of his ene­mies. While thy corruptions have been stirring and acting against him, his mercy hath been active for thy deliverance. O what a cordial-draught this would be to thy fainting hope! That which often sinks the Christian’s heart in any distress, inward or outward, and even weighs down his head of hope that it cannot look up to God for help and succour at such a time, is the sense of those sinful infirmities which then dis­cover themselves in him. ‘How,’ saith the poor soul, ‘can I look that God should raise me out of this sick­ness, wherein I have bewrayed so much impatience and frowardness? Or out of that temptation in which I have so little exercised faith, and discovered so much unbelief? Surely I must behave myself better before any good news be sent from heaven to me.’ It is well, poor Christian, thou art sensible of thy sins as to be thy own accuser, and prevent Satan’s doing it for thee; yet be not oppressed into discouragement by them. Remember how God hath answered the like objections formerly, and saved thee with a ‘notwith­standing.’ If these could have hardened his bowels against thee, hadst thou been alive, yea, out of hell this day? Didst thou ever receive a mercy of which God might not have made stoppage upon this very account that makes thee now fear he will not help thee? Or, if thou hast not an experience of thy own at hand—which were strange—then borrow one of other saints. David is an instance beyond exception. This very circumstance with which his deliverance was, as I may say, en­amelled, did above all affect his heart: ‘I said in my haste, All men are liars. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?’ Psalms 116:11-12. He remembered his sinful and distempered carriage; and this he mentions, as to take shame for the shame, so to wind up his heart to the highest peg of thankfulness. He knows not how to praise God enough for that mercy which found him giving the lie to God’s messenger—even Samuel him­self—that was sent to tell him it was a coming. And he doth not only make this circumstance an incentive to praise for what is past, but lays it down for a ground of hope for the future. ‘I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee,’ Psalms 31:22. As if he had said, ‘When I prayed with so little faith, that I as it were unprayed my own prayer, by concluding my case in a manner desperate; yet God pardoned my hasty spirit, and gave me that mercy which I had hardly any faith to expect.’ And what use doth he make of this experi­ence, but to raise every saint’s hope in a time of need? ‘Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord,’ Psalms 31:24. FOURTH POINT OF IMPROVEMENT. [Exhortation to them that want this helmet of hope.] Be you exhorted that are yet without this helmet, to provide yourselves with it. Certainly if you be but in your right wits, it is the first thing you will go about, and that with sober sadness—especially may but three considerations take place in your thoughts. First. How deplored a thing it is to be in a hopeless state. Second. It is possible that thou who art now without hope, mayest by a timely and vigorous use of the means obtain a hope of salvation. Third. Con­sider the horrid cruelty of this act—to pull down eternal destruction on thy own head. [Three considerations to make all provide themselves with this helmet.] First Consideration. How deplored a thing it is to be in a hopeless state. The apostle makes him to be ‘without God’ that is ‘without hope’—‘having no hope, and being without God in the world,’ Ephesians 2:12. God, to the soul, is what the soul is to the body. If that be so vile and noisome a thing, when it hath lost the soul that keeps it sweet; what is thy soul when nothing of God is in it? ‘The heart of the wicked is little worth,’ saith Solomon. And why? but because it hath not God to put a value on it. If God, who is light, be not in thy understanding, thou art blind; and what is an eye whose sight is out fit for but to help thee break thy neck? If God be not in thy conscience to pacify and comfort it, thou must needs be full of horror or void of sense; a raging devil or a stupid atheist. If God be not in thy heart and affections to purify them, thou art but a shoal of fish, a sink of sin. If God be not in thee, the devil is in thee; for man’s heart is a house that cannot stand empty. In a word, thou canst not well be without this hope neither in life nor death. Not in life—what comfort canst thou take in all the enjoyments thou hast in this life with­out the hope of a better? A sad legacy it is which shuts the rebellious child from all claim to the inher­itance. Thou hast an estate, it may be, but it is all you must look for. And is it not a dagger at the heart of thy joy to think thy portion is paid thee here, which will be spent by that time the saint comes to receive his? Much less tolerable is it to be without this hope in a dying hour. Who can without horror think of leaving this world, though full of sorrows, that hopes for no ease in the other? The condemned malefactor, as ill as he likes his smokey hole in the prison, had rather be there, than accept of deliverance at the hangman’s hand; he had rather live still in his stink­ing dungeon than exchange it for a gibbet. And great­er reason hath the hopeless soul—if he understands himself—to wish he may spend his eternity on earth, though in the poorest hole or cave in it—and that under the most exquisite torment of stone or gout —than to be eased of that pain with hell’s torment. Hence is the sad confusion in the thoughts of guilty wretches when their souls are summoned out of their bodies. This makes the very pangs of death stronger than they would be, if these dear friends had but a hopeful parting. If the shriek and mournful outcry of some friends in the room of a dying man may so dis­turb him as to make his passage more terrible, how much more then must the horror of the sinner’s own conscience under the apprehensions of that hell whither it is going, amaze and affright him? There is a great difference between a wife’s parting with her husband, when called from her to live at court under the shine of his prince’s favour, whose return after a while she expects with an accumulation of wealth and honour; and another whose husband is taken out of her arms to be dragged to prison and torment. Is this thy case, miserable man, and art thou cutting thy short life out into chips, and spending thy little time upon trifles, when the salvation of thy soul is yet to be wrought out? Art thou tricking and trim­ming thy slimy carcass, while thy soul is dropping into hell? What is this but to be painting the when the house is on fire? For a man to be curious about trim­ming his face, when he is not sure his head shall stand a day on his shoulders! It was an unseasonable time for Belshazzar to be feasting and quaffing when his kingdom lay at stake and an enemy at the gates. It would have become a wise prince to have been fight­ing on the wall than feasting in his palace, and fatting himself for his own slaughter, which soon befell him, Daniel 5:30. And it would become thee better to call up­on thy God, poor sinner, and lie in tears for thy sins at his foot, if yet haply thy pardon may be obtained, than by wallowing in thy sensual pleasures, to stupify thy conscience, and lay it asleep, by which thou canst only gain a little ease from the troublesome thoughts of thy approaching misery. Second Consideration. Consider it is possi­ble—I do not mean in the way thou art in, for so it is as impossible that thou shouldst get to heaven, as it is that God should be found a liar—but it is possible that thou who art now without hope, mayest by a timely and vigorous use of the means obtain a hope of salvation; and certainly a possible hope carries in it a force of strong argument to endeavour for an actual hope. There is never a devil in hell so bad but if he had a thousand worlds at his dispose—and every one better than this we dote on—would exchange them all for such a may be, yea count it a cheap pennyworth too. It was but a possibility that brought that heathen king of Nineveh from his throne to lie grovelling at God’s foot in sackcloth and ashes, and that king will rise up in judgment against thee if thou dost not more. For that was a possibility more remote than thine is. It was spelled out, not from any express promise that dropped from the preacher to encourage them to humble themselves and turn to the Lord —for we read of nothing but desolation denounced —but from that natural theology which was imprinted on their minds. This taught them to hope that he who is the chief good would not be implacable. But you have many express promises from God’s faithful lip, that if you in his tie and way seek unto him, as sure as God is now in heaven, you shall live there with him in glory. ‘Your heart shall live that seek God,’ Psalms 69:32. Yea there are millions of blessed ones now in heaven experimenting the truth of this word, who once had no more right to heaven than your­selves now have; and that blissful place is not yet crowded so full but he can and will make room for you if indeed you have a mind to go thither. There is one prayer which Christ made on earth that will keep heaven-gate open for all that believe on him unto the end of the world. ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word,’ John 17:20. This is good news indeed. Me­thinks it would make your souls leap within your breasts, while you sit under the invitations of the gos­pel, as the babe once did in Elizabeth’s womb, upon the virgin Mary’s salutation. Say not then, sinners, that ministers put you upon impossibilities, and bid you climb a hill inaccessible, or assault a city that is unconquerable. No; it is the devil, and thy own unbe­lieving heart—who together conspire thy ruin—that tell thee so. And as long as you listen to these coun­sellors you are like to do well, are you not? Well, whatever they say, know, sinner, that if at last thou missest heaven—which God forbid—the Lord can wash his hands over your head and clear himself of your blood; thy damnation will be laid at thine own door. It will then appear there was no cheat in the promise, no sophistry in the offer of the gospel. What God did tender he was willing to give, but thou didst voluntarily put eternal life from thee, and thy heart, whatever thy lying lips uttered to the contrary, did not like the terms. ‘But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me,’ Psalms 81:11. So that when the jury shall go on thy murdered soul, to inquire how thou camest to thy miserable end, thou wilt be found guilty of thine own damnation: nemo amittit Deum nisi qui dimittit eum—none loseth God but he that is willing to part with him. Third Consideration. Consider the horrid cruelty of this act, for thee, by thy incorrigible and im­penitent heart, to pull down eternal destruction on thy own head. O what a sad epitaph is this to be found on a man’s grave‑stone! Here lies one that cut his own throat, that unnaturally made away himself! this the man, that the woman, who would not be re­claimed! They saw hell before them, and yet would leap into it, notwithstanding the entreaties of Christ by his Spirit and ministers to the contrary! And the oftener thou hast attempted to do it, and God hath been staying thy hand by his gracious solicitations, the greater will be thy shame and confusion before God, men, and angels, at the last day. God hath set a brand upon those acts of cruelty which a man com­mits upon himself above all other. It would speak a man of a harsh currish nature, that could see a horse in his stable or hog in his sty starve, when he hath meat to lay before him; more cruel to hear his servant roar and cry for bread and deny it; yet more horrid if this were done to a child or wife; but of all—because nature cries loudest for self-preservation—the great­est violence that can possibly be done to the law of nature is, to forget the duty we owe to out own life. O what is it then for a sinner to starve his soul by rejecting Christ ‘the bread of life,’ and to let out his soul’s blood at this wide sluice! This is matchless cruelty! Indeed, that which makes the self-murder of the body so great a crime is, because it doth so emin­ently—I will not say unavoidably—hazard the de­struction of the soul. O how unworthy then art thou to have so noble a guest as thy soul dwell in thy bos­om, who preparest no better lodgings than hell for it in another world!—that soul whose nature makes it being capable of being preferred to the blissful pres­ence of God in heaven’s glory, if thou hadst not bolted the door against thyself by thy impenitency. But alas! this which is the worst murder is the most common. They are but a few molesters that we now and then hear of who lay violent hands upon their bodies, at the report of which the whole country trembles; but you can hardly go into any house one day of the week, in which you shall not find some attempting to make away their souls; yea, that carry the very knife and halters in their bosoms—their be­loved sins I mean—with which they stab and strangle them; even those that are full of natural affections to their bodies, so as to be willing to spend all that they are worth, with her in the gospel, on physicians when the life of it is in danger; yet are so cruel to their dying damning souls, that they turn Christ their phys­ician out of doors, who comes to cure them on free cost. In a word, those that discover abundance of wis­dom and discretion in ordering their worldly affairs, you would wonder how rational they are, what an ac­count they will give why they do this, and why that; when it comes to the business of heaven and the sal­vation of their souls, they are not like the same men. So that, were you to judge them only by their actings herein, you could not believe them to be men. And is it not sad, that the soul, which furnisheth you with reason for the despatch of your worldly business, should have no benefit itself from the very reason it lends you to do all your business with. This, as one well saith, is as if the master of the house, who provides food for all his servants, should be himself kept by them from eating, and so remain the only starved creature in the house. And is not this the sad judgment and plague of God, that is visibly seen upon many, and those that go for wise men too, stilo mundi —after the manner of the world? Are not their souls, which give them understanding, to provide for back and belly, house and family, themselves starving in the meantime? being kept by the power of some lust from making use of their understanding and rea­son so far as to put them upon any serious and vig­orous endeavour for the salvation of them. How then can souls that are so treated prosper? [1]Outhees, i.e. outcry.—Chaucer. [2]The text has the “Blessed Paul,” and cites, 1 Peter 1:3-4. However, correcting it to read Peter creates problems in the rest of the paragraph. For he then continues to cite the beginnings of Paul’s epistles for his examples. All that I can do, for continuity’s sake, is to change Paul to Peter here, and in the next sentence change the word ‘his’ to Paul. This should make it more uniform and clear up the misunderstanding that is bound to arise because of it. Also, this has the advantage of making the fewest changes to Gurnall’s text. — SDB [3]Crank, in this case, bold, self‑confident.—Ed. [4]Asseverate: to state seriously or positively. — SDB ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 02.04 - SIXTH PIECE - THE CHRISTIAN'S SWORD ======================================================================== Direction Tenth. The Several Pieces of the Whole Armour of God. Sixth Piece—The Christian’s Sword. ‘And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ (Ephesians 6:17). Here we have the sixth and last piece in the Christian’s panoply brought to our hand—a sword; and that of the right make—‘the sword of the Spirit.’ The sword was ever esteemed a most necessary part of the soldier’s furniture, and therefore hath obtained a more general use in all ages, and among all nations, than any other weapon. Most nations have some particular weapons or arms proper to themselves; but few or none come into the field without a sword. A pilot without his chart, a scholar without his book, and a soldier without his sword, are alike ridiculous. But, above all these, is it absurd to think of being a Christian, without knowledge of the word of God and some skill to use this weapon. The usual name in Scripture for war is ‘the sword.’ ‘I will call for a sword upon all the in­habitants of the earth,’ Jeremiah 25:29; that is, I will send war. And this because the sword is the weapon of most universal use in war, and also that whereby the greatest execution is done in the battle. Now such a weapon is the word of God in the Christian’s hand. By the edge of this his enemies fall, and all his great exploits are done. ‘They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony,’ Revelation 12:11. There are two observables we may take notice of, before we fall to the closer discussion of the words. The first from the kind or sort of arms here presented for the Christian’s use. The other from the place or order it stands in. two observables drawn from the words. First Observable. Mark the kind or sort of arms here appointed for the Christian’s use. It is a weapon that is both defensive and offensive. Such is the sword. All the rest in the apostle’s armoury are set out by defensive arms, girdle, breastplate, shield, and helmet—such as are of use to defend and save the sol­dier from his enemy’s stroke. But the sword doth both defend him and serves to wound his enemy also. Of like use is the word of God to the Christian. First. It is for defence. Easily might the soldier be disarmed of all his other furniture, how glistering and glorious soever, had he not a sword in his hand to lift up against his enemies’ assaults. And with as little ado would the Christian be stripped of all his graces, had he not this sword to defend them and himself too from Satan’s fury. ‘Unless thy law had been my delights, I should then have perished in mine affliction,’ Psalms 119:92. This is like the flaming sword with which God kept Adam out of paradise. The saint is oft compared to Christ’s garden and orchard. With the sword of the word he keeps this his orchard from robbing. There would not long hang any of their sweet fruit—either graces or comforts—upon their souls, were not this great robber Satan kept off with the point of this sword. O, this word of God is a terror to him; he cannot for his life overcome the dread of it. Let Christ but say, ‘It is written,’ and the foul fiend runs away with more confusion and terror than Caligula at a crack of thunder. And that which was of such force coming from Christ’s blessed lips to drive him away, the saints have always found the most successful instrument to defend them against his fiercest and most impetuous temptations. Ask David what was the weapon with which he warded off the blows this enemy made at him, and he will tell you it was the word of God. ‘Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer,’ Psalms 17:4. That is, by the help of thy word I have been enabled to preserve myself from those wicked works and outrageous practices, to which others, for want of this weapon to defend them, have been harried. Second. It is for offence. The sword, as it defends the soldier, so it offends his enemy. Thus the word of God is, as a keeping, so a killing sword. It doth not only keep and restrain him from yielding to the force of temptations without, but also by he kills and mortifies his lusts within, and this makes the victory complete. A man may escape his enemy one day, and be overcome by him at another time. We read of some that for a while escaped the pollutions of the world, yet because their lusts were never put to the sword, and mortified in them by the power of the word applied to their hearts, were at last themselves overcome and slain by this secret enemy that lay skulking within their bosoms, 2 Peter 2:20, compared with 2 Peter 2:22. Absalom, notwithstanding his being hanged by the hair of his head, might have lived to have taken revenge afterwards on them by whom he was then beaten, had not Joab come in timely and sped him, by sending his darts with a message of death to his heart. We have daily sad experiences of many that wriggle themselves out of their troubles of con­science—by which for a time they are restrained, and their sins, as it were, held by the hair—to rush after­wards into more abominable courses than they did before; and all for want of skill to use, or courage and faithfulness to thrust this sword by faith into the heart of their lusts. Second Observable. Observe the order and place wherein this piece of armour stands. The apostle first gives the Christian all the former pieces, and when these are put on, he then girds this sword about him. The Spirit of God, in holy writ, I confess, is not always curious to observe method; yet, methinks, it should not be unpardonable if I venture to give a hint of a double significancy in this very place and order that it stands in. First. It may be brought in after all the rest, to let us know how necessary the graces of God’s Spirit are to our right using of the word. Nothing more abused than the word. And why? but because men come to it with unsound and unsanctified hearts. The heretic quotes it to prove his false doctrine, and dares be so impudent as to cite it to appear for him. But how is it possible they should father their monstrous births on the pure chaste word of God? Surely it is because they come to the word and converse with it, but bring not the girdle of sincerity with them, and being ungirt, they are unblest. God leaves them justly to miss of truth, because they are not sincere in their inquiry after it. The brat is got upon their own hearts by the father of lies, and they come to the word only to stand as witness to it. Another reads the word and is worse after it, more hardened in his lusts than he was before. He sees some there canonized for saints by the Spirit of God, the history of whose lives is notwithstanding blotted with some foul falls, possibly into those very sins in which he lies wallowing, and therefore is bold to put himself into the saints’ calendar. And why so impudent to do this? Truly because he comes to the word with an unholy heart, and wants the breastplate of righteousness to defend him from the dint of so dangerous a temptation. Another, for want of faith to give existence to the truth of the threatening in his conscience, runs boldly upon the point of this sword, and dares the God of heaven to strike him with it. Thus we find those wretches mentioned by the prophet playing with this edge‑tool: ‘Where is the word of the Lord? let it come now,’ Jeremiah 17:15. As if they had said mockingly , ‘Thou scarest us with strange bugbears—judgments that in the name of God thou threatenest are coming on us. When will they come? we would fain see them. Is God’s sword rusty that he is so long getting it out of the scabbard?’ And the despairing soul, for want of a helmet of hope, deals little better with the promise than the presumptuous sinner with the threatening. Instead of lifting it up to defend himself against the fears of his guilty conscience, he falls upon the point of it, and destroys his own soul with that weapon which is given him to slay his enemy with. Well, therefore, may the apostle first put on the other pieces, and then deliver this sword to them to use for their good. A sword in a madman’s hand, and the word of God in some wicked man’s mouth, are used much alike—to hurt only themselves and their best friends with. Second. It may be commended after all the rest, to let us know [that] the Christian, when advanced to the highest attainments of grace possible in this life, is not above the use of the word; nay, cannot be safe without it. When girded with sincerity—his plate of righteousness on his breast, the shield of faith in his hand, and the helmet of hope covering his head, that his salvation is out of doubt to him at present; yet even then he must take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. This is not a book to be read by the lowest form in Christ’s school only, but beseeming the highest scholar that seems most fit for a remove to heaven’s academy. It is not only of use to make a Christian by conversion, but to make him perfect also, 2 Timothy 3:15. It is like the architect’s rule and line—as necessary to lay the top-stone of the building at the end of his life as the foundation at his conversion. They therefore are like to prove foolish builders that throw away their line before the house be finished. I come now to take up the weapon laid before us in the text, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’ In which words these three parts. FIRST. The weapon itself; that is, ‘the word of God.’ SECONDLY. The metaphor in which it is sheathed—‘the sword,’ with he person whose it is—‘the sword of the Spirit.’ THIRDLY. An exhortation to make use of this weapon, and directions how—‘and the sword,’ &c. That is, take this with all the other before-named pieces. So that to whom he directs the former pieces, to these he gives the sword of the word to use. Now those you shall find are persons of all ranks and relations; husbands and wives, parents and children masters and servants. He would have none be without this sword any more than without the girdle, helmet, and the rest, &c., though this I know will not please the Papists, who would have this sword of the word, like that of Goliath, laid up out of their reach, and that in the priest’s keeping also. DIRECTION X.—FIRST GENERAL PART. [What is here meant by the Word of God.] ‘The Word of God’ (Ephesians 6:17). I begin with the weapon itself—‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.’ I shall first hold forth the sword naked, and the put it again into its sheath, to handle it under the metaphor of a sword. There is a twofold word of God. First. A substantial or subsisting word, and that is the eternal Son of God. Second. There is a declarative word of God, differing according to the sundry times and diverse manners in which he hath been pleased to reveal his will to man. [Twofold reference of the expression ‘the word of God.’] First. There is a substantial or subsisting word, and that is the eternal Son of God. ‘The Word was with God, and the Word was God,’ John 1:1. ‘And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God,’ Revelation 19:13. This is spoken of a person, and he is no other than Christ the Son of God. But he is not the word of God in the text. The Spirit is rather Chr ist’s sword, than Christ the sword of the Spirit; in the 15th verse of the fore­named chapter, ‘Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations.’ Second. There is a declarative word of God, and this is manifold, according to the divers ways and manners where­by the Lord hath been pleased to de­clare his mind to the sons of men. At first, while the earth was thin sown with people, and the age of man so voluminous as to contain many centuries of years, God delivered his mind by dreams and visions, with such like immediate revelations unto faithful wit­nesses, who might instruct others of their present gen­eration therein, and transmit the knowledge of the same to after ages. They lived so long that three holy men were able, from the death of Adam, to preserve the purity of religion by certain tradition, till within a few years of the Israelites’ going down to Egypt. For, as a reverend and learned pen calculates the chron­ology, Methuselah lived above two hundred years with Adam, and from him might receive the will of God re­vealed to him. Shem lived almost a hundred years with Methuselah, and Shem was alive to the fiftieth year of Isaac’s age, who died but a few years before Israel’s going into Egypt. Thus long did God forbear to commit his will to writing, because it, passing through so few, and those trusty hands, it might safely be preserved. But when the age of man’s life was so con­tracted, that from eight and nine hundred years—the then ordinary duration of it—it shrank into but so many tens, as it was in Moses time, Psalms 90:1-17; and when the people of God grew from a few persons to a multi­tude in Egypt—and those corrupted with idolatry —God now intending at their deliverance thence, to form them into a polity and commonwealth, thought it fit, for the preventing of corruption in his worship, and degeneracy in their lives, that they should have a written law to be as a public standard to direct them in both. And accordingly he wrote the ten command­ments with his own finger on tables of stone; and commanded Moses to write the other words he had heard from him on the mount, Exodus 34:27; yet so, that he still continued to signify his will by extraordinary revelations to his church, and also to enlarge this first edition of his written word, according to the necessity of the times; reserving the canon of the sacred writ to be finished by Christ the great doctor [teacher] of the church, who completed the same, and by the apostles, his public notaries, consigned it to the use of his church to the end of the world. Yea, a curse from Christ’s mouth cleaves to him that shall add to or take from the same, Revelation 22:18-19. So that now all those ways whereby God directly made known his mind to this people, are resolved into this one of the Scriptures, which we are to receive as the undoubted word of God, containing in a perfect rule of faith and life, and to expect no other revelation of his mind to us. Such is the meaning of Hebrews 1:1: ‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.’ Therefore called the ‘last days,’ because that we are to look for no other revelation of God’s will. And therefore for ever let us abhor that blasphemy of Joachim, Abbas, Wigelians, and others that have fallen into the same frenzy with them, who dream of a threefold doctrine flowing from the three Persons of the sacred Trinity —the law from the Father, the gospel from the Son, which we have in the New Testament, and a third from the Spirit, which they call evangelium eternum —the everlasting gospel. Whereas, the Spirit of God himself, by whom the Scriptures were indited, calls the doctrine in them ‘the everlasting gospel,’ Revelation 14:6. Thus much to show what is here meant by the word of God. From whence the doctrine follows. [The divinity of the Scriptures, and the sufficiency of their own testimony in proof of the same.] Doctrine. That the holy Scriptures are the un­doubted word of God. By the Scripture I mean the Old and New Testaments contained in the Bible; both {of} which are that one foundation whereupon our faith is built: ‘Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,’ Ephesians 2:20. That is the doctrine which God by them hath delivered unto his church, for they were under the unerring guidance of the Spir­it: ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God,’ 2 Timothy 3:16, 2,@B<,LFJ@H—breathed by God; it came as tru­ly and immediately from the very mind and heart of God, as our breath doth from within our bodies. Yea, both matter and words were indited by God; for the things which they spake were ‘not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth,’ 1 Corinthians 2:13. God did not give them a theme to dilate and enlarge upon with their own parts and abilities; but confined them to what he indited. They were but his amanuenses to write his infallible dic­tate; or as so many scribes, to transcribe what the Spirit of God laid before them. This is given as the reason why no scripture is to be sensed by our private fancy or conceit. We are to take the meaning of it from itself, as we find one place clears another; be­cause it came not from the private spirit of any man at first, ‘but holy men of God spake as they were moved,’ or carried, ‘by the Holy Ghost,’ 2 Peter 1:20 and 2 Peter 1:21 compared. Now ejusdem est condere et inter­pretari—the power that makes the law, that must expound it. Question. But it may be some will say, Do you bring Scripture to bear witness for itself? The ques­tion is, whether the Scripture be the word of God? and you tell us the Scripture saith so, and is that enough? Answer. This would carry weight, if it were the word of some sorry creature that stood upon the trial; but a greater than man is here. Humana dita argu­mentis ac testibus egent; Dei autem sermo ipse sibi testis est, quia necesse est quicquid incorrupta veritas loquitur incorruptum sit veritas testimonium: so Salvan (De Gub. Dei, lib. iii)—men need arguments and witnesses to prove and vouch what they say to be true; but the word of God is a sufficient witness to itself, because what truth itself, which is pure, saith, can be no other than a sincere and true testimony. Christ, who thought it derogatory to the dignity of his person to borrow credit from man’s testimony, did yet refer himself to the report that the Scripture made of him; and was willing to stand or fall in the opinion of his very enemies, as the testimony thereof should be found concerning him, John 5:34, compared with John 5:39. And therefore their testimony may well pass for themselves. He that cannot see this sun by its own light, may in vain think to go find it with candle and lantern of human testimony and argument. Not that these are wanting, or useless. The testimony of the church is highly to be reverenced, because to it are these oracles of God delivered, to be kept as a sacred depositum and charge. Yea, it is called ‘the pillar and ground of truth,’ 1 Timothy 3:15, and ‘the candlestick, Revelation 1:12, from whence the light of the Scriptures shines forth into the world. But who will say, that the proc­lamation of a prince hath its authenticity from the pillar it hangs on in the market cross? or that the can­dle hath its light from the candlestick it stands on? The office of the church is ministerial—to publish and make known the word of God; but not magister­ial and absolute—to make it Scripture, or unmake it, as she is pleased to allow or deny her stamp. This were to send God to man for his hand and seal, and to do by the Scriptures, as Tertullian saith in his Apology the heathens did with their gods, who were to pass the senate, and gain their good‑will, before they might be esteemed deities by the people. And does not the church of Rome thus by the Scriptures? sending us to the pope for leave to believe the Scrip­ture to be Scripture? The blasphemous speech of Hermanus is notoriously known, who said, that the Scriptures did tantum valere, quantum Æsopi fabulæ, nisi accedat ecclesiæ testimonium—that they are of no greater force than the fables of Aesop, unless the testimony of the church be added. O how like is Rome to Rome! Superstitious Rome to pagan Rome! But we need not travel so far to be determined in this case. The Scripture itself will save us the pains of this wearisome journey to so little purpose, being more able to satisfy us of its own divine extraction, than the pope, sitting in his porphyry chair with all his card­inals about him. Neither is there any necessity to ask for a messenger to ascend on high, who may from heaven bring down their letters testimonial unto us; seeing they bear heaven’s superscription so fairly writ upon their own forehead, as denies them to proceed from any but God himself. May a particular man be known from a thousand others by his face, voice, or handwriting? Certainly then it cannot seem strange that the God of heaven should be discerned from his sorry creature, by his voice and writing in the sacred Scriptures. Do we not see that he hath interwoven his glorious name so in the works of creation, that they speak his power and Godhead, and call him Maker in their thoughts, who never read the Bible, or heard of such a book?—so that they could not steal the notion thence, but had it from the dictate of their own consciences, exhorting the acknowledgment of a deity. And much more will an enlightened con­science and sanctified heart be commanded by the overpowering evidence that shines forth in the Scrip­tures to fall down and cry, It is the voice of God, and not any creature that speaks in them. Indeed the grand truths and chief notions found in the Scrip­tures, are so connatural to the principles of grace, which the same Holy Spirit, who is the inditer of them, hath planted in the hearts of all the saints, that their souls ever spring and leap at the reading and hearing of them, as the babe did in Elizabeth’s womb at the salutation of the virgin Mary. The lamb doth not more certainly know her dam in the midst of a whole flock (at whose bleating she passeth by them all to come to be suckled by her), than the sheep of Christ know his voice in the saving truths of the Scriptures—the sincere milk whereof they desire, and are taught of God to taste and discern from all other. Indeed, till a soul be thus enlightened and wrought upon by the Spirit of God, he may have his mouth stopped by such arguments for the divinity of them, as he cannot answer; but he will never be persuaded to rest on them, and cordially embrace them as the word of God. As we see in the scribes and Pharisees, who oft were nonplussed and struck down speechless by the dint of Christ’s words, yet, as those wretches sent to attack the person of Christ, rose up from the earth—where the majesty of Christ’s deity, looking out upon them, had thrown them grovelling—to lay violent hands on him; so those obdurate Pharisees and scribes, after all their convictions, returned to op­pose the doctrine he preached, and that most of them unto death. Yea, that part of the Scripture they seemed to cry up so highly, the law of Moses, and made the ground of their quarrel against Christ, our Saviour is bold to tell them, that as great admirers as they were thereof, they did not so much as believe it to be the word of God. How could they indeed have a true divine faith on it who wanted the Spirit of God that alone works it? ‘Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me,’ John 5:46. Erasmus tells his friend in a letter, that he met with many things charged on Luther by the monks for heresies, which Augustine passed among them for sound truths. But certainly they did not really believe them to be truths in Augustine which they condem­ned in Luther. Neither did the Pharisees in truth be­lieve what Moses wrote, because they opposed Christ, who did but verify what Moses before from God’s mouth had spoke. But because, when the Spirit of God comes to raise the heart to a belief of the word of God, he doth it by putting his own weight and force to those arguments which are couched in the word, and so doth sigillare animum charactere illorum—leave the print or character of them sealed upon the soul; therefore I shall draw out an argument or two among many that are to be found in the Scripture itself, proving the parentage thereof to be divine. I know it is a beaten path I am now walking in, and I shall speak •88äH—otherwise, than •88"—other things; the same things for substance which you may meet in many others, only a little otherwise shaped on my private forge. For my own part, I think it more wis­dom to borrow a sword of proved metal at another’s hands, than to go with a weak leaden one of my own into the field, and so come home well beaten for my folly and pride. The two general heads from which I deduce my demonstrations, are these: First. The matter of the Scriptures. Second. The supernatural effects produced by them. FIRST GENERAL HEAD. [Proof of the divinity of the Scriptures from their subject‑matter.] The very matter contained in the holy Scriptures demonstrates their heavenly descent; it being such as cannot be the birth or product of a creature. Let us search the Scriptures a little, and consider the several parts thereof, and see whether they do not all bear the image of God upon them. Consider, First. The historical part of Scripture. Second. The prophet­ical. Third. The doctrinal. Fourth. The precep­tive, with its appendices of promises and threatenings to enforce the same. And see if a print of a Deity be not stamped upon them all. [The historical Scriptures bear the impress of Deity.] First Part. The historical part of the Scrip­tures. In this let us consider, First. The antiquity of the matter related. Second. The simplicity and sincerity of the penmen relating what concerns them­selves. First. The antiquity of the matter related. There are some pieces that could not possibly drop from a creature’s pen. Where should or could he have his reading and learning to enable him to write the history of the creation? The heathen, it is confessed, by the inquiry of natural reason, have made a dis­covery thus far, that the world had a beginning, and could not be from eternity, and that it could be the workmanship of none but God; but what is this to the compiling of a distinct history, how God went to work in the production thereof? what order every creature was made in? and how long God was finishing the same? He that is furnished for such an enterprise, must be one that was pre‑existent to the whole world, and an eye‑witness to every day’s work, which man, that was made the last day, cannot pretend unto. And yet there is history more ancient than this in the Scripture, where we find what was done at the council-table of heaven, before the world began, and what passed there in favour of man, whom afterwards he would make. Who could search these court‑rolls, I wonder, and bring us intelligence of the everlasting decrees then resolved on, and promises made by the Father to the Son of eternal life in time to be con­ferred on his elect? Titus 1:2. Second. The simplicity and sincerity of holy penmen, in relating what most concerns themselves, and those that were near and dear to them. We may possibly find among human authors, some that carry their pen with an even hand in writing the history of others, the making known whose faults casts no dis­honourable reflection upon him that records them. Thus, Suetonius spared not to tell the world how wicked great emperors were, who therefore is said ‘to have taken the same liberty in writing their lives that they took in leading them.’ But where is the man that hath not a hair upon his pen, when he comes to write of the blemishes of his own house or person? Alas! here we find that their pen will cast no ink. They can rather make a blot in their history than leave a blot on their own name; they have, like Alexander’s painter, a finger to lay upon these scars; or, if they mention them, you shall observe they learn their pen on a sudden to write smaller than it was wont. But in the history of the Scripture, none of this self-love is to be found, the penmen whereof are as free to expose their own shame and nakedness to the world’s view as any others. Thus Moses brands his own tribe for their bloody murder on Shechem, Genesis 34:1-31. An enemy could not have set the brand heavier on their name than himself doth it; his own brother is not favoured by him, but his idolatry set upon the file, Exodus 32:1-35. The proud behaviour of his dear sister, and the plague of God which befell her, escapes not his pen, Numbers 12:1-16. No, not the incest of his own par­ents, Exodus 6:20. So that we must say of him, concerning the impartiality of his pen in writing, what himself saith of Levi in the execution of justice, that he ‘said unto his father, and to his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren,’ Deuteronomy 33:9. In a word, to despatch this particular, he is no more tender of his personal honour than he is of his house and family, but doth record the infirmities and miscarriages of his own life: as his backwardness to enter upon that difficult charge, Exodus 3:1-22; Exodus 4:1-31—wherein he discovered so much unbelief and pusillanimity of spirit, notwithstanding his clear and immediate call thereunto by God himself; hid neglect of a divine ordinance in not circumcising his child, and what the sin had like to cost him; his frowardness and im­patience in murmuring at the troubles that accom­panied his place wherein God had set him, Numbers 11:11-13; and his unbelief after so many miraculous seals from heaven set to the promise of God, for which he had his leading staff taken from him, and the honour of conducting Israel into Canaan denied him—a sore and heavy expression of God’s displeas­ure against him, Numbers 20:12. Certainly we must con­fess, had not his pen been guided by a spirit more than human, he could never have so perfectly con­quered all carnal affections, so as not the least to favour himself in reporting things thus prejudicial to his honour in the world. And the same spirit is found to breathe in the evangelists’ history of the gospel—they being as little dainty of their own names as Moses was; as may be observed in their freedom to declare their own blem­ishes and their fellow apostles’. So far were they from wronging the church with a lame mutilated story of Christ’s life and death, to save their own credits, that they interweave the weaknesses of one another all along their relations. Hence we read of the sinful passion and revenge working the sons of Zebedee; Peter acting the devil’s part to tempt his Master at another time; the ignorance of all the twelve in some main principles of Christianity for awhile; their ambi­tion who should be greatest, and their wrangling about it; their unbelief and cowardice, one denying his Lord, and the rest fleeing their colours, when they should have interposed their own bodies betwixt their Master and the danger, as resolved wither to die for him, or at least with him, and not save their lives with so dishonourable a flight;—these, and such like pas­sages, declare them to be acted in their writings by a spirit higher than their own, and that by no other than by God himself, for whom they so willingly de­base themselves in the eyes of the world, and lay their names in the dust, that the glory of his name might be exalted in this their free acknowledgment. [The prophetical Scriptures bear the impress of Deity.] Second Part. The prophetic part of the Scrip­tures; which contains some wonderful predictions of things to come, as could drop from no pen but one guided by a divine hand; all of which have had their punctual performance in the just periods foretold. Indeed from whom could these come but God? ‘The secret things belong unto the Lord our God,’ Deuteronomy 29:29. And predictions surely may pass very well for secrets; they are arcana ejus imperii—secrets of his government; such secrets, that God offers to take him —whoever he is—and set him with himself in his own throne, that is able to foretell things to come. ‘Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods,’ Isaiah 41:23. This must be con­fessed to be a flower of the crown, and an incom­municable property and prerogative of the only true God, who stands upon the hill of eternity, and from thence hath the full prospect of all things, and to whose infinite understanding they are all present; for his will being the cause of all events, he must needs know them, because he knoweth that. The devil, in­deed, is very ambitious to be thought able to do this, and to gain the reputation hereof, hath had his mock‑prophets and prophecies in all ages, with which he hath abused the ignorant credulous world. But alas! his predictions are no more true prophecies, than his miracles are true miracles. He puts a cheat upon the understandings of silly souls in the one, as he doth on their senses in the other. For his predictions are either dark and dubious, cunningly packed and laid, that, like a picture in plicis—folds, they carried two faces under one hood; and in these folds the subtle serpent wrapped himself, on purpose to save his credit, which way soever the event fell out. And this got Apollo the name of Loxias, of 8@>ÎH, obliquus; propter obliqua et tortuosa responsa ejus—because he mocked them that consulted his oracle with such ambiguous answers, that sent them as wise home as they came to him. Indeed, the devil found it necessary thus to do. Had he not with this patch of policy eked out the scantiness of his own un­derstanding, the nakedness thereof would have been seen by every vulgar eye, to his shame and to the con­tempt of his oracles. Or, if his predictions were more plainly delivered, they were, First. Of such things as he spelled out by the help of nature’s alphabet, and came to the knowledge of by diving into the secrets of natural causes, before they discovered themselves unto the observation of man’s duller understanding; and this made them cried up for wonderful predictions, and supernatural, by those who could not see this clue in Satan’s hand that guided him. If a man should meet you in the street, and tell you such a friend of yours will die within a few months, whom you left well, to your thinking, but a few minutes before, and the event should seal to the truth of what he said, you might possibly begin to think this a wonderful prophecy. But, when you afterwards know that he who told you this was a physician rarely accomplished, and had upon much study and strict observation of your friend’s bodily state, found a dangerous disease growing insensibly upon him, you would alter your opinion, and not think him a prophet, but admire him for a skilful physician. Thus, did we but consider the vastness of Satan’s natural parts—though limited, because created—and the improvement he hath made of them, by the study and experience of so many thousand years, we shall not count his predictions for prophecies, but rather as comments and explications of the short and dark text of natural causes, and acknowledge him a learned naturalist, but not deserv­ing the name of a true prophet. Second. If he hath not his hint from natural causes, then he gathers his inferences from moral and political causes, which, compared together by so deep a pate as his, give him great help and advantage to infer many times what in very great probability, and all likelihood of reason, will come to pass. Thus what the devil told Saul would become of him, his army, and kingdom, was nothing but what he might ration­ally conclude from those premises which lay before him, in his being rejected of God, and another anointed by God’s own command to be king in his stead, together with the just height, and full measure, to which Saul’s sins might now be thought to have arrived—by his going to a witch for counsel—and a puissant army of the Philistines preparing against him, whose wonted courage now so failed him, that he went rather like a malefactor pinioned and bound with the terrors of his accusing conscience, to meet an executioner that should give the fatal stroke to him, than like a valiant captain, to adorn and enrich him­self with the spoils of his enemies. All these laid to­gether make it appear the devil, without a gift of prophecy, might tell him his doom. Third. God may, and doth, sometimes reveal future events to Satan, as when god intends him to be his instrument to execute some of his purposes, he may, and doth, acquaint him with the same some time before. And you will not say the hangman is a prophet, that can tell such a man shall, on such a day, be beheaded or hanged, when hath a warrant from the king that appoints him to do that office. Thus Satan could have told Job beforehand what sad afflictions would certainly befall him in his estate, servants, chil­dren, and his own body; because God had granted him a commission to be the instrument that should bring all these upon him. But neither Satan nor any creatures else are able of themselves to foretell such events as neither arise from natural causes, nor may be rationally concluded to follow from moral and po­litical probabilities; but are locked up in the cabinet of the divine will, how they shall fall out. And such are the prophecies which we find in the holy Scrip­tures, by which they plainly prove their heavenly extraction. They must needs come from God that tell us what God only knew, and depended on his will to be disposed of. Who but God could tell Abraham where his posterity should be, and what should partic­ularly befall them, four hundred years after his death? —for so long before was he acquainted with their deliverance out of Egypt, Genesis 15:1-21, which accord­ingly came to pass punctually on the very day foretold, Exodus 12:41. How admirable are the prophecies of Christ the Messiah, in which his person, birth, life, and death, even to the minute, and circumstances of them, are as exactly and particularly set down, many ages before his coming upon the stage, as by the evan­gelists themselves, who were upon the place with him, and saw all that was done with their own eyes. And though some things foretold of him may be thought, because small and inconsiderable in themselves, not to deserve a mention in so high and sacred a proph­ecy—as our Saviour’s riding on an ass, Zechariah 9:9; the thirty pieces given for him, and the purchase of the potter’s field afterwards with them, Zechariah 11:12-13; and the preserving his bones whole, when they that had suffered with him had theirs broken—these, I say, and such like, though they may seem inconsiderable passages in themselves, yet upon due weighing the end for which they are mentioned, we shall find that our weak faiths could not well have spared their help to strengthen it in the belief of the prophecy. Indeed, a great weight of the argument to prove the truth and divinity of the prophecy, moves upon these little hinges; because, the less these are in themselves, the more admirably piercing and strong must that eye be that could see such small things at so great a distance. None but an infinite understanding could do this! And now I hope none will dare ask ‘But how may we be sure that such prophecies were extant so long be­fore their fulfilling, and not foisted in after these things were done?’—seeing they were upon public record in the church of the Jews, and not denied by those that denied Christ himself. And truly this one consideration cast into the scale after all the former, doth give an overweight to the argument we are now upon—I mean, that these prophecies were so long, and that so openly, read and known. And conse­quently [it were] impossible that Satan should be ig­norant of them, and not take the alarm from them to do his utmost to impede their accomplishment, see­ing his whole kingdom lay at stake, so as either he must hinder them, or they would ruin it; and that notwithstanding all this, together with his restless en­deavour against them, they should be all so fairly delivered in their full time; yea, many of them by the midwifery of those very persons that would, if pos­sible, have destroyed them in the womb, as we see, Acts 4:27. Here breaks out the wisdom and power of a God, with such a strong beam of light and evidence, that none of the Scriptures’ enemies can wishly look against it. [The doctrinal part of Scripture bears the impress of Deity.] Third Part. The doctrinal part of the Scrip­tures; by which, in this place, I mean only those grounds and principles of faith that are laid down in Scripture, and proposed to be believed and embraced of all that desire eternal life. There is a divine glory that is to be seen on the very face of them, being so sublime, that no creature can be the inventor of them. To instance but in a few for all. First, God himself, who is the prime object of our faith. Who but God could tell us who and what his nature is? That there is a God, we confess is a notion that natural reason hath found the way to search out. Yea, his Godhead and power are a lesson taught in the school of nature, and to be read in the book of the creatures. But how long men who have no higher teaching are learning the true knowledge of God, and how little progress they make therein, we see in the poor heathen, among whom the wisest philosophers have been such dunces, groping about this one principle one age after another, and yet not able to find the door; as the apostle tells us when he saith that ‘the world by wisdom knew not God,’ 1 Corinthians 1:1-31. But, as for the trinity of persons in the Godhead, this is such a height as the heart of man never could take aim at, so much as to dream or start a thought of it; so that, if God had not revealed it, the world of necessity must have for ever continued in the ignorance thereof. And the same must be said of all gospel truths, Jesus Christ, God‑man, justification by faith in his blood, and the whole method of grace and salvation through him. They are all such notions as never came into the heart of the wisest sophists in the world to conceive of; and therefore it is no wonder that a little child, under the preaching of the gospel, believes these mysteries which Plato and Aristotle were ignorant of, because they are not attained by our parts and indus­try, but communicated by divine and supernatural revelation. Yea, now they are revealed, how does our reason gaze at them as notions that are foreign, and mere strangers to its own natural conceptions, yea, too big to be grasped and comprehended with its short span, which makes it so malapert—where grace is not master to keep it in subjection—as to object against the possibility of their being true, because itself cannot measure them? As if the owl should say the sun had no light, because her weak eyes cannot bear to look on it. These are truths to be believed on the credit of him that relates them, and not to be entertained or rejected as they correspond to, or differ from, the mould of our reason. He that will handle these with his reason, and not his faith, is like to be served as the smith—it is Chrysostom’s comparison—that takes up the red-hot iron with his hand, and not with his tongs, what can he expect but to burn his fingers with them? [The preceptive part of Scripture bears the impress of Deity.] Fourth Part. The fourth and last part in our division is the preceptive part of the Scriptures, or that which contains commands and precepts. And this will be found to carry the superscription of its divinity on its forehead, and that with as legible and fair characters as any of the former, if we do but consider, First. The vast extent of Scripture com­mands; and Second. Their spotless purity. First. The vast extent of Scripture commands. This is such as never any human laws, though of the greatest monarch that ever swayed a scepter, could pretend unto. Where is the prince, among the sons of men, that ever went about to give laws to all man­kind, and did not rather, in his royal edicts and laws, respect that particular people, and those nations, whose lot fell within the circle of their empire? Of all the empires the world ever had, the Roman was with­out compare the greatest; and yet when the Roman eagle’s wings were best grown, they could not overspread more than the third part of this lower world. And how vain and ridiculous had it been for the emperor to have attempted to make a law for those nations which neither knew him, nor he them? But in the Scripture we find such laws as concern all mankind, wherever they live, and which have been promulgated, where the Bible was never seen. Their sound has gone into all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. Many of the laws in sacred writ, they are but a second, and that fairer, edition of what was found written in the consciences of men and women before the Scripture came forth. So that, if those laws that are cut with so indelible a character in the consciences of all the sons of Adam, be of God, then the Scripture must be confessed to proceed from God also. Yet further. As the Scripture takes all mankind to task, and lays its bonds on all, high and low, rich and poor; so its laws bind the whole man. The heart with its most inward thoughts is laid in these chains, as well as the outward man. Indeed, the heart is the principle subject, whose loyalty is most provided for in the precepts of Scripture. Those commands that contain our duty to God, require that all be done with the heart and soul. If we pray, it must be ‘in the spirit,’ John 4:23, or else we had as good do nothing, for we transgress the law of prayer. If it be a law that respects our carriage to man, still the heart is chiefly intended: ‘Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart,’ Leviticus 19:17; ‘Curse not the king, no not in thy thought,’ Ecclesiastes 10:20. And accordingly the promises and threatenings, which attend the commands of Scrip­ture—as the arteries do the veins in man’s body—to inspirit and enforce them, are suitable to the spiritual nature of those commands; the rewards of the one, and punishments of the other, being such as respect the spiritual performance or neglect of them. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God,’ Matthew 5:8. Not blessed are they whose hands are clean, though their hearts are foul and filthy. So, ‘But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing,’ Malachi 1:14. The deceiver there is the hypocrite, that gives God the skin of the sacrifice, the shape of the duty for the substance, the lean of an outside obedience instead of the fat of the inward man, viz. the obedience of the heart. And as the principle ob­ject that these are levelled to and against, is the obedience or disobedience of the heart; so the subject or vessel into which the one emptieth its blessings, and the other its curses, is chiefly the soul and spirit: ‘They shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever,’ Psalms 22:26. ‘I comfort you...and your heart shall rejoice,’ Isaiah 66:13-14. ‘Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse O God!’ Lamentations 3:65. Now I would fain know the man that ever went about to form such laws as should bind the hearts of men, or prepare such rewards as should reach the souls and consciences of men. Truly, if any mortal man—be he the greatest of the world’s monarchs —should make a law that his subjects should love him with all their hearts and souls, and not dare, upon peril of his greatest indignation, to bid a trai­torous thought against his royal person welcome in their souls, but presently confess it to him, or else he would be avenged on him; he would deserve to be more laughed at for his pride and folly, than Xerxes for casting his fetters into the Hellespont to chain the surly waves with them into his obedience, or Caligula, that threatened the air, if it durst rain when he was at his pastimes, who yet, poor sneak, durst not himself so much as look into the air when it thundered. Certainly a bedlam would be fitter for such a madman than a king’s throne and palace, that should so far forfeit his reason, as to think that the thoughts and hearts of men were within his territories and juris­diction. Who need fear such a law, when none but the offender himself can bring in evidence of the fact? There have been indeed some that, intending to take away the life of their prince by a bloody murderous knife, have been attached by their own conscience, and forced by it to blab and confess their own wicked thoughts, before any other could be their accuser, so sacred are the persons of God’s anointed ones; but not from the power of man or his law making them do so, but the dread of God arresting their conscience for violating his law, which indeed not only binds up subjects’ hands from killing, but hearts also from cursing, kings in our very thought. This, this the law which rules in the consciences of the worst of men; a bit that God rides the fiercest sinners with, and so curbs them, that they can never shake it out of their mouths. Enough to prove the divinity thereof. Second. The spotless purity of Scripture com­mands do no less evince their divine extraction. God is ‘the holy One,’ Isaiah 43:1-28. He alone is perfectly holy: ‘The heavens are not clean in his sight,’ Job 15:15. He can charge the angels themselves—who may be the heavens in the forementioned place—‘with folly,’ Job 4:18, because, though they never sinned, yet they are sinable. It is possible they might sin, as some of their order have done, if not kept from it by confirming grace. And as God is the only holy person, so the Scripture is the only holy book. All besides this have their errata, which are corrected by this, ‘The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever,’ Psalms 19:9. That is, the word of the Lord is ‘clean’—called ‘the fear of the Lord,’ because it teacheth it; as God is called the fear of Isaac, because the object of his fear. The word is clean, and mark, it ‘endureth for ever;’ that is, it ever continues, and shall be found so. There are dregs and sediment that will appear in the holiest writings of the best men, when they have stood awhile under the observation of a critical eye; but the Scripture hath been exposed to the view and censure of all sorts of men, yet could never have the least impurity charged justly upon it. It is so clean and pure, that it makes filthy souls clean: ‘Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,’ John 17:17. That which is itself filthy may make our clothes and bodies clean, but that which makes our souls pure and clean must be itself without all defilement. And such is the Scripture. Nothing there that gratifies the flesh or affords fuel to any lust. No, it puts every sin to the sword, and strikes through the loins of all sinners great or small: ‘To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace,’ Romans 8:6. So that, as Athenagoras well said, ‘No man can be wicked that is a Christian, unless he be a hypocrite.’ For the Scripture which he professeth to be his rule of faith and life, will not allow him to embrace any doctrine that is false, or practice that is filthy and unholy. This is that which Christianity can alone glory in. The heathen were led into many abominations by their religion and gods whom they worshipped. No wonder they were so beastly and sensual in their lives, when they served drunken and filthy gods; and the very mysteries of their religion were so horribly unclean that they durst not let them be commonly known, as having a scent too strong and stinking to be endured by any that had not their senses quite stopped, and their foolish minds, by the judgment of God upon them, wholly darkened. But the Christian can charge none of his sins upon his God—who tempteth none to evil, but hateth perfectly both the work and also worker of iniquity; nor upon his Bible, which damns every sin to the pit of hell, and all that liveth therein: ‘Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gen­tile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile,’ Romans 2:9-10. O who could be author of this blessed book but the blessed God? If any creature made it, he was either a wicked creature or one that was holy. 1. No wicked creature could do it, neither angel nor man. Surely they would never have taken so much pains to pull down their own kingdom of dark­ness—the great plot which runs through the Bible from one end of it to the other. And if it were the birth of their brain, no doubt, as every one loves his own child, so would they have shown more love to it than yet they have done. The implacable wrath which the devil and his party of wicked ones in the world have shown in all ages to the Scripture, declare sufficiently that it never came from them. No, no, it cannot stand with the interest of unclean spirits or wicked men to advance holiness in the world. The devil, though bold enough, durst never be so impu­dent as to lay claim to this holy, heavenly piece. But, if he should, the glorious beauty of holiness which shines on the face of it, would forbid any man in his wits to believe that black fiend to be the father of it. Naturalissimum est opis omnis viventis generare sibi simile—it is natural for every creature to beget his like. And what likeness there is betwixt light and darkness, it is easy to judge. 2. Neither can any holy creature be the author of it, be he angel or man. Can we think that any having the least spark of love to God, or fear of his majesty dwelling their breast, durst counterfeit his dreadful name by setting it to their work, and abuse the world with such a blasphemy and prodigious lie, as to say, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and prefix his name all along, when, not God but themselves are the authors? Could this impudence and audacious wickedness proceed from any holy angel or man? Doubtless it could not. Nay further, durst any holy creature put such a cheat upon the world, and then denounce the wrath and vengeance of God against those who shall speak in God’s name, but were never sent of him, as the Scrip­ture mentions? Certainly, that earth which swallowed up Korah and his ungodly rout, for pretending to an authority from God as good as the priests’, to offer incense, would not have spared Moses himself if he had spoke that in God’s name which he had not from him, but which was the invention of his own private brain. Thus we see that no creature, good or bad, angel or man, can be the author of Scripture. So that none remains but God to own it; which he hath done with miracles enough to convince a very atheist of their divinity. SECOND GENERAL HEAD. [Proof of the divinity of the Scriptures from their supernatural effects.] The second argument I shall choose to demon­strate the divine extraction of the Scriptures, shall be taken from the supernatural effects they produce. Nothing can be the cause of an effect higher or greater than itself. If therefore we can find such effects to be the product of the Scriptures, as are above the sphere of any creature’s activity, it will then be evident that the Scripture itself is supernatural, not the word of a mere creature, but of God himself. What the psalm­ist saith of thunder, that loud voice of nature from the clouds, we may apply to the voice of God speaking from heaven in the Scripture, ‘It is a mighty voice and full of majesty; it breaketh cedars’—kings and king­doms; ‘it divideth the flames of fire.’ The holy martyrs have with one bucket of this spiritual water quenched the scorching flames of that furious ele­ment into which their persecuting enemies have thrown them. ‘It shaketh the wilderness’ of the wild wicked world, making the stout hearts of the proudest sinners to tremble like the leaves of the trees with the wind; and bringeth the pangs of the new‑birth upon them whose hearts before never quailed for the most prodigious crimes. ‘It discovereth the forests,’ and hunts sinners out of their thickets and refuges of lies, whither they run to hide themselves from the hue and cry of divine vengeance. But, to speak more particu­larly and distinctly, there are four powerful and strange effects, which the word puts forth upon the hearts of men; all which will evince its divine original. First. It hath a heart‑searching power, whereby it ransacks and rifles the consciences of men. Second. It exercises a power on the conscience to convince and terrify it. Third. It has power to comfort and raise a dejected spirit. Fourth. It hath the power of conversion, which none but God can effect. [The heart‑searching power of the word attests to its divine origin.] First Effect. The word of God hath a heart-searching power, whereby it ransacks and rifles the consciences of men. It looks into the most secret transactions of the heart and tells us what we do in our bed-chamber—as Elisha did by the king of Syria, 2 Kings 6:12. It cometh where no prince’s warrant can empower his officer to search, I mean the heart. We read that Christ came to his disciples ‘when the doors were shut, and stood in the midst of them,’ John 20:19. Thus the word—when all doors are shut, that men have no intelligence what passeth within the breasts of men—comes in upon the sinner without asking him leave, and stands in the midst of his most secret plots and counsels, there presenting itself to his view, and saith to him as Elisha to Gehazi, ‘Went not my eye with thee when thou didst this and that?’ How often doth the sinner find his heart discovered and laid out of all its folds by the word preached, as if the minister had stood at his window, and seen him what he did within doors, or some had come and told tales of him to the preacher? Such I have known, that would not believe to the contrary, but that the min­ister had been informed of their pranks, and so leveled his discourse particularly at their breasts, when he hath been as ignorant of their doings as of theirs that live in America, and only shot his reproofs like him that smote Ahab, who drew his bow at a ven­ture, without taking aim at the person of any. From whence can this property come but [from] God, who claims it as his own incommunicable attribute, ‘I the Lord search the heart?’ Jeremiah 17:10. God is in the word, and therefore it findeth the way to get between the joints of the harness, though sent at random out of man’s bow. If any creature could have free ingress into this retiring room of the heart, the devil, being a spirit, and of such a piercing, prying eye, were the most likely to be he; yet even he is locked out of this room, though indeed he can peep into the next. Now if God can only search the heart, then the word which doth the same can come from no other but God himself. Who indeed can make a key to this lock of the heart, but he that knoweth all the wards of it? Suppose you did lock up a sum of money in a cabinet, and none but one in all the world besides yourself besides yourself were privy to the secret place where you lay this key. If you then should find the key taken away, and the cabinet opened and rifled, you would soon conclude whose doing it was. Why thus, when you find your heart disclosed, and the secret thoughts therein laid open unto you in the word, you may easily conclude that God is in it. The key that doth this is of his making who is the only one besides yourselves that is privy to the counsels of your hearts, that seeth all the secret traverses of your in­ward man. Who but he can send a spy so directly to your hiding-place, where you have laid up your treasures of darkness out of the world’s sight? There are two secrets that the word discloseth:— First. What a man’s own heart knoweth, and no creature besides. Thus Christ told the woman of Sa­maria what her neighbours could not charge her with; from which she concluded him to be a prophet—a man of God. And may we not conclude the Scripture to be the word of God, that doth the same? Second. Those things which a man’s own heart is not privy to. God is said to be ‘greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things,’ 1 John 3:20. He knows more by us than we by ourselves. And doth not the word dive to the bottom of the heart, and fetch up that filth thence, which the eye of the conscience never had the sight of before, nor ever could without the help of the word? ‘I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet,’ Romans 7:7. And if the word findeth that out which escapeth the scrutiny of man’s own heart, doth it not prove a Deity to be in it? So argueth the apostle, 1 Corinthians 14:25, speak­ing of the power the word preached hath to lay open the heart: ‘Thus are the secrets,’ saith he, ‘of his heart made manifest; and so, falling down on his face, he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.’ [The conscience‑touching power of the word attests its divine origin.] Second Effect. The second effect the Scrip­ture hath upon the spirits of men, by which its divine pedigree may be proved, is the power it exerciseth on the conscience to convince and terrify it. Conscience is a castle that no batteries but what God raiseth against it can shake. No power can command it to stoop but that which heaven and earth obey. He that disarms the strong man must be stronger than he. He that masters the conscience must be greater than it, and so God only is, 1 John 3:20[1]. Now the word being able to shake and shatter this power of the soul, which disdaineth to stoop to any but God, must needs be from him. And that the word exerts such a power upon the conscience who will doubt? Do we not see it daily chastising the proudest sinners, even to make them cry and whine under its convictions, like a child under the rod? Yea, doth it not slay them outright, that they fall down dispirited at one thunder-clap of the law let off by God upon them? ‘When sin revived, I died,’ saith Paul. He who before was a jolly man—as well provided in his own opinion for his spiritual estate, as Job was for his outward, when he had his flocks and herds, sons and daughters, health and prosperity, all as yet untouched by the hand of God—upon him, it stripped his conscience as naked as Job afterward was in his outward condition. The man’s eyes are opened now to see how naked and void of all holiness he is. Yea his fair skin of phar­isaical strictness, with the beauty of which he was formerly so far in love as if he had been another Absalom, without mole or wart, he now judgeth to be but odious deformity, and himself a most loathsome creature, by reason of those plague-sores and ulcers that he sees running on him. Yea, such power the word hath upon him, that it laid him trembling over the bottomless pit, in a despair of himself and his own righteousness. Hath any creature an arm like this of the word? or can any book penned by the wit of man command the heart to tremble at the rehearsal thereof, as this can do? Even a Felix on the bench, when a poor pris­oner preacheth this word at the bar to him, is put into a shaking fit. Who but a God could make those monsters of men, that had paddled in the blood of Christ, and who had scorned his doctrine so as to count the professors of it fools and idiots, yet come affrighted in their own thoughts, at a secret prick given them in Peter’s sermon, and cry out in the open assembly, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?’ Doth not this carry as visible a print of Deity, as when Moses clave the rock with a little rod in his hand? Question. But haply you will say, If there be such a conscience-shaking power in the word, how comes it to pass, that many notorious sinners sit so peaceably and sleep so soundly under it? They read it at home, and hear it preached powerfully in the public, yet are so far from feeling any such earthquake in their consciences, that they remain senseless and stupid; yea, can laugh at the preacher for his pains, and shake off all the threatenings denounced, when sermon is done, as easily as the spaniel doth the water when he comes out of the river. Answer First. I answer, many sinners who seem so jocund in your eyes, have not such merry lives as you think for. A book may be fairly bound and gild­ed, yet have but sad stories writ within it. Sinners will not tell us all the secret rebukes that conscience from the word gives them. If you will judge of Herod by the jollity of his feast, you may think he wanted no joy; but at another time we see that John’s ghost walked in his conscience. And so doth the word haunt many a one, who to us appear to lay nothing to heart. In the midst of their laughter their heart is sad. You see the lightning in their face, but hear not the thunder that rumbles in their conscience. Answer Second. It is enough, that the word doth leave such an impression upon the conscience of any ‘though not of all’ to prove its divinity. One affirma­tive testimony speaketh louder for the proof of a thing, than many negatives do to the contrary. The word is not a physical instrument, but a moral, and works not by a virtue inherent in it, but [by a] power impressed on it by the Spirit of God that first indited it. And this power he putteth forth according to his own good pleasure; so that the same word sets one man a trembling, and leaves another ‘in the same seat may be’ as little moved by it as the pillar he leaneth on. Thus as two at a mill, so at a sermon, one is taken, and the other left; one is humbled, and another hardened; not from any impotency in the word, but [from the] freeness of God’s dispensing it. His message it shall do to him it is sent, and none else. It is as a man strikes with a sword, back or edge, a strong or weak blow, that makes it cut or not, gives a slight wound or deep. The word pierceth the con­science according to the force and divine power that is impressed on it. The three children walked in the fire, and were not singed, others were consumed as soon as they came within the scent of it. Shall we say, ‘That fire is not hot,’ because one was burned and the other not? Some, their consciences do not so much as smell of the word, though the flames of the threatening fly about their ears, others are set all on fire with the terrors of it. Answer Third. The senseless stupidity of some under the stroke of the word, is not to be imputed to its impotency, but to the just judgement of God, wherewith he plagueth them for sinning against the convictions thereof. For commonly they are of that sort, whose consciences are so impenetrable ‘the with­ering curse of God having lighted upon them’ that there is no wonder their judgments are darkened and their consciences seared. It was as great a mani­festation of Christ’s power ‘and his disciples judged it so’ when with two or three words the fig‑tree was blasted, as if he had caused it to spring and sprout when withered and dry. The power of God is as great in hardening Pharaoh’s heart as in melting Josiah’s. [The comforting power of the word attests its divine origin.] Third Effect. The word of God hath a power to comfort and raise a dejected spirit. Conscience is God’s prison in the creature’s own bosom, from whence none can have his release, except by his war­rant that made the mittimus, and committed him thither. Indeed he is a weak prince that hath no pris­on to commit offenders into but what another can break open. This, where God lays sinners in chains, is not such. ‘A wounded spirit,’ saith Solomon, ‘who can bear?’ Yea, and who can cure? If any creature could, surely then the devils were as able as any to do it. But we see they have not to this day found the way to shake off those fetters which God keepeth them in; but lie roaring under the unspeakable torment of God’s wrath. And they who cannot cure their own wounds, are like to be but poor physicians to help others. Indeed they acknowledge it beyond their skill and power: ‘Wherefore then dost thou ask of me,’ said the devil to Saul, ‘seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy?’ 1 Samuel 28:16. The distress of an afflicted conscience ariseth from the dismal sense of divine wrath for sin. Now none can remove this but he that can infallibly assure the soul of God’s pardoning mercy; and this lies so deep in God’s heart, that God alone ‘who only knoweth his own thoughts’ can be the messenger to bring the news; and therefore the word which doth this can come from none but him. And, that is able not only to do this, but also to fill the soul with ‘joy unspeak­able and full of glory,’ is a truth so undoubted, that we need not ascend up to heaven for further confirm­ation. That Spirit which first indited the word, hath sealed it to the hearts of innumerable believers. Indeed all the saints acknowledge their comfort and peace to be drawn out of these wells of salvation. ‘In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy com­forts delight my soul,’ Psalms 94:19. Nay, he doth not only tell us his own experience, whence he had his joy, but also to have had theirs from the same tap. ‘Fools, because of their transgressions, are afflicted’ Psalms 107:17. And what then can ease them? Will all the rarities that can be got by sea or land make a diversion to their thoughts, and ease them of their pain? No; for ‘their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; and they draw near unto the gates of death,’ Psalms 107:18. What cor­dial then have they left to use, or way to take for their relief? Truly none, but to betake themselves to prayers and tears, ‘Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saveth them out of their dis­tresses,’ Psalms 107:19. And with what key doth God open their prison door? It follows, ‘He sent his word, and healed them,’ Psalms 107:20. If you shall say all this is meant of outward trouble; yet surely you must grant in holds more strong concerning that which is inward. What but a word from God’s mouth can heal a distres­sed spirit, when the body pineth and languisheth till God speaketh a healing word unto it? Great and mighty things are spoken of thee, and done by thee, O holy Word! Thou outviest the world’s joy, and makest the soul that hath but tasted thy ‘strong consolations’ presently to disrelish all sen­sual delights, as flashy and frothy. So pure and pow­erful is the light of that joy which thou kindlest in the saint’s bosom, that it quencheth all sinful carnal joy with its beams, as the sun doth the fire on the hearth. Thou conquerest the horror of death, that it is not feared. Thou vanquishest the pains thereof, that they are not felt. Thou treadest on scorpions and ser­pents, and they have no power to sting or hurt those that believe in thee. Devils know thee, and flee be­fore thee, quitting, at sight of thee, their holds, and leave those consciences which they had so long under their power and tyranny, for thee to enter with thy sweet consolations. Thou quenchest the flames of hell itself, and makest the soul that even now was thrown bound by despair into the fiery furnace of God’s wrath, to walk comfortably and unsinged amidst the thoughts thereof. Thou bringest heaven down to earth, and givest the believing soul a prospect of that heavenly Jerusalem which is so far off, as if he were walking in the blessed streets thereof; yea, thou entertainest him with the same delicacies which glorified saints—though more fully—feed on; so that sometimes he forgetteth he is in the body, even when pains and torments are upon him. This have the saints experienced, and more than my pen or their own tongue can express; so that we may say to him that yet questions whence the Scriptures came, as the blind man cured by Christ did to the Pharisees, ‘this is a marvellous thing,’ saith he, ‘that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes,’ John 9:30. So here, this is marvellous, yea ridicu­lous, to say we know not whence the Scripture is, when it can do all this. Since the world began was it not heard, that the word of a mere creature could re­move mountains of despairs, and fill the souls of poor sinners with such joy and peace, in spite of hell and the creature’s own unbelief, under the weight of which, as a heavy gravestone, he lay buried and sealed. [The converting power of the word attests its divine origin.] Fourth Effect. The word of God hath the power of conversion, which none but God—who is the ‘God of all grace’—can produce. When John’s disciples came to Christ to be resolved who he was, whether the Messiah or not, Christ neither tells them he was, or was not he; but sends them to take their answer from the marvellous works he did. ‘Go,’ saith he, ‘and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see; the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them,’ ,Û"((,8\.@