Chapter XI (part 3 of 3)
So then, he that saith these things, saith true; for the Scriptures say the same. This, then, is a good cause to suffer for, if men will that I shall suffer for saying so; because it is that which is founded upon the Word of God; and the Word is the ground and foundation of all true doctrine. Let him, then, that believeth what is here discoursed, and that liveth soberly and peaceably in this belief among his neighbours, stand by what he hath received, and rejoice that he hath found the truth. And if any shall afflict or trouble him for holding of these things, they afflict or trouble him for holding to good things; and he suffereth at their hands because his cause is good.
And such an one may with boldness, as to this, make his appeal to the Bible, which is the foundation of his principles, and to God the author of that foundation, if what he holds is not good. He may say, "Lord, I have said, that man by nature is in a state of condemnation, and they make me suffer for that. Lord, I have asserted that man, by all his natural abilities, is not able to recover himself from this his condemned state, and they make me suffer for that. Lord, I have said that a natural man may have right notions of the gospel, and yet be without the saving grace thereof, and they make me suffer for that. Lord, I cannot consent that human inventions and doctrines of men should be joined with thy institution as matters of worship, and imposed upon my conscience as such, and they make me suffer for that. Lord, I own the government, pray for my superiors, live quietly among my neighbours, give to all their dues, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, relieve the afflicted, and show myself, by my faith and life, to be a true Christian man, and yet my neighbours will not let me alone. True, I cannot comply with all that some men would have me comply with; no more did Daniel, no more did Paul; and yet Daniel said, that he had to the king done no hurt (Dan 6:22), and Paul said, 'neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar, have I offended anything at all'" (Acts 25:8).
For he that keeps within the compass of God's Word, hurts no man, gives just offence to no man, though he complieth not with all that are modes and ways of worship in the world. Nor can this appeal be judged injurious, if it be not attended with intercessions against them that hate us. But we will pass this, and come to a second thing.
(3.) As he that suffereth for righteousness must have a good cause, so he that suffereth for righteousness must have a good call.
A man, though his cause be good, ought not by undue ways to run himself into suffering for it; nature teaches the contrary, and so doth the law of God. Suffering for a truth ought to be cautiously took in hand, and as warily performed. I know that there are some men that are more concerned here than some; the preacher of the Word is by God's command made the more obnoxious man, for he must come off with a woe, if he preaches not the gospel (1 Cor 9:16). He, therefore, I say, doth and ought more to expose himself than other Christians are called to do. Yet it behoveth him also to beware, because that Christ has said to him, "Behold, I send you forth as sheep, or lambs, in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (Matt 10:16; Luke 10:3). A man is not bound by the law of his Lord, to put himself into the mouth of his enemy. Christ withdrew himself; Paul escaped the governor's hands, by being let down in a basket over the wall of the city (2 Cor 11:32,33). And Christ hath said, If they persecute you in one city, flee ye to another. If they will not let me preach here, I will take up my Bible, and be gone. Perhaps this is because I must preach in some other place. A minister can quickly pack up, and carry his religion with him, and offer what he knows of his God to another people32 (Acts 13:44-47). Nor should a minister strive, I think, with the magistrate for place, or time. But let him hearken to hear what God shall say by such opposition. Perhaps the magistrate must drive thee out of this place, because the soul is in another place that is to be converted, or helped by thy sermon today. We must also in all things, show ourselves to be such as by our profession we would that men should believe we are, to wit, meek, gentle, not strivers, but take our Lord and our brethren the prophets for our examples.
But I will not here presume to give instructions to ministers; but will speak a few words in the general about what I think may be a sufficient call to a man to suffer for righteousness.
First, Every Christian man is bound by God's Word to hold to, or stand by his profession, his profession of faith, and to join to that profession an holy godly life; because the Apostle and High priest of his profession is no less a one than Christ Jesus (Heb 3:1; 10:23). This by Christ himself is expressed thus, Let your light so shine (Matt 5:16). No man lighteth a candle to put it under a bushel. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning (Luke 12:35). And Paul bids the Philippians hold forth the word of life (Phil 2:16).
And more particularly, by all this, this is intended, that we should hide our faith in Christ from no man, but should rather make a discover of it by a life that will do so; for our profession, thus managed, is the badge, and the Lord's livery, by which we are distinguished from other men.33 So then, if, while I profess the truth of Christ, and so walk as to make my profession of it more apparent, I be made a sufferer for it, my call is good, and I may be bold in God and in my profession. This, Peter intends when he saith, "But and if ye suffer for righteousness" sake, happy are ye, and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear (1 Peter 3:14,15). Here, then, is a call not to meddle with the other, but to mind our own business; to walk in our Christian profession, and to adorn it with all good works; and if any man will meddle with me, and ask me a reason of the hope that I have, to give it him with meekness and fear, whatever follows thereupon. This, Peter should have done himself there, where he denies his Master thrice.
The reason is, for that Christianity is so harmless a thing, that, be it never so openly professed, it hurts no man. I believe that Christ will save me; what hurt is this to my neighbour? I love Christ because he will save me; what hurt is this to any? I will for this worship Christ as he has bid me; what hurt is this to anybody? I will also tell my neighbours what a loving one my Christ is, and that he is willing to be good to them as he has been good to me; and what hurt is this to the governor of a kingdom? But and if any man will afflict me for this, my cause is good, and also my call to stand full godly to my profession.
Secondly, There is sometimes a call to suffer for righteousness, even from the voice of necessity. That is, either when, by my silence, the truth must fall to the ground; or when, by my shrinking, the souls of other men are in danger. This, I say, is a call to suffer even by the voice of necessity. The case may be when God's ways may be trodden under foot; yea, his Word, and ways, and name, and people, and all. Thus Goliath did do, for several days together (1 Sam 17), and vaunted in his doing; and there was not a man, no, not in Israel, that durst answer him a word. And now was the spirit of David stirred in him, and he would put his life in his hand, and give this man an answer; and he saw there was reason for it--necessity gave him a call. Is there not a cause, saith he, lies bleeding upon the ground, and no man of heart or spirit to put a check to the bold blasphemer? I will go fight with him; I will put my life in my hand; if I die, I die.
Consider also what Daniel did when the law was gone out to forbid, for thirty days, petitioning any god or man, save the king only. At that time, also, not a man of Israel peeped (Dan 6:7). Now necessity walks about the streets, crying, Who is on the Lord's side? Who, &c. And Daniel answers, I am, by opening of his window, and praying, as at other times, three times a day, with his face towards Jerusalem (verse 10). He heard this voice of necessity, and put his life in his hand, and complied with it, to the hazard of being torn in pieces by the lions.
Much like this was that of the three children; for when that golden image was set up, and worship commanded to be done unto it, not one, that we read of, durst stand upright when the time was come that bowing was the sign of worship. Only the three children would not bow: it was necessary that some should show that there was a God in heaven, and that divine worship was due alone to him (Dan 3:10-12). But they run the hazard of being turned to ashes, in a burning fiery furnace, for so doing. But necessity has a loud voice, and shrill in the ears of a tender conscience: this voice will awake jealousy and kindle a burning fire within, for the name, and cause, and way, and people, of the God of heaven.
Thirdly, There is sometimes a call to suffer for righteousness by the voice of providence. That is, when, by providence, I am cast for my profession into the hands of the enemies of God and his truth; then I am called to suffer for it what God shall please to let them lay upon me. Only, for the making of my way more clear in this matter, I will deliver what I have to say, with a caution or two. 1. Thou must take heed that thy call be good to this or that place, at which, by providence, thou art delivered up. 2. Thou must also take heed that, when thou art there, thou busiest thyself in nothing but that that good is. 3. Thou must also take heed that thou stay there no longer than while thou mayest do good or receive good there. 4. Thus far a man is in the way of his duty, and therefore may conclude that the providence of God, under which now he is, is such as has mercy and salvation in the bowels of it, whatsoever is by it, at the present, brought upon him.
Christ Jesus, our Lord, though his death was determined, and of absolute necessity, and that chiefly for which he came into the world, chose rather to be taken in the way of his duty than in any other way or anywhere else. Wherefore, when the hour was come, he takes with him some of his disciples, and goeth into a garden, a solitary place, to pray; which done, he sets his disciples to watch, and falleth himself to prayer. So he prays once; he prays twice; he prays thrice: and he giveth also good doctrine to his disciples. And now, behold, while he was here, in the way of his duty, busying himself in prayer to God, and in giving of good instruction to his followers, upon him comes Judas and a multitude with swords and staves, and weapons, to take him; to which providence he, in all meekness, submits, for he knew that by it he had a call to suffer (Matt 26:36-47).
In this way, also, the apostles were called to suffer, even while they were in the way of their duty. Yea, God bid them go into the temple to preach, and there delivered them into the hands of their enemies (Acts 4:1-3; 5:20-26).
Be we in the way of our duty, in the place and about the work unto which we are called of God, whether that work be religious or civil, we may, without fear, leave the issue of things to God, who only doth wonderful things. And he who lets not a sparrow fall to the ground without his providence, will not suffer a hair of our head to perish but by his order (Luke 12:6,7). And since he has engaged us in his work, as he has if he has called us to it, we may expect that he will manage, and also bear us out therein; either so as by giving of us a good deliverance by way of restoration to our former liberty and service for him, or so as to carry us well out of this world to them that, under the altar, are crying, How long, holy and true: nor shall we, when we come there, repent that we suffered for him here. Oh! how little do saints, in a suffering condition, think of the robes, the crowns, the harps, and the Son that shall be given to them; and that they shall have when they come upon mount Zion (Rev 6:11; 14:1-7).
Fourthly, There is sometimes a call to suffer for righteousness by an immediate and powerful impulse of the Spirit of God upon the heart. This, I say, is sometimes, and but sometimes; for this is not God's ordinary way, nor are many of his servants called after this manner to suffer for righteousness. Moses was called thus to suffer when he went so often unto Pharaoh with the message of God in his mouth. And "he endured, as seeing him who is invisible" (Heb 11:25-27).
Paul was called thus to suffer, and he obeyed, and went, and performed that work, according to the will of God. This kind of call Paul calls a binding, or a being bound in the Spirit, because the Holy Ghost had laid such a command upon him to do so, that he could not, by any means, get from under the power of it. "And now, behold," saith he, "I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befal me there" (Acts 20:22). For he that is under this call has, as I said, bonds laid upon his spirit, which carry him to the place where his testimony is to be borne for God; nor shall he, if he willingly submits and goes, as Paul did, but have an extraordinary presence of God with him, as he. And see what a presence he had; for after the second assault was given him by the enemy, even "the night following, the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome" (Acts 23:11). Thus God meeteth his people in their service for him, when he calls them aloud to do great service for him. The power of such a call as this, I say, is great, and men of ordinary spirits must needs give place thereto, and leave a man thus bound to the God that thus has bound him. All the help such can afford him is to follow him with our prayers, not to judge him or grieve him, or lay stumbling-blocks before him. No; they must not weep nor mourn for him, so as to make him sorrowful (Acts 21:12-14).
His friends may suggest unto him what is like to attend his present errand, as Agabus did by the Spirit to Paul when he took his girdle and bound himself therewith, to show him how his enemies should serve him whither he went. "Thus said the Holy Ghost," said he, "so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles" (Acts 21). But if this call be indeed upon a man, all sorrow is turned into joy before him; for he is ready, not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 21:13).
Instances, also, of later times might be given of a call extraordinary to suffer for righteousness. For many, in the first three hundred years' persecution, when nobody knew what they were, would boldly come up to the face of their enemies and tell what they were, and suffer for what they professed, the death. I remember, also, the woman who, when her friends were gone before to suffer, how she came running and panting after, for fear she should not come thither time enough to suffer for Jesus Christ. But I will give you an instance of later times, even in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, of an Hertfordshire man that went as far as Rome to bear his testimony for God against the wickedness of that place. This man, when he was arrived there, and had told them wherefore he was come, they took and condemned him to death, to wit, to be burned for an heretic. Now he was to ride from the prison to the place of execution upon an ass, with his face to the beast's tail, and was to be stripped from the shoulders to the waist, that he might be tormented all the way he went with burning torches continually thrust to his sides; but he, nothing at all afraid, spake in his exhortation to the people to fly from their sin and idolatry; he would also catch hold of the torches and put them to his sides, to show how little he esteemed the worst that they could do. Also, when he was come to the place of execution, he suffered there such cruelty, with so unconcerned a mind, and with such burning zeal for God's truth, testified against them while he could speak; that, all amazed, his enemies cried, he could not have suffered as he did but by the help of the devil. His name I have now forgot, but you will find it, with the story at large, in the third volume of Acts and Monuments, at the 1022 page. 34 But we will pass this, and come to our second particular, namely,
[B. What it is to suffer for righteousness' sake.]
To show when it may be said a man doth not only suffer for righteousness, but also for righteousness' sake.
To suffer for righteousness' sake must be either with the intention of the persecutor or else of the persecuted. The persecutor, whatever the person's suffering is, if he afflicteth this person for a supposed good that he thinketh he hath or professeth, he make him suffer for righteousness' sake. So that, in this sense, a man that hath no grace may not only suffer for righteousness, but also for righteousness' sake. But this I intend not, because the text is not concerned with it.
The thing, therefore, now intended to be spoken to, is this, namely, when a man may be said to suffer what he suffereth upon a religious account, of love to, or for the sake of, that good that he finds in the truths of God, or because his heart is joined and espoused to the good of the truths that he professeth; not that there is any thing in any truth of God that is not good; but a man may profess truth, not for the sake of the goodness that is in it, but upon a remote account. Judas professed truth, not of love to the truth, but of love to the bag, and to the money that was put therein. Men may profess for a wife, for a trade, for friendship, or because profession is at such a time or in such a place, in fashion. I wish that there were no cause to say this. Now there is not any of these that profess the truth for the truth's sake, that profess the truth of love to it; nor shall they, should they suffer as professors, never so long, never so much, never so grievously, be counted of God among them that suffer for righteousness' sake; that is, of unfeigned love to righteousness. Wherefore, that I may show you who may be said to suffer for righteousness' sake, I will propound and speak to several things.
1. Then, he that suffereth in the apostle's sense, for well-doing, or for righteousness' sake, sets his face against nothing but sin. He resisteth unto blood, striving against sin. Sin is the object of his indignation, because it is an enemy to God, and to his righteous cause in the world (Heb 12:3,4). Sin, I say, is that which such a man singleth out as his opposite, as his antagonist, and that against which his heart is set. It is a rare thing to suffer aright, and to have my spirit, in my suffering, bent only against God's enemy--sin; sin in doctrine, sin in worship, sin in life, sin in conversation. Now then, he that suffereth for righteousness' sake has singled out sin to pursue it to death, long before he comes to the cross. It is sin, alas, and his hatred to it that have brought him into this condition. He fell out with sin at home, in his own house, in his own heart, before he fell out with sin in the world, or with sin in public worship. For he that can let sin go free and uncontrolled at home within, let him suffer while he will, he shall not suffer for righteousness' sake. And the reason is, because a righteous soul, as the phrase is, 2 Peter 2:8, has the greatest antipathy against that sin that is most ready to defile it, and that is, as David calls it, one's own iniquity, or the sin that dwelleth in one's own flesh. I have kept me, says he, from mine iniquity, from mine own sin. People that are afraid of fire are concerned most with that that burneth in their own chimney; they have the most watchful eye against that that is like to burn down their own house first.
He also that suffereth for righteousness' sake, doth it also because he would not that sin should cleave to the worship of God; and, indeed, this is mostly the cause of the sufferings of the godly. They will not have to do with that worship that hath sinful traditions commixed with God's appointments, because they know that God is jealous of his worship; and has given a strict charge that all things be done according to the pattern showed to us in the mount. He knows also that God will not be with that worship, and those worshippers, that have not regard to worship by the rule of the testament of Christ. He is also against the sin that is apt to cleave to himself while he standeth in the presence of God. I will wash mine hands in innocency, so will I compass thine altar, O Lord. This man also chooses to be in the practical parts of worship, if possible, for he knows that to have to do about holy things sincerely is the way to be at the remotest distance from sin. He chooses also to be with those holy ones that are of the same mind with him against sin; for he knows that two are better than one, and that a threefold cord is not easily broken. Wherefore look to yourselves, you that do, or may be called to suffer for religion: if you bend not yourselves against sin, if to be revenged of sin be not the cause of your suffering, you cannot be said to suffer for righteousness' sake. Take heed, therefore, that something else be not an inducement to thee to suffer. A man may suffer to save what he has: there is credit also and an applause; there is shame to conform; there is carnal stoutness of spirit; there is hatred of persecutors and scorn to submit; there is fear of contempt and of the reproach of the people, &c. These may be motives and arguments to a suffering state, and may really be the ground of a man's being in the jail; though he cries out in the meanwhile of popery, of superstition, and idolatry, and of the errors that attend the common modes of the religions of the world. I charge no man as though I knew any such thing by any; but I suggest these things as things that are possible, and mention them because I would have sufferers have a care of themselves; and watch and pray, because no man can be upright here that is not holy, that cannot pray, and watch, and deny himself for the love that he has to righteousness. I said it before, and will say it again, it is a rare thing to be set in downrightness of heart against sin.
2. Is it for the sake of righteousness that thou sufferest? Then it is because thou wouldest have righteousness promoted, set up, and established in the world; also thou art afflicted at those advantages that iniquity gets upon men, upon things, and against thyself. "I beheld," said David, "the transgressors, and was grieved; because men kept not thy word" (Psa 119:158). And again, These are they that mourn for the abominations that are done among men (Eze 9:4). There is a great deal of talk about religion, a great deal of pleading for religion, namely, as to the formalities of this and the other way.35 But to choose to be religious, that I might be possessed with holiness, and to choose that religion that is most apt to possess me with it, if I suffer for this, I suffer for righteousness' sake. Wherefore say thus to thy soul, thou that art like to suffer for righteousness, How is it with the most inward parts of my soul? What is there? What designs, desires, and reachings out are there? Why do I pray? Why do I read? Why do I hear? Why do I haunt and frequent places and ordinances appointed for worship? Is it because I love holiness? would promote righteousness, because I love to see godliness show itself in others, and because I would feel more of the power of it in myself? If so, and if thou sufferest for thy profession, thou sufferest, not only for righteousness, but also for righteousness' sake. Dost thou thus practise, because thou wouldest be taught to do outward acts of righteousness, and because thou wouldest provoke others to do so too? Dost thou show to others how thou lovest righteousness, by taking opportunities to do righteousness? How is it, dost thou show most mercy to thy dog, 36 or to thine enemy, to thy swine, or to the poor? Whose naked body hast thou clothed? Whose hungry belly hast thou fed? Hast thou taken delight in being defrauded and beguiled? Hast thou willingly sat down by the loss with quietness, and been as if thou hadst not known, when thou hast been wronged, defamed, abused, and all because thou wast not willing that black-mouthed men should vilify and reproach religion upon thy account (1 Cor 6:7)?
He that loveth righteousness will do thus, yea, and do it as unto God, and of tenderness to the Word of God which he professeth. And he that thinks to make seeing men believe, that when he suffereth, he suffereth for righteousness' sake, and yet is void in his life of moral goodness, and that has no heart to suffer and bear, and put up, and pass by injuries in his conversation among his enemies at home, is deceived.
There are some Scriptures that are as if they were out of date among some professors, specially such as call for actual holiness and acts of self-denial for God; but it will be found, at the day of judgment, that they only are the peculiar people that are "zealous of good works" (Titus 2:14). God help us, it is hard now to persuade professors to come up to negative holiness, that is, to leave undone that which is bad; and yet this of itself comes far short of ones being found in practical goodness.
But this is the man that suffereth, when he suffereth for righteousness' sake, that makes it his business, by all lawful means, according to the capacity that God has put him in, to promote, set up, and establish righteousness in the world; I say this is the man that suffereth for righteousness' sake, that suffereth for so doing; and I am sure that a life that is moral, when joined to the profession of the faith of the things that are of the Spirit of God, is absolutely necessary to the promoting of righteousness in the world. Hence Peter tells them that suffer for righteousness' sake, that they must have "a good conscience"--a good conscience towards God, towards men, towards friends, towards enemies (1 Peter 3:14-16; Acts 24:16; 23:1). They must have a good conscience in all things, being willing, ready, desirous to live honestly, godly, and righteously in this world, or else they cannot, though they may suffer for the best doctrine under heaven, suffer for righteousness' sake (Heb 13:18). Wherefore,
3. Is it for righteousness' sake that thou sufferest? then thy design is the ruin of sin. This depends upon what was said before; for he that strives against sin, that seeks to promote righteousness, he designs the ruin of sin. "Be not," said Paul to the suffering Romans, "overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Rom 12:21). To overcome evil with good is a hard task. To rail it down, to cry it down, to pray kings, and parliaments, and men in authority to put it down, this is easier than to use my endeavour to overcome it with good, with doing of good, as I said before.37 And sin must be overcome with good at home, before thy good can get forth of doors38 to overcome evil abroad.
Abraham overcame evil with good, when he quieted the discontent of Lot and his herdsmen, with allowing of them to feed their cattle in the best of what God had given him (Gen 13:7,8).
David overcame evil with good, when he saved the life of his bloody enemy that was fallen into his hand; also when he grieved that any hurt should come to them that sought nothing so much as his destruction. "They rewarded me," saith he, "evil for good, to the spoiling of my soul. But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I humbled my soul with fasting, I behaved myself as though he had been my friend or brother; I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother." This is to overcome evil with good (Psa 35:12-14).
Job saith concerning his enemy, that he did not rejoice when evil found him; "neither have I," said he, "suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul." He means he did the quite contrary, and so overcame evil with good (Job 31:29,30).
Elisha overcame evil with good, when he received the men that came for his life, and had them where he might feast, and comfort them, and sent them home in peace to their master (2 Kings 6:19-23).
The New Testament also is full of this, both in exhortations and examples, In exhortations where it is said, resist not evil, that is, with evil, but overcome evil with good (Prov 24:29). "But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.--And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee; and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.--Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil, and on the good--on the just, and on the unjust" (Matt 5:39-45). "Bless them that persecute you: bless and curse not" (Rom 12:14). "Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing" (1 Peter 3:9; Rom 12:14). This is righteousness--these are righteous courses. And as these are preceptively propounded, so they were as practically followed by them that were eminently godly in the primitive church.
"We are fools for Christ's sake," said Paul, "we are despised, we are hungry, thirsty, naked, and buffeted.--Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the earth, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day" (1 Cor 4:10-13). This is overcoming of evil with good, and he that has chosen to himself that religion that teaches these things, and that loves that religion because it so teacheth him; if he suffereth for it, he suffereth for righteousness' sake.
4. He that suffereth for righteousness' sake, will carry righteousness whithersoever he goes. Neither the enemy, nor thy sufferings, shall be able to take righteousness from thee. Righteousness must be thy chamber mate, thy bed companion, thy walking mate: it is that without which thou wilt be so uncouth, as if thou couldest not live (Psa 26: 25:21).
Paul in his sufferings would have righteousness with him, for it must be as it were his armour-bearer; yea, his very armour itself (2 Cor 6:7). It is an excellent saying of Job, "I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my judgment was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame; I was a father to the poor," &c. (Job 29:11-16). "Princes," said David also, "did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statues" (Psa 119:23). A man that loves righteousness doth as Abraham did with his Sarah, carry it every where with him, though he goes, because of that, in danger of his life. Righteousness! It is the only intimate that a Christian has. It is that by which he takes his measures, that with which he consults, with respect to what he doth, or is to do, in the world. "Thy testimonies," said David also, "are my delight, and my counsellors." The men of my counsel, in the margin (Psa 119:24).
David! He was the man of affliction; the suffering man in his day; but in all places where he came, he had righteousness, the law and godly practice with him. It was his counsellor, as he was a man, a saint, a king. I dare say, for the man that suffers righteousness to be rent away from him by the violence and rage of men, and that casts it away, as David did Saul's armour, that he may secure himself; he has no great love for righteousness, nor to the cross for righteousness' sake. "My righteousness I hold fast," said Job, "and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live" (Job 27:6). What? part with righteousness! A righteous Lord! A righteous Word! A righteous profession! A righteous life! to sleep in a whole skin: the Lord forbid it me, and all that he has counted worthy to be called by his name. Let us carry it with us from the bed to the cross, and then it shall carry us from thence to the crown. Let it be our companion to prison and death, then shall we show that we are lovers of righteousness, and that we choose to suffer for righteousness' sake.
5. Dost thou suffer for righteousness' sake? why then, thy righteousness is not diminished, but rather increased by thy sufferings. Righteousness thriveth best in affliction, the more afflicted, the more holy man; the more persecuted, the more shining man (Acts 6:15). The prison is the furnace, thy graces are the silver and the gold; wherefore, as the silver and the gold are refined by the fire, and so made more to show their native brightness, so the Christian that hath, and that loveth righteousness, and that suffereth for its sake, is by his sufferings refined and made more righteous, and made more Christian, more godly (Zech 13:9). Some, indeed, when they come there, prove lead, iron, tin, and at the best, but the dross of silver; and so are fit for nothing, but there to be left and consumed, and to bear the badge, if ever they come from thence, of reprobate silver from the mouth and sentence of their neighbours (Eze 22:18-22; Jer 6:28-30). But when I, says Job, am tried, "I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10).
When Saul had cast one javelin at David, it made him walk wisely in all his ways. But when he added to his first fury, plots to take away his life, then David behaved himself yet more wisely (1 Sam 18:10-30). The hotter the rage and fury of men are against righteous ways, the more those that love righteousness grow therein. For they are concerned for it, not to hide it, but to make it spangle; not to extinguish it, but to greaten it, and to show the excellency of it in all its features, and in all its comely proportion. Now such an one will make straight steps for his feet, "let that which is lame be turned out of the way" (Heb 12:13). Now he shows to all men what faith is, by charity, by self-denial, by meekness, by gentleness, by long-suffering, by patience, by love to enemies, and by doing good to them that hate us; now he walketh upon his high places. Yea, will not now admit that so slovenly a conversation should come within his doors, as did use to haunt his house in former times. Now it is Christmas,39 now it is suffering time, now we must keep holy day every day. The reason is, for that a man, when he suffereth for Christ, is set upon a hill, upon a stage, as in a theatre, to play a part for God in the world. And you know when men are to play their parts upon a stage, they count themselves, if possible, more bound to circumspection; and that for the credit of their master, the credit of their art, and the credit of themselves. For then the eyes of every body are fixed, they gape and stare upon them (Psa 22:17). And a trip here is as bad as a fall in another place. Also now God himself looks on. Yea, he laugheth, as being pleased to see a good behaviour attending the trial of the innocent.
(1.) He that suffereth for righteousness' sake suffereth for his goodness, and he is now to labour by works and ways to convince the world that he suffereth as such an one. (2.) He that suffereth for righteousness' sake has many that are weak to strengthen by his sweet carriages under the cross, wherefore he had need to exceed in virtue. (3.) He also is by well-doing to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, he had need be curious and circumspect in all his actions. (4.) He is to come in, and to be a judge, and to condemn, by his faith and patience in his sufferings, the world, with his Lord and fellows, at the appearing of Jesus Christ; he had need be holy himself. This, therefore, is the fit sign of suffering for righteousness' sake (1 Cor 6:1-5; Heb 11:7; 2 Thess 1:5,6; 1 Peter 4:3-5).
6. He that suffereth, not only for righteousness, but also for righteousness' sake, will not exchange his cause, though for it in a jail, for all the ease and pleasure in the world. They that suffered for righteousness' sake of old, were tempted before they were sawn asunder (Heb 11). Tempted, that is, allured, to come out of their present sufferings, and leave their faith and profession in irons behind them. Tempted with promises of promotion, of ease, of friendship, of favour with men. As the Devil said to Christ, so persecutors of old did use to make great promises to sufferers, if they would fall down and worship. But his is alone as if they should say, Butcher, make away with your righteousness,40 and a good conscience, and you shall find the friendship of the world. For there is no way to kill a man's righteousness but by his own consent. This, Job's wife knew full well, hence she tempted him to lay violent hands upon his own integrity (Job 2:9).
The Devil, nor men of the world can kill thy righteousness or love to it, but by thy own hand; or separate that and thee asunder, without thine own act. Nor will he that doth indeed suffer for the sake of it, or of love he bears thereto, be tempted to exchange it for the goods of all the world. It is a sad sight to see a man that has been suffering for righteousness, restored to his former estate, while the righteousness for which he suffered, remains under locks and irons, and is exposed to the scorn, contempt, reproach of the world, and trodden under the foot of men.41 "It is better," said Paul, "for me to die, than that any man should make my glorying void." And it had been a hundred times better for that man, if he had never known the way of righteousness, than after he has known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto him.
The striving is, in persecution, for righteousness; to wit, whether it shall be set up, or pulled down. The sufferer, he is for setting up, and the persecutors are for pulling down. Thus they strive for the mastery. Now, if a man stands by his righteousness, and holds fast his good profession, then is righteousness set up; nor can it, so long, be pulled down. Hence, so long a man is said to overcome; and overcome he doth, though he be killed for his profession. But if he starts back, gives place, submits, recants, or denieth any longer to own that good thing that he professed, and exposed himself to suffering for; then he betrays his cause, his profession, his conscience, his righteousness, his soul, and all; for he has delivered up his profession to be murdered before his face: A righteous man falling down before the wicked, is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring (Prov 25:26). But this, I hope, will not he do that loveth righteousness, and that suffereth for righteousness' sake. I do not say but that a man may slip here, with Peter, Origen, Hierom, Cranmer, Baynham, Ormis,42 and other good folk; but be he one of the right kind, a lover of righteousness indeed, he will return, and take revenge upon himself in a godly way, for so ungodly a fact.
7. He that suffereth not only for righteousness, but also for righteousness sake, is not so wedded to his own notions as to slight or overlook the good that is in his neighbour. But righteousness he loves wherever he finds it, though it be in him that smiteth him (Psa 141:5). Yea, he will own and acknowledge it for the only thing that is of beauty and glory in the world. With the excellent in the earth is all such a man's delight. Wherefore I put a difference betwixt suffering for an opinion and suffering for righteousness; as I put a difference between suffering for righteousness and suffering for righteousness' sake.
If righteousness, if the stamp of God, if divine authority, is not found upon that thing which I hold, let men never suffer for it under the notion of righteousness. If sin, if superstition, if idolatry, if derogation from the wisdom of Christ, and the authority and perfection of his Word, be not found in, nor joined to that thing that I disown in worship, let me never open my mouth against it. I had rather fall in with, and be an associate of a righteous man that has no true grace, than with a professor that has no righteousness. It is said of the young man, though he went away from Christ, that he looked upon him and loved him (Mark 10:17-22). But it is not said that ever he loved Judas. I know that the righteousness for which a good man suffereth, is not then embraced of the world, for that at such a time it is under a cloud. But yet there is righteousness also in the world, and wherever I see it, it is of a high esteem with me. David acknowledged some of his enemies to be more righteous than he acknowledged some of his servants to be (2 Sam 4:9-11; 3:31-35). It is a brave thing to have righteousness, as righteousness, to be the top-piece in mine affections. The reason why Christ was anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows, was, because he loved righteousness, and hated iniquity more than they (Heb. 1:9). Love to righteousness flows from golden graces, and is that, and that only, that can make a man capable of suffering, in our sense, for righteousness' sake.
8. He that suffereth not only for righteousness, but also for righteousness' sake, will take care that his sufferings be so managed with graciousness of words and actions, that it may live when he is dead; yea, and it will please him too, if righteousness flourishes, though by his loss. Hence it is that Paul said, he rejoiced in his suffering, Colossians 1:24; namely, because others got good thereby. And that he said, "Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all" (Phil 2:17). But why rejoice in this? Why, because though his sufferings were to the distressing of his flesh, yet they were to the refreshing, comfort, and stability of others. This was it also that made him jostle with the false brethren among the churches; to wit, "that the truth of the gospel might continue with them" (Gal 2:5).
When a man shall run the hazard of the ruin of what he has, and is, for righteousness, for the good and benefit of the church of God; that man, he managing himself by the rule, if he suffers for so doing, suffers not only for righteousness, but also for righteousness' sake. "I endure all things," said Paul, "for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory" (2 Tim 2:10). Here was love, you will say, to persons; and I will say also, to things; to all the righteousnesses of God that are revealed in the world, that all the elect might enjoy them to their eternal comfort and glory, by Christ Jesus. For "whether we be afflicted," says he, "it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation" (2 Cor 1:6).
The end of a man and his design, if that be to promote righteousness, he using lawful means to accomplish it, is greatly accepted of God by Christ; and it is a sign he is a lover of righteousness; and that if he suffereth for so doing, he suffereth not for well-doing, only as to matter of fact, but also for his love to the good thing done, and for its sake.
I have now done with that first head that was to be spoken to, as touching the law and testament; which we have said was to be understood of the will of God spoken of in the text: "Let them that suffer according to the will of God," that is, according to his law and testament. Now we have showed what it is to suffer according to that; we come to another thing, namely:--
[THE WILL OF GOD MEANS HIS ORDER AND DESIGNMENT.]
Second, That by the will of God, we also understand his order and designment. For the will of God is active, to dispose of his people, as well as preceptive, to show unto us our duty. He then that suffers for righteousness' sake, as he suffers for that which is good as to the matter of it, and as he suffers for that which is good, after that manner as becomes that truth for which he suffereth; so he that thus suffereth, suffereth by the order and designment of God. That, then, is the next thing that is to be spoken to, namely:--
God is the great orderer of the battle that is managed in the world against antichrist. Hence that battle is called, "The battle of that great day of God Almighty" (Rev 16:14). It is not what enemies will, nor what they are resolved upon, but what God will, and what God appoints; that shall be done. This doctrine Christ teacheth when he saith, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows" (Luke 12:6,7). He speaks in the verses before of killing, and bids them that they should not be afraid for that. "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." Then he leads them to the consideration of this, that the will of God governs, and disposes of his [people] to suffering; as well as declares to them for what, and how they should suffer, saying, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings," &c.
Also in Isaiah 8:9,10 and in Isaiah 2:12,13, you have in sum the same thing inserted again. But we will not stay upon proof, but will proceed to demonstration hereof.
Pharaoh said he would, ay, that he would, but he could not touch so much as a thread or a rag of Israel, because the will of God was in that thing contrary to him. Saul said that he would have David, and to that end would search for him among the thousands of Judah; but David was designed for another purpose, and therefore Saul must go without him (1 Sam 23:25) Rabshakeh said that he was come from Assyria to Jerusalem to make "Judah eat their own dung, and drink their own piss" (Isa 36:12). But God said he should not shoot an arrow there. And it came to pass as God had said (Isa 37:33; 2 Kings 18; 2 Chron 28). Jeremiah and Baruch's enemies would have killed them, but they could not, for God hid them. How many times had the Jews a mind to have destroyed Jesus Christ; but they could not touch a hair of his head until his hour was come.
Those also that bound themselves in a curse, that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul, were forced to be foresworn, for the will of God was not that Paul should die as yet (Acts 23:12). This therefore should be well considered of God's church, in the cloudy and dark day. "All his saints are in thy hand" (Deut 33:3). It is not the way of God to let the enemies of God's church do what they will; no, the Devil himself can devour but "whom he may" (1 Peter 5:8). And as no enemy can bring suffering upon a man when the will of God is otherwise, so no man can save himself out of their hands when God will deliver him up for his glory. It remaineth, then, that we be not much afraid of men, nor yet be foolishly bold; but that we wait upon our God in the way of righteousness, and the use of those means which his providence offereth to us for our safety; and that we conclude that our whole dispose, as to liberty or suffering, lieth in the will of God, and that we shall, or shall not suffer, even as it pleaseth him. For,
First, God has appointed WHO shall suffer. Suffering comes not by chance, or by the will of man, but by the will and appointment of God. "Let no man," said Paul, "be moved by these afflictions; for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto" (1 Thess 3:3). We are apt to forget God when affliction comes, and to think it a strange thing that those that fear God should suffer indeed (1 Peter 4:12). But we should not, for we suffer by the will and appointment of God. Hence they under the altar were bid to rest for a while, even until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren that should be killed--mark that--"should be killed, as they were, should be fulfilled" (Rev 6:11). Wherefore, suffering for righteousness and for righteousness' sake, is by the will of God. God has appointed who shall suffer. That is the first.
Second, As God has appointed who shall suffer, so he has appointed WHEN they shall suffer for his truth in the world. Sufferings for such and such a man are timed, as to when he shall be tried for his faith. Hence, when Paul was afraid, at Corinth, that the heathens would fall about his ears, the Lord spake to him by night in a vision, saying, "Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee" (Acts 18:9,10). His time of suffering was not yet come there. It is also said concerning Jesus Christ, that even then when "they sought to take him, no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come" (John 7:30). The times, then, and the seasons, even for the sufferings of the people of God, are not in the hands of their enemies, but in the hand of God; as David said, "My times are in thy hand." By the will of God, then, it is that such shall suffer at, but not until, that time. But,
Third, As God has appointed who and when, so he has appointed WHERE this, that, or the other good man shall suffer. Moses and Elias, when they appeared on the holy mount, told Jesus of the sufferings which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the place assigned for Christ to suffer at; also, there must the whole of his sufferings be accomplished (Luke 9:30,31). The saints are sprinkled by the hand of God here and there, as salt is sprinkled upon meat to keep it from stinking. And as they are thus sprinkled, that they may season the earth; so, accordingly, where they must suffer is also appointed for the better confirming of the truth. Christ said, it could not be that a prophet should "perish out of Jerusalem" (Luke 13:33). But why could it not be that they should perish other where? Were there no enemies but in Jerusalem? Were there no good men but at Jerusalem? No, no; that was not the reason. The reason was, for that God had appointed that they should suffer there. So then, who, when, and where, is at the will of God, and they, accordingly, are ordered by that will.
Fourth, As God has appointed who, when, and where, so he has also appointed WHAT KIND of sufferings this or that saint shall undergo, at this place and at such a time. God said that he would show Paul beforehand how great things he should suffer for his sake (Acts 9:16). And it is said that Christ did signify to Peter beforehand "by what death he should glorify God" (John 21:19). When Herod had beheaded John the Baptist, and when the Jews had crucified Christ, it is said that they had but fulfilled what was "written of them" (Mark 9:13; Acts 13:29). Our sufferings, as to the nature of them, are all writ down in God's book; and though the writing seem as unknown characters to us, yet God understands them very well. Some of them they shall kill and crucify, and some of them they shall scourge in their synagogue, "and persecute them from city to city" (Matt 23:34). Shall God, think you, say, some of them they shall serve thus, and some of them they shall do so to; and yet not allot which some to this, and which to that, and which to the other trial?
Doubtless our sufferings fall by the will of God unto us, as they fell of old upon the people of Jerusalem. It was appointed by God who of them should die of hunger, who with sword, who should go into captivity, and who should be eaten up of beasts (Jer 15:2,3). So is the case here, namely, as God has appointed who, when, where, and the like, so he has, also, what manner of sufferings this or that good man shall undergo for his name. Let it then be concluded, that hitherto it appears, that the sufferings of saints are ordered and disposed by the will of God. But,
Fifth, As all this is determined by the will of God, so it is also appointed FOR WHAT TRUTH this or that saint shall suffer this or that kind of affliction. Every saint has his course, his work, and his testimony, as is allotted him of God (Mark 13:34). John had a course, a testimony to fulfil for God (Acts 13:25), and so had holy Paul (2 Tim 4:6,7), and so has every saint: also, he that is to suffer has his truth appointed him to suffer for. Christ had a truth peculiar to himself to bear witness to in a way of suffering (Mark 14:61,62). John had a truth peculiar to himself to bear witness to in a way of suffering (Mark 6:17,18). Stephen had also a truth, divers from them both, to which he bare a holy testimony, and for which he bravely died (Acts 7:51-53).
If you read the book of Acts and Monuments, you may see a goodly variety as to this; and yet in all a curious harmony. Some are there said to suffer for the Godhead, some for the manhood, some for the ordinances of Christ, and some laid down their lives for the brethren. And thus far we see that he that suffers for righteousness' sake, suffers, in this sense, according to the will of God.
Sixth, As it is appointed who, when, where, what kind, and for what truth, by the will of God, this and that saint should suffer; so also it is appointed BY WHOSE HAND this or that man shall suffer for this or that truth. It was appointed that Moses and Israel should suffer by the hand of Pharaoh. And for this very purpose, said God, have I raised thee up, that is, to be a persecutor, and to reap the fruits thereof (Exo 9:16). It was also determined that Christ should suffer by the hand of Herod and Pontius Pilate; "For of a truth," said they, "against thy holy child Jesus--both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done" (Acts 4:27).
These are great instances, from which we may gather how all these things are ordered from thence down hitherto. For if a sparrow falls not to the ground without God, she shall not be killed without God; not by he knows not who. And if a Christian man is better than many sparrows, it follows, that God concerns himself more with, for, and about him than with, for, or about many sparrows. It follows, therefore, in right reason, that as the person who is appointed to be the sufferer, so the persons who are appointed to be the rod and sword thereby to afflict withal. Thus far, therefore, the will of God is it that ordereth and disposeth of us and of our sufferings.
Seventh, As all these pass through the hand of God, and come not to us but by his will, so HOW as also LONG is really determined as any of them all. It is not in man, but God, to set the time how long the rod of the wicked shall rest upon the lot of the righteous. Abraham must be informed of this. "Abraham," says God, "know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years" (Gen 15:13). So the thraldom of Israel in Babylon was not only in the general appointed, but the time prefixed, how long (Jer 25:11,12; 29:10). The time of the beast's reign and of the witnesses walking in sackcloth are punctually fixed, and that beyond which they cannot go (Rev 11, 12, 13).
I know these are generals, and respect the church in the bulk of it, and not particular persons. But, as was hinted afore, we must argue from the greater to the lesser, that is, from four hundred years to ten days, from ten days to three, and so from the church in general to each particular member, and to the time and nature of their sufferings (Rev 2:10; Hosea 6:2; Acts 23:11).
And thus, in a word or two, I have finished the first two parts of the text, and showed you what there is in Peter's counsel and advice; and showed you also, to whom his advice is given: in which last, as you see, I have showed you both what the will of God is, and what to suffer according to it. And particularly, I have, in a few words, handled this last, to show you that our sufferings are ordered and disposed by him, that you might always, when you come into trouble for his name, not stagger nor be at a loss, but be stayed, composed, and settled in your minds, and say, "The will of the Lord be done" (Acts 21:14). I will also say unto you this by the way, that the will of God doth greatly work, even to order and dispose of the spirits of Christians, in order to willingness, disposedness, readiness, and resignation of ourselves to the mind of God. For with respect to this were those words last recited spoken. Paul saw that he had a call to go up to Jerusalem, there to bear his testimony for Christ and his gospel; but those unto whom he made know his purpose entreated him, with much earnestness, not to go up thither, for that, as they believed, it would endanger his life. But he answereth, What, mean ye to weep, and to break my heart? for I am ready, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he would not be persuaded, says Luke, we ceased, saying, "The will of the Lord be done." From what has been thus discoursed, many things will follow; as,
1. That the rod, as well as the child, is God's; persecutors, as well as the persecuted, are his, and he has his own designs upon both. He has raised them up, and he has ordered them for himself, and for that work that he has for them to do. Hence Habakkuk, speaking of the church's enemies, saith, "Thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction" (Hab 1:12). And, therefore, they are in other places called the rod of God's anger; his staff (Isa 10:5), his hand; his sword (Psa 17:13,14).
Indeed, to be thus disposed of, is a sad lot; the lot is not fallen to them in pleasant places, they have not the goodly heritage; but the judgments of God are a great deep. The thing formed may not say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? To be appointed, to be ordained, to be established to be a persecutor, and a troubler of God's church--O tremendous judgment! O amazing anger!
Three things the people of God should learn from hence.
(1.) Learn to pity and bewail the condition of the enemy; I know thou canst not alter the counsel of God; appointed they are, established they are for their work, and do it they must and shall. But yet it becomes them that see their state, and that their day is coming, to pity and bewail their condition, yea, and to pray for them too; for who knows whether it is determined that they should remain implacable to the end, as Herod; or whether they may through grace obtain repentance of their doings, with Saul. And I say again, if thy prayer should have a casting hand in the conversion of any of them, it would be sweet to thy thoughts when the scene is over.
(2.) Never grudge them their present advantages. "Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the workers of iniquity" (Prov 24:19). Fret not, though they spoil thy resting-place. It is God that has bidden them do it, to try thy faith and patience thereby. Wish them no ill with what they get of thine; it is their wages for their work, and it will appear to them ere long that they have earned it dearly. Their time is to rejoice but as in a moment, in what thus is gotten by them; and then they, not repenting, are to perish for ever, like their own dung (Job 20:5-7). Poor man, thou that hast thy time to be afflicted by them, that thy golden graces may shine the more, thou art in the fire, and they blow the bellows. But wouldest thou change places with them? Wouldest thou sit upon their place of ease? Dost thou desire to be with them (Prov 24:1)? O rest thyself contented; in thy patience possess thy soul, and pity and bewail them in the condition in which they are.
(3.) Bless God that thy lot did fall on the other side, namely, to be one that should know the truth, profess it, suffer for it, and have grace to bear thee up thereunder, to God's glory, and thy eternal comfort. This honour have not all his saints; all are not counted worthy thus to suffer shame for his name. Do this, I say, though they get all, and leave thee nothing but the shirt on thy back, the skin on thy bones, or an hole in the ground to be put in (Heb 11:23-26).
2. Labour to be patient under this mighty hand of God, and be not hasty to say, When will the rod be laid aside? mind thou thy duty, which is to let patience have its perfect work. And bear the indignation of the Lord, because thou hast sinned against him, until he please to awake, to arise, and to execute judgment for thee (Micah 7:9). But to pass this. Are things thus ordered? then this should teach us that there is a cause. The rod is not gathered without a cause; the rod is fore-determined, because the sin of God's people is foreseen, and ofttimes the nature of the sin, and the anger of the Father, is seen in the fashion of the rod. The rod of my anger, saith God. A bitter and hasty nation must be brought against Jerusalem; an enemy fierce and cruel must be brought against the land of Israel. Their sins called for such a rod, for their iniquities were grievous (Hab 1:6).
This should teach us with all earnestness to be sorry for our sins, and to do what we can to prevent these things, by falling upon our face in a way of prayer before God. If we would shorten such days, when they come upon us, let us be lovers of righteousness, and get more of the righteousness of faith, and of compliance with the whole will of God into our hearts. Then I say, the days shall be shortened, or we fare as well, because the more harmless and innocent we are, and suffer, the greater will our wages, our reward, and glory be, when pay-day shall come; and what if we wait a little for that?
These things are sent to better God's people, and to make them white, to refine them as silver, and to purge them as gold, and to cause that they that bear some fruit, may bring forth more: we are afflicted, that we may grow (John 15:2). It is also the will of God, that they that go to heaven should go thither hardly or with difficulty. The righteous shall scarcely be saved. That is, they shall, but yet with great difficulty, that it may be the sweeter. Now that which makes the way to heaven so strait, so narrow, so hard, is the rod, the sword, the persecutor, that lies in the way, that marks where our haunt is, that mars our path, digs a pit, and that sets a net, a snare for us in the way (1 Sam 23:22; Job 30:12-14; Psa 9:15; 31:4; 35:7; 119:110; 140:5; 142:3).
This, I say, is that which puts us to it, but it is to try, as I said, our graces, and to make heaven the sweeter to us. To come frighted and hard pursued thither, will make the safety there the more with exceeding gladness to be embraced. And I say, get thy heart yet more possessed with the power of godliness; that the love of righteousness may be yet more with thee. For this blessedness, this happiness, he shall be sure of, that suffereth for righteousness' sake.
3. Since the rod is God's as well as the child, let us not look upon our troubles as if they came from, and were managed only by hell. It is true, a persecutor has a black mark upon him, but yet the Scriptures say that all the ways of the persecutor are God's (Dan 5:23). Wherefore as we should, so again we should not, be afraid of men: we should be afraid of them, because they will hurt us; but we should not be afraid of them, as if they were let loose to do to us, and with us, what they will. God's bridle is upon them, God's hook is in their nose: yea, and God has determined the bounds of their rage, and if he lets them drive his church into the sea of troubles, it shall be but up to the neck, and so far it may go, and not be drowned (2 Kings 19:28; Isa 37:29; 8:7,8). I say the Lord has hold of them, and orders them; nor do they at any time come out against his people but by his licence and commission how far to go, and where to stop. And now for two or three objections:--
1. Object. But may we not fly in a time of persecution? Your pressing upon us, that persecution is ordered and managed by God, makes us afraid to fly.
Answ. First, having regard to what was said afore about a call to suffer; thou mayest do in this even as it is in thy heart. If it is in thy heart to fly, fly: if it be in thy heart to stand, stand. Any thing but a denial of the truth. He that flies, has warrant to do so; he that stands, has warrant to do so. Yea, the same man may both fly and stand, as the call and working of God with his heart may be. Moses fled (Exo 2:15), Moses stood (Heb 11:27). David fled (1 Sam 19:12), David stood (24:8). Jeremiah fled (Jer 37:11,12), Jeremiah stood (38:17). Christ withdrew himself (Luke 9:10), Christ stood (John 18:1-8). Paul fled (2 Cor 11:33), Paul stood (Acts 20:22,23).
There are therefore few rules in this case. The man himself is best able to judge concerning his present strength, and what weight this or that argument has upon his heart to stand or fly. I should be loath to impose upon any man in these things; only, if thou fliest, take two or three cautions with thee:--
(1.) Do not fly out of a slavish fear, but rather because flying is an ordinance of God, opening a door for the escape of some, which door is opened by God's providence, and the escape countenanced by God's Word (Matt 10:23).
(2.) When thou art fled, do as much good as thou canst in all quarters where thou comest, for therefore the door was opened to thee, and thou bid to make thy escape (Acts 8:1-5).
(3.) Do not think thyself secure when thou art fled; it was providence that opened the door, and the Word that did bid thee escape: but whither, and wherefore, that thou knowest not yet. Uriah the prophet fled into Egypt, because there dwelt men that were to take him, that he might be brought again to Jerusalem to die there (Jer 26:21).
(4.) Shouldest thou fly from where thou art, and be taken in another place; the most that can be made of it--thy taking the opportunity to fly, as was propounded at first--can be but this, thou wast willing to commit thyself to God in the way of his providence, as other good men have done, and thy being now apprehended has made thy call clear to suffer here or there, the which before thou wert in the dark about.
(5.) If, therefore, when thou hast fled, thou art taken, be not offended at God or man: not at God, for thou art his servant, thy life and thy all are his; not at man, for he is but God's rod, and is ordained, in this, to do thee good. Hast thou escaped? Laugh. Art thou taken? Laugh. I mean, be pleased which way soever things shall go, for that the scales are still in God's hand.
(6.) But fly not, in flying, from religion; fly not, in flying, for the sake of a trade; fly not, in flying, that thou mayest have ease for the flesh: this is wicked, and will yield neither peace nor profit to thy soul; neither now, nor at death, nor at the day of judgment.
2. Object. But if I fly, some will blame me: what must I do now?
Answ. And so many others if thou standest; fly not, therefore, as was said afore, out of a slavish fear; stand not, of a bravado. Do what thou dost in the fear of God, guiding thyself by his Word and providence; and as for this or that man's judgment, refer thy case to the judgment of God.
3. Object. But if I be taken and suffer, my cause is like to be clothed with scandals, slanders, reproaches, and all manner of false, and evil speakings; what must I do?
Answ. Saul charged David with rebellion (1 Sam 22:8,13). Amos was charged with conspiring against the king (Amos 7:10). Daniel was charged with despising the king; and so also were the three children (Dan 6:13; 3:12). Jesus Christ himself was accused of perverting the nation, of forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, and of saying that himself was Christ a king (Luke 23:2). These things therefore have been. But,
(1.) Canst thou, after a due examination of thyself, say that as to these things thou art innocent and clear? I say, will thy conscience justify thee here? Hast thou made it thy business to give unto God the things that are God's, and unto Caesar the things that are his, according as God has commanded? If so, matter not what men shall say, nor with what lies and reproaches they slander thee, but for these things count thyself happy. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you--and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely (lying) for my sake (saith Christ). Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you (Matt 5:11,12). Comfort thyself therefore in the innocency of thy soul, and say, I am counted a rebel, and yet am loyal; I am counted a deceiver, and yet am true (1 Sam 24:8-12, 2 Cor 6:8). Also refer thy cause to the day of judgment; for if thou canst rejoice at the thoughts that thou shalt be cleared of all slanders and evil speakings then, that will bear up thy heart as to what thou mayest suffer now. The answer of a good conscience will carry a man through hell to heaven. Count these slanders part of thy sufferings, and those for which God will give thee a reward, because thou art innocent, and for that they are laid upon thee for thy profession's sake. But if thou be guilty, look to thyself; I am no comforter of such.
[THIRD, THE GOOD EFFECT OF COMMITTING THE SOUL TO GOD'S KEEPING.]
I come now to speak to the third and last part of the text, namely, of the good effect that will certainly follow to those that, after a due manner, shall take the advice afore given. "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."
Two things from the last clause of the text lie yet before us. And they are they by which will be shown what good effect will follow to those that suffer according to the will of God, and that commit their souls to his keeping. 1. Such will find him to themselves a Creator. 2. They will find him a faithful Creator. "Let them commit the keeping of their souls to him, as unto a faithful Creator."
In this phrase, a Faithful Creator, behold the wisdom of the Holy Ghost, how fitly and to the purpose he speaketh. King is a great title, and God is sometimes called a King; but he is not set forth by this title here, but by the title of a Creator; for it is not always in the power of a king to succour and relieve his subjects, that are suffering for his crown and dignity. Father is a sweet title--a title that carrieth in it an intimation of a great deal of bowels and compassion, and God is often set forth also by this title in the holy Scriptures. But so he is not here, but rather as a Creator. For a father, a compassionate father, cannot always help, succour, or relieve his children, though he knows they are under affliction! Oh! but a Creator can. Wherefore, I say, he is set forth here under the title of Creator.
FIRST, A Creator! nothing can die under a Creator's hands. A Creator can sustain all. A Creator can, as a Creator, do what he pleases. "The Lord, the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary" (Isa 40:28).
The cause of God, for which his people suffer, had been dead and buried a thousand years ago, had it not been in the hand of a Creator. The people that have stood by his cause had been out of both as to persons, name, and remembrance, had they not been in the hand of a Creator. Who could have hoped, when Israel was going in, even into the mouth of the Red Sea, that ever his cause, or that people, should have revived again. A huge host of the Egyptians were behind them, and nothing but death before and on every hand of them; but they lived, they flourished, they outlived their enemies, for they were in the hand of a Creator.
Who could have hoped that Israel should have returned again from the land, from the hand, and from under the tyranny of the king of Babylon? They could not deliver themselves from going thither, they could not preserve themselves from being diminished when they came there, their power was gone, they were in captivity, their distance from home was far, their enemies possessed their land, their city of defence was ruined, and their houses burned down to the ground; and yet they came home again: there is nothing impossible to a Creator.
Who could have thought that the three children could have lived in a fiery furnace? that Daniel could have been safe among the lions? that Jonah could have come home to his country, when he was in the whale's belly? or that our Lord should have risen again from the dead? But what is impossible to a Creator?
This, therefore, is a rare consideration for those to let their hearts be acquainted with that suffer according to the will of God, and that have committed the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing. They have a Creator to maintain and uphold their cause, a Creator to oppose its opposers. And hence it is said, all that burden themselves with Jerusalem "shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it" (Zech 12:3).
SECOND, A Creator! A Creator can not only support a dying cause, but also fainting spirits. For as he fainteth not, nor is weary, so "he giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength" (Isa 40:29). He is the God of the spirits of all flesh, and has the life of the spirit of his people in his own hand. Spirits have their being from him; he is the Father of spirits. Spirits are made strong by him, nor can any crush that spirit that God the Creator will uphold.
Is it not a thing amazing to see one poor inconsiderable man, in a spirit of faith and patience, overcome all the threatenings, cruelties, afflictions, and sorrows, that a whole world can lay upon him? None can quail43 him, none can crush him, none can bend down his spirit. None can make him to forsake what he has received of God--a commandment to hold fast. His holy, harmless, and profitable notions, because they are spiced with grace, yield to him more comfort, joy, and peace, and do kindle in his soul so goodly a fire of love to, and zeal for God, that all the waters of the world shall never be able to quench.
Ay, say some, that is because his is headstrong, obstinate, and one that will hear no reason. No, say I, but it is because his spirit is in the hand, under the conduct and preservation, of a Creator. A Creator can make spirits, uphold spirits, and make one spirit stronger to stand, than are all the spirits of the world to cast down. To stand, I say, in a way of patient enduring in well-doing, against all that hell can do to suppress.
THIRD, A Creator! A Creator can bring down the spirits that oppose, and make them weak and unstable as water. The Lord, the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, nor is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint, and to those that have no might, he increaseth strength; now mark, even the young shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. A Creator can dash the spirits of the enemies with fear. God can put them in fear, and make them know that they are men and not God, and that their horses are flesh and not spirit. When the enemy came to take Jesus Christ, their spirits fainted, their hearts died in them; they went backwards, and fell to the ground. They had hard work to strengthen their spirits to a sufficiency of boldness and courage, though they brought halberts, and staves, and swords, and weapons with them, to take a naked44 man (John 18:3-7).
And although this is that which is not so visible to the world as some other things are, yet I believe that God treads down the spirits of men in a day when they afflict his people, oftener than we are aware of, or than they are willing to confess. How was the hostile spirit of Esau trod down of God, when he came out to meet his poor naked brother, with no less than four hundred armed men? He fainted before his brother, and instead of killing, kissed him (Gen 33:4). How was the bloody spirit of Saul trod down, when David met him at the mouth of the cave, and also at the hill Hachilah (1 Sam 24; 26)? God is a Creator, and as a Creator, is a spirit maker, a spirit reviver, a spirit destroyer; he can destroy body and soul in hell (Luke 12:5).
FOURTH, A Creator! As a Creator, he is over all arts, inventions, and crafts of men that are set on work to destroy God's people, whether they be soldiers, excellent orators, or any other whatsoever; we will single out one--the smith, that roaring fellow, who with his coals and his bellows makes a continual noise. "I have created the smith," said God, "that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy" (Isa 54:16). The smith, what is he? I answer, an idol maker, a promoter of false worship, and one that makes instruments of cruelty, therewith to help to suppress the true [worship] (Isa 41:7; 44:12; 46:6).
"I have created the smith," saith God, "that bloweth the coals in the fire." The idol inventor, the idol maker, the supporter of idol worship, he is my creature, saith God, to teach that he has power to reach him, and to command his sword to approach him at his pleasure, notwithstanding his roaring with his bellows, and his coals in the fire. So then, he cannot do what he will in the fire, nor with his idol when he has made it; the instrument, also that he makes for the defence of his idol, and for the suppressing of God's true worship, shall not do the thing for the which it is designed by him. And so the very next verse saith: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord" (Isa 54:17). And the text saith moreover, I have created the waster to destroy. The waster, what is that? Why, the smith makes an idol, and God has made the rust; the smith makes a sword, and God has made the rust. The rust eats them up, the moth shall eat them up, the fire shall devour them. "The wicked," saith the Psalmist, "have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken" (Psa 37:14,15).
All this can God do, because he is a Creator, and none but God can do it. Wherefore by this peculiar title of Creator, the apostle prepareth support for suffering saints, and also shows what a good conclusion is like to be made with them that suffer for righteousness' sake, according to his will; and that commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
FIFTH, A Creator! A Creator can make such provision for a suffering people, in all respects, as shall answer all their wants. Have they lost their peace with the world? Have they no more peace with this world? Why, a Creator can make, create peace, can create peace, peace; peace with God, and peace with his conscience; and that is better than all the peace that can be found elsewhere in the world (Isa 57:19). Have they lost a good frame of heart? Do they want a right frame of spirit? Why, though this is to be had no where in the world, yet a Creator can help them to it (Psa 51:10). Have they lost their spiritual defence? Do they lie too open to their spiritual foes? Why, this a Creator can help. "And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night: for upon all the glory shall be a defence." (Isa 4:5)
This is the work of the Spirit; for though the Spirit itself be uncreated, yet all the holy works of it in the heart are verily works of creation. Our new man is a creation; our graces are a creation; our joys and comforts are a creation45 (2 Cor 5:17,18; Eph 4:24; Isa 65:17-19). Now a creation none can destroy but a Creator; wherefore here is comfort. But again, God hath created us in Christ Jesus; that is another thing. The sun is created in the heavens; the stars are created in the heavens; the moon is created in the heavens. Who can reach them, touch them, destroy them, but the Creator? Why, this is the case of the saint; because he has to do with a Creator, he is fastened to Christ; yea, is in him by an act of creation (Eph 2:10), so that unless Christ and the creation of the Holy Ghost can be destroyed, he is safe that is suffering according to the will of God, and that hath committed the keeping of his soul to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. And this I would have you consider moreover; the man that suffereth according to the will of God, committeth not such a soul to this Creator as dwells in carnal men--a naked soul, a graceless soul, a soul that has nothing in it but sin; but he commits a converted soul, a regenerate soul, a soul adorned, beautified, and sanctified, with the jewels, and bracelets, earrings, and perfumes of the blessed Spirit of grace. And I say again, this is the work of a Creator, and a Creator can maintain it in its gallantry,
FOOTNOTE? "Gallantry"; splendour of appearance, grandeur, nobleness.--Ed.
and he will do so, but he will put forth acts of creating power for it every day.
SIXTH, A Creator! He that can create can turn and alter any thing, to what himself would have it. He that made "the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning" (Amos 5:8), he can "make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water" (Isa 41:18). Our most afflicted and desolate conditions, he can make as a little haven unto us; he can make us sing in the wilderness, and can give us our vineyards from thence (Hosea 2:14,15). He can make Paul sing in the stocks, and good Rowland Taylor dance as he goeth to the burning stake. Jails, and mocks, and scourgings, and flouts and imprisonments, and hunger, and nakedness, and peril, and sword, and dens, and caves, and rocks, and mountains, God can so sweeten with the honey of his Word, and make so famous for situation by the glory of his presence, and so rich and fruitful by the communications of the Holy Ghost, and so easy by the spreading of his feathers over us, that we shall not be able to say, that in all the world a more commodious place, or comfortable condition, can be found. Some have know this, and have been rather ready to covet to be here, than to shun and fly from it, as a most unsavoury condition. 46
All these things, I say, God doth as a Creator. He hath created antipathies, and he can make antipathies close, and have favour one for another. The lion and the calf, the wolf and the lamb, the little boy and the cockatrice's den he can reconcile, and make to be at agreement. So, sufferings and the saint; the prison and the saint; losses, crosses, and afflictions, and the saint: he can make to lie down sweetly together.
SEVENTH, A Creator! A Creator can make up all that thou hast or shalt lose for the sake of thy profession by the hands of the children of men, be they friends, relations, a world, life, or what you can conceive of.
1. Hast thou lost thy friend for the sake of thy profession? Is the whole world set against thee for thy love to God, to Christ, his cause, and righteousness? Why, a Creator can make up all. Here, therefore, is the advantage that he hath that suffereth for righteousness' sake. Jonathan, the very son of bloody Saul, when David had lost the help of all his own relations, he must fall in with him, stick to him, and love him as he loved his own soul (1 Sam 18:1-3). Obadiah, Ahab's steward, when the saints were driven even under ground by the rage of Jezebel the queen, he is appointed of God to feed them in caves and holes of the earth (1 Kings 18:13). Yea, the very raven complied with the will of a Creator to bring the prophet bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh at night (17:6). When Jeremiah the prophet was rejected of all, yea, the church that then was, could not help him; he was cast into the dungeon, and sunk to a great depth there in the mire. God the Creator, who ruleth the spirits of all men, stirred up the heart of Ebed-melech the Ethiopian both to petition for his liberty, and to put him out of the dungeon by the help of thirty men (Jer 38:7-13). These now, as Christ says, were both fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and as a loving wife or child (Matt 19:29).
2. Hast thou, for the sake of thy faith and profession thereof, lost thy part in the world? Why, a Creator can make thee houses as he did for the midwives of Egypt (Exo 1:20,21), and can build thee a sure house as he did for David his servant, who ventured all for the love that they had to the fear of God and his way (2 Sam 7). David was thrust out of Saul's house, and driven from his own, and God opened the heart of Achisch the king of Gath to receive him, and to give him Ziklag. David, when under the tyranny of Saul, knew not what to do with his father and his mother, who were persecuted for his sake, but a Creator inclined the heart of the king of Moab to receive them to house and harbour (1 Sam 27:5; 22:3,4).
3. Is thy life at stake--is that like to go for thy profession, for thy harmless profession of the gospel? Why, God the Creator is Lord of life, and to God the Lord belong the issues from death. So then, he can, if he will, hold thy breath in thy nostrils, in spite of all the world; or if he shall suffer them to take away this for his glory, he can give thee another ten times as good for thy comfort. "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" (John 12:25).
4. Is thy body to be disfigured, dismembered, starved, hanged, or burned for the faith and profession of the gospel? Why, a Creator can either prevent it, or, suffering it, can restore it the very same to thee again, with great and manifold advantage. He that made thee to be now what thou art, can make thee to be what thou never yet wast. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, further than only by general words (1 John 3:2; Phil 3:21).
EIGHTH, A Creator! Peter sets him before us here as a Creator, because he would have us live upon him as such; as well as upon his grace, love, and mercy. In Job's day this was bewailed, that none or but a few said, "Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night?" (Job 35:10).
Creator, as was hinted before, is one of God's peculiar titles. It is not given to him above five or six times in all the Book of God; and usually, when given him, it is either to show his greatness, or else to convince us that of duty we ought to depend upon him; and not to faint, if he be on our side, for or under any adversity, according as we are bidden in the text: "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." Shall God display his glory before us under the character and title of a Creator, and shall we yet fear man? Shall he do this to us when we are under a suffering condition, and that on purpose that we might commit our souls to him in well-doing, and be quiet, and shall we take no notice of this? "Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth?" &c. (Isa 51:12,13).
Had God concealed himself, as to his being a Creator, yet since he presenteth himself unto us by his Word under so many excellent titles as are given to no other God besides, methinks it should make us bold in our God; but when, for our relief, he shall add to all other that he verily is a Creator, this should make us rest in hope indeed.
Every nation will have confidence for their own gods, though but gods that are made with hands--though but the work of the smith and carpenter; and shall not we trust in the name of the Lord our God, who is not only a God, but a Creator and former of all things (Micah 4:5), consequently, the only living and true God, and one that alone can sustain us? We therefore are to be greatly blamed if we overlook the ground, such ground of support and comfort as presenteth itself unto us under the title of a Creator; but then most of all, if, when we have heard, believed, and known that our God is such, we shall yet be afraid of a man that shall die, and forget the Lord our maker. We, I say, have heard, seen, known, and believed, that our God is the Creator. The heavens declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handy-work, and thus he has showed unto us "his eternal power and Godhead" (Rom 1:20).
Behold, then, thou fearful worm, Jacob, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars; behold the earth, the sea, the air, the fire, and vapours. Behold, all living things, from leviathan and behemoth to the least that creepeth in the earth and waters. Yea, behold thyself, thy soul, thy body, thy fashion, thy building, and consider; thy God hath made even all these things, and hath given to thee this being; yea, and all this also he made of that which doth not appear (Heb 11:1-3). This is that which thou art called to the consideration of by Peter, in the text; when he letteth fall from his apostolical meditation that thy God is the Creator, and commandeth that thou, in thy suffering for him according to his will, shouldest commit the keeping of thy soul to him as unto a faithful Creator.
He that has the art thus to do, and that can do it in his straits, shall never be trodden down. His God, his faith; his faith, his God, are able to make him stand. For such a man will thus conclude, that since the Creator of all is with him, what but creatures are there to be against him? So, then, what is the axe, that it should boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or the saw, that it should magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against him that lifteth it up; or as if the staff should lift up itself as if it were not wood (Isa 10:15). Read also Isaiah 40:12-31, and then speak, if God as Creator is not a sure confidence to all the ends of the earth that trust in, and wait upon him. As Creator, he hath formed and upholdeth all things; yea, his hands have formed the crooked serpent, wherefore he also is at his bay (Job 26:13). And thou hast made the dragon in the sea; and therefore it follows that he can cut and wound him (Isa 51:9), and give him for meat to the fowls, and to the beasts inheriting the wilderness (Psa 74:13,14), if he will seek to swallow up and destroy the church and people of God (Eze 29:3,4).
NINTH, A Creator is God! the God unto whom they that suffer according to his will are to commit the keeping of their souls--the Creator. And doth he take charge of them as a Creator? Then this should teach us to be far off from being dismayed, as the heathens are, at his tokens; for our God, the Lord, is the true God, the living God, the King of eternity (Jer 10:1,2,10). We should tremblingly glory and rejoice when we see him in the world, though upon those that are the most terrible of his dispensations. God the Creator will sometimes mount himself and ride through the earth in such majesty and glory, that he will make all to stand in the tent doors to behold him. O how he rode in his chariots of salvation when he went to save his people out of the land of Egypt! How he shook the nations! Then "his glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting." Then said the prophet, "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was the Lord displeased against the rivers? was thine anger against the rivers? was thy wrath against the sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation?" (Hab 3:3-8).
So David: "The earth shook and trembled," said he; "the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave his voice; hail stones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils" (Psa 18:7-15).
These are glorious things, though shaking dispensations. God is worthy to be seen in his dispensations as well as in his Word, though the nations tremble at his presence. "Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down," saith the prophet, "that the mountains might flow down at thy presence!" (Isa 64:1). We know God, and he is our God, our own God; of whom or of what should we be afraid? (Psa 46). When God roars out of Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, when the heavens and the earth do shake, the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel (Joel 3:16).
Every man stayeth up, or letteth his spirit fail, according to what he knoweth concerning the nature of a thing. He that knows the sea, knows the waves will toss themselves: he that knows a lion, will not much wonder to see his paw, or to hear the voice of his roaring. And shall we that know our God be stricken with a panic fear, when he cometh out of his holy place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity? We should stand like those that are next to angels, and tell the blind world who it is that is thus mounted upon his steed, and that hath the clouds for the dust of his feet, and that thus rideth upon the wings of the wind: we should say unto them, "This God is our God for ever and ever, and he shall be our guide even unto death."
Our God! the Creator! He can turn men to destruction, and say, Return, ye children of men. When our God shows himself, it is worth the while to see the sight, though it costs us all that we have to behold it. Some men will bless and admire every rascally juggler that can but make again that which they only seem to mar, or do something that seems to outgo reason; yea, though they make thunderings and noise in the place where they are, as though the devil himself were there. Shall saints, then, like slaves, be afraid of their God, the Creator; of their own God, when he rendeth the heavens, and comes down? When God comes into the world to do great things, he must come like himself--like him that is a Creator: wherefore the heavens and the earth must move at his presence, to signify that they acknowledge him as such, and pay him that homage that is due to him as their God and great Creator.
We that are Christians have been trained up by his Son in his school this many a day, and have been told what a God our Father is, what an arm he has, and with what a voice he can thunder; how he can deck himself with majesty and excellency, and array himself with beauty and glory; how he can cast abroad the rage of his wrath, and behold every one that is proud, and abase him (Job 40:9-11). Have we not talked of what he did at the Red Sea, and in the land of Ham many years ago, and have we forgot him now? Have we not vaunted and boasted of our God both in church, pulpit, and books; and spake to the praise of them that, instead of stones, attempted to drive antichrist out of the world with their lives and their blood; and are we afraid of our God? He was God, a Creator, then; and is he not God now? and will he not be as good to us as to them that have gone before us? or would we limit him to appear in such ways as only smile upon our flesh; and have him stay, and not show himself in his heart-shaking dispensations until we are dead and gone? What if we must go now to heaven, and what if he is thus come down to fetch us to himself? If we have been wise as serpents, and innocent as doves--if we can say, Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor against Caesar, have we offended anything at all, of what should we be afraid? Let heaven and earth come together, I dare say they will not hurt us. Our Lord Jesus, when dilating upon some of the great and necessary works of our Creator, puts check beforehand to all uncomely fears; to such fears as become not the faith and profession of a Christian. "Brother," saith he, "shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." What follows? (verse 28), "Fear them not"; and again, in verse 31, "Fear ye not" (Matt 10:21,22).
So again (Matt 24): "Nation shall rise against nation--there shall be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, &c. They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you.--Many shall be offended, and shall betray one another.--And many false prophets shall arise, and deceive many." And yet for all this we are bid not to be afraid, for all these things, with all other are ordered, limited, enlarged and straitened, bounded and butted by the will, and hand, and power of that God unto whom Peter bids us commit the keeping of our souls, as unto a faithful Creator (verse 7-11; Mark 13:5-9). To wait for God in the way of his judgments doth well become a Christian.
To believe he loves us when he shows himself terrible to us, is also very much becoming of us. Wherefore has he given us grace? Is it that we should live by sense? Wherefore has he sometimes visited us? Is it that our hearts might be estranged from him, and that we still should love the world? And I say again, wherefore has he so plainly told us of his greatness, and of what he can do? Is it not that we might be still when the world is disturbed; and that we might hope for good things to come out of such providences that, to sense, look as if themselves would eat up and devour all?
Let us wait upon God, walk with God, believe in God, and commit ourselves, our soul, our body, to God, to be kept. Yea, let us be content to be at the disposal of God, and rejoice to see him act according to all his wondrous works. For this is a posture highly becoming them that say of God he is their Father, and that have committed the keeping of their souls to him as unto a Creator. A comely thing it is for the soul that feareth God, to love and reverence him in all his appearances. We should be like the spaniel dog, even lie at the foot of our God, as he at the foot of his master; yea, and should be glad, could we but see his face, though he treads us down with his feet.
Ay, says one son, so I could, if I thought this high God would regard me, and take notice of my laying of my soul at his foot, while I suffer for his Word and truth in the world. Why, do but see now how the Holy Ghost, for our help, doth hedge up that way in at which unbelief would come, that there might, as to this, be no room left for doubting. For as he calleth the God unto whom we are bid to commit the keeping of our soul, a Creator, so he saith that he is A CREATOR THAT IS FAITHFUL. "Let them commit the keeping of their souls unto him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator"--a Creator that will concern himself with the soul committed to his trust, and that will be faithful to it, according to all that he has promised.
This, therefore, of God's faithfulness being added to his might and power, is in itself a ground of great support to those that have in a way of well-doing committed themselves, their souls, to him to keep. A Creator; what is it that a Creator cannot do? A faithful Creator; what is it that one that is faithful will not do, that is, when he is engaged? And now he is engaged, because thou hast committed thy soul to him to keep, and because he has bid thee do so. Let them commit the keeping of their soul to him, as unto a faithful Creator. I have sometimes seen an unfaithful man engaged, when a thing has been committed to him to keep. A man that is a thief, a cheater, a defrauder, will yet be faithful to him that will commit a charge to him to keep. And the reason is, because, though he can steal, cheat, defraud, without being taken notice of; yet he must be seen and known, if he be false in that which is committed to him to keep. I know the comparison is odious, yet such have been made by a holier mouth than mine, and as the case may be, they may be aptest of all to illustrate that which a man is about to explain. Hark what the unjust judge saith, says the Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 18).
To commit thy soul to God is to trust him with it; to commit thy soul to God is to engage him to look to it. And if he should not be faithful now, he will not be so in any case. For himself has bidden thee do it; he has also promised to keep it, as has been already showed in the former part of this discourse. Besides, he is here said to be faithful--to be a faithful Creator. He challenges this of faithfulness to himself alone: "Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar" (Rom 3:4). This, therefore, doth still help to encourage them that would be faithful to him, to commit the keeping of our soul to him. A faithful man will encourage one much; how much more should the faithfulness of God encourage us?
Here, therefore, we have a closing word indeed; a word to wrap up the text with that is as full of good as the sun is of light. What can be fitter spoken? What can be added? What now is wanting to the help of him that has committed his soul to God to keep it while he is suffering according to his will in the world? He is engaged, as I said, by that act; thou hast committed thy soul to him to keep; he is engaged by his own Word; he has bidden thee commit thy soul to him to keep. He is engaged by his declaring of himself to be faithful; for that has encouraged thee to commit thy soul to him to keep. Besides, he has promised to do it; he has sworn to do it.
"For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, (as thou must do,) he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the great: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that 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: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an High-priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec" (Heb 6:13-20).
Thus you see what ground we have who suffer according to the will of God, and that have committed the keeping of our souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. Here, therefore, I might make a stop and conclude as to this advice; but now we are in, we will proceed a little further, and will fall upon three or four more particulars.
First, then, He will be faithful to us in this: He will keep us from those allurements of the world that a suffering saint is subject to. They that suffer have other kinds of temptations upon this account than other Christians have. The liberty of others, while they are in bonds, is a temptation to them. The peace of others, while they are in trouble, is a temptation to them. The enjoyments of others, while their houses are empty and their goods taken away, while their own water is sold unto them, and while they are buying their own wood, is a great temptation to them (Lam 5:4). And this temptation, were it not that we have to do with a God that is faithful, would assuredly be a great snare unto them. But "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted," as to this, "above that ye are able" (1 Cor 10:13).
Nay, a suffering man has not only these things lying before him as a temptation, but perhaps the wife of the bosom lies at him, saying, O do not cast thyself away; if thou takest this course, what shall I do? Thou has said thou lovest me; now make it manifest by granting this my small request. Do not still remain in thine integrity. Next to this come the children, all which are like to come to poverty, to beggary, to be undone for want of wherewithal to feed, and clothe, and provide for them for time to come. Now also come kindred, and relations, and acquaintance; some chide, some cry, some argue, some threaten, some promise, some flatter, and some do all, to befool him for so unadvised an act as to cast away himself, and to bring his wife and children to beggary for such a thing as religion. These are sore temptations.47
Next to those come the terrors of men, the gripes of the laws, the shadow of death, and no man can tell what. All which are sufficient to pull a man from the gates of life, were he there, if the faithful Creator stands not to him. "But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."--"But God is faithful." It saith not, that thou art: but "God is faithful"--to his Son, to whom he has given thee; to his promise, the which he has given thee; to his cause, to which he has called thee; and to thy soul, the which thou hast committed to his trust, and the which he also has taken the charge of, as he is a faithful Creator.
"And will not suffer thee to be tempted." How, not tempted? No; not above what thou art able. He that tempts thee doth not at all consider thy strength, so as to stop when he sees thou art weak; he would have thee overthrown, for therefore it is that he tempteth thee. But God will not suffer that, because he is faithful, and because thou hast committed the keeping of thy soul unto him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. "Not tempted above that ye are able." He saith not, above that ye are well able. Indeed, thy strength shall be proportioned to the temptation, but thou mayest have none over and above to spare; thou shalt not have a bigger load than God will give thee shoulders to bear. Christ did bear his burden, but it made him cry out, and sweat as it were great drops of blood, to carry it. Bear thy burden thou shalt, and not be destroyed by it; but perhaps thou mayest sometimes roar under it by reason of the disquietness of thy heart. "But he will with the temptation make a way of escape." "With the temptation," not without it; thou must be tempted, and must escape too. "With the temptation." As sure as Satan is licensed, so sure he is limited; and when Satan has ended all the temptation, he shall depart from thee (Luke 4:13). "He will with the temptation"--by such a managing of it as shall beak its own neck. God can admit Satan to tempt, and make the Christian wise to manage the temptation for his own escape.
"Make a way." It may be thou seest no way of escape. It may be there is no way--no way in all the world, to escape. Well; but God can make a way. When Israel was hemmed in at the Red Sea, there was as then no way--no way in all the world, to escape. O! but God made a way, and a pathway too, and that through the mighty waters (Exo 15:8,16; Psa 106:9; 78:13). He will make a way with the temptation, or "will with the temptation make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." These are the words of the Holy Ghost, who is God; and they are spoken, yea, committed to record for this very purpose, that those that are under affliction might commit the keeping of their soul to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. That is the first.
Second, He will also be faithful to us as to this: He will give us a competent measure of wisdom, that in our suffering condition we may in all things be made able to manage our state with discretion. We are perhaps weak of natural abilities, parts of utterance, or the like; and our adversaries are learned, eloquent, and ripe of parts. Thou hast the disadvantage on thy side, and they have what the world can afford to encourage them; thou art weak of spirit, they are bold and strong. The great and the mighty are with thy enemies, but on thy side there is no comforter (Eccl 4:1).
Why now here is, as to this, and to what else can it be objected, the faithfulness of God engaged. First, in a general promise; I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee (Heb 13:5,6). Secondly, we have an invitation to come to this faithful God for wisdom to assist and help. For after he had said, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations--and let patience have her perfect work"; he adds, "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him" (James 1:2-5). Here is more than an invitation, here is a promise--it shall be given him; and all to show us what a faithful Creator we have committed our souls unto. Doth any lack wisdom to know how to carry it in a time of trial: let them ask it of God--of the God that is wisdom itself; let him ask it of God, the liberal giver, who giveth to all men all that they have, and upbraideth not for their unworthiness. Nor doth the Holy Ghost stop here, but enlarges himself in a more particular way to those that suffer according to the text, saying, "But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak" (Matt 10:19). I have often been amazed in my mind at this text, for how could Jesus Christ have said such a word if he had not been able to perform it? This text, therefore, declares him to be God. It is also a proof of faithfulness to those that suffer for him.
For it is as if he should say, Try me and trust me; if I stand not by you in a day of distress, never believe me more;--you, suffering according to the will of God, and committing your souls to him in well-doing; "I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist," for so he has it in Luke 21:15. Here is no consideration of what capacity the people might be of, that were to be persecuted; but what matters what they are? if fools, it is no matter; if wise, it helpeth nothing. A mouth and wisdom is to be given; that of itself shall do. And this is according to that other scripture mentioned afore, where it saith, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn" (Isa 54:17). Although it may happen in this, as in the former temptation, the devil and his agents may give the saints, in their pleading for the truth, their bellies full both of cross answers, equivocations, sophistications, wrong glosses and erroneous interpretations; but truth shall prevail, shall turn the scale, and bear away the victory.
Third, He will also be faithful to us in this: we shall not want spiritual support to help us to bear up under our particular parts of suffering. I do not say that thou shalt be comforted all the while; but I say he will be to thee so faithful as to comfort thee under those thodes,48 gusts, blasts, or battering storms that beat against thy wall (Isa 32:2).
Look then what present degrees or aggravating appearances are in thy afflictions; to such a degree shalt thou at times be supported. For as surely as ever the Spirit of God moved Samson at times in the camp of Dan, when he lay against the Philistines; so will the Spirit of God move in and upon thee to comfort and to strengthen thee, whilst thou sufferest for his name in the world. As our afflictions abound for Christ, so shall our consolations abound by him (2 Cor 1:5). I have observed that God lays this, that he useth to comfort his people in a time of sufferings, as an aggravation of sin upon them that did use to shuck49 and shrink under sufferings. "I," saith he, "even I, am he that comforteth you; who art thou that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die" (Isa 51:12)?
"God," says the wise man, "hath set the one over against the other," the day of adversity and the day of prosperity, "to the end that man should find nothing after him" to complain of (Eccl 7:14). For as certainly as there is a time to mourn, so certainly there is a time to rejoice: set, I say, for them that suffer for God's cause according to God's will (Eccl 3:4).
There are several degrees of suffering for righteousness; there is the scourge of the tongue, the ruin of an estate, the loss of liberty, a jail, a gibbet, a stake, a dagger. Now, answerable to these are the comforts of the Holy Ghost prepared, like to like, part proportioned to part, only the consolations are said to abound (2 Cor 1).
But the lighter the sufferings are, the more difficult it is to judge of the comforts of the Spirit of God, for it is common for a man to be comfortable under sufferings when he suffereth but little, and knows also that his enemy can touch his flesh, his estate, or the like, but little: I say, it is common for such a man to be comfortable in his sufferings, from the consideration that his enemies can touch him no further. And this may be the joy of the flesh--the result of reason, and may be very much, if not altogether, without a mixture of the joy of the Holy Ghost therewith. The more deep, therefore, and the more dreadful the sufferings are, the more clearly are seen the comforts of the Spirit, when a man has comfort where the flesh is dead, stirreth not, and can do nothing. When a man can be comfortable at the loss of all--when he is under the sentence of death, or at the place of execution--when a man's cause, a man's conscience, the promise, and the Holy Ghost, have all one comfortable voice, and do all, together with their trumpets, make one sound in the soul; then the comforts are good, of the right kinds, of God and his Spirit.
I told you before that there are several degrees of sufferings; wherefore it is not to be expected that he that suffers but little should partake of the comforts that are prepared for them that suffer much. He that has only the scourge of the tongue, knows not what are the comforts that are prepared for him that meets with the scourge of the whip. And how should a man know what manner of comforts the Holy Ghost doth use to give at the jail and the gibbet, when himself, for righteousness, never was there?
But whether this or the other Christian knows it, God has his consolations for his suffering people; and those, too, such as are proportioned to the nature or degree of their sufferings; the which shall assuredly be made appear to them that shall after a godly manner stick to his truth, and trust him with their souls. Joseph was cast into prison; but God was with him. John was banished into the isle called Patmos, for the Word of God; but what revelations of God had he there! even such as he was a stranger to all his life before: this, therefore, is to be well heeded. For it is a demonstration of the faithfulness of God to those that, suffering according to his will, do commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
Fourth, He will also be faithful to us in this: He will not let the sharpness, nor keenness, nor venom of the arrows of the enemies of his people, reach so far as to destroy both body and soul at once; but he will preserve them, when what can be done is done, to his eternal kingdom and glory, is a marvellous thing; but it must be so, because God has called them to it. Therefore, after Peter had told them that the devil their adversary sought to devour them, and had bidden them resist him, steadfast in the faith, he saith, "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal [kingdom and] glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you" (1 Peter 5:10). The truth is, persecution of the godly was, of God, never intended for their destruction, but for their glory, and to make them shine the more when they are beyond this valley of the shadow of death. Indeed, we ofttimes, when we are persecuted, do feel the terrors of our adversaries in our minds. But it is not because they can shoot them thither, nor because they of themselves have power to reach so far, but we, like fools, by our ignorance and unbelief, do admit them thither.
No suffering, nor inflicter of suffering, can reach the peace of the sufferer without his own consent. This is provision of God's making; yea, and if through our folly their terror is admitted to touch us, yet since we are not our own, but are bought with a price, we are not so at our own dispose, but that God will have the butting and bounding of their rage, as also a power to uphold and support our spirits. When I said my foot slipped, thy mercy, O Lord, help me up. And the reason why, by God's ordinance, the spirit is not to be touched in suffering, is, because that is it that is to sustain the infirmity of the sufferer; therefore God will have the spirit of his servants kept sound, and in good health (Prov 18:14; Isa 57:16). The room, therefore, and the ground that the enemy has to play upon, is the body and outward substance of the people of God, but the spirit is reserved, for the reason hinted before, and also that it might be capable of maintaining of communion with God. And how else could they obey that command that bids them rejoice in tribulation, and glorify God in the fires? as it is (Rom 12; Isa 24:15).
But, I say, if they have not power to touch, much less to destroy body and soul for ever. The body is God's, and he gives that to them to destroy; the spirit is God's, and he keeps that to himself, to show that he has both power to do with us what he pleases, and that he will recover our body also out of their hand; for if the spirit lives, so must the body, when men have done what they can therewith. This is the argument of our Lord Jesus Christ himself (Luke 20:37,38). Therefore the faithfulness of God not only is, but also will be seen, by them that dare trust him, till the next world, to his glory and their eternal comfort.
We will now conclude with a short word by way of USE. You see how I have opened the text, and what hath naturally followed thereupon; from the whole of which may be gathered:--
Use First, That the people of God are a suffering people--a people subject to trouble for their faith and profession. The reason is, besides what hath been said already, because the power of truth is in their hearts, and shows itself in their lives--a thing which the devil and the world can by no means abide. He that is born after the flesh persecuteth him that is born after the Spirit (Gal 4:29). For they cannot agree in religion; the godly are so devout and the other are so profane, that they cannot do. Not but that God's people, as they are commanded, are willing to let them alone; but the other they cannot bear that they should serve God as they have said (Matt 15:14), and hence ariseth persecution. The world also would have the religion of the godly to be counted false--a thing that the others can by no means endure, but will stand by and maintain, yet in all peaceable manner, their own ways before them, whatever it costs.
The Christian and the carnal professor are like those two harlots that you read of in the book of Kings, who strove for the living child, whose it should be, whose contest could not be decided until it came to the sword of the king (1 Kings 3). O, but when the sword was drawn, under a show as if the living child must now be cut in two, then the true mother was known from the false; for her bowels yearned upon her son (verse 26,27). The world, what show soever they have for religion, and however they urge it, that the truth is with them, have no yearning of bowels for it. Let it be neither mine nor thine, said she, but divide it; but the woman whose the living child was, had not a heart to say so. Religion may lie and die in a ditch for all those that are given to their sins; nor doth their zeal appear, except when they are gripping of the godly for his faith towards God. Bowels, yearning of bowels over God's condemned religion, is only found in the souls of those who own God has made it.
Use Second, Is it so? Are God's people a suffering people? Then this should inform them that will be religious, to prepare themselves for what is like to attend them for their religion. To prepare, I say, not with carnal weapons, but with the graces of the Spirit of God; that will help them with meekness and patience to endure. Sit down then, I say, and count up the cost, before for religion thou engagest too far; lest thou take upon thee to meddle with that which thou wilt not know what to do with in the end (Prov 25:8; Luke 14:25-30).
Many there be that are faulty here; they have taken upon them to profess, not considering what they have taken in hand may cost them. Wherefore, when troubles come indeed, then they start and cry. This they like not, because they looked not for it; and if this be the way to heaven, let who will go on in it for them. Thus they take offence, and leave Christ's cause and people to shift for themselves in the world (Matt 13:20,21).
Use Third, But let God's people think never the worse of religion, because of the coarse entertainment it meeteth with in the world. It is better to choose God and affliction than the world, and sin, and carnal peace. It is necessary that we should suffer, because that we have sinned. And if God will have us suffer a little while here for his Word, instead of suffering for our sins in hell, let us be content, and count it a mercy with thankfulness. "The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction: they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath" (Job 21:30). How kindly, therefore, doth God deal with us, when he chooses to afflict us but for a little, that with everlasting kindness he may have mercy upon us (Isa 54:7,8). And "it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing" (1 Peter 3:17).
Use Fourth, Look not, therefore, upon the sufferings of God's people for their religion, to be tokens of God's great anger. It is, to be sure, as our heavenly Father orders it, rather a token of his love; for suffering for the gospel, and for the sincere profession of it, is indeed a dignity put upon us--a dignity that all men are not counted worthy of. Count it, therefore, a favour that God has bestowed upon thee his truth, and graces to enable thee to profess it, though thou be made to suffer for it (Acts 5:41). Thou mightest have been a sufferer for thy sins in hell, but thou art not; but contrariwise art, perhaps, suffering for conscience to God; this is a dignity. For that thou dost thus by virtue of a heavenly gift, on the behalf of Christ, for the gospel's sake, and according to the will of God. This is a dignity that a persecutor shall not be counted worthy of, until he first convert to Christ (Phil 1:29).
Use Fifth, Take thy affliction with meekness and patience, though thou endurest grief wrongfully. "For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully" (1 Peter 2:19). Lay thy hand, then, upon thy mouth, and speak not a word of ill against him that doth thee wrong; leave thy cause and thy enemy to God; yea, rather pray that his sin may not be laid to his charge; wherefore, as I said before, now show thyself a good man, by loving, pitying, praying for, and by doing good, as thou art commanded, to them that despitefully use thee (Matt 5:44). I know thy flesh will be apt to huff, and to be angry, and to wish, would thou mightest revenge thyself. But this is base, carnal, sensual, devilish; cast, therefore, such thoughts from thee, as thoughts that are not fit for a Christian's breast, and betake thee to those weapons that are not carnal. For the artillery of a Christian is the Word, faith, and prayer; and in our patience we must possess our souls (2 Cor 10:5; Luke 21:16-19).
Use Sixth, Be much in the consideration of the all-sufficiency of thy Father, whose cause thou hast espoused, whose Word thou hast chosen for thy heritage, and whose paths thou delightest to walk in. I say, be much in considering how all the world is sustained by him, and that all life and breath is in his hand, to continue or diminish as he pleases. Think with thyself also how able he is to rescue thee from all affliction, or to uphold thee in it with a quiet mind. Go to him continually, as to a fountain of life that is open for the supply of the needy. Remember also, if he comes not at thy call, and comforteth thee not so soon as thou desirest, it is not of want of love or compassion to thy soul, but to try thy graces, and to show to the fallen angels that thou wilt serve God for nought, rather than give out. Also, if it seemeth to thee, as if God took no care of thee to help thee, but that he hath rather turned thee over to the ungodly; count this also as a sign that he delights to see thee hold fast his name, though thou art laid under the greatest of disadvantages. "If the scourge slay suddenly, [that is more than it hath done to thee,] he will laugh at the trial of the innocent" (Job 9:23).
It is a great delight to our God to see his people hold fast their integrity, and not to deny his name, when under such cloudy dispensations and discouraging circumstances. And considerations that thy thus doing is pleasing in his sight through Christ, will be a support unto thee. God sees thee, though thou canst not now see him, and he observeth now thy way, though darkness is round about him; and when he hath tried thee, thou shalt come forth like gold.
Use Seventh, Take heed of setting of thyself a bound and period to thy sufferings, unless that period be the grave. Say not to thy afflicters, Hitherto, and no further, and here shall your proud waves be stayed. I say, take heed of doing thus, for fear God should let them go beyond thee. For a man is not prepared to suffer, further than he thinketh the enemy may be permitted to go. Hence Christ sets their bounds at the loss of life, and no nearer. So then, so far as they go beyond thee, so far they will find thee unprovided, and so not fortified for a reception of their onset with that Christian gallantry which becomes thee. Observe Paul; he died daily, he was always delivered unto death, he despaired of life; and this is the way to be prepared for any calamity. When a man thinks he has only to prepare for an assault by footmen, how shall he contend with horses? Or if he looks no further than to horses, what will he do at the swellings of Jordan (Jer 12:5)? Wherefore, set thine enemies no bounds: say not, They shall not pursue me to the death; have the sentence of death in thyself. For though they may but tick and toy with thee at first, their sword may reach thy heart-blood at last. The cat at play with the mouse is sometimes a fit emblem of the way of the wicked with the children of God. Wherefore, as I said, be always dying; die daily: he that is not only ready to be bound, but to die, is fit to encounter any amazement.
Use Eighth, If thine enemies would, or do, put thee under a cloud, if they wrap thee up in a bear's skin, and then set the dogs upon thee, marvel not at the matter; this was Joseph's, David's, Christ's, Stephen's portion, only be thou innocent; say nothing, do nothing that should render thee faulty; yea, say and do always that that should render thee a good neighbour, a good Christian, and a faithful subject. This is the way to help thee to make with boldness thy appeals to God; this is the way to embolden thy face against the faces of thine enemies; this is the way to keep thy conscience quiet and peaceable within thee; and this is the way to provoke God to appear for thy rescue, or to revenge thy blood when thou art gone. And do this because it is thy duty--we must fear God and honour the king--and because this is the way to make the rock of thy enemies hard: few men have that boldness as to say, This I do against you, because you profess Christ. When they persecuted the Lord himself, they said to him, "For a good work we stone thee not" (John 10:33). Religion that is pure is a hot thing, and it usually burns the fingers of those that fight against it; wherefore it is not common for men to oppose religion under its own naked complexion: wherefore the Jews sought to fasten other matters upon Christ to kill him for them; though the great spite they had against him was for his doctrine and miracles. It was for envy to that that they set themselves against him, and that made them invent to charge him with rebellion and treason (Matt 27:18; Luke 23:2).
Use Ninth, Wherefore it becomes all godly men to study to be quiet, to mind their own business, and as much as in them lies, to be at peace with all men; to owe no man any thing but love. Pray, therefore, for all that are in authority; pray for the peace of the country in which thou dwellest; keep company with holy, and quiet, and peaceable men. Seek by all good ways the promotion of godliness, put up injuries, be good to the poor, do good against evil, be patient towards all men; for "these things are good and profitable unto men" (Titus 3:8).
Be not inclining to injure men behind their backs, speak evil of no man, reproach not the governor nor his actions, as he is set over thee; all his ways are God's, either for thy help or the trial of thy graces. Wherefore he needs thy prayers, not thy revilings; thy peaceable deportment, and not a troublesome life. I know that none of these things can save thee from being devoured by the mouth of the sons of Belial (1 Kings 21:12,13). Only, what I say is duty, is profitable, is commendable, is necessary; and that which will, when the devil has done his worst, render thee lovely to thy friends, terrible to thine enemies, serviceable in thy place as a Christian, and will crown the remembrance of thy name, to them that survive thee, with a blessing; "The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot" (Prov 10:7).
Use Tenth, I will conclude, then, with a word to those professors, if there be any such, that are of an unquiet and troublesome spirit. Friends, I may say to you, as our Lord said once to his disciples, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." To wish the destruction of your enemies doth not become you. If ye be born to, and are called, that you may inherit a blessing, pray be free of your blessing: "Bless, and curse not." If you believe that the God whom you serve is supreme governor, and is also wise enough to manage affairs in the world for his church, pray keep fingers off, and refrain from doing evil. If the counsel of Gamaliel was good when given to the enemies of God's people, why not fit to be given to Christians themselves? Therefore refrain from these men, and let them alone. If the work that these men do is that which God will promote and set up for ever, then you cannot disannul it; if not, God has appointed the time of its fall.
A Christian! and of a troublesome spirit; for-shame, forbear; show, out of a good conversation, thy works, with meekness of wisdom; and here let me present thee with three or four things.
1. Consider, That though Cain was a very murderer, yet God forbade any man's meddling with him, under a penalty of revenging his so doing upon his own head sevenfold. "And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold" (Gen 4:15). But why not meddle with Cain, since he was a murderer? The reason is, because he persecuted his brother for righteousness' sake, and so espoused a quarrel against God; for he that persecutes another for righteousness' sake sets himself against God, fights against God, and seeks to overthrow him. Now, such an one the Christian must let alone and stand off from, that God may have his full blow at him in his time.50 Wherefore he saith to his saints, and to all that are forward to revenge themselves, Give place, stand back, let me come, leave such an one to be handled by me. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord" (Rom 12:19). Wherefore the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should slay him. You must not, indeed, you must not avenge yourselves of your enemies. Yea, though it was lawful once so to do, it is not lawful now. Ye have heard that it hath been said to them of old time, Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy; but I say, said our Lord, Love them, bless them, do good to them, and pray for them that hate you (Matt 5:43,44).
2. Consider, Revenge is of the flesh,--I mean this our revenge of ourselves; and it proceeds from anger, wrath, impatience under the cross, unwillingness to suffer, from too much love to carnal ease, to estates, to enjoyments, to relations, and the like. It also flows from a fearful, cowardly spirit; there is nothing of greatness in it, except it be greatness of untowardness. I know there may, for all this, be pretences to justice, to righteousness, to the liberty of the gospel, the suppressing of wickedness, and the promoting of holiness; but these can be but pretences, or, at best, but the fruits of a preposterous zeal. For since, as has been often said in this treatise, the Lord hath forbidden us to do so, it cannot be imagined that he should yet animate any to such a thing by the Holy Ghost and the effects of the graces thereof. Let them, then, if any such be, that are thus minded, be counted the narrow-spirited, carnal, fleshly, angry, waspish-spirited professors--the professors that know more of the Jewish than of the Christian religion, and that love rather to countenance the motions, passions, and gross motions of and angry mind, that with meekness to comply with the will of a heavenly Father. Thou art bid to be like unto him, and also thou art showed wherein (Matt 5:45-48).
There is a man hates God, blasphemes his name, despises his being; yea, says there is no God. And yet the God that he carrieth it thus towards doth give him his breakfast, dinner, and supper; clothes him well, and when night comes, has him to bed, gives him good rest, blesses his field, his corn, his cattle, his children, and raises him to high estate. 51 Yea, and this our God doth not only once or twice, but until these transgressors become old; his patience is thus extended, years after years, that we might learn of him to do well.
3. Consider, A professor! and unquiet and troublesome, discontented, and seeking to be revenged of thy persecutors; where is, or what kind of grace hast thou got? I dare say, they, even these in which thou thus actest, are none of the graces of the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against such there is no law; but wrath, strife, seditions, traitors, and inventors of evil things are reckoned with the worst of sins, and sinners, and are plainly called the works of the flesh (Rom 1:29-31; 2 Tim 3:3,4; Gal 5:19-21).
But I say, where is thy love to thine enemy? where is thy joy under the cross? where is thy peace when thine anger has put thee upon being unquiet? Where is thy long-suffering? for, as thou actest, not ought but thy waspishness can be seen. Where, also, is thy sweet, meek, and gentle spirit? and is goodness seen in thy seeking the life or the damage of thy enemy? Away, away; thy graces, if thou hast any, are by these, thy passions, so jostled up into corners, and so pent for want of room and liberty to show themselves, that, by the Word of God, thou canst not be known to be of the right kind, what a noise soever thou makest.
A Christian, when he sees trouble coming upon him, should not fly in the face of the instrument that brings it, but in the face of the cause of its coming. Now the cause is thyself, thy base self, thy sinful self, and thy unworthy carriages towards God under all the mercy, patience, and long-suffering that God has bestowed upon thee, and exercised towards thee. Here thou mayest quarrel and be revenged, and spare not, so thou take vengeance in a right way, and then thou wilt do so when thou takest it by godly sorrow (2 Cor 7:10,11).
A Christian, then, should bewail his own doings, his own unworthy doings, by which he has provoked God to bring a cloud upon him, and to cover him with it in anger. A Christian should say, This is my wickedness, when a persecutor touches him; yea, he should say it, and then shut up his mouth, and bear the indignation of the Lord, because he has sinned against him. "Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart" (Jer 4:18).
4. Consider, What conviction of thy goodness can the actions that flow from such a spirit give unto observers? None at all; yea, a spirit of unquietness under sufferings, and that seeketh to be revenged of those that do, for thy faith and the profession thereof, persecute thee, is so far off of giving conviction to beholders that thou art right, that it plainly tells them that thou art wrong. Even Julian the apostate, when he had cast away whatever he could of Christ, had this remaining with him--that a Christian ought to take with patience what affliction fell upon him for his Master's sake; and would hit them in the teeth with an unbecoming behavior, that complained or that sought redress of them that had abused them for their faith and godly profession. What will men say if you shrink and winch, and take your sufferings unquietly, but that if you yourselves were uppermost, you would persecute also? Much more have they ground to say so, when you will fight lying on your backs. Be quiet, then, and if thine enemy strike thee on one check, turn to him the other; and if he also revile and curse thee, down upon thy knees and pray for him. This is the way to convince thy observers that thou art a godly man. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, was one of those things that convinced the centurion that Jesus was a righteous man; for he stood by the cross to watch and see how Jesus carried it in these his sufferings, as well as to see execution done (Matt 27:54; Luke 23:34-47).
5. Consider, A professor, unquiet and turbulent under sufferings, and seeking his own revenge, cannot be a victor over what he should, nor a keeper of God's commandments.
(1.) How can he be a victor over himself that is led up and down by the nose by his own passions? There is no man a Christian victor but he that conquers himself, but he that beats down and keeps under this body, his lusts, his passions, in the first place. Is he that is led away with divers lusts a victor? Is he that is a servant to corruption a victor? And if he that is captivated by his anger, wrath, passion, discontent, prejudice, &c., be not led away by them, I am under a mistake. So then, to quarrel with superiors, or with any that are troublesome to thee for thy faith and thy profession, bespeaks thee over-mastered and captive, rather than a master and a conqueror.
(2.) The same may be said upon the second head. He keepeth not the commandments of God; for those teach him other things, as I have also showed. The great gospel commands terminate in self-denial; but if self-revenge is self-denial, I am besides the Book. Christ, in the book of the Revelation, sets him that keeps the commandments of God a great way off from him that taketh and smiteth with the sword: "He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints" (Rev 13:10). That is, in that they forbear to do thus, and quietly suffer under those that thus take it and afflict the godly with it. Again, "Here is the patience of the saints, here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (14:12). A patient continuing in well-doing; and if suffering for righteousness be well-doing, then a patient continuing in that, as in other things, is the way to keep God's commandments (Rom 2:7).
So that, I say, he keepeth not God's commandments that is angry with his enemies, and that seeks to be revenged of him that doth him ill. You know the subject I am upon. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (James 1:20). Wherefore, professors, beware, and take heed to your spirits, and see that you let not out yourselves under your sufferings in such extravagancies of spirit against your enemies as is no way seemly nor convenient.
6. Consider, Men that are unquiet and discontented, and that seek revenge upon them that persecute them for their profession, do, by so doing, also put themselves upon the brink of those ruins that others are further from. These men are like the fly that cannot let the candle alone until she hath burned herself in the flame. Magistrates and men in power have fortified themselves from being attacked with turbulent and unruly spirits by many and wholesome laws. And, indeed, should they not do so, one or other, perhaps, would be quickly tempted to seek to disturb them in the due exercise of their authority. Now the angry man, he is the fly that must be tripping and running himself upon the point of these laws; his angry spirit puts him upon quarrelling with his superiors, and his quarrelling brings him, by words spoke in heat, within the reach of the net, and that, with the help of a few more, brings his neck to the halter. Nor is this, whatever men think, but by the just judgment of God. "Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation" (Rom 13:2; Esth 2:21-23). Wherefore, let the angry man take heed; let the discontented man take heed. He that has a profession, and has not grace to know, in this matter, to manage it, is like to bring his profession to shame. Wherefore, I say, let such take heed; and the graces afore mentioned, and the due exercise of them, are they and that which can keep us out of all such dangers.
7. Consider, And what comfort can such a man have who has, by his discontent and unruly carriages, brought himself, in this manner, to his end; he has brought himself to shame, his profession to shame, his friends to shame, and his name to contempt and scorn. Bad men rejoice at his fall; good men cannot own him, weak men stumble at him; besides, his cause will not bear him out; his heart will be clogged with guilt; innocency and boldness will take wings and fly from him. Though he talketh of religion upon the stage52 or ladder, that will blush to hear its name mentioned by them that suffer for evil-doing. Wherefore, my brethren, my friends, my enemies, and all men, what religion, profession, or opinion soever you hold, fear God, honour the king, and do that duty to both which is required of you by the Word and law of Christ, and then, to say no more, you shall not suffer by the power for evil-doing.
FOOTNOTES:
1 Not equipages to ride, but dainty formalities.--Ed.
2 "A good and harmless conscience"; not as the procuring cause of confidence in God's tender care of us, but as the strong evidence of our election and regeneration.--Ed.
3 "Bravery"; magnificence or excellence. "Like a stately ship, with all her bravery on, and tackle trim, sails filled," &c.--Samson Agonistes.--Ed.
4 "Bodily pains"; bodily industry or painstaking.--Ed.
5 "Winch"; to wince or kick with impatience. "Shuck"; to shrug up the shoulders, expressive of dislike or aversion.--Ed.
6 "Much"; in a great degree.
7 "Will they, nill they"; nillan, a Saxon word, meaning "not will" or contrary to the will--whether with or against their will. "Need hath no law; will I, or nill I, it must be done."--Damon and Pathias, 1571.
"If now to man and wife to will and nill The self-same thing, a note of concord be, I know no couple better can agree."--Ben Johnson.--Ed.
8 How little do persecutors imagine that they are mere tools for the devil to work with, whether they are harassing Christians by taking their goods, or are hunting down their liberties or lives. All works together for good to the Christian, but for unutterable woe to the persecutor. God give them repentance.--Ed.
9 Wicked men sell themselves to do the devil's work. How degrading to the dignity of man! Enlisting under a foreign prince to destroy their own nation, and in so doing to destroy themselves. For an account of the atrocities and horrors of this war, read the history of the Waldenses.--Ed.
10 This frequently happened. In Bedford, Nic. Hawkins attended a meeting, and was fined two pounds; but when the harpies went to take away his goods, finding that "they had been removed beforehand, and his house visited with the small pox, the officers declined entering."--Persecution in Bedford, 1670, p. 6.--Ed.
11 "Dispose"; power, disposal. "All that is mine, I leave at thy dispose."--Shakespeare.--Ed.
12 In Ireland, whole provinces were desolated, both by Protestants and Papists, with a ferocity scarcely credible. In England, the state awfully tormented its pious Christian subjects, to whom their Lord's words must have been peculiarly consoling: "Fear not them which kill the body." Did they suffer? How holy were their enjoyments!--Ed.
13 An awful instance occurred soon after the publication of this "Advice." John Child, a Baptist minister, one of Bunyan's friends, to escape persecution, conformed, and became terrified with awful compunction of conscience. His cries were fearful: "I shall go to hell"; "I am broken in judgment"; "I am as it were in a flame." In a fit of desperation he destroyed himself on the 15th October, 1684.--Ed.
14 "What bottom"; what ground or foundation.--Ed.
15 This identical stone is said to be in the chair on which our monarchs are crowned in Westminster Abbey.--Ed.
16 In so unbounded, eternal and magnificent a mansion, well might he exclaim, "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Where God meets us with his special presence, we ought to meet him with the most humble reverence; remembering his justice and holiness, and our own meanness and vileness.--Ed.
17 The only way of driving sin out of the world is to make known the Saviour. Reader, can you solve Mr. Bunyan's riddle? When fierce persecution rages--when the saints are tormented with burning, hanging, and imprisonment--then, like Stephen, to fix our eyes upon Jesus, and the gates of heaven open to receive us, submitting with patience to the will of God. This is the way to drive out sin.--Ed.
18 How indescribably blessed is the Christian. It is true that he has to perform his pilgrimage through an enemy's country, beset with snares, pit-falls, and temptations; but in all his buffetings and storms of sorrow, his soul is safe; God is a wall of fire round about it, and the glory in the midst of it. He will guide us by his counsel, and then receive us to his glory.--Ed.
19 "Looser sort of Christians"; among Christians there are gradations of character. Some are fixed upon the Saviour, and can say, "For me to live is Christ." Such decision ensures safety and happiness; while the looser sort are subject to many sorrows and continual danger. May we press on towards the mark. "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief."--Ed.
20 This truth ought to be imprinted on every heart. As the absence of darkness is light, so liberty from the thraldom of sin, and from the slavery of Satan, essentially induces holiness of life. Thus holiness and liberty are joined together.--Ed.
21 The whole of this beautiful passage is worthy our careful study and prayerful obedience. Are we ambitious to govern: be it our honour to rule our own spirits and tongues. Are we for war? let it be levied upon our unruly passions. This is laudable ambition. This is honourable war, producing the peace and happiness of man. This is real glory to God and man, the very opposite to those horrors of desolation which gives joy among the devils of hell--the burning cities, the garments rolled in blood, the shrieks of the wounded, and the sickening miseries of the widows and orphans of the slain.--Ed.
22 If this was our conduct, how soon should we get rid of our enemies: "for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." Who would risk such punishment a second time?--Ed.
23 This old proverb is a very striking illustration of the words of Paul: "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."--Ed.
24 The saint must be "made meet for the inheritance." If he neglects the means given in the Word, his Father, in mercy, "will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men" (2 Sam 7:14).--Ed.
25 "But if you give sin entrance at the door, It's sting will in, and may come out not more." Bunyan's Caution.
26 An equally cruel scene took place in the presence of Stow, the historian, in the reign of Elizabeth. The bailiff of Romford coming to London, was asked by the curate of Aldgate the news: he replied, "Many men be up in Essex," [Qu. not in bed?]. For this he was hung the next morning in front of Mr. Stow's house. How grateful ought we to be that such sanguinary laws have fled, with the dark mists of error and cruelty, before the spreading light of the gospel.--Ed.
27 They shed their blood for Him who afterwards shed his blood for them. These were the infantry of the noble army of martyrs. If these infants were thus baptized with blood, though their own, into the church triumphant, it could be said that what they got in heaven abundantly compensated for what they lost on earth.--Henry.
28 Nearly all Protestants agree as to the salvation of infants dying in their infancy--Toplady and the Calvinists on the ground of their being in the covenant of grace; others because they had not personally transgressed; supposing that the sufferings and death of the body is the penalty of original sin. Holy Scripture appears to settle this question very satisfactorily, by requiring childlike docility as a preparation for the Spirit's working. The language of the Saviour is, "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God" (Luke 18:16). "Such" as die in infancy--"such" adults as, with childlike simplicity, search the Scriptures, and fly for refuge to the Saviour. "It is NOT the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish" (Matt 18:14). "It were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck, and be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones" (Luke 17:2).--Ed.
29 "To down with"; to receive, to swallow. "Probably it will hardly down with any body at first hearing."--Locke.--Ed.
30 "New-fashioned carriages"; not equipages to ride in, but dainty formalities. "Nor in my carriage a feigned niceness shown."--Dryden. "Trades in the carriage of a holy saint."--Shakespeare.--Ed.
31 Bunyan, when sent to prison, was thus threatened: "If you do not go to church, or transport yourself, you must stretch by the neck for it." This led to those painful reflections: "If I should make a scrabbling shift to clamber up the ladder, yet I should, either with quaking or other symptoms of faintings, give occasion to the enemy to reproach the way of God and his people for their timorousness."--Grace Abounding, No. 334.--Ed.
32 This is a truly Bunyanish mode of expression--clear, comprehensive, quaint; but so striking as to make an indelible impression.--Ed.
33 A life of faith and holiness is the Christian's badge and livery. No particular costume, that may conceal a carnal heart--not a baptismal profession, that may be made by a hypocrite; but it is "the hidden man of the heart," evidenced by a "meek and quiet spirit--in all holy conversations and godliness." This is the Christian's badge and livery, by which he becomes "a living epistle, known and read of all men."--Ed.
34 These awful cruelties were practised upon Richard Atkins, in July, 1581. He went to Rome to reprove the people of idolatry. In St. Peter's Church, he knocked the chalice out of the priest's hand, and spilt the wine; he then endeavoured to seize the host, but was prevented. For these mad pranks he suffered savage torments.--Fox, edit. 1631, vol. 3, p. 1022.--Ed.
35 Every Christian must be decided in his own conscience as to the formalities of religion; but he who prefers talking of forms and ceremonies to communion in the substance, is in a melancholy state.--Ed.
36 What a severe reproach it is to human nature, to see a lovely child in rags and shoeless, running the streets, exposed to the pitiless weather, while a splendid equipage passes, in which a lady holds up her lapdog at the window to give it an airing!! Is not this a greater crime than sends many a poor wretch to the treadmill?--Ed.
37 Revenge naturally rises in the mind of man under a sense of injury. To return good for evil is one of the effects of the new birth. But while this is done, it is also our duty to petition kings and parliaments to remove evils.--Ed.
38 "Forth of doors"; out of doors, public.--Ed.
39 "Now it is Christmas"; instead of keeping one day in the year to commemorate the nativity of Christ in excessive feasting, every day must be kept holy, in the recollection both of the birth and death of the Saviour. All eyes are upon the young convert, watching for his halting; therefore, let every day be holy.--Ed.
40 A striking expression. If a man's righteousness be killed, it must be by his own will. He must be the butcher to kill himself.--Ed.
41 It is indeed sad to see professors, for the sake of paltry pelf, or to escape from persecution, denying the Lord Jesus. It subjects religion to scorn and contempt, and doubles the sorrows and sufferings of real Christians. Bunyan expresses himself here in a most admirable manner.--Ed.
42 Bunyan's familiarity with these illustrious men was obtained by reading Fox's Acts and Monuments, when in prison.--Ed.
43 "Quail"; to overpower. Well might the abettors of Antichrist wonder at the Christian's support under the most cruel tortures. While "looking unto Jesus" and the bright visions of eternal glory, like Stephen, he can pray of his enemies, and tranquilly fall asleep while undergoing the most frightful sufferings.--Ed.
44 "A naked man"; unarmed, or defenceless. "Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies." Shakespeare's Wolsey.--Ed.
45 How impossible is it for a natural man to understand this new creation--a new heart, a new birth. How different is regeneration to water-baptism. How awful the delusion to be mistaken in this, the foundation of all hope of a blessed immortality. "Create in me a clean heart, O God!" How consoling the fact: "Now a creation none can destroy but a Creator!" and "changes not, therefore we are not consumed."--Ed.
46 "O happie he who doth possesse Christ for his fellow-prisoner, who doth gladde With heavenly sunbeames jails that are most sad." Written on the prison walls of the Tower of London by William Prynne.--Ed.
47 "Sore temptations" poor Bunyan found them. When dragged from his home to prison, he speaks of his poor blind daughter in language of impassioned solicitude: "Poor child, thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind shall blow upon thee! Oh! the hardships I thought my blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces."--"The parting with my wife and poor children hath oft been to me in this place as the pulling my flesh from my bones."--Grace Abounding, 327, 328.--Ed.
48 "Thodes"; whirlwinds. This word does not occur in any English dictionary or glossary. It gave me much trouble, and a walk of seven miles, to discover its meaning. It is the Saxon for noise, whirlwind, turbulence. This provincial word was probably derived from some Saxon tribe that settled in Bedfordshire.--Ed.
49 "To shuck"; to shake violently--from which is the noun, "a pea-shuck," the shell from which peas have been shaken.--Ed.
50 How correct, but how dismal a picture is here drawn of the persecutor! God has wise and holy ends in protecting and prolonging the lives even of very wicked men. "Slay them not, lest my people forget; scatter them by thy power." Compare Ecclessiastes 8:10. Pity the persecutor--pray for him; but if he repent not, stand off; "God will have his full blow at him in his time," and crush him down into misery and despair.--Ed.
51 Like a multitude of passages in Bunyan's writings, this passage is exceedingly striking. It illustrates our Lord's words in Matthew 5:44,45: "Love your enemies--that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven."--Ed.
52 "Stage"; upon which many a Nonconformist stood with his head in the pillory. "Ladder" to the gallows, upon which victims suffered death by hanging.--Ed.
***
AN EXHORTATION TO PEACE AND UNITY
[ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR]
This treatise was first published in 1688, after Bunyan's death, at the end of the second edition of the Barren Fig Tree, with a black border round the title. It was continued in the third edition 1692, but was subsequently omitted, although the Barren Fig Tree was printed for the same publisher. It has been printed in every edition of Bunyan's Works. Respect for the judgment of others leads me to allow it a place in the first complete edition, although I have serious doubts whether it was written by him, for these reasons:--
1. It appears to have been totally unknown to his personal friends, Charles Doe and others, who very carefully gathered up, not only all his published works, but his manuscripts also. An interesting list of these was given in the 'Struggler,' 1691. Nor is it found in any publisher's list of Bunyan's Works.
2. The style is not that of Bunyan, nor is it even Bunyanish. It has none of those striking remarks that render all his treatises so deeply interesting.
3. The author introduces scraps of Latin references to 'Machiavel,' to the 'learned Stillingfleet,' and to ancient heathen writers. The frequent recurrence of the words, 'as a certain learned man observes,' is very foreign to Bunyan's manner of confirming his sentiments. 'Thus saith the Lord,' is the seal of his testimony.
4. Misapplication of Scripture (Acts 9:31) as if the 'rest' was from internal dissensions, when in fact it was from external persecution.
5. The terms 'infallible,' 'excommunication,' and 'reason,' are used in a way not at all Bunyanish.
6. How would his spirit have been grieved at a sentence which occurs: 'Would a heathen god refuse to answer such prayers in which the supplicants were not agreed; and shall we think the true God will answer them?' Do stocks or stones answer prayers?
7. Bunyan's peculiar practice of admitting all the Lord's children to the Lord's table; all such as he hoped were spiritually baptized, without reference to water-baptism, is here directly opposed. The author refers to 1 Corinthians 12:13 on which text he says--'I need not go about to confute that notion that some of late have had of this text, viz., that the baptism here spoken of is the baptism of the Spirit, because you have not owned and declared that notion as your judgment, but on the contrary.' The fact is, that Bunyan is one of those here noticed as 'some of late,' and his church did hold that judgment. His comment on this text is, 'not of water, for by one SPIRIT are we all baptized into one body.'--Reason of my Practice. And in his 'Differences about Water-Baptism no Bar to Communion,' he thus argues upon that text, 'Here is a baptism mentioned by which they are initiated into one body; now that this is the baptism of water is utterly against the words of the text; for by one SPIRIT we are all baptized into one body.'--'It is the unity of the Spirit, not water, that is intended.' Bunyan was the great champion for the practice of receiving all to church-communion whom God had received in Christ, without respect to water-baptism; and had he changed his sentiments upon a subject which occasioned him so much hostility, even from his Baptist brethren, it would have been heralded forth as a triumph.
In 1684, four years prior to his death, he republished these sentiments in the first edition of 'A Holy Life the Beauty of Christianity'; his words are--'Men are wedded to their opinions more than the law of grace and love will permit. Here is a Presbyter, here an Independent, a Baptist, so joined each man to his own opinions, that they cannot have that communion one with another, as by the testament of the Lord Jesus they are commanded and enjoined.' Bunyan, there can be no doubt, lived and died in the conviction, that differences were permitted among Christians to stimulate them to search the Scriptures, and to exercise the grace of forbearance, as was the case in the primitive churches, in their disputes about meats and days, and even as to whether the Gentiles were to be visited with the gospel.
8. Bunyan is ever pressing the duty of private judgment in all the affairs of religion; not to be scared with the taunts of 'schism,' 'division-makers,' 'new separatists,' 'wiser than your teachers,' and similar arrows, drawn from Satan's quiver, which occur in this exhortation.
Judging from the style--the reference to the laying on of hands--the Latin quotations, and those from learned men, it appears somewhat like the pen of D'Anvers, who answered Bunyan upon the question--Whether water-baptism is a scriptural term of communion? It is, however, now faithfully reprinted, that our readers may form their own judgment.
Hackney, New-Year's Day, 1850 GEORGE OFFOR.
An Exhortationto Peace and Unity
'Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'--Ephesians 4:3
Beloved, religion is the great bond of human society, and it were well if itself were kept within the bond of unity; and that it may so be, let us, according to the text, use our utmost endeavours 'to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'
These words contain a counsel and a caution: the counsel is, 'That we endeavour the unity of the Spirit'; the caution is, 'That we do it in the bond of peace': as if he should say, I would have you live in unity; but yet I would have you to be careful that you do not purchase unity with the breach of charity. Let us, therefore, be cautioned that we do not so press after unity in practice and opinion, as to break the bond of peace and affection.
In the handling of these words, I shall observe this method:--First, I shall open the sense of the text. Second, I shall show wherein this unity and peace consists. Third, I shall show you the fruits and benefits of it, together with nine inconveniencies and mischiefs that attend those churches where unity and peace is wanting. Fourth, and lastly, I shall give you twelve directions and motives for the obtaining of it.
First, As touching the sense of the text; when we are counselled to keep the unity of the Spirit, we are not to understand the Spirit of God as personally so considered; because the Spirit of God, in that sense, is not capable of being divided; and so there would be no need for us to endeavour to keep the unity of it.
By the unity of the Spirit, then, we are to understand that unity of mind which the Spirit of God calls for, and requires Christians to endeavour after; hence it is that we are exhorted by 'one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel' (Phil 1:27).
But farther, the apostle in these words alludes to the state and composition of a natural body; and doth thereby inform us that the mystical body of Christ holds an analogy with the natural body of a man. As,
1. In the natural body there must be a spirit to animate it; for 'the body without the spirit is dead' (James 2:26). So it is in the mystical body of Christ; the apostle no sooner tells us of that one body, but he minds us of that 'one spirit' (Eph 4:4).
2. The body hath 'joints and bands' to unite all the parts; so hath the mystical body of Christ (Col 2:19). This is that bond of peace mentioned in the text, as also in Ephesians 4:16, where 'the whole body' is said to be 'fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth.'
3. The natural body receives counsel and nourishment from the head; so doth the mystical body of Christ. He is their counsellor, and him they must hear; he is their head, and him they must hold: hence it is that the apostle complaineth (Col 2:19), of some that did 'not hold the head, from which all the body by joints and bands hath nourishment.'
4. The natural body cannot well subsist, if either the spirit be wounded or the joints broken or dislocated; the body cannot bear a wounded or broken spirit; 'A broken spirit drieth the bones' (Prov 17:22), and 'a wounded spirit who can bear?' (Prov 18:14). And on the other hand, how often has the disjointing of the body, and the breakings thereof, occasioned the expiration of the spirit? In like manner it fares with the mystical body of Christ: how do divided spirits break the bonds of peace, which are the joints of this body! And how doth the breakings of the body and church of Christ wound the spirit of Christians, and oftentimes occasion the spirit and life of Christianity to languish, if not to expire! How needful is it, then, that we endeavour 'the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace?'
Second, I now come to show you wherein this unity and peace consists, and this I shall demonstrate in five particulars.
1. This unity and peace may consist in the ignorance of many truths, and in the holding of some errors; or else this duty of peace and unity could not be practicable by any on this side perfection. But we must now endeavour the unity of the Spirit, 'till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God' (Eph 4:13). Because now, as the apostle saith, 'we know in part, and we prophesy in part,' and 'now we see through a glass, darkly' (1 Cor 13:12). And as this is true in general, so we may find it true if we descend to particular instances: the disciples seemed to be ignorant of that great truth which they had often, and in much plainness, been taught by their Master once and again, viz., that his kingdom was not of this world, and that in the world they should suffer and be persecuted, yet in Acts 1:6 we read, that they asked of him if he would 'at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' thereby discovering that Christ's kingdom, as they thought, should consist in his temporal jurisdiction over Israel, which they expected should now commence and take place amongst them. Again, our Lord tells them that he had many things to say, and these were many important truths which they could not now bear (John 16:12). And that these were important truths appears by the 10th and 11th verses, where he is discoursing of righteousness and judgment; and then adds, that he had yet many things to say which they could not bear; and thereupon promises the Comforter to lead them into ALL TRUTH; which implies that they were yet ignorant of many truths, and consequently held divers errors; and yet for all this he prays for, and presses them to their great duty of peace and unity (John 14:27; 17:21). To this may be added that of Hebrews 5:11, where the author saith, He had many things to say of the priestly office of Christ, which, by reason of their dulness, they were not capable to receive; as also that in Acts 10, where Peter seems to be ignorant of that truth, viz., that the gospel was to be preached to all nations; and contrary hereunto, he erred in thinking it unlawful to preach amongst the Gentiles. I shall add two texts more; one is Acts 19:2, where we read, That those disciples which had been discipled and baptized by John, were yet ignorant of the Holy Ghost, and knew not, as the text tells us, 'whether there be any Holy Ghost,' or no; though John did teach constantly, that he that should come after him, should baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire. From hence we may easily and plainly infer, that Christians may be ignorant of many truths, by reason of weak and dull capacities, and other such like impediments, even while those truths are with much plainness delivered to them. Again, we read (Heb 5:13) of some that were 'unskillful in the word of righteousness,' who nevertheless are called babes in Christ, and with whom unity and peace is to be inviolably kept and maintained.
2. As this unity and peace may consist in the ignorance of many truths, and in the holding some errors, so it must consist with, and it cannot consist without, the believing and practising those things which are necessary to salvation and church communion; and they are, (1.) Believing that Christ the Son of God died for the sins of men. (2.) That whoever believeth ought to be baptized. (3.) The third thing essential to this communion is a holy and a blameless conversation.
(1.) That believing that the Son of God died for the sins of men is necessary to salvation, I prove by these texts, which tell us that he that doth not believe shall be damned (Mark 16:16; John 3:18; 2 Thess 2:12; Rom 10:10).
That it is also necessary to church-communion, appears from Matthew 16:16-18. Peter having confessed that Christ was the Son of the living God, Christ thereupon assures Peter, that upon this rock, viz., this profession of faith, or this Christ which Peter had confessed, he would build his church, and the gates of hell should not prevail against it. And (1 Cor 3:11), the apostle having told the Corinthians they were God's building, presently adds, that they could not be built upon any foundation but upon that which was laid, which was Jesus Christ. All which proves, that Christian society is founded upon the profession of Christ; and not only Scripture, but the laws of right reason, dictate this, that some rules and orders must be observed for the founding all society, which must be consented to by all that will be of it. Hence it comes to pass, that to own Christ as the Lord and head of Christians, is essential to the founding Christian society.
(2.) The Scriptures have declared that this faith gives the professors of it a right to baptism, as in the case of the eunuch (Acts 8), when he demanded why he might not be baptized? Philip answereth, that if he believed with all his heart, he might; the eunuch thereupon confessing Christ, was baptized.
Now, that baptism is essential to church-communion, I prove from 1 Corinthians 12, where we shall find the apostle labouring to prevent an evil use that might be made of spiritual gifts, as thereby to be puffed up; and to think that such as wanted them, were not of the body, or to be esteemed members; he thereupon resolves, that whoever did confess Christ, and own him for his head, did it by the Spirit (v 3), though they might not have such a visible manifestation of it as others had; and therefore they ought to be owned as members, as appears (v 23). And not only because they have called him Lord by the Spirit, but because they have, by the guidance and direction of the same Spirit, been baptized (v 13): 'For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body,' &c. I need not go about to confute that notion that some of late have had of this text, viz., that the baptism here spoken of is the baptism of the Spirit, because you have not owned and declared that notion as your judgment; but on the contrary, all of you that I have ever conversed with, have declared it to be understood of baptism with water, by the direction of the Spirit. If so, then it follows, that men and women are declared members of Christ's body by baptism, and cannot be by Scripture reputed and esteemed so without it; which farther appears from Romans 6:5, where men, by baptism, are said to be planted into 'the likeness of his death.' And (Col 2:12), we are said to be 'buried with him by baptism.' All which, together with the consent of all Christians, (some few in these late times excepted,) do prove that baptism is necessary to the initiating persons into the church of Christ.
(3.) Holiness of life is essential to church-communion, because it seems to be the reason why Christ founded a church in the world, viz., that men might thereby be watched over and kept from falling; and that if any be overtaken with a fault, he that is spiritual might restore him.
That by this means men and women might be preserved, without blame, to the coming of Christ; and 'the grace of God teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly and uprightly in this present evil world' (Titus 2:11,12). 'And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity' (2 Tim 2:19). And James tells us, speaking of the Christian religion, that 'pure religion, and undefiled, before God--is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world' (James 1:27). From all which, together with many more texts that might be produced, it appears that an unholy and profane life is inconsistent with Christian religion and society, and that holiness is essential to salvation and church-communion; so that these three things--faith, baptism, and a holy life, as I said before, all churches must agree and unite in, as those things which, when wanting, will destroy their being. And let not any think, that when I say believing the Son of God died for the sins of men is essential to salvation and church-communion, that I hereby would exclude all other articles of the Christian creed as not necessary, as the belief of the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment, &c.; which, for want of time, I omit to speak particularly to, and the rather because I understand this great article, of believing the Son of God died for the sins of men, is comprehensive of all others, and is that from whence all other articles may easily be inferred.
And here I would not be mistaken, as though I held there were nothing else for Christians to practise, when I say this is all that is requisite to church-communion; for I very well know that Christ requires many other things of us after we are members of his body, which, if we knowingly or maliciously refuse, may be the cause, not only of excommunication, but damnation. But yet these are such things as relate to the wellbeing, and not to the being, of churches; as laying on of hands, in the primitive times, upon believers, by which they did receive the gifts of the Spirit--this, I say, was for the increase and edifying of the body, and not that thereby they might become of the body of Christ, for that they were before. And do not think that I believe laying on of hands was no apostolical institution, because I say men are not thereby made members of Christ's body, or because I say that it is not essential to church-communion. Why should I be thought to be against a fire in the chimney, because I say it must not be in the thatch of the house? Consider, then, how pernicious a thing it is to make every doctrine, though true, the bound of communion; this is that which destroys unity; and, by this rule, all men must be perfect before they can be in peace. For do we not see daily, that as soon as men come to a clearer understanding of the mind of God, to say the best of what they hold, that presently all men are excommunicable, if not damnable, that do not agree with them. Do not some believe and see that to be pride and covetousness, which others do not, because, it may be, they have more narrowly and diligently searched into their duty of these things than others have? What then? must all men that have not so large acquaintance of their duty herein be excommunicated? Indeed, it were to be wished that more moderation in apparel and secular concernments were found among churches; but God forbid, that if they should come short herein, that we should say, as one lately said, that he could not communicate with such a people, because they were proud and superfluous in their apparel.
Let me appeal to such, and demand of them, if there was not a time, since they believed and were baptized, wherein they did not believe laying on of hands a duty; and did they not then believe, and do they not still believe, they were members of the body of Christ? And was not there a time when you did not so well understand the nature and extent of pride and covetousness as now you do? And did you not then believe, and do you not still believe, that you were true members of Christ, though less perfect? Why, then, should you not judge of those that differ from you herein, as you judged of yourselves when you were as they now are? How needful, then, is it for Christians to distinguish, if ever they would be at peace and unity, between those truths which are essential to church-communion, and those that are not!
3. Unity and peace consists in our making one shoulder to practise and put in execution the things we do know. 'Nevertheless, whereto we have--attained, let us walk by the same rule, and mind the same thing' (Phil 3:16). How sad is it to see our zeal consume us, and our precious time, in things doubtful and disputable, while we are not concerned nor affected with the practice of those indisputable things we all agree in! We all know charity to be the great command, and yet how few agree to practise it! We all know they that labour in the Word and doctrine are worthy of double honour; and that God hath ordained, that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel; these duties, however others have cavilled at them, I know you agree in them, and are persuaded of your duty herein; but where is your zeal to practise? O how well would it be with churches if they were but half as zealous for the great, and plain, and indisputable things, and the more chargeable and costly things of religion, as they are for things doubtful or less necessary, or for things that are no charge to them, and cost them nothing but the breath of contention, though that may be too great a price for the small things they purchase with it.
But further: Do we not all agree, that men that preach the gospel should do it like workmen that need not be ashamed? and yet how little is this considered by many preachers, who never consider, before they speak, of what they say, or whereof they affirm! How few give themselves to study that they may be approved! How few meditate, and give themselves to these things, that their profiting may appear to all!
For the Lord's sake, let us unite to practise those things we know; and if we would have more talents, let us all agree to improve those we have.
See the spirit that was among the primitive professors, that knowing and believing how much it concerned them, in the propagating of Christianity, to show forth love to one another, that so all might know them to be Christ's disciples, rather than there should be any complainings among them, they sold all they had. Oh how zealous were these to practise, and, with one shoulder, to do that that was upon their hearts for God! I might further add, how often have we agreed in our judgment? and hath it not been upon our hearts, that this and the other thing is good to be done to enlighten the dark world, and to repair the breaches of churches, and to raise up those churches that now lie agasping, and among whom the soul of religion is expiring? But what do we more than talk of them? Do not most decline these things when they either call for their purses or their persons to help in this and such like works as these? Let us then, in what we know, unite, that we may put it in practice, remembering that, if we know these things, we shall be happy if we do them.
4. This unity and peace consists in our joining and agreeing to pray for, and to press after, those truths we do not know. The disciples in the primitive times were conscious of their imperfections, and, therefore, they, with one accord, continued in prayer and supplications. If we were more in the sense of our own ignorances and imperfections, we should carry it better towards those that differ from us; then we should abound more in the spirit of meekness and forbearance, that thereby we might bring others, or be brought by others, to the knowledge of the truth; this would make us go to God, and say with Elihu, That which we know not, teach thou us (Job 34:32). Brethren, did we but all agree that we were erring in many things, we should soon agree to go to God, and pray for more wisdom and revelation of his mind and will concerning us.
But here is our misery, that we no sooner receive any thing for truth, but we presently ascend the chair of infallibility with it, as though in this we could not err; hence it is we are impatient of contradiction, and become uncharitable to those that are not of the same mind; but now a consciousness that we may mistake, or that if my brother err in one thing I may err in another--this will unite us in affection, and engage us to press after perfection, according to that of the apostle, 'Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,' 'and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you' (Phil 3:13-15). O then, that we could but unite and agree to go to God for one another, in confidence that he will teach us; and that if any one of us want wisdom, as who of us does not, we might agree to ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth no man. Let us, like those people spoken of in Isaiah 2, say one to another, Come, let us go to the Lord, for 'he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.'
5. This unity and peace mainly consists in unity of love and affection; this is the great and indispensable duty of all Christians; by this they are declared Christ's disciples; and hence it is that love is called the great commandment, the old commandment, and the new commandment--that which was commanded in the beginning, and will remain to the end; yea, and after the end. 'Charity never faileth: but--whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away' (1 Cor 13:8). 'And now abideth faith, hope, charity--but the greatest of these is charity' (v 13). 'Above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness' (Col 3:14). Because charity is 'the end of the commandment' (1 Tim 1:5). Charity is therefore called the royal law; and though it had a superintendency over other laws, and, doubtless, is a law to which other laws must give place when they come in competition with it. 'Above all things, [therefore,] have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins' (1 Peter 4:8). Let us, therefore, live in unity and peace, and the God of love and peace will be with us.
That you may so do, let me remember you, in the words of a learned man, that the unity of the church is a unity of love and affection, and not a bare uniformity of practice and opinion.
Third, Having shown you wherein this unity consists, I now come to the third general thing propounded, and that is, to show you the fruits and benefits of unity and peace; together with the mischiefs and inconveniences that attend those churches where unity and peace are wanting.
1. Unity and peace is a duty well-pleasing to God, who is styled the author of peace, and not of confusion, in all the churches. God's Spirit rejoiceth in the unity of our spirits; but, on the other hand, where strife and divisions are, there the Spirit of God is grieved. Hence is it that the apostle no sooner calls upon the Ephesians not to grieve the Spirit of God, but he presently subjoins us a remedy against that evil: that they put away bitterness and evil speaking, 'and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you' (Eph 4:32).
2. As unity and peace is pleasing to God, and rejoiceth his Spirit, so it rejoiceth the hearts and spirits of God's people--unity and peace brings heaven down upon earth among us. Hence it is that the apostle tells us (Rom 14:17) that 'the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' Where unity and peace is, there is heaven upon earth; by this we taste the first fruits of that blessed estate we shall one day live in the fruition of, when we shall come 'to the general assembly and church of the first-born,' whose names are written in heaven, 'and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect' (Heb 12:23).
This outward peace of the church, as a learned man observes, distils into peace of conscience, and turns writings and readings of controversy into treatises of mortification and devotion.
And the psalmist tells us, that it is not only good, but pleasant 'for brethren to dwell together in unity' (Psa 133), but where unity and peace is wanting, there are storms and troubles; 'where envy and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work' (James 3:16). It is the outward peace of the church that increaseth our inward joy, and the peace of God's house gives us occasion to eat our meat with gladness in our houses (Acts 2:46).
3. The unity and peace of the church makes communion of saints desirable. What is it that embitters church-communion, and makes it burdensome, but divisions? Have you not heard many complain that they are weary of church-communion, because of church contention? but now, where unity and peace is, there Christians long for communion.
David saith that he was glad when they said unto him, 'Let us go into the house of the Lord' (Psa 122:1). Why was this, but because, as the third verse tells us, Jerusalem was a city compact together, where the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, to give thanks to his name. And David, speaking of the man that was once his friend, doth thereby let us know the benefit of peace and unity (Psa 55:14): 'We,' saith he, 'took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.' Where unity is strongest, communion is sweetest and most desirable. You see, then, that peace and union fill the people of God with desires after communion; but, on the other hand, hear how David complains (Psa 120:5), 'Woe is me that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!' The psalmist here is thought to allude to a sort of men that dwelt in the deserts of Arabia, that got their livings by contention; and, therefore, he adds (v 6), that his soul had long dwelt with them that hated peace: this was that which made him long for the courts of God, and esteem one day in his house better than a thousand. This made his soul even faint for the house of God, because of the peace of it; 'Blessed are they,' saith he, 'that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee' (Psa 84:4). There is a certain note of concord, as appears (Acts 2) where we read of primitive Christians, meeting with one accord, praising God.
4. Where unity and peace is, there many mischiefs and inconveniences are prevented which attend those people where peace and unity are wanting; and of those many that might be mentioned, I shall briefly insist upon these nine:--
(1.) Where unity and peace are wanting, there is much precious time spent to no purpose. How many days are spent, and how many fruitless journeys made to no profit, where the people are not in peace! How often have many redeemed time, even in seed-time and harvest, when they could scarce afford it to go to church, and by reason of their divisions, come home worse than they went, repenting they have spent so much precious time to so little benefit! How sad is it to see men spend their precious time, in which they should work out their salvation, by labouring, as in the fire, to prove an uncertain and doubtful proposition, and to trifle away their time, in which they should make their calling and election sure, to make sure of an opinion which, when they have done all, they are not infallibly sure whether it be true or no; because all things necessary to salvation and church-communion are plainly laid down in Scripture, in which we may be infallibly sure of the truth of them; but for other things that we have no plain texts for, but the truth of them depends upon our interpretations, here we must be cautioned that we do not spend much time in imposing those upon others, or venting those among others, unless we can assume infallibility--otherwise, we spend time upon uncertainty; and whoever casts their eyes abroad, and doth open their ears to intelligence, shall both see, and, to their sorrow, hear that many churches spend most of their time in jangling and contending about those things which are neither essential to salvation or church-communion, and that which is worse, about such doubtful questions which they are never able to give an infallible solution of; but now, where unity and peace is, there our time is spent in praising God, and in those great questions--what we should do to be saved? and how we may be more holy and more humble towards God, and more charitable and more serviceable to one another?
(2.) Where unity and peace is wanting, there is evil surmising and evil speaking, to the damage and disgrace, if not to the ruining of one another (Gal 5:14,15): 'The whole law is fulfilled in one word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; but if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.' No sooner the bond of charity is broken, which is as a wall about Christians, but soon they begin to make havoc and spoil of one another; then there is raising evil reports, and taking up evil reports against each other. Hence it is that whispering and backbiting proceeds, and going from house to house to blazon the faults and infirmities of others: hence it is that we watch for the haltings of one another, and do inwardly rejoice at the miscarriages of others, saying in our hearts, Ah, ah, so we would have it; but now, where unity and peace is, there is charity; and where charity is, there we are willing to hide the faults, and cover the nakedness of our brethren. 'Charity thinketh no evil' (1 Cor 13:5), and, therefore, it cannot surmise, neither will it speak evil.
(3.) Where unity and peace is wanting, there can be no great matters enterprised; we cannot do much for God nor much for one another. When the devil would hinder the bringing to pass of good in nations and churches, he divides their councils; and, as one well observes, he divides their heads, that he may divide their hands; when Jacob had prophesied of the cruelty of Simeon and Levi, who were brethren, he threatens them with the consequent of it (Gen 49:7): 'I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.' The devil is not to learn that maxim he hath taught the Machiavellians of the world, divide et impera--divide and rule; it is a united force that is formidable: hence the spouse, in the Canticles, is said to be 'but one,' 'and the only one of her mother' (Cant 6:9). Hereupon it is said of her (v 10) that she is 'terrible as an army with banners.' What can a divided army do, or a disordered army, that have lost their banners, or, for fear or shame, thrown them away? In like manner, what can Christians do for Christ, and the enlarging his dominions in the world, in bringing men from darkness to light, while themselves are divided and disordered? Peace is, to Christians, as great rivers are to some cities, which, besides other benefits and commodities, are natural fortifications, by reason whereof those places are made impregnable; but when, by the subtilty of an adversary or the folly of the citizens, these waters come to be divided into little petty rivulets, how soon are they assailed and taken! Thus it fares with churches; when once the devil, or their own folly divides them, they will be so far from resisting of him, that they will be soon subjected by him.
Peace is to churches as walls to cities; nay, unity hath defended cities that had no walls. It was once demanded of Agesilaus why Lacedemon had no walls; he answers, pointing back to the city, that the concord of the citizens was the strength of the city. In like manner, Christians are strong when united; then they are more capable to resist temptation, and to succour such as are tempted. When unity and peace is among the churches, then are they like a walled town; and when peace is the church's walls, salvation will be her bulwarks.
Plutarch tells us of one Silurus that had eighty sons, whom he calls to him as he lay upon his death-bed, and gave them a sheaf of arrows; thereby to signify, that if they lived in unity they might do much; but, if they divided, they would come to nothing. If Christians were all of one piece--if they were all but one lump, or but one sheaf or bundle, how great are the things they might do for Christ and his people in the world, whereas, otherwise, they can do little but dishonour him, and offend his.
It is reported of the leviathan, that his strength is in his scales (Job 41:15-17): 'His scales are his pride, shut up together, as with a close seal. One is so near to another, that no air can come between them. They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.' If the church of God were united like the scales of leviathan, it would not be every brain-sick notion, nor angry speculation, that would cause their separation.
Solomon saith, Two are better than one, because if one fail, the other may raise him; then surely twenty are better than two, and an hundred are better than twenty, for the same reason--because they are more capable to help one another. If ever Christians would do any thing to raise up the fallen tabernacles of Jacob, and to strengthen the weak, and comfort the feeble, and to fetch back those that have gone astray, it must be by unity.
We read of the men of Babel (Gen 11:6), 'The Lord said, Behold the people is one--And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do.'
We learn, by reason, what great things may be done in worldly achievements where unity is. And shall not reason, assisted with the motives of religion, teach us that unity among Christians may enable them to enterprise greater things for Christ? Would not this make Satan fall from heaven like lightning? For as unity built literal Babel, it is unity that must pull down mystical Babel. And, on the other hand, where divisions are, there is confusion; by this means, a Babel hath been built in every age. It hath been observed by a learned man, and I wish I could not say truly observed, that there is most of Babel and confusion among those that cry out most against it.
Would we have a hand to destroy Babylon, let us have a heart to unite one among another.
Our English histories tell us, that after Austin the monk had been some time in England, that he heard of some of the remains of the British Christians, which he convened to a place, which Cambden, in his Britannia, calls Austin's Oak. Here they met to consult about matters of religion; but such was their division, by reason of Austin's imposing spirit, that our stories tell us that synod was only famous for this, that they only met, and did nothing. This is the mischief of divisions, they hinder the doing of much good; and if Christians that are divided be ever famous for any thing, it will be that they have often met together, and talked of this and the other thing, but they did nothing.
(4.) Where unity and peace is wanting, there the weak are wounded, and the wicked are hardened. Unity may well be compared to precious oil (Psa 133:2). It is the nature of oil to heal that which is wounded, and to soften that which is hard. Those men that have hardened themselves against God and his people, when they shall behold unity and peace among them, will say, God is in them indeed; and, on the other hand, are they not ready to say, when they see you divided, that the devil is in you, that you cannot agree?
(5.) Divisions, and want of peace, keep those out of the church that would come in; and cause many to go out that are in.
'The divisions of Christians (as a learned man observes) are a scandal to the Jews, an opprobrium to the Gentiles, and an inlet to atheism and infidelity.' Insomuch that our controversies about religion, especially as they have been of late managed, have made religion itself become a controversy. O, then, how good and pleasant a thing is it for brethren to dwell together in unity! The peace and unity that was among the primitive Christians drew others to them. What hinders the conversion of the Jews, but the divisions of Christians? Must I be a Christian, says the Jew? What Christian must I be; of what sect must I be of? The Jews, as one observes, glossing upon that text in Isaiah 11:6, where it is prophesied, that the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and that there shall be none left to hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain; they interpreting these sayings to signify the concord and peace that shall be among the people that shall own the Messiah, do from hence conclude that the Messiah is not yet come, because of the contentions and divisions that are among those that profess him; and the apostle saith (1 Cor 14:23), that if an unbeliever should see their disorders, he would say they were mad; but where unity and peace is, there the churches are multiplied. We read (Acts 9;31) that when the churches had rest, they multiplied; and (Acts 2:46,47) when the church was serving God 'with one accord,' the Lord added to them 'daily such as should be saved.'
It is unity brings men into the church, and divisions keep them out. It is reported of an Indian, passing by the house of a Christian, and hearing them contending, being desired to turn in, he refused, saying Habamach dwells there--meaning that the devil dwelt there; but where unity and peace is, there God is; and he that dwells in love, dwells in God. The apostle tells the Corinthians, that if they walked orderly, even the unbeliever would hereby be enforced to come and worship, and say, God was in them indeed; and we read (Zech 8:23) of a time when ten men shall take hold of a Jew, and say, 'We will go with you; for we have heard that God is with you.'
And hence it is that Christ prays (John 17:21) that his disciples might be one, as the Father and he were one, that the world might believe the Father sent him. As if he should say, you may preach me as long as you will, and to little purpose, if you are not at peace and unity among yourselves. Such was the unity of Christians in former days, that the intelligent heathen would say of them, that though they had many bodies, yet they had but one soul. And we read the same of them (Acts 4:32) that 'the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.'
And as the learned Stillingfleet observes, in his Irenicum,--'The unity and peace that was then among Christians, made religion amiable in the judgment of impartial heathens. Christians were then known by the benignity and sweetness of their dispositions, by the candour and ingenuity of their spirits, by their mutual love, forbearance, and condescension to one another: but either this is not the practice of Christianity,' viz., a duty that Christians are now bound to observe, 'or else it is not calculated for our meridian, where the spirits of men are of too high an elevation for it; for if pride and uncharitableness, if divisions and strifes, if wrath and envy, if animosities and contentions, were but the marks of true Christians, Diogenes need never light his lamp at noon to find out such among us; but if a spirit of meekness, gentleness, and condescension; if a stooping to the weaknesses and infirmities of one another; if pursuit after peace, when it flies from us, be the indispensable duties and characteristical notes of Christians, it may possibly prove a difficult inquest to find out such among the crowds of those that shelter themselves under that glorious name.'
It is the unity and peace of churches that brings others to them, and makes Christianity amiable. What is prophesied of the church of the Jews, may in this case be applied to the Gentile church (Isa 66:12) that when once God extends peace to her like a river, the Gentiles shall come in like a flowing stream; then, and not till then, the glory of the Lord shall arise upon his churches, and his glory shall be seen among them; then shall their hearts fear and be enlarged, because the abundance of the nations shall be converted to them.
(6.) As want of unity and peace keeps those out of the church that would come in, so it hinders the growth of those that are in. Jars and divisions, wranglings and prejudices, eat out the growth, if not the life, of religion. These are those waters of Marah that embitter our spirits, and quench the Spirit of God. Unity and peace is said to be like the dew of Hermon, and as a dew that descended upon Zion, where the Lord commanded his blessing (Psa 133:3).
Divisions run religion into briers and thorns, contentions and parties. Divisions are to churches like wars in countries. Where war is, the ground lieth waste and untilled; none takes care of it. It is love that edifieth, but division pulleth down. Divisions are, as the northeast wind to the fruits, which causeth them to dwindle away to nothing; but when the storms are over, every thing begins to grow. When men are divided, they seldom speak the truth in love; and then, no marvel they grow not up to him in all things, which is the head.
It is a sad presage of an approaching famine, as one well observes, not of bread nor water, but of hearing the Word of God; when the thin ears of corn devour the plump full ones; when the lean kine devour the fat ones; when our controversies about doubtful things, and things of less moment, eat up our zeal for the more indisputable and practical things in religion; which may give us cause to fear that this will be the character by which our age will be known to posterity, that it was the age that talked of religion most and loved it least.
Look upon those churches where peace is, and there you shall find prosperity. When the churches had rest, they were not only multiplied, but, walking in the fear of the Lord, and the comforts of the Holy Ghost, they were edified; it is when the whole body is knit together, as with joints and bands, that they increase with the increase of God.
We are at a stand sometimes why there is so little growth among churches; why men have been so long in learning, and are yet so far from attaining the knowledge of the truth. Some have given one reason, and some another; some say pride is the cause, and others say covetousness is the cause; I wish I could say these were no causes. But I observe that when God entered his controversy with his people of old, he mainly insisted upon some one sin, as idolatry, and shedding innocent blood, &c., as comprehensive of the rest; not but that they were guilty of other sins, but those that were the most capital are particularly insisted on; in like manner, whoever would but take a review of churches that live in contentions and divisions, may easily find that breach of unity and charity is their capital sin, and the occasion of all other sins. No marvel, then, that the Scripture saith the whole law is fulfilled in love; and if so, then, where love is wanting, it must needs follow the whole law is broken. It is where love grows cold that sin abounds; and therefore the want of unity and peace is the cause of that leanness and barrenness that is among us: it is true in spirituals as well as temporals, that peace brings plenty.
(7.) Where unity and peace is wanting, our prayers are hindered. The promise is, that what we shall agree to ask shall be given us of our heavenly Father. No marvel we pray and pray, and yet are not answered; it is because we are not agreed what to have.
It is reported that the people in Lacedemonia, coming to make supplications to their idol-god, some of them asked for rain, and others of them asked for fair weather; the oracle returns them this answer, That they should go first and agree among themselves. Would a heathen god refuse to answer such prayers in which the supplicants were not agreed; and shall we think the true God will answer them?
We see, then, that divisions hinder our prayers, and lay a prohibition on our sacrifice. 'If thou bring thy gift to the altar,' saith Christ, 'and there remeberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift--and go--and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer it' (Matt 5:24). So that want of unity and charity hinders even our particular prayers and devotions.
This hindered the prayers and fastings of the people of old from finding acceptance (Isa 58:3); the people ask the reason wherefore they fasted, and God did not see, nor take notice of them. He gives this reason, because they fasted for strife and debate, and hid their face from their own flesh. Again (Isa 59), the Lord saith, His hand was not shortened, that he could not save; nor his ear heavy, that he could not hear: but their sins had separated between their God and them. And among those many sins they stood chargeable with, this was none of the least, viz., that the way of peace they had not known. You see where peace was wanting, prayers were hindered, both under the Old and New Testament.
The sacrifice of the people in Isaiah 65, that said, Stand farther off, I am holier than thou, was as smoke in the nostrils of the Lord. On the other hand, we read how acceptable those prayers were that were made 'with one accord' (Acts 4:24, compared with verse 31). They prayed with one accord, and they were all of one heart and of one soul. And see the benefit of it; 'they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the Word with boldness': which was the very thing they prayed for, as appears (v 29). And the apostle exhorts the husband to dwell with his wife, that their prayers might not be hindered (1 Peter 3:7). We see, then, want of unity and peace, either in families or churches, is a hindrance of prayers.
(8.) It is a dishonour and disparagement to Christ that his family should be divided. When an army falls into mutiny and division, it reflects disparagement on him that hath the conduct of it. In like manner, the divisions of families are a dishonour to the heads and those that govern them. And if so, then how greatly do we dishonour our Lord and Governor, who gave his body to be broken, to keep his church from breaking, who prayed for their peace and unity, and left peace at his departing from them for a legacy, even a peace which the world could not bestow upon them.
(9.) Where there is peace and unity, there is a sympathy with each other; that which is the want of one will be the want of all,--Who is afflicted, saith the apostle, and I burn not?[1] we should then remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being ourselves also of the body (Heb 13:3). But where the body is broken, or men are not reckoned or esteemed of the body, no marvel we are so little affected with such as are afflicted. Where divisions are, that which is the joy of the one is the grief of another; but where unity, and peace, and charity abounds, there we shall find Christians in mourning with them that mourn, and rejoicing with them that rejoice; then they will not envy the prosperity of others, nor secretly rejoice at the miseries or miscarriages of any.
Fourth, Last of all, I now come to give you twelve directions and motives for the obtaining peace and unity.
If ever we would live in peace and unity, we must pray for it. We are required to seek peace: of whom, then, can we seek it with expectation to find it, but of him who is a God of peace, and hath promised to bless his people with peace? It is God that hath promised to give his people one heart, and one way; yet for all these things he will be sought unto. O then let us seek peace, and pray for peace, because God shall prosper them that love it.
The peace of churches is that which the apostle prays for in all his epistles; in which his desire is, that grace and peace may be multiplied and increased among them.
1. They that would endeavour the peace of the churches, must be careful who they commit the care and oversight of the churches to; as, first, over and besides those qualifications that should be in all Christians, they that rule the church of God should be men of counsel and understanding; where there is an ignorant ministry, there is commonly an ignorant people,--according as it was of old, Like priest, like people.
How sad is it to see the church of God committed to the care of such that pretend to be teachers of others, that understand not what they say, or whereof they affirm. No marvel the peace of churches is broken, when their watchmen want skill to preserve their unity, which of all other things is as the church's walls; when they are divided, no wonder they crumble to atoms, if there is no skilful physician to heal them. It is sad when there is no balm in Gilead, and when there is no physician there. Hence it is, that the wounds of churches become incurable, like the wounds of God's people of old; either not healed at all, or else slightly healed, and to no purpose. May it not be said of many churches at this day, as God said of the church of Israel, that he sought for a man among them that should stand in the gap, and make up the breach, but he found none?
Remember what was said of old (Mal 2:7), The priest's lips should preserve knowledge; and the people 'should seek the law at his mouth.' But when this is wanting, the people will be stumbling and departing from God and one another; therefore God complains (Hosea 4:6) that his people were 'destroyed for want of knowledge'; that is, for want of knowing guides; for if the light that is in them that teach be darkness, how great is that darkness; and if the blind lead the blind, no marvel both fall into the ditch.
How many are there that take upon them to teach others, that had need be taught in the beginning of religion; that instead of multiplying knowledge, multiply words without knowledge; and instead of making known God's counsel, darken counsel by words without knowledge? The apostle speaks of some that did more than darken counsel, for they wrested the counsel of God (2 Peter 3:16). In Paul's epistles, saith he, are 'some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures unto their own destruction.' Some things in the Scripture are hard to be known, and they are made harder by such unlearned teachers as utter their own notions by words without knowledge.
None are more bold and adventurous to take upon them to expound the dark mysteries and sayings of the prophets and revelations, and the 9th of the Romans,--which, I believe, contains some of those many things which, in Paul's epistles, Peter saith were 'hard to be understood.' I say, none are more forward to dig in these mines than those that can hardly give a sound reason for the first principles of religion; and such as are ignorant of many more weighty things that are easily to be seen in the face and superficies of the Scripture; nothing will serve these but swimming in the deeps, when they have not yet learned to wade through the shallows of the Scriptures. Like the Gnostics of old, who thought they knew all things, though they knew nothing as they ought to know. And as those Gnostics did of old, so do such teachers of late break the unity and peace of churches. How needful, then, is it, that if we desire the peace of churches, that we choose out men of knowledge, who may be able to keep them from being shattered and scattered with every wind of doctrine; and who may be able to convince and stop the mouths of gainsayers!
2. You must not only choose men of counsel; but if you would design the unity and peace of the churches, you must choose men of courage to govern them; for as there must be wisdom to bear with some, so there must be courage to correct others; as some must be instructed meekly, so others must be rebuked sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; there must be wisdom to rebuke some with long-suffering, and there must be courage to suppress and stop the mouths of others. The apostle tells Titus of some 'whose mouths must be stopped,' or else they would 'subvert whole houses' (Titus 1:11). Where this courage hath been wanting, not only whole houses, but whole churches have been subverted. And Paul tells the Galatians, that when he saw some endeavour to bring the churches into bondage, that he did not give place to them, 'no, not for an hour,' &c. (Gal 2:5). If this course had been taken by the rulers of churches, their peace had not been so often invaded by unruly and vain talkers.
In choosing men to rule, if you would endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace thereby, be careful you choose men of peaceable dispositions. That which hath much annoyed the peace of churches, hath been the froward and perverse spirits of the rulers thereof. Solomon therefore adviseth, that 'with a furious man we should not go, lest we learn his ways, and get a snare to our souls' (Prov 22:24,25). And with the froward we learn frowardness. How do some men's words eat like a canker; who instead of lifting up their voices like a trumpet, to sound a parley for peace, have rather sounded an alarm to war and contention. If ever we would live in peace, let us reverence the feet of them that bring the glad tidings of it.
O how have some men made it their business to preach contentions, and upon their entertainment of every novel opinion, to preach separation! How hath God's Word been stretched and torn, to furnish these men with arguments to tear churches! Have not our ears heard those texts that saith, 'Come out from among them, and be separate,' &c.; and, 'Withdraw from every brother that walks disorderly?' I say, have we not heard these texts, that were written to prevent disorder, brought to countenance the greatest disorder that ever was in the church of God, even schism and division? whereas one of these exhortations was written to the church of Corinth, to separate themselves from the idol's temple, and the idol's table, in which many of them lived in the participation of, notwithstanding their profession of the true God, as appears 2 Corinthians 6:16, 17, compared with 1 Corinthians 8:7, and 1 Corinthians 10:14, 20, 22 recites: and not for some few or more members, who shall make themselves both judges and parties, to make separation, when and as often was they please, from the whole congregation and church of God where they stood related; for by the same rule, and upon the same ground, may others start some new question among these new separatists, and become their own judges of the communicableness of them, and thereupon make another separation from these, till at last two be not left to walk together. And for that other text mentioned (2 Thess 3:6) where Paul exhorts the church of Thessalonica to withdraw themselves from every brother that walks disorderly, I cannot but wonder that any should bring this to justify their separation, or withdrawing from the communion of a true, though a disorderly, church. For,
(1.) Consider that this was not writ for a few members to withdraw from the church, but for the church to withdraw from disorderly members.
(2.) Consider that if any offended members, upon pretence of error, either in doctrine or practice, should by this text become judges, as well as parties, of the grounds and lawfulness of their separation, then it will follow, that half a score notorious heretics, or scandalous livers, when they have walked so as they foresee the church are ready to deal with them, and withdraw from them, shall anticipate the church, and pretend somewhat against them, of which themselves must be judges, and so withdraw from the church, pretending either heresy or disorder; and so condemn the church, to prevent the disgrace of being condemned by the church. How needful, then, is it that men of peaceable dispositions, and not of froward and factious and dividing spirits, be chosen to rule the church of God, for fear lest the whole church be leavened and soured by them.
4. As there must be care used in choosing men to rule the church of God, so there must be a consideration had that there are many things darkly laid down in Scripture; this will temper our spirits, and make us live in peace and unity the more firmly in things in which we agree; this will help us to bear one another's burden, and so fulfil the law of Christ, inasmuch as all things necessary to salvation and church-communion are plainly laid down in Scripture. And where things are more darkly laid down, we should consider that God intended hereby to stir up our diligence, that thereby we might increase our knowledge, and not our divisions; for it may be said of all discoveries of truth we have made in the Scriptures, as it is said of the globe of the earth, that though men have made great searches, and thereupon great discoveries, yet there is still a terra incognita--an unknown land; so there is in the Scriptures; for after men have travelled over them, one age after another, yet still there is, as it were, a terra incognita, an unknown tract to put us upon farther search and inquiry, and to keep us from censuring and falling out with those who have not yet made the same discoveries; that so we may say with the Psalmist, when we reflect upon our short apprehensions of the mind of God, that we have seen an end of all perfections, but God's commands are exceeding broad; and as one observes, speaking of the Scriptures, that there is a path in them leading to the mind of God, which lieth a great distance from the thoughts and apprehensions of men. And on the other hand, in many other places, God sits, as it were, on the superficies and the face of the letter, where he that runs may discern him speaking plainly, and no parable at all. How should the consideration of this induce us to a peaceable deportment towards those that differ.
5. If we would endeavour peace and unity, we must consider how God hath tempered the body, that so the comely parts should not separate from the uncomely, as having no need of them (1 Cor 12:22-25). There is in Christ's body and house some members and vessels less honourable (2 Tim 2:20); and therefore we should not, as some now-a-days do, pour the more abundant disgrace, instead of putting the more abundant honour, upon them. Did we but consider this, we should be covering the weakness and hiding the miscarriages of one another, because we are all members one of another, and the most useless member in his place is useful.
6. If we would live in peace, let us remember our relations to God--as children to a father, and to each other as brethren. Will not the thoughts that we have one Father quiet us, and the thoughts that we are brethren unite us? It was this that made Abraham propose terms of peace to Lot (Gen 13): 'Let there be no strife,' saith he, 'between us, for we are brethren.' And we read of Moses, in Acts 7:26, using this argument to reconcile those that strove together, and to set them at one again: 'Sirs,' saith he, 'ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?' A deep sense of this relation, that we are brethren, would keep us from dividing.
7. If we would preserve peace, let us mind the gifts, and graces, and virtues that are in each other; let these be more in our eye than their failings and imperfections. When the apostle exhorted the Philippians to peace, as a means hereunto, that so the peace of God might rule in their hearts, he tells them (4:8), that if there were any virtue, or any praise, they should think of these things. While we are always talking and blazoning the faults of one another, and spreading their infirmities, no marvel we are so little in peace and charity; for as charity covereth a multitude of sins, so malice covereth a multitude of virtues, and makes us deal by one another as the heathen persecutors dealt with Christians, viz., put them in bears' skins, that they might the more readily become a prey to those dogs that were designed to devour them.
8. If we would keep unity and peace, let us lay aside provoking and dividing language, and forgive those that use them. Remember that old saying, Evil words corrupt good manners. When men think to carry all afore them, with speaking uncharitably and disgracefully of their brethren or their opinions, may not such be answered as Job answered his unfriendly visitants (Job 6:25), 'How forcible are right words! But what doth your arguing reprove?' How healing are words fitly spoken! A word in season, how good is it! If we would seek peace, let us clothe all our treaties for peace with acceptable words; and where one word may better accommodate than another, let that be used to express persons or things by, and let us not, as some do, call the different practices of our brethren will-worship, and their different opinions doctrines of devils, and the doctrine of Balaam, who taught fornication, &c., unless we can plainly, and in expressness of terms, prove it so; such language as this hath strangely divided our spirits, and hardened our hearts one towards another.
9. If we would live in peace, let us make the best constructions of one another's words and actions. Charity judgeth the best, and it thinks no evil; if words and actions may be construed to a good sense, let us never put a bad construction upon them. How much hath the peace of Christians been broken by an uncharitable interpretation of words and actions? As some lay to the charge of others that which they never said, so, by straining men's words, others lay to their charge that they never thought.
10. Be willing to hear and learn, and obey those that God by his providence hath set over you; this is a great means to preserve the unity and peace of churches. But when men, yea, and sometimes women, shall usurp authority, and think themselves wiser than their teachers, no wonder if these people run into contentions and parties, when any shall say they are not free to hear those whom the church thinks fit to speak to them. This is the first step to schism, and is usually attended, if not timely prevented, with a sinful separation.
11. If you would keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, be mindful that the God whom you serve is a God of peace, and your Saviour is a Prince of peace, and that his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace; and that Christ was sent into the world to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace.
12. Consider the oneness of spirit that is among the enemies of religion; though they differ about other things, yet to persecute religion, and extirpate religion out of the earth, here they will agree: the devils in the air, and the devils in the earth, all the devils in hell, and in the world, make one at this turn. Shall the devil's kingdom be united, and shall Christ's be divided? Shall the devils make one shoulder to drive on the design of damning men, and shall not Christians unite to carry on the great design of saving of them? Shall the Papists agree and unite to carry on their interest, notwithstanding the multitudes of orders, degrees, and differences, that are among them, and shall not those that call themselves reformed churches unite to carry on the common interest of Christ in the world, notwithstanding some petty and disputable differences that are among them? Quarrels about religion, as one observes, were sins not named among the Gentiles. What a shame is it, then, for Christians to abound in them, especially considering the nature of the Christian religion, and what large provisions the author of it hath made to keep the professors of it in peace; insomuch, as one well observes, it is next to a miracle that ever any, especially the professors of it, should fall out about it.
13. Consider and remember that the Judge stands at the door; let this moderate our spirits, that the Lord is at hand. What a sad account will they have to make when he comes, that shall be found to smite their fellow-servants, and to make the way to his kingdom more narrow than ever he made it? Let me close all in the words of that great apostle (2 Cor 13:11): 'Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.'