THIRD KIND OF PEACE.

[Peace of love and unity the blessing of the gospel.]

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

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

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

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

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

[How the gospel knits the hearts of men in peace, and why it alone can do so.]

First. The gospel knits the hearts of men together, as it propounds powerful arguments for peace and unity; and indeed such as are found nowhere else. It hath cords of love to draw and bind souls together that were never weaved in nature’s loom: such as we may run through all the topics of morality, and meet with [in] none of them, being all supernatural and of divine revelation, Eph. 4:3. The apostle exhorts them ‘to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’ And how doth he persuade them ver. 4-7. First, ‘there is one body.’ Such a one however, it is, as natural philosophy treats not of; but a mystical one, the church—which consists of several saints, as the natural body of several members; and, as it were strange to see one member to fall out with another—which all are preserved in life by their union together—so much more in the mystical body. Again there is ‘one spirit.’ That is the same holy Spirit which quickens them all that are true saints, and he is to the whole number of saints as the soul is to the whole man —informing every part. Now, as it were a prodigious violence to the law of nature, if the members, by an intestine war among themselves, should drive the soul out of the body, which gives life to them in union together; so much more would it be for Christians to force the Holy Spirit from them by their contentions and strifes; as indeed a wider door cannot easily be opened for them to go out at. Again, it presseth ‘unity,’ from the ‘one hope of our calling,’ where hope is put *pro re speratâ—*for the thing hoped for, the bliss we all hope for in heaven. There is a day coming, and it cannot be far from us, in which we shall meet lovingly in heaven, and sit at one feast without grudging one to see what lies on another’s trencher. Full fruition of God shall be the feast, and peace and love the sweet music that shall sound to it. What folly is it then for us to fight here, who shall feast there? draw blood of one another here, that shall so quickly lie in each other’s bosom’s? Now the gospel invites to this feast, and calls us to this hope. I might run through the other particulars, which are all as purely evangelical—as these, ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism;’ but enough to have given you a taste.

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

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

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

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

USE AND APPLICATION.

[Difference between the peace among saints and that of the wicked.]

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

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

2. The peace of the wicked is unsanctified peace.

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

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

[The sin of ministers who stir up strife.]

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

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

1. Christians are unevangelical in their judgments; ‘they know but in part, and prophesy but in part,’ I Cor. 13:9. He that pretends to more than this boasts without his measure, and doth thereby discover what he denies—his ignorance, I mean, in the gospel. And this defect and craze that is in the saints’ judgments exposeth them sometimes to drink in principles that are not evangelical. Now, these are they that make the bustle and disturb their peace and unity. All truth is reducible to a unity; like lines they lovingly meet in one center—the God of truth—and are so far from jostling and clashing, that, as stones in an arch, they uphold one another. They then which so sweetly agree in one themselves cannot learn us to divide. No, it is this strange error that creeps in among the saints, and will needs be judge; this breaks the peace, and kindles a fire in the house, that in a while, if let alone, will be seen at the house-top. Wholesome food makes no disturbance to a healthy body; but corrupt food doth presently make the body feverish and untoward, and then, when the man is distempered, no wonder if he begins to be pettish and peevish; we have seen it by woful experience. Those from whom we had nothing but sweetness and love while they fed on the same dish of gospel truth with us, how strangely froward are they grown since they have taken down some unevangelical and erroneous principles! We know not well how to carry ourselves towards them they are so captious and quarrelsome; yea, at the very hearing of the word, if they have not yet forgot the way to the ordinance, what a distasteful behaviour do many of them show, as if every word went against their stomach, and made them sick! O sirs, let us not blame the gospel, it is innocent as to these sad contentions among us. Paul tells us where to find a father for this brat of strife. See at whose door he directs us to lay it: ‘Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine ye have learned,’ Rom. 16:17. I pray observe how he clears the gospel here. This dividing quarrelling spirit is contrary to the gospel; they never learned it in Christ’s school. And then he tacitly implies that they have it somewhere else, from some false teacher and false doctrine or other. ‘Mark them,’ saith he, as if he had said, ‘Observe them well, and you shall find them tainted some way or other.’ They have been warming themselves at Satan’s fire, and from thence have brought a coal with them, that does the mischief.

2. Christians are in part unevangelical in their hearts and lives. The whole root of sin is not stubbed up at once; no wonder some bitter taste remains in the fruit they bear. Saints in heaven shall be all grace, and no sin in them, and then they shall be all love also; but here they are part grace, part corruption, and so their love is not perfect. How can they be fully soldered together in unity never to fall out, as long as they are not so fully reconciled to God, in the point of sanctification, but now and then there are some breeches betwixt them and God himself? And the less progress the gospel hath made in their hearts to mortify lust and strengthen grace, the less peace and love is to be expected among them. The apostle concludes from the contentions among the Christians at Corinth, that they were of little growth in grace, such as were not past the child’s spoon and meat. ‘I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal,’ I Cor. 3:2. Nay, he conceives this to be so clear evidence, that he appeals to their consciences if it be not so. ‘For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?’ ver. 3. But as grace strengthens, and the gospel prevails on the hearts of Christians, so does love and a spirit of unity increase with it. We say ‘older and wiser;’—though children, when young, do scratch and fight, yet when they get up into years, they begin to agree better. *Omne invalidum est naturá quærulum—*those that are young and weak are peevish and quarrelsome. Age and strength bring wisdom to overcome those petty differences that now cannot be borne. In the controversy between the servants of Abraham and Lot, Abraham, who was the elder and stronger Christian, was most forward for peace, so as to crave it at the hands of his nephew, every way his inferior. Paul, who was a Christian higher by the head than others—O how he excelled in love!—he saith of himself, I Tim. 1:14, ‘The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus;’ where, saith Calvin, fides incredulitati opponitur; dilectio in Christo sævitiæ quam exercuerat adversus fideles—faith is opposed to his former obstinate unbelief, when a Pharisee; love in Christ Jesus, to the cruelty he expressed against Christians, when, breathing slaughter, he went on a persecuting errand to Damascus. Now he was as full of faith as then of unbelief, now as fire-hot of love to the saints as then of cruelty against them. But that I quote chiefly the place for, is to see how this pair of graces thrive and grow together; if abundant in faith, then abundant in love.

[Exhortation to saints to maintain and promote peace.]

Use Third. What we have learned of gospel peace as a peace of love and unity, brings a seasonable exhortation to all the saints, that they would nourish peace what they can among themselves. You all profess to have been baptized into the spirit of the gospel, but you do not show it when you bite and snarl at one another. The gospel, that makes wolves and lambs agree, doth not teach the lambs to turn {into} wolves and devour each other. Our Saviour told the two disciples whose choler was soon up, that they would be fetching fire from heaven to go on their revengeful errand, that they little thought from what hearth that wild-fire of their passion came: ‘Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of,’ Luke 9:55. As if he had said, Such fiery wrathful speeches do not suit with the meek Master you serve, nor with the gospel of peace he preacheth to you. And if the gospel will not allow us to pay our enemies in their own coin, and give them wrath for wrath, then much less will it suffer brethren to spit fire at one another’s faces. No, when any such embers of contention begin to smoke among Christians, we may show who left the spark —no other but Satan; he is the greatest kindle-coal of all their contentions. If there be a tempest, not in the air, but in the spirits of Christians, and the wind of their passions be high and loud, it is easy to tell who is the conjurer. O it is the devil, who is practicing his black art upon their lusts, which yet are so much unmortified as gives him too great an advantage of raising many times sad storms of division and strife among them. Paul and Barnabas set out in a calm together, but the devil sends a storm after them —such a storm as parted them in the midst of their voyage: ‘And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other,’ Acts 15:39. There is nothing, next Christ and heaven, that the devil grudged believers more than their peace and mutual love. If he cannot rend them from Christ, stop them from getting heaven, yet he takes some pleasure in seeing them go thither in a storm; like a shattered fleet severed one from another, that they may have no assistance from, nor comfort of, each other’s company all the way; though, where he can divide he hopes to ruin also, well knowing this to be the most probable means to effect it. One ship is easier taken than a squadron. A town, if it can be but set on fire, the enemy may hope to take it with more ease; Let it therefore be your great care to keep the devil’s spark from your powder. Certainly peace among Christians is no small mercy, that the devil’s arrows fly so thick at its breast. Something I would fain speak to endear this mercy to the people of God. I love, I confess, a clear and still air, but, above all, in the church among believers; and I am made the more sensible what a mercy this would be, by the dismal consequence of these divisions and differences that have for some years together troubled our air, and filled us with such horror and confusion, that we have not been much unlike that land called Terra del Fuego—the land of smoke, because of the frequent flashings of lightnings and abundance of smoke found there. What can I compare error to, better than smoke? and contention to, better than to fire? a kind of emblem of hell itself, where flames and darkness meet together to increase the horror of the place. But, to press the exhortation a little closer, give me leave to provoke you by three arguments to peace and unity.

1. Argument. The Christian should seek peace for Christ’s sake. And methinks, when begging for his sake I should have no nay. When you pray to God and do but use his name in the business, you are sure to speed. And why should not an exhortation, that woos you for Christ’s sake, move your hearts to duty, as a prayer put up by you in his name, moves God’s heart to mercy? Indeed, how can you in faith use Christ’s name as an argument to unlock God’s heart to thee, which hath not so much credit with thyself as to open thy own heart into a compliance with a duty, which is so strongly set on his heart to promote among his people? This appears,

(1.) By the solemn charge he gave his disciples in this particular: ‘A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another,’ John 13:34. I pray observe how he prepares their hearts to open readily, and bid his commandment kindly welcome. He sets his own name upon it—‘a new commandment I give unto you.’ As if he had said, ‘Let this command, though as old as any other, Lev. 19:18, yet go under my name in an especial manner. When I am gone and the fire of strife begins at any time among you, remember what particular charge I now give you, and let it quench it presently.’ Again, observe how he delivers this precept, and that is by way of gift and privilege. ‘A new commandment I give unto you.’ Indeed, this was Christ’s farewell sermon, the very streakings of that milk which he had fed them withal. Never dropped a sweeter discourse from his blessed lips. He saved his best wine till the last. He was now making his will, and amongst other things that he bequeaths his disciples, he takes this commandment, as a father would do his seal-ring off his finger, and gives it to them. Again, thirdly, he doth not barely lay the command before them, but, to make it the more effectual, he annexeth in a few words the most powerful argument why they should, as also the most clear and full direction how they might, do this, that is possible to be given—As I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

O Christians, what may not the love of Christ command you? If it were to lay down your lives for him that loved you to death, would you deny them? and shall not this his love persuade you to lay down your strifes and divisions? This speaks enough, how much weight he laid upon this commandment. But then, again, observe how Christ, in the same sermon, over and over again minds them of this; which if he had not been very solicitous of, should not have had so large a room in his thoughts at that time, when he had so little time left in which he was to crowd and sum up all the heavenly counsel and comfort he desired to leave with them before his departure. Nay, so great weight he lays on this, that he seems to lock up his own joy and theirs together in the care that they should take about this one command of loving one another, ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full,’ John 15:11. What these things were appears by the precedent verse, ‘If ye keep my commandment, ye shall abide in my love.’ These were the things that he spake of in order to {keep} his joy in them, and theirs in him, that they would ‘keep his commandments.’ Now, to let them know how high a place their obedience to this particular command of love and unity had in his heart, and how eminently it conduced to the continuing his joy in them, and filling up their own; he chooseth that above any for this instance, in order to what he had said, as you may see, ver. 12, ‘This is my commandment, That ye love one another.’ Observe still, how Christ appropriates this commandment to himself. ‘This is my commandment;’ as if he would signify to them that as he had one disciple, who went by the name of ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ so he would have a darling commandment, in which he takes some singular delight, and that this should be it, ‘their loving one another.’

But we are not yet at the last link of this golden chain of Christ’s discourse. When he hath put some more warmth into their affections to this duty, by exposing his own love to them in the deepest expression of it, even to die for them, ver. 13, then he comes on more boldly, and tells them he will own them for his friends, as they are careful to observe what he had left in charge with them, ver. 14, ‘Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.’ And now taking it for granted that he had prevailed upon them, and that they would walk in unity and love as he had commanded them, he cannot conceal the pleasure he takes therein, yea and in them for it. He opens his heart to them, and locks no secret from them, yea bids them go and open their heart to God and be free to him, as he is to them. And mark from what blessed hour all this familiarity that they are admitted to, bears date. ‘From henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth,’ ver. 15, that is from the time you walk dutiful to me and lovingly to one another. One would think he had now said enough; but he thinks not so. In the very next words he is at it again. ‘These things I command you, that ye love one another,’ ver. 17, as if all he had left else in charge with them had been subservient to this.

(2.) A second thing that speaks Christ’s heart deeply engaged in the promoting of love and unity among Christians, is his fervent prayer for this. Should you hear a preacher with abundance of vehemency press a grace or duty upon the people in his pulpit, and as soon as sermon is done, you should go under his closet window, and hear him as earnestly wrestling with God that he would give his people what he had so zealously pressed upon them; you would easily believe the man was in earnest. Our blessed Saviour hath taught us ministers whither to go when we come out of the pulpit, and what to do. No sooner hath he done his sermon to them, but he is at prayer with God for them. And what he insisted on most in preaching he enlargeth most upon in prayer. Unity and peace was the legacy he desired so much to leave with them, and this is the boon he puts in strongly with God to bestow on them: ‘Father, keep through thine own power those whom thou hast given me,’ John 17:11. And why all this care?—‘that they may be one, as we are.’ As if he had said, ‘Father, did we ever fall out? was there ever discord betwixt us? why then should they, who are thine and mine, disagree?’ So, ver. 21, and again, ver. 23, he is pleading hard for the same mercy. And why so oft? is it so hardly wrung from God, that Christ himself must tug so often for it? No, sure; but as Christ said of the voice that came from heaven, ‘This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes;’ John 12:30, so may I say here. This ingeminated¹² zeal of Christ for his people’s unity and love was for their sakes.

(a) He would by this raise the price of this mercy in their thoughts. That is sure worth their care which he counted. Worth his redoubled prayer—when not a word was spoken for his own life—or else he misplaced his zeal, and improved not his time with God for the best advantage of his people.

(b) He would make divisions appear more scareful and dreadful things to his people, by putting in so many requests to God for preventing them. Certainly if Christ had known one evil worse than another like to come upon his people at his departure, he would have been so true and kind to his children as to deprecate that above all, and keep that off. He told his children what they must look for at the world’s hand—all manner of sufferings and torments that their wit could help their malice to devise —yet he prays not so much for immunity from these, as from unbrotherly contentions among themselves. He makes account, if they can agree together, and be in love, saint with saint, church with church, that they have a mercy that will alleviate the other, and make it tolerable, yea joyous. This heavenly fire of love among themselves will quench the flames of the persecutor’s fire, at least the horror of them.

(c) In a word, Christ would, as strengthen our faith to ask boldly for that which he hath bespoke for us, so also aggravate the sin of contention to such a height, that all who have any love to him, when they shall see they cannot live in strife, but they must sin against those prayers which Christ with strong cries put up for peace and unity, may tremble at the thoughts of it.

(3.) The price that Christ gave for the obtaining of this peace and unity. As Christ went from preaching up peace to pulling down peace from heaven by prayer, so he went from praying to paying for it. Indeed Christ’s prayers are not beggar’s prayers, as ours are; he prays his Father that he may only have what he pays for. He was now on the way to the place of payment, Calvary, where his blood was the coin he laid down for this peace. I confess peace with God was the chief pearl that this wise merchant, Christ, bought up for his people. But he had this in his eye also, viz. love to the brethren; and therefore the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, which is the commemoration feast of Christ’s death, as it seals our peace with God, so it signifies our love one to another, I Cor. 10. And need I now give you any account why our dear Lord pursued his design so close of knitting his people in peace and unity together? Truly the church is intended by Christ to be his house, in which he means to take up his rest. And what rest could he take in a house all on fire about him? It is his kingdom; and how can his laws be obeyed, if all his subjects be in a hubbub one against another? Inter arma silent leges—laws are silent amid arms. In a word, his church are a people that are called out of the world to be a praise to him in the sight of the nations, as Peter saith, ‘God did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name,’ Acts 15:14—that is, a people for his honour. But a wrangling divided people would be little credit to the name of Christ. Yea such, where they are foun d—and where alas are they not to be found?—are to the name of Christ as smoke and dirt to a fair face. They crock and disfigure Christ, so that the world will not acknowledge him to be who he saith he is; they lead them even into temptation to think basely of Christ and his gospel. Christ prays his people may be made perfect in one, and mark his argument—‘That the world may know that thou hast sent me,’ John 17:23. Whose heart bleeds not to hear Christ blasphemed at this day by so many black mouths? and what hath opened them more than the saints’ divisions?

2. Argument. The second argument shall be taken from yourselves; for your own sakes live in peace and unity.

(1.) Consider your obligations to love and unity; your relations call for it. If believers, Paul tells you your kindred, ‘Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus,’ Gal. 3:26; not only children of God, so are all by creation, but by faith in Jesus Christ also. Christ is the foundation of a new brotherhood to believers. O Christians! consider how near you are set one to another. You are conceived in the same womb of the church, begotten by the same seed of the word to this new creation, whereby, as one saith, you become brethren of the whole blood, and therefore there should be more unity and dear affection among you than among any others. Joseph’s heart went out more to Benjamin, than any of the rest of his brethren, because he was his brother both by father and mother. If you fall out, who shall agree? what is it that can rationally break your peace? Those things which use to be bones of contention, and occasion squabbling among other brethren, Christ hath taken care to remove them all, so that of all others, your quarrellings are most childish, yea sinful. Sometimes one child finds himself grieved at the partiality of his parents’ affection, more set on some others than himself, and this makes him envy them, and they despise him. But there is no such foundling in his God’s family—all dear alike to Christ: ‘Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us,’ Eph. 5:2, that is, for one as well as another. Christ in the church is like the soul in the body, he is *totus in toto, et totus in qualibet parte—*every member in Christ hath whole Christ, his whole heart and love, as if there were none besides himself to enjoy it.

Again, among men, though the father shows not so much partiality in his affection, yet oft great inequality in the distribution of his estate. Though all are children, yet not all heirs, and this sows the seed of strife among them; as Jacob found by woeful experience. But Christ hath made his will so, that they are all provided for alike, called therefore the ‘common salvation,’ Jude 3, and ‘the inheritance of the saints in light,’ Col. 1:12, for the community. All may enjoy their happiness without justling with or prejudicing of one another, as millions of people who look upon the same sun, and at the same time, and none stand in another’s light. Methinks that speech of Christ looks a little this way, ‘The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one,’ John 17:22. By ‘glory’ there I would understand heaven’s glory principally. Now saith Christ, ‘I have given it,’ that is, in reversion, I have given it them; not this or that favourite, but ‘them’—I have laid it out as the portion of all sincere believers, and why? ‘that they may be one,’ that all squabbles may be silenced, and none may envy another for what he hath above him, when he sees glory in his. It is true indeed some difference there is in Christians’ outward garb—some poor, some rich —and in common gifts also—some have more of them, some less. But are these tanti? of such weight, to commence a war upon, among those that wait for the same heaven? If the father clothes all his children in the same cloth, it were sad to see them stab one another, because one hath a lace more than the other; nay because one’s lace is red, and the other’s green; for indeed the quarrel among Christians is sometimes, not for having less gifts than another, but because they are not the same in kind, though another, as good and useful, which possibly he wants whom we envy.

(2.) Consider where you are, and among whom. Are you not in your enemies’ quarters? If you fall out, what do you but kindle a fire for them to warm their hands by? ‘Aha! so would we have it,’ say they. The sea of their rage will weaken this bank fast enough; you need not cut it for them. The unseasonableness of the strife betwixt Abraham’s herdsmen and Lot’s is aggravated by the near neighbourhood of the heathens to them: ‘And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land,’ Gen. 13:7. To fall out while these idolaters looked on—this would be town-talk presently, and put themselves and their religion both to shame. And I pray, who have been in our land all the while the people of God have been scuffling? Those that have curiously observed every uncomely behaviour among them, and told all the world of it —such as have wit and malice enough to make use of it for their wicked purposes. They stand on tiptoes to be at work; only we are not yet quite laid up and disabled, by the soreness of those our wounds, which we have given ourselves, from withstanding their fury. They hope it will come to that; and then they will cure us of our wounds, by giving one, if they can, that shall go deep enough to the heart of our life, gospel and all. O Christians! shall Herod and Pilate put you to shame? They clapped up a peace to strengthen their hands against Christ; and will not you unite against your common enemy? It is an ill time for mariners to be fighting, when an enemy is boring a hole at the bottom of their ship.

(3.) Consider the sad consequences of your contentions.

(a) You put a stop to the growth of grace. The body may as well thrive in a fever, as the soul prosper when on a flame with strife and contention. No, first this fire in the bones must be quenched, and brought into its natural temper, and so must this unkindly heat be slaked among Christians before either can grow. I pray observe that place, ‘But speaking the truth in love’—or being sincere in love—‘may grow up into him in all things,’ Eph. 4:15. The apostle is upon a cure, showing how souls that at present are weak and their grace rather wan and withered than growing, may come to thrive and flourish; and the recipe he gives is a composition of these two rare drugs, sincerity and love. Preserve these, and all will do well; as ver. 16, where the whole body is said to ‘edify itself in love.’ There may be preaching, but no edifying, without love. Our times are a sad comment upon this text.

(b) You cut off your trade with heaven at the throne of grace. You will be little in prayer to God, I warrant you, if much in squabbling with your brethren. It is impossible to go from wrangling to praying with a free spirit. And if you should be so bold as to knock at God’s door, you are sure to have cold welcome. ‘Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift,’ Matt. 5:24. God will not have the incense of prayer put to such strange fire; nor will he eat of our leavened bread, taste of any performance soured with malice and bitterness of spirit. First the peace was renewed, and a covenant of love and friendship struck between Laban and Jacob, Gen. 31:44, and then, ‘Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread,’ ver. 54. The very heathens thought no serious business could be well done by quarrelling spirits. Therefore the senators of Rome used to visit the temple dedicated Jovi depositorio, because there they did deponere inimicitias—lay down all their feuds and controversies, before they went into the senate to consult of state affairs. Durst not they go to the senate, till friends? and dare we go up to God’s altar, bow our knees to him in prayer, while our hearts are roiled and swollen with anger, envy, and malice? O God humble us.

(c) As we cut off our trade with heaven, so with one another. When two countries fall out, whose great interest lies in their mutual traffic, they must needs both pinch by the war. Truly, the Christians’ great gains come in by their mutual commerce, and they are the richest Christians commonly who are seated with the greatest advantage for this trade. As no nation have all their commodities of their own growth, but needs some merchandise with others; so there is no Christian that could well live without borrowing from his brethren. There is ‘that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part,’ Eph. 4:16. Paul himself is not so well laid in, but he hopes to get something more than he hath from the meanest of those he preacheth to. He tells the Christians at Rome, Rom. 1, he longs to see them, as to impart some spiritual gift to them, ver. 11, so, saith he, ‘that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me,’ Rom. 1:12; yea, he hopes to be ‘filled with their company,’ Rom. 15:24. As a man is filled with good cheer, so he hopes to make a feast of their company. Now contentions and divisions spoil all intercourse between believers. They are as baneful to Christian communion, as a great pestilence or plague is to the trade of a market town. Communication flows from communion, and communion that is founded upon union. The church grows under persecution. That sheds the seed all over the field, and brings the gospel where else it had not been heard of. But divisions and contentions, like a furious storm, wash the seed out of the land, with its heart, fatness, and all.

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

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

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

FOURTH KIND OF PEACE.

[Peace of indemnity and service the blessing of the gospel.]

The fourth and last sort of peace which I thought to have spoken of, is a peace with all the creatures, even the most fierce and cruel. I called it a peace of indemnity and service. This, Adam, in his primitive state, enjoyed. While he was innocent, all the creatures were innocent and harmless to him. The whole creation was at his service. No mutinous principle was found in any creature that did incline it in the least to rebel against him. When God sent the beasts of the field and fowls of the air to receive names from him, it was that they should do their homage to him and acknowledge him as their lord; and that he, by exercising that act of authority over them—in giving them names —might have an experiment of his perfect, though not absolute and independent, dominion over them. But no sooner did man withdraw his allegiance from God; than all the creatures—as if they had been sensible of the wrong man by his apostasy had done his and their Maker, by whose patent he had held his lordship over them —presently forget their subjection to him, yea, take up arms in their supreme Lord’s quarrel against apostate man. And thus they continue in array against him, till God and man meet together again in a happy covenant of peace; and then the commission, which God in wrath gave them against rebel man, is called in; and, in the same day that God and the believing soul are made friends, the war ends between him and them. ‘In that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven,’ Hosea 2:18. And mark the day from whence this covenant bears date: ‘In that day,’ that is, in the day that ‘I betroth thee unto me.’ So that our peace with the creatures comes in by our peace with God. And this being the blessing of the gospel, so must that also. But as our peace with God is not so perfectly enjoyed in this life, but God hath left himself a liberty to chastise his reconciled ones, and that sharply too; so our peace with the creatures doth not hinder but that they may be, yea often are, the rod which God useth to correct them with. The water may drown one saint, and the fire consume another to ashes, and yet these creatures at peace with these saints; because they are not sent by God in wrath against them, for any real hurt that God means them thereby. This indeed was the commission he gave all the creatures against apostate man as part of his curse for his sin. He sent the creatures against him—as a prince doth his general against a company of traitors in arms against him—with authority to take vengeance on them for their horrid rebellion against their Maker. But now the commission is altered, and runs in a more comfortable strain. Go, fire, and be the chariot in which such a saint may be brought home from earth to me in heaven’s glory. Go, water, waft another; and so of all the rest. Not a creature comes on a worse message to a saint. It is true they are sharp corrections as to the present smart they bring; but they are ever mercies, and do a friendly office in the intention of God and happy issue to the believer. ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose,’ Rom. 8:28. And the apostle speaks it as a common principle well known among the saints. ‘We know that all things work,’ &c., as if he had said, ‘Where is the saint that doth not know this?’ And yet it were happy for us {if} we knew it better. Some of us would then pass our days more comfortably than now we do. But I intend not a discourse of this. Let brevity here make amends for prolixity in the former. We come, however, to the third inquiry or question from these words propounded.

DIRECTION VII.—THIRD GENERAL PART.

[What is meant by the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

FIRST DOCTRINE.

[The saints’ duty to be always prepared for trials.]

It is our duty, as Christians, to be always prepared and ready to meet with any trial, and endure any hardship, which God may lay out for us in our Christian warfare. Saints are sure to want no trials and sufferings. ‘These,’ as Christ saith of the poor, ‘we shall have always with us.’ The bloody sweat which Christ felt signified, saith Augustine, the sufferings which in his whole mystical body he should endure. Christ’s whole body was lift upon the cross, and no member must now look to escape the cross. And, when the cross comes, how must we behave ourselves towards it? It will not speak us Christians, that we are merely passive, and make no notorious resistance against the will of God; but we must be active in our patience, if I may so speak, by showing a holy readiness and alacrity of spirit to be at God’s ordering, though it were to be led down into the very chambers of death itself. That epitaph would not become a Christian’s gravestone, which I have heard was engraved upon one’s tomb, and might too truly on most that die: ‘Here lies one against his will.’ Holy Paul was of a better mind, ‘I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus,’ Acts 21:13. But, may be, this was but a flourish of his colours, when he knew the enemy to be far enough off; he may yet live to change his thoughts, when he comes to look death in the face. No, what he hath said he stands to: ‘I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand,’ FBX<*@µ”4, II Tim. 4:6. He speaks of it as if it were already done. Indeed he had already laid his head on the block, and was dead before the stroke was given, not with fear (as some have been), but with a free resignation of himself to it; and, if a malefactor be *civiliter mortuus—dead in a law sense, as soon as the sentence is out of the judge’s mouth, though he lives some weeks after, then I am sure in a gospel sense we may say those are dead already that are ready to die, that have freely put themselves under the sentence of it in their own willingness. And this alacrity and serenity that was on Paul’s spirit was the more remarkable if we consider how close he stood to his end. Indeed, some from the word FBX<@µ”4—which properly signifieth a libation or drink offering—conceive that Paul knew the very kind of death which he should suffer, namely, beheading; and that he alludes to the pouring out of the blood or wine, used in sacrifice, as that kind of sacrifice which did best illustrate the nature of his death, viz. the pouring out of his blood, which he did as willingly offer up in the service of Christ and his church as they did pour out their wine in a drink-offering to the Lord. We shall now give some rational account of the point why we are to be ready and prompt at suffering-work. The reasons of the point shall fall under two heads. First. [Those] taken from Christ, for or from whom we suffer. Second. Those taken from the excellency of such a temper as this readiness to endure any hardship imports.

[Why we are to be always ready for trials —Reasons in regard of Christ.]

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

Reason First. Christ commands this frame of spirit. Indeed, this frame of spirit is implied in every duty as the modus agendi—that qualification which, like the stamp on coin, makes it current in God’s account. ‘Put them in mind,’ saith the apostle, ‘to be ready to every good work,’ Titus 3:1; be it active or passive, they must be ready for it, or else all they do is to no purpose. The word there is the same with this in the text, and is taken from a vessel that is fashioned and fitted for the use the master puts it to. We do not like, when we are to use, or to mend and scour, a vessel, cup, or pot, to have them out of the way at the time we call for them; but to find them at hand, on the shelf, clean and fit for present use, or our servants shall hear of it. Thus God expects we should keep our hearts clean from the defilements of sin, and our affections whole and entire for himself—that they be not lent out to the creature, nor broken and battered by any inordinacy of delight in them, lest we should be to seek when he calls us to do or suffer, or be found very unprepared, without much ado to set us to right, and make us willing for the work, as the same apostle, ‘If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,’ II Tim. 2:21. Now, as God commands this readiness in all, so especially in suffering-work: ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me,’ Luke 9:23. These words may be called the Christian’s indenture. Every one that will be Christ’s servant must seal to this before he hath leave from Christ to call him Master; wherein you see the chief provision Christ makes is about suffering-work, as that which will most try the man. If the servant can but fadge¹³ with that, no fear but he will like the other part of his work well enough. Now, I pray observe how careful Christ is to engage the heart in this work; he will have his servants not only endure the hardship of his service, but show their readiness in it also. Four remarkable passages are put in for this purpose.

1. The Christian *‘must deny himself’—*that is, deliver up his own will out of his own hands; and, from that day that he enters into Christ’s service, acknowledge himself not to be *sui juris—*at his own disposal. Whatever Christ bears, he cannot{,} to hear his servants, when sent by him on any business, say, ‘I will not.’

2. Christ tells his people the worst at first, and chooseth to speak of the cross they must bear, rather than [of] the crown they shall at last wear; and withal, that he expects they should not only ‘bear’ it—this the wicked do full sore against their wills—but also ‘take it up.’ Indeed he doth not bid them make the cross, run themselves into trouble of their own head, but he will have them take that up which he makes for them—that is, not step out of the way by any sinful shift to escape any trouble, but to accept of the burden God lays for them, and go cheerfully under it, yea thankfully, as if God did us a favour to employ us in any suffering for him. We do not take so much pains as to stoop to take up that which is not worth something. Christ will have his people take up the cross as one does to take up a pearl that lies on the ground before him.

3. This they must do every day—‘take up his cross daily.’ When there is none on his back, he must carry one in his heart, that is, continually be preparing himself to stand ready for the first call, as porters stand at the merchants’ doors in London, waiting for when their masters have any burden for them to carry. Thus Paul professeth he ‘died daily.’ How, but by a readiness of mind to die? He set himself in a posture to bid God’s messenger welcome, whenever it came. This indeed is to ‘take up the cross daily,’ when our present enjoyments do not make us strange to, or fall out with, the thoughts of future trials. The Jews were to eat the passover with their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand, and in all haste, Ex. 12:11. When God is feasting the Christian with present comforts, he must have this gospel shoe on, he must not set to it as if he were feasting at home, but as at a running meal on his way in an inn, willing to be gone as soon as he is refreshed a little for his journey.

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

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

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

2. Christ deserves this readiness to meet any suffering he lays out in his providence for us, if we consider his tender care over his saints, when he calls them into a suffering condition. Kind masters may well expect cheerful servants. The more tender the captain is over his soldiers, the more prodigal they are of their own lives at his command. And it were strange, if Christ’s care, which deserves more, should meet with less ingenuity in a saint. Now Christ’s care appears,

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

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

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

[Why we are to be always ready for trials—reasons from the excellency of such a spirit.]

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

First. This readiness of heart to stoop to the cross evidenceth a gracious heart. And a gracious spirit, I am sure, is an excellent spirit. Flesh and blood never made any willing to suffer either for God or from God. He that can do this, hath that ‘other spirit’ with Caleb, which proves him of a higher descent than this world, Num. 14:24. A carnal heart can neither act nor suffer freely; *voluntas libera, in quantum liberata—the will is no more free than it is made free by grace (Luther). So much flesh as is left in a saint, so much awkness¹⁴ and unwillingness to come to God’s foot; and therefore where there is nothing but flesh, there can be nothing but unwillingness. He that can find his heart following God in his command or providence cheerfully, may know who hath been there (as one said of the famous Grecian limner). This is a line that none but God could draw on thy soul. The midwives said of the Israelitish women, they were not like the Egyptian in bringing forth their children, for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives could come in unto them, Ex. 1:19. Truly thus lively and ready is the gracious heart in anything it is called to do or suffer. It is not delivered with so much difficulty of a duty as a carnal heart, which must have the help and midwifery of some carnal arguments, or else it sticks in the birth. But the gracious heart has done before these come to lend their helping hand. Pure love to God, obedience to the call of his command, and faith on the security of his promise, facilitate the work, so that, be it never so burdensome to the flesh, yet it is not grievous to their spirit. It is ever ready to say, ‘Thy will be done, and not mine.’ The apostle makes this free submission to the disclosure to the disposure of God’s afflicting hand to evidence a son’s spirit, ‘If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons,’ Heb. 12:7. Observe, he doth not say, ‘If you be chastened,’ but, ‘If ye endure chastening.’ Naked suffering doth not prove sonship, but ÛB@µ,<,4< B”4,”< doth—to endure it so as not to sink in our courage, or shrink from under the burden God lays on, but readily to offer our shoulder to it, and patiently carry it, looking with a cheerful eye at the reward when we come—not to throw it off, but to have it taken off by that hand which laid it on, all which the word imports. This shows a childlike spirit. And the evidence thereof must needs be a comfortable companion to the soul, especially at such a time, when that sophister of hell useth the afflictions which lie upon it as an argument to disprove its child’s relation to God. Now—to have this answer to stop the liar’s mouth at hand—Satan, if I be not a child, how could I so readily submit to the Lord’s family discipline? This is no small mercy.

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

A third sort are as much in bondage to their pleasures. They are said to ‘live in pleasure on the earth,’ James 5:5. Their life is bound up in their pleasures. As the rush grows in the mud, and the fish lives in the water, they cannot live without their pleasures. Take them from their feasts and sports, and their hearts, with Nabal’s, die like a stone in their bosoms. Now this frame of spirit we are speaking of breaks all these chains, and brings the Christian out of every house of bondage. It learns him to like what fare God sends. If prosperity comes, he ‘knows how to abound,’ so, that if he be, by a turn of providence, thrown out of the saddle of his present enjoyments, his foot shall not hang in the stirrup, nor his enslaved soul drag him after it with whining desires. No, through grace he is a free man, and can spare the company of any creature, so long as he may but have Christ’s with him. Blessed Paul stands upon his liberty. ‘All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any,’ I Cor. 6:12. I know the place is meant of those indifferent things, concerning which there was a present dispute. There is but another sense, in which all things here below were indifferent things to that holy man; honour or dishonour, abundance or want, life or death. These were indifferent to Paul, he would not come under the power of any one of them all. It did not become a servant of Christ, he thought, to be so tender of his reputation as to write himself undone when he had not this or that—not to be so in love with abundance as not to be ready to welcome want—not to be endeared so to life as to run from the thoughts of death —nor to be so weary of a suffering life as to hasten death to come for his ease. That mind is to be called superior which chooses rather to meet and show the experiences of life, than to escape them.

Third. This readiness to suffer, as it ennobles with freedom, so it enables the Christian for service. It is a sure truth [that] so far and no more is the Christian fit to live serviceably, than he is prepared to suffer readily. Because there is no duty but hath the cross attending on it; and he that is offended at the cross, will not be long pleased with the service that brings it. Prayer is the daily exercise of a saint. This he cannot do as he should, except he can heartily say, ‘Thy will be done.’ And who can do that in truth, unless ready to suffer? Praising God is a standing duty; yea, ‘in everything we must give thanks,’ I Thes. 5:18. But, what if affliction befalls us? How shall we tune our hearts to that note, if not ready to suffer? Can we bless God, and murmur?—praise God, and repine? The minister’s work is to preach, ‘Woe to him if he do not;’ and if he do preach, he is sure to suffer. Paul had his orders for the one, and his mittimus for the other, together. He was sent at the same time to preach the grace of God to the world and to endure the wrath of the world for God. So God told Ananias, ‘that he should bear his name before the Gentiles,’ and ‘suffer great things for his name’s sake,’ Acts 9:15, 16. And if the gospel did not please the ungrateful world out of Paul’s mouth, who had such a rare art of sweetening it, it were strange that any who fall so far short of his gifts to move in the pulpit, and of his grace to win upon the hearts of men when out, should, if they mean to be faithful, think to go without the wages which the world paid him for his pains—reproach and contempt, if not downright blows of bloody persecution, as he met with. And is not this shoe needful for the preacher’s foot, that is to walk among so many hissing serpents? Who but a Paul, that had got over the fond love of life, and fear of a bloody death, would have been so willing to go into the very lion’s den, and preach the gospel there, where in a manner, he invited death to come unto him?—I mean at Rome itself, the seat of cruel Nero. ‘So much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also; for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,’ Rom. 1:15, 16.

In a word, it is the duty of every Christian to make a free profession of Christ. Now this cannot be done without hazard many times. And if the heart be not resolved in this point—what to do; the first storm that riseth will make the poor man put in to any creek or hole, rather than venture abroad in foul weather. ‘Among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue,’ John 12:42. Poor souls, they could have been content if the coast had been clear to have put forth, but had not courage enough to bear a little scorn that threatened them. O what folly is it to engage for God, except we be willing to lay all at stake for him! It is not worth the while to set out in Christ’s company by profession, except we mean to go through with him, and not leave him unkindly when we are half way, because of a slough or two.

Fourth. This readiness of spirit to suffer, gives the Christian the true enjoyment of his life. A man never comes to enjoy himself truly, in any comfort of his life, till prepared to deny himself readily in it. It is a riddle; but two considerations will unfold it.

1. Consideration. When we are prepared to deny ourselves in any comfort we may enjoy, then, and not till then, is that which hinders the enjoyment of our lives taken away; and that is fear. Where there is, ‘there is torment.’ The outsetting deer is observed to be lean—though where good food is—because always in fear. And so must they needs be, in the midst of all their enjoyments, on whose heart this virtue is continually feeding. There needs nothing else to bring a man’s joy into a consumption, than an inordinate fear of losing what he hath at present. Let but this get hold of a man’s spirit, and [he] once become hectical¹⁵, and the comfort of his life is gone past recovery. How many, by this, are more cruel to themselves, than it is possible their worst enemies in the world could be to them? They alas, when they have done their utmost, can kill them but once. But, by antedating their own miseries, they kill themselves a thousand times over, even as oft as the fear of dying comes over their miserable hearts.

When once, however, the Christian hath got this piece of armour on—‘the gospel of peace’—his soul is prepared for death and danger. He sits at the feast which God in his present providence allows him, and fears no messenger with ill news to knock at his door. Yea, he can talk of his dying hour, and not spoil the mirth of his present condition, as carnal men think it does. To them a discourse of dying in the midst of their junkets, is like the coming in of the officer to attack a company of thieves that are making merry together with their stolen goods about them; or, like the wet cloth that Hazael clapped on the king his master’s face, it makes all the joy, which flushed out before, squat in on a sudden, [so] that the poor creatures sit dispirited and all a mort, as we say, till they get out of this affrighting subject by some divertisement or other. [And even when they do so, the effect is] only to relieve them for the present. It puts them out of that particular fit which this brought upon them; but leaves them deeper in slavery to such amazement of heart, whenever the same ghost shall appear for the future. Whereas, the Christian, that hath this preparation of heart, never tastes more sweetness in the enjoyments of this life, than when he dips these morsels in the meditation of death and eternity. It is no more grief to his heart to think of the remove of these—which makes way for those far sweeter enjoyments—than it would be to one at a feast, to have the first course taken off, when he hath fed well on it, that the second course of all rare sweetmeats and banqueting stuff may come on, which it cannot till the other be gone. Holy David, Ps. 23:4, 5, brings in (as it were), a death’s head with his feast. In the same breath almost he speaks of his dying, ver. 4, and of the rich feast he at present sat at, through the bounty of God, ver. 5. To that however he was not so tied by the teeth, but if God, that gave him this cheer, should call him from it to look death in the face, he could do so and ‘fear no evil, when in the valley of the shadow thereof,’ Ps. 23:4.

And what think you of the blessed apostle Peter? Had not he, think you, the true enjoyment of his life? when he could sleep so sweetly in a prison—no desirable place—fast bound ‘between two soldiers’ —no comfortable posture—and this the very ‘night’ before Herod ‘would have brought him forth’ in all probability to his execution! This was no likely time (one would think) to get any rest; yet we find him even there, thus, and then, so sound asleep, that the angel who was sent to give him his gaol delivery smote him on the side to awake him, Acts 12:6, 7. I question whether Herod himself slept so well that night as this his prisoner did. And what was the potion that brought this holy man so quietly to rest? No doubt ‘this preparation of the gospel of peace.’ He was ready to die, and that made him able to sleep. Why should that break his rest in this world, which, if it had been effected, would have brought him to his eternal rest in the other?

2. Consideration. The more ready and prepared the Christian is to suffer from God, or for God, the more God is engaged to take care for him, and of him. A good general is most tender of that soldier’s life who is least tender of it himself. The less the Christian values himself and his interests for God’s sake, the more careful God is of him, either to keep him from suffering, or in it. Both of these blessings are meant, ‘Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it,’ Matt. 16:25. Abraham was ready to offer up his son, and then God would not suffer him to do it. But if the Lord at any time takes the Christian’s offer, and lets the blow be given, though to the severing of soul and body, he yet shows his tender care of him, by the high esteem he sets upon their blood, which is not more prodigally spilt by man’s cruelty, than carefully gathered up by God. ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’

Thus we see, that by resigning ourselves up readily to the disposure of God, we engage God to take care of us whatever befalls us. And that man or woman, sure, if any other in the world, must needs live comfortably, that hath the care of himself wholly taken off his own shoulders, and rolled upon God, at whose finding he now lives. The poor widow was never better off than when the prophet kept house for her. She freely parted with her little meal for the prophet’s use, and, [as] a reward of her faith—in crediting the message he brought from the Lord, so far as to give the bread out of her own mouth, and child’s, to the prophet—she is provided for by a miracle, I Kings 17:12, 13. O when a soul is once thus brought to the foot of God, that it can sincerely say, ‘Lord, here I am; willing to deliver up all I have, and am, to be at thy dispose; my will shall be done, when thou hast thy will of me;’ God accounts himself deeply obliged to look after that soul!

USE OR APPLICATION.

[True Christians few, shown from the gospel holy readiness to suffer.]

Use First. Must the Christian stand thus shod in readiness to march at the call of God in any way or weather? This will exceedingly thin and lessen the number of true Christians, to what they appear to be at the first view, by the estimate of an easy cheap profession. He that should come into our assemblies, and see them thracked and wedged in so close with multitudes flocking after the word, might wonder at first to hear the ministers sink the number of Christians so low, and speak of them as so little a company. Surely their eyes fail them, that they cannot see wood for trees, Christians for multitudes of Christians that stand before them. This very thing made one of the disciples ask Christ with no little stranging [wondering] at it, ‘Lord, are there few that be saved?’ Luke 13:23. Observe the occasion of this question. Christ, ‘went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem,’ ver. 22. He saw Christ so free of his pains to preach at every town he came to, and people throng after him, with great expressions of joy that fell from many, ver. 17. Then said he, ‘Lord, are there few that be save d?’ As if he had said, This seems very strange and almost incredible. To see the way to heaven strewed so thick with people, and the means of salvation in such request, and yet be few saved at last! how can this be? Now mark our Saviour’s unriddling this mystery. ‘And he said unto them (it seems the man spoke more than his own scruple), Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able,’ ver. 24. As if Christ had said, You judge by a wrong rule. If profession would serve the turn, and flocking after sermons, with some seeming joy at the word, were enough to save, heaven would soon be full. But, as you love your souls, do not boult¹⁶ or try yourselves by this coarse sieve; but ‘strive to enter,’ •(T<Æ.,F2,—fight and wrestle, venture life and limb, rather than fall short of heaven. ‘For many shall seek,…but shall not be able;’ that is, seek by an easy profession, and cheap religion, such as is hearing the word, performance of duties, and the like. Of this kind there are many that will come and walk about heaven-door—willing enough to enter, if they may do it without ruffling their pride in a crowd, or hazarding their present carnal interest by any contest and scuffle; ‘but they shall not be able!’ that is, they ‘shall not be able to enter’—because their carnal cowardly hearts shall not be able to strive. So that take Christians under the notion of ‘seekers,’ and by Christ’s own words they are ‘many.’ But consider them under the notion of ‘strivers,’ such as stand ready shod with a holy resolution to strive even to blood—if such trials meet them in the way to heaven—rather than not enter, and then the number of Christian soldiers will shrink, like Gideon’s goodly host, to a ‘little troop.’ O how easy were it to instance in several sorts of Christians—so called in a large sense—that have not this gospel shoe to their foot, and therefore are sure to founder and falter when once brought to go upon sharp stones!

1. *Sort. The ignorant Christian—*what work is he like to make of suffering for Christ and his gospel? and such are not the least number in many congregations. Now, they who have not so much light of knowledge in their understanding, as to know who Christ is and what he hath done for them, will they have so much heat of love as to march cheerfully after him, when every step they take must fetch blood from them? Nabal thought he gave a rational answer to David’s servants, that asked some relief of him in their present strait, when he said, ‘Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?’ I Sam. 25:11. He thought it too much to part with upon so little acquaintance. And will the ignorant person, think you, be ready to part, not only with his bread and flesh out of the pot —a little of his estate I mean—but the flesh of his own body, if called to suffer, and all this at the command of Christ, who is one he knows not whence he is? Paul gives this as the reason why he suffered and was not ashamed, ‘for (saith he) I know whom I have believed,’ II Tim. 1:12. Story tells us of the Samaritans —a mongrel kind of people both in their descent and religion—that, when it went well with the people of God, the Israelites, then they would claim kindred with them, and be Jews, but, when the church of God was under any outward affliction, then they would disclaim it again. And we may the less wonder at this base cowardly spirit in them, if we read the character Christ gives of them, to be a people that ‘worship they know not what,’ John 4:22. Religion hath but loose hold of them, that have no better hold of it than a blind man’s hand.

2. Sort. Carnal gospellers, who keep possession of their lusts while they make profession of Christ. A generation these are that have nothing to prove themselves Christians by, but their baptism, and a Christian name which they have obtained thereby; such as, were they to live among Turks and heathens, their language and conversations—did they but conceal whence they came—would never bewray them to be Christians. Can it now be rationally thought then that these are the men and women who stand ready to suffer for Christ and his gospel? No sure; they who will not wear Christ’s yoke will much less bear his burden. If the yoke of command that binds them to duty be thought grievous, they will much more think the burden of the cross insupportable. He that will not do [work] for Christ, will not die for Christ. That servant is very unlike to fight to blood in his master’s quarrel, that will not work for him so as to sweat in his service.

3. *Sort. The politic professor—*a fundamental article in whose creed is, to save himself, not from sin, but from danger. And therefore he studies the times more than the Scriptures; and is often looking what corner the wind lies in, that accordingly he may shape his course, and order his profession, which, like the hedgehog’s house, ever opens toward the warm side!

4. Sort. The covetous professor, whose heart and head are so full of worldly projects, that suffering for Christ must needs be very unwelcome to him, and find him far enough from such a disposition. You know what the Egyptians said of the Israelites, ‘They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in,’ Ex. 14:3. More true is it of this sort of professors. They are entangled in the world, this wilderness hath shut them in. A man whose foot in a snare is as fit to walk and run as they to follow Christ, when to do it may prejudice their worldly interest. Our Saviour, speaking of the miseries that were to come on Jerusalem, saith, ‘Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days,’ Matt. 24:19—because it would be more difficult for them to escape the danger by flight. But many more woes to them, who in days of trial and persecution for the gospel, shall be found big with the world, or that give suck to any covetous inordinate affection to the creature. Such will find it hard to escape the temptation that these will beset them with. It is impossible in such a time to keep estate and Christ together; and as impossible for a heart that is set upon the world, to be willing to leave it for Christ’s company.

5. Sort. The conceited professor, who hath a high opinion of himself, and is so far from a humble holy jealously and fear of himself, that he is self-confident. Here is a man shod and prepared he thinks, but not with the right gospel shoe. ‘By strength shall no man prevail,’ I Sam. 2:9. He that, in Queen Mary’s days, was so free of his flesh for Christ [that], as he said, he would see his fat—of which he had a good store—melt in the fire rather than fall back to Popery, lived, poor man, to see this his resolution melt, and himself cowardly part with his faith to save his fat. Those that glory of their valour, when they put on the harness, ever put it off with shame. ‘The heart’ of man ‘is deceitful above all things,’—a very Jacob, that will supplant its own self. He that cannot take the length of his own foot, how can he of himself fit a shoe to it?

[Exhortation to get on this shoe of preparation.]

Use Second. Be exhorted all you that take the name of Christ upon you, to get this shoe of preparation on, and keep it on, that you may be ready at all times to follow the call of God’s providence, though it should lead you into a suffering condition. Take but two motives.

1. Motive. Consider, Christian, suffering work may overtake thee suddenly, before thou art aware of it; therefore be ready shod. Sometimes orders come to soldiers for a sudden march; they have not so much as an hour’s warning, but must be gone as soon as the drum beats. And so mayest thou be called out, Christian, before thou art aware, into the field, either to suffer for God or from God. Abraham had little time given him to deal with his heart, and persuade it into a compliance with God, for offering his son Isaac. A great trial, and short warning, ‘Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,’ Gen. 22:2, not a year, a month, a week hence, but now. This was in the night, and Abraham is gone ‘early in the morning,’ ver. 3. How would he have entertained this strange news, if he had been then to gain the consent of his heart? But that was not now to do. God had Abraham’s heart already, and therefore he doth not now dispute his order, but obeys. God can make a sudden alteration in thy private affairs, Christian; how couldst thou in thy perfect strength and health, endure to hear the message of death? If God should, before any lingering sickness hath brought thee into some acquaintance with death, say no more, but ‘Up and die,’ as once to Moses, art thou shod for such a journey? Couldst thou say, ‘Good is the word of the Lord?’ What if one day thou wert to step out of honour into disgrace, to be stripped of thy silks and velvets, and, in vile raiment, called to act a beggar’s part? Couldst thou rejoice that thou art made low, and find thy heart ready to bless the Most High? This would speak thee a soul evangelically shod indeed.

Again, God can as soon change the scene, in the public affairs of the times thou livest in, as to the gospel and profession of it. May be, now, authority smiles on the church of God; but, within a while it may frown, and the storm of persecution arise. ‘Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea,’ Acts 9:31. This was a blessed time. But how long did it last? Alas! not long, see Acts 12. There is sad news of a bloody persecution in the first verse of it. ‘Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church.’ In this persecution James the brother of John lost his life by his cruel sword; and Peter we find in prison, like to go to the same shambles. The entire church, indeed, is driven into a corner to pray in the night together, ver. 12. O what a sad change is here! Now in blood, who even now had ‘rest’ on every side. It is observed that in islands the weather is far more variable and uncertain than in the continent. Here you may know, ordinarily, what weather will be for a long time together; but in islands, in the morning we know not what weather will be before night. We have ofttimes summer and winter in the same day. And all this is imputed to the near neighbourhood of the sea that surrounds them. The saints in heaven, they live, as I may so say, on the continent. A blessed constancy of peace and rest is there enjoyed. They may know by what peace and bliss they have at present, what they shall have to eternity. But here below, the church of Christ is as a floating island, compassed with the world —I mean men of the world—as with a sea; and these [i.e. men of the world] sometimes blow hot, and sometimes cold; sometimes they are still and peaceable, and sometimes enraged and cruel, even as God binds up or lets loose their wrath. Now, Christian, doth it not behove thee to be always in a readiness, when thou knowest not but in the next moment the wind may turn into the cold corner, and the times which now favour the gospel, so as to fill the sails of thy profession with all encouragement, on a sudden blow full on thy face, and oppose it as much as it did before countenance it?

2. Motive. Consider, if thy feet be not shod with a preparation to suffer for Christ here on earth, thy head cannot be crowned in heaven. ‘If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,’ Rom. 8:17. Now mark the following words, ‘If so be that we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.’ It is true, all the saints do not die martyrs at a stake; but every saint must have a spirit of martyrdom, as I may so call it—a heart prepared for suffering. God never intended Isaac should be sacrificed, yet he will have Abraham lay the knife to his throat. Thus God will have us lay our neck on the block, and be, as Paul said of himself, ‘bound in the spirit,’ under a sincere purpose of heart to give up ourselves to his will and pleasure, which is called ‘a presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God,’ Rom. 12:1. The end in view is, that as the Jew brought the beast alive, and presented it freely before him, to be done withal as God had commanded, so we are to present our bodies before God, to be disposed of as he commands, both in active and passive obedience. He that refuseth to suffer for Christ, refuseth also to reign with Christ. The putting off of the shoe among the Jews was a sign of a man’s putting off the right of an inheritance, Deut. 25:9, 10. Thus did Elimelech’s kinsman, when he renounced and disclaimed any right that he might have in his estate—he drew off his shoe, Ruth 4:7, 8. O Christian, Talk heed of putting off thy gospel shoe! By this thou dost disclaim thy right in heaven’s inheritance. No portion is there laid up for any that will not suffer for Christ. The persecutions which the saints endure for the gospel, are made by Paul an evident token to them of salvation, and that of God, Php. 1:28. Surely then the denying Christ, to escape suffering, is a sad token of perdition. O sirs, is not heaven’s inheritance worth enduring a little trouble for it? Naboth’s vineyard was no great matter, yet rather than he would—not lose it, but—sell it to its worth, or change it for a better in another place, chose to lay his life at stake by provoking a mighty king. Thou canst, Christian, venture no more for thy heavenly inheritance, than he paid for refusing his petty patrimony of an acre or two of land—thy temporal life I mean. And besides the odds between his vineyard on earth and thy paradise in heaven —which is infinite, and suffers no proportion, thou hast this advantage also of him in thy sufferings for Christ. When Naboth lost his life, he lost his inheritance also that he so strove to keep; but thy persecuting enemies shall do thee this friendly office against their wills, that when they dispossess thee of thy life, they shall help thee into possession of thy inheritance.

[Directions for helping on this spiritual shoe.]

The great question I expect now to fall from thy mouth, Christian, is not how mayest thou escape these troubles and trials which, as the evil genius of the gospel, do always attend it? but rather, how thou mayest get this shoe on, thy heart ready for a march to go and meet them when they come, and cheerfully wade through them, whatever they be, or how long soever they stay with thee? This is a question well becoming a Christian soldier, to ask for armour wherewith he may fight; whereas the coward throws away his armour, and asks whether he may flee. I shall therefore give the best counsel I can, in these few particulars.

First Direction. Look carefully to the ground of thy active obedience, that it be sound and sincere. The same right principles whereby the sincere soul acts for Christ, will carry him to suffer for Christ, when a call from God comes with such an errand, ‘The children of Ephraim, being armed, and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle,’ Ps. 78:9. Why? what is the matter? so well armed, and yet so cowardly? This seems strange. Read the precedent verse, and you will cease wondering. They are called there ‘a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.’ Let the armour be what it will, yea, if soldiers were in a castle whose foundation were a rock, and its walls brass, yet, if their hearts be not right to their prince an easy storm will drive them from the walls, and a little scare open their gate, which hath not this bolt of sincerity on it to hold it fast. In our late wars we have seen that honest hearts within thin and weak works have held the town, when no walls would defend treachery from betraying trust. O labour for sincerity in the engaging at first for God and his gospel! Be oft asking thy own soul for whom thou prayest, hearest, reformest this practice and that. If thou canst get a satisfactory answer from thy soul here, thou mayest hope well. If faith’s working hand be sincere, then its fighting hand will be valiant. That place is observable, Heb. 11:33 ‘Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire,’ and with other great things, that faith enabled them to endure, as you may read in vv. 34-36. There note, I pray, how the power of faith enabling the Christian to ‘work righteousness’—that is, live holily and righteously—is reckoned among the wonders of sufferings which it strengthened them to endure. Indeed had it not done this, it would never have endured these.

Second Direction. Pray for a suffering spirit. This is not a common gift, which every carnal gospeller and slighty professor hath. No; it is a peculiar gift, and bestowed on a few sincere souls. ‘Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake,’ Php. 1:29. All the parts and common gifts that a man hath will never enable him to drink deep of this cup for Christ. Such is the pride of man’s heart. He had rather suffer any way than this; rather from himself, and for himself, than from Christ or for Christ. You would wonder to see sometimes, how much a child will endure at his play, and never cry for it—this fall, and that knock, and no great matter is made of it, because got in a way that is pleasing to him. But, let his father whip him, though it puts him not to half the smart, yet he roars and takes on, that there is no quieting of him. Thus, men can bring trouble on themselves, and bite in their complaints. They can, one play away his estate at cards and dice, and another whore away his health, or cut off many years from his life by beastly drunkenness; and all is endured patiently. Yea, if they had their money and strength again, they should go the same way. They do not repent of what their lusts have cost them, but mourn they have no more to bestow upon them. Their lusts shall have all they have, to a morsel of bread in their cupboard and drop of blood in their veins; yea, they are not afraid of burning in hell, as their sins’ martyrs. But come, and ask these that are so free of their purse, flesh, soul, and all, in lust’s service, to lay their estate or life for a few moments at stake in Christ’s cause and his truth’s, and you shall see that God is not so much beholden them. And therefore pray and pray again for a suffering spirit in Christ’s cause. Yea, saints themselves need earnestly to plead with God for this. Alas! they do not find suffering work follow their hand so easily. The flesh loves to be cockered, not crucified. Many a groan it costs the Christian before he can learn to love this work. Now prayer, if any means, will be helpful to thee in this particular. He that can wrestle with God, need not fear the face of death and danger. Prayer engageth God’s strength and wisdom for our help. And what is there too hard for the creature, that hath God at his back for his help, to do or suffer? We are bid to ‘count it all joy, when we fall into divers temptations,’ James 1:2—not temptations to sin, but for righteousness. He means troubles for Christ and his gospel. Ah! but might the poor Christian say, it were cause of more joy to be able to stand under these temptations, than to fall into them. Little joy would it be to have the temptation, and not the grace to endure temptation. True indeed; but, for thy comfort, Christian, he that leads thee into this temptation stands ready to help thee through it. Therefore, ver. 5, there is a gracious si quis —if any one—set up; ‘If any of you’—i.e. you suffers chiefly—‘lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.’ This, methinks, should not much strain our faith to believe. There are not many masters so disingenuous to be found, that would twit and upbraid their servant for asking humbly their counsel in a work of peril and difficulty, which they cheerfully undertake out of love to their persons and obedience to their command. How much less then needest thou fear such dealing from thy God? If thou hast so much faith and love as to venture at his command upon the sea of suffering, he will, without doubt, find so much mercy as to keep thee from drowning, if, feeling thyself begin to sink, thou criest earnestly as Peter did to him, ‘Lord, save me.’ Wert thou even under water, prayer would buoy thee up again. The proverb indeed is, ‘He that would learn to pray, let him go to sea.’ But I think it were better thus, ‘He that would go to sea—this I mean of suffering—let him learn to pray before he comes there.’ But, if thou beest not a man of prayer before suffering work come, thou wilt be able to do little at that weapon then.

Third Direction. Be much in the meditation of a suffering state. He will say his lesson best, when his master calls him forth, that is oftenest conning¹⁷ it over beforehand to himself. Do by the troubles thou mayest meet with, as porters used to do with their burdens—they will lift them again and again, before they take them on their back. Thus do thou. Be often lifting up in thy meditations those evils that may befall thee for Christ and his truth; and try how thou couldst fadge [agree] with them, if called to endure them. Set poverty, prison, banishment, fire, and fagot, before thee, on the one hand; and the precious truths of Christ on the other, with the sweet promises made to those that shall hold fast the word of patience held forth in such an hour of temptation. Suppose it were now thy very case, and thou wert put to thy choice which hand thou wouldst take, study the question seriously, till thou determinest it clearly in thy conscience. And do this often, so that the arguments which flesh and blood will then be sure to use for thy pitying thyself, may not be new and unanswered, nor the encouragements and strong consolations which the word affords be strange and under any suspicion in thy thoughts, when thou art to venture thy life upon their credit and truth. That of Augustine we shall find most true, *non facile inveniuntur præsidia in adversitate, quæ non fuerint in pace quæsita—*the garrisons are not easily found in adversity which were not sought for and known during peace. The promises are our garrison and fastness at such a time; and we shall not find it easy to run to them in a strait, except we were acquainted with them in a time of peace. A stranger that flies to a house for refuge in the dark night, he fumbles about the door, and knows not how to find the latch—his enemy, if nigh, may kill him before he can open the door. But one that lives in the house, or is well acquainted with it, is not long a getting in. ‘Come, my people,’ saith God, ‘enter thou into thy chambers,’ Isa. 26:20. He is showing them their lodgings in his attributes and promises, before it is night and their sufferings be come, that they may readily find the way to them in the dark.

Fourth Direction. Make a daily resignation of thyself up to the will of God. Indeed this should be, as it were, the lock of the night and the key of the morning. We should open and shut our eyes with this recommending of ourselves into the hands of God. This, if daily performed—not formally, as all duties frequently repeated, without the more care, are like to be; but solemnly—would sweetly dispose the soul for a welcoming of any trial that can befall him. The awkness of our hearts to suffer comes much from distrust. An unbelieving soul treads upon the promise as a man upon ice—at the first going upon it, it is full of fears and tumultuous thoughts lest it should crack. Now this daily resignation of thy heart, as it will give thee an occasion of conversing more with the thoughts of God’s power, faithfulness, and other of his attributes—for want of familiarity with which, jealousies arise in our hearts when put to any great plunge—so also it will furnish thee with many experiences of the reality both of his attributes and promises; which, though they need not any testimony from sense to gain them any credit with us, yet, so much are we made of sense, so childish and weak is our faith, that we find our hearts much helped by those experiences we have had, to rely on him for the future. Look therefore carefully to this; every morning leave thyself and ways in God’s hand, as the phrase is, Ps 10:14. And at night, look again, how well God hath looked to his trust, and sleep not till thou hast affected thy heart with his faithfulness, and laid a stronger charge on thy heart to trust itself again in God’s keeping in the night. And when any breach is made, and seeming loss befall thee in any enjoyment, which thou hast by faith insured of thy God, observe how God fills up that breach, and makes up that loss to thee; and rest not till thou hast fully vindicated the good name of God to thy own heart. Be sure thou lettest no discontent or dissatisfaction lie upon thy spirit at God’s dealings; but chide thy heart for it, as David did his, Ps. 42. And thus doing, with God’s blessing, thou shalt keep thy faith in breath for a longer race, when called to run it.

Fifth Direction. Make self-denial appear as rational and reasonable as thou canst to thy soul. The stronger the understanding is able to reason for the equity and rationality of any work or duty, the more readily and cheerfully it is done, if the heart is honest and sincere. Suppose, Christian, thy God should call for thy estate, liberty, yea, life and all; can it seem unreasonable to thee? especially,

1. If thou considerest that he bids thee deliver his own, not thy own. He lent thee these, but he never gave away the propriety of them from himself. Dost thou wrong thy neighbour to call for that money thou lentest him a year or two past? No sure, thou thinkest he hath reason to thank thee for lending it to him, but none to complain for calling it from him.

2. Consider that he doth not, indeed cannot, bid thee deny so much for him as he hath done for thee. Is reproach for Christ so intolerable, that thy proud spirit cannot brook it? Why, who art thou? what great house comest thou from? See One that had more honour to lay at stake than I hope thou darest pretend to—Jesus Christ—who ‘thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation,’ Php. 2:6, 7. Is it pain and torment thou art afraid of? O look up to the cross where the Lord of life hung for thy sins! and thou wilt take up thy own cross more willingly, and thank God too, that he hath made thine so light and easy, when he provided one so heavy and tormenting for his beloved Son.

3. Consider, whatever God calls thee to deny for his truth, it is not more than he can recompense. Moses saw this, and that made him leap out of his honours and riches into the reproach of Christ, ‘for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward,’ Heb. 11:26. It is much that a man will deny himself in for something his heart strongly desires in this life. If a man be greedy of gain, he will deny himself half of a night’s sleep to plot in his bed, or rise early from it to be at his work; he will eat homely fare, go in vile raiment, dwell in a smoky hole, as we see in London, for the conveniency of a shop. How men of quality will crowd themselves up into a little corner, though to the prejudice of their healths, and hazard sometimes of their lives! yet, hope of gain recompenseth all. And now, put their gains into the scale with thine Christian, that are sure to come in by denying thyself for Christ, which theirs are not, and ask thy soul whether it blush not to see them so freely deny themselves of the comfort of their lives for an imaginary, uncertain, at best a short advantage, while thou hucklest¹⁸ so with Christ for a few outward enjoyments, which shall be paid thee over a hundred-fold here, and beyond what thou canst now conceive when thou comest to heaven’s glory!

Sixth Direction. Labour to carry on the work of mortification every day to further degrees than other. It is the sap in the wood that makes it hard to burn, and corruption unmortified that makes the Christian loath to suffer. Dried wood will not kindle sooner, than a heart dried and mortified to the lusts of the world will endure anything for Christ. The apostle speaks of some that were ‘tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection,’ Heb. 11:35. They did not like the world so well, as being so far on their journey to heaven—though in hard way —to be willing to come back to live in it any longer. Take heed, Christian, of leaving any worldly lust unmortified in thy soul. This will never consent thou shouldest endure much for Christ. Few ships sink at sea; they are the rocks and shelves that split them. Couldst thou get off the rocks of pride and unbelief, and escape knocking on the sands of fear of man, love of the world, thou wouldst do well enough in the greatest storm that can overtake thee in the sea of this world. ‘If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for his Master’s use, and prepared unto every good work,’ II Tim. 2:21. O that we knew the heaven that is in a mortified soul! one that is crucified to the world and lusts of it. He hath the advantage of any other in doing or suffering for Christ, and enjoying Christ in both. A mortified soul lives out of all noise and disturbance from those carnal passions, which put all out of quiet where they come. When the mortified soul goes to duty there are not those rude and unmannerly intrusions of impertinent, carnal, yea sinful thoughts, between him and his God. Is he to go to prison? Here is not such weeping and taking on; no lust to hang about his legs, and break his heart with its insinuations; no self-love to entreat him that he would pity himself. His heart is free, got out of the acquaintance of these troublers of his peace; and a prison to him, if he may go upon so honourable an errand as testifying to the truth, O how welcome to him! Whereas a unmortified heart is wedged in with so great acquaintance and kindred, as I may so say, which his heart hath in the world, that it is impossible to get out of their embraces into any willingness to suffer. A man that comes into an inn in a strange place, he may rise at what time he pleaseth, and be gone as early as he pleaseth in the morning. There are none {to} entreat him to stay. But it is hard to get out of a friend’s house; these, like the Levite’s father‑in‑law, will be desiring him to stay one day, and then one more, and another after that. The mortified soul is the stranger. He meets with no disturbance—I mean comparatively—in his journey to heaven; while the unmortified one is linked in fast enough for getting on his journey in haste, especially so long as the flesh hath so fair an excuse as the foulness of the way or weather, any hardship likely to be endured for his profession. I have read of one of the Catos, that, in his old age, he withdrew himself from Rome to his country-house, that he might spend his elder years free from care and trouble. And all the Romans, as they ride by his house, used to say, *iste solus scit vivere—*this man alone knows how to live. I know not what art Cato had to disburden himself, by his retiring, of the world’s cares. I am sure, a man may go into the country and yet not leave the city behind him. His mind may be in a crowd while his body is in the solitude of a wilderness. Alas! poor man, he was a stranger to the gospel. Had he been but acquainted with this, it could have shown him a way out of the world’s crowd in the midst of Rome itself, and that is, by mortifying his heart to the world, both in the pleasures and troubles of it; and then that high commendation might have been given him without any hyperbole. For, to speak truth, he only knows aright how to live in the world that hath learned to die to the world. And so much for the first point; which, we may remind you, was, that the Christian is to stand ready for all trials and troubles that may befall him. The second follows.

SECOND DOCTRINE.

[The gospel’s blessing of peace prepares the saint for trials.]

The peace which the gospel brings and speaks to the heart, will make the creature ready to wade through any trial or trouble that meets him in his Christian course. He who enjoys in his bosom the peace of the gospel, is the person and the only person, that stands shod for all ways, prepared for all troubles and trials. None can make a shoe to the creature’s foot, so as he shall go easy on a hard way, but Christ. He can do it to the creature’s full content. And how doth he {do} it? Truly by no other way that by underlaying it, or, if you will, lining it, with the peace of the gospel. What though the way be set with sharp stones? if this shoe go between the Christian’s foot and them, they cannot much be felt. Solomon tells us that ways of wisdom,—that is, Christ—‘are ways of pleasantness.’ But how so, when some of them are ways of suffering? The next words resolve it; ‘and all her paths are peace,’ Prov. 3:17. Where there is peace—such peace as peace with God and conscience—there can want no pleasure. David goes merry to bed when he hath nothing to supper but the gladness that God by this puts into his heart, and promiseth himself a better night’s rest than any of them all that are feasted with the world’s cheer; ‘Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep,’ Ps. 4:7, 8. This same peace with God enjoyed in the conscience, redounds to the comfort of the body. Now David can sleep sweetly when he lies on a hard bed. What here he saith he would do, he saith he had done: ‘I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me,’ Ps. 3:5. The title of the psalm tells us when David had this sweet night’s rest, not when he lay on his bed of downs in his stately palace at Jerusalem, but when he fled for his life from his unnatural son Absalom, and possibly was forced to lie in the open field under the canopy of heaven. Truly it must be a soft pillow indeed that could make him forget his danger, who then had such a disloyal army at his back hunting of him. Yea, so transcendent is the sweet influence of this peace, that it can make the creature lie down as cheerfully to sleep in the grave as on the softest bed. You shall say that child is willing that calls to be put to bed. Some of the saints have desired God to lay them at rest in their beds of dust; and that not in a pet and discontent with their present trouble, as Job did, but from a sweet sense of this peace in their bosoms. ‘Now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,’ was the swan-like song of old Simeon. He speaks like a merchant that had got all his goods on shipboard, and now desires the master of the ship to hoist sail and be gone homewards. Indeed what should a Christian, that is but a foreigner here, desire to stay any longer for in the world, but to get this full lading in for heaven? And when hath he that, if not when he is assured of his peace with God? This peace of the gospel, and sense of the love of God in the soul, doth so admirably conduce to the enabling of a person in all difficulties, and temptations, and troubles, that ordinarily before he calls his saints to any hard service or hot work, he gives them a draught of this cordial wine next their hearts, to cheer them up, and embolden them in the conflict. God calls Abram out of his native country, Gen 12:1, and what so fit as a promise of Christ to bring his heart to God’s foot? ver. 2, 3. A sad errand it was that sent Jacob to Padan-aram. He fled from an angry wrathful brother, that had murdered him already in his thoughts, to an unkind, deceitful, uncle, under whom he should endure much hardship. Now God comes in a sweet gospel vision to comfort this poor pilgrim; for by that ‘ladder, whose foot stood on earth, and top reached heaven,’ Christ was signified to his faith, in whom heaven and earth meet, God and man are reconciled; and, by the ‘moving up and down of the angels on the ladder,’ the ministry of the angels, which Christ by his death and intercession procures for his saints, that they shall tend on them, as servants on their master’s children. So that the sum of all is as much as God had said, ‘Jacob, thy brother Esau hates thee, but in Christ I am reconciled to thee, thy uncle Laban, he will wrong thee, and deal hardly by thee, but fear him not. As I am in Christ at peace with thee so through him thou shalt have my especial care over thee, and the guardianship of the holy angels about thee, to defend thee wherever thou goest.’

The Israelites when ready to take their march out of Egypt into a desolate wilderness, where they should be put to many plunges, and their faith tried to purpose; to prepare them the more for these, he entertains them at a gospel supper before they go forth—I mean the passover, which pointed to Christ. And no doubt the sweetness of this feast made some gracious souls among them, that tasted Christ in it, endure the hardship and hunger of the wilderness the more cheerfully. And the same care and love did our Lord Jesus observe in the institution of his supper, choosing that for the time of erecting this sweet ordinance when his disciples’ feet stood at the brink of a sea of sorrows and troubles, which his death and the consequences of it would inevitably bring upon them. Now the pardon of their sins, sealed to their souls in the ordinance must needs be welcome, and enable them to wade through their sufferings the more comfortably. Indeed, the great care which Christ took for his disciples, when he left the world, was not to leave them a quiet world to live in, but to arm them against a troublesome world. And to do this, he labours to satisfy their poor hearts with his love to them, and his father’s love to them for his sake; he bequeaths unto them his peace, and empties it in the sweet consolations of it into their bosoms; for which end he tells them, as soon as he got to heaven, he would pray his Father to send the Comforter to them with all speed, and sends them to Jerusalem, there to stay privately, and not go into the field, or openly contest with the angry world, till they received the strength and succour which the Spirit in his comforts should bring with him. By all which it doth abundantly appear how powerful this gospel peace is to enable the soul for suffering.

Now I proceed to show how this peace doth prepare the heart for all sufferings. And that it doth these two ways. First. As it brings along with it, and possesseth the soul where it comes, with such glorious privileges as lift it above all danger and damage from any sufferings whatever from God, man, or devils. Second. As it is influential unto the saint’s graces and affections, exciting them, and making them act to such a height, as lifts the Christian above the fear of trouble and suffering.

[How gospel peace prepares the soul for suffering by its privileges.]

First. Gospel peace prepares the heart for suffering, as it brings along with it, and possesseth the soul where it comes, with such glorious privileges as lift it above all danger from any sufferings whatever, from God man, or devils. If a man could be assured he might walk as safely on the waves of the sea, or in the flames of fire, as he doth in his garden, he would be no more afraid of the one than he is to do the other. Or, if a man had some coat of mail secretly about him, that would undoubtedly resist all blows and quench all shot that are sent against him, it would be no such scareful thing for him to stand in the midst of swords and guns. Now, the soul that is indeed at peace with God, is invested with such privileges as do set it above all hurt and damage from sufferings. ‘The peace of God’ is said ‘to garrison the believer’s heart and mind,’ Php. 4:7. He is surrounded with such blessed privileges, that he is as safe as one in an impregnable castle.

1. Privilege. A person at peace with God becomes then a child of God. And when once the Christian comes to know his relation, and the dear love of his heavenly Father to him, afflictions for or sufferings from him, dread him not, because he knows it is inconsistent with the love of a father, either to hurt his child himself, or to suffer him to be hurt by another, if he can help it. I have often wondered at Isaac’s patience to submit to be bound for a sacrifice, and see the knife so near his throat, without any hideous outcries or strugglings that we read of. He was old enough to be apprehensive of death, and the horror of it, being conceived by some to be above twenty years of age. That he was of good growth is out of doubt by the wood which Abraham caused him to carry for the sacrifice. But, such was the authority Abraham had over his son, and the confidence that Isaac had in his father, that he durst put his knife into his hands; which, had the knife been in any other hand, he would hardly have done. Whoever may be the instrument of any trouble to a saint, the rod or sword is at God’s disposure. Christ saw the cup in his Father’s hand, and that made him take it willingly.

2. Privilege. Every soul at peace with God is heir to God. This follows his relation. ‘If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ,’ Rom. 8:17. This is such a transcendent privilege, that the soul to whom the joyful news of it comes is lift up above the amazing and affrightening fears of any suffering. The apostle having, in the forenamed place, but a little sweetened his thoughts with a few meditations on this soul-ravishing subject, see how his blessed soul is raised into a holy slighting of all the troubles of this life: ‘I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,’ Rom. 8:18. He will not allow his own soul, or any that hath the hope of this inheritance, so far to undervalue the glory thereof, or the love of God that settled it on them, as to mention the greatness of their sufferings in any way of pitying themselves for them. As if he had said, ‘Hath God made us his heirs, and bestowed heaven upon us in reversion, and shall we be so poor-spirited to sit down and bemoan ourselves for our present sorrows, that are no more to be compared with the glory that we are going to, than the little point of time, into which our short life with all our sufferings are contracted, is to be compared with the vast circumference of that eternity which we are to spend in endless bliss and happiness?’ He is a poor man, we say, that one or two petty losses quite undoes; and he is a poor Christian that cries out he is undone by any cross in this life. We may safely conclude such a one either is heir to nothing in the other world, or hath little or no evidence for what he hath here.

[How gospel peace prepares the soul for suffering by its influences.]

Second. Gospel peace prepares the heart for suffering, as it is influential unto the saint’s graces and affections, exciting them, and making them act to such a height, as lifts him above the fear of trouble and suffering.

1. Influence. This peace where it is felt, makes the Christian unconquerable in his faith. Nothing is too hard for such a one to believe, that carries a pardon in his conscience, that hath his peace with God sealed to him. Moses was to meet with many difficulties in that great work of conducting Israel out of Egypt towards Canaan. Therefore, to make them all a more easy conquest to his faith, when he should be assaulted with them, God gives him at his very first entering upon his charge an experiment of his mighty power in some miracles—as the turning {of} his rod into a serpent, and that again into a rod, making his hand leprous, and then restoring it again to be as sound as before—that he might never think anything too hard for that God to do towards their salvation and deliverance, even when things seem most desperate. And how unconquerable Moses was after these in his faith, we see. Truly, when God speaks to a poor soul, he gives such a testimony of his almighty power and love, that, so long as the sweet sense of this lasts in the soul, the creature’s faith cannot be posed. What doth God in his pardoning mercy, but turn the serpent of the law—with all its threatenings, from which the sinner fled, as that which would sting him to death—into the blossoming rod of the gospel, that brings forth the sweet fruit of peace and life? And which is the greater miracle of the two, think you?—the leprous hand of Moses made clean and sound, or a poor sinner’s heart, leprous with sin, made clean and pure by washing in the blood of Christ? Certainly this miracle of mercy, where it is strongly believed to be done, will make it easy for that soul to trust God in a sea of temporal sufferings, and cheerfully follow him through a whole wilderness of troubles in this life. When David hath comfortable apprehensions of God’s pardoning mercy, then his faith is up, and can strongly act on God for temporal deliverance. We find him, Ps. 32:5, under the sweet sense of his peace with God, able to vouch God as reconciled to him. ‘I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.’ And now see, ver. 7, to what a height his faith acts on God as to outward troubles. ‘Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.’ He spells this, which is the less, from the other, that is incomparably the greater mercy.

2. Influence. This peace with God, where it is felt, fills the heart with love to Christ. The Christian’s love to Christ takes fire at Christ’s love to him. And the hotter Christ’s love lies on the soul, the stronger reflection doth the creature make of love to him again, ‘she loved much,’ to whom much was ‘forgiven,’ Luke 7:47. And the more love, the less fear there will be of suffering. We will venture far for a dear friend. When Christ told his disciples Lazarus was dead, Thomas would needs go and die with him for company, John 11:16. So powerful is love, even as strong as death. ‘For a good man,’ saith the apostle, ‘some would even dare to die’—that is, a merciful kind man, whose had endeared him to them. How much more daring will a gracious soul be to sacrifice his life for a good God? ‘Thy name,’ saith the spouse of Christ, ‘is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee,’ Song 1:3. Then Christ’s name is poured forth, when the love of God through him is shed abroad in the soul. Let this precious box be but broke, and the sweet savour of it diffused in the heart, and it will take away the unsavoury scent of the most stinking prison in the world. This heavenly fire of Christ’s love, beaming powerfully on the soul, will not only put out the kitchen fire of creature love; but also the hell fire, as I may call it, of slavish fear. What makes us so aghast at the thoughts of death, especially if it comes towards us in a bloody dress, and hath some circumstances of persecutors’ cruelty, to put a further grimness on its unpleasing countenance? Surely this comes from guilt, and unacquaintance with Christ, and what he hath done for us; who came partly on this very errand into the world, ‘To deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,’ Heb. 2:15. And how hath he done it, but by reconciling us to God, and so reconciling us to the thoughts of death itself, as that which only can do us this kind office—bring us and Christ, that hath done all this for us, together.

3. Influence. This peace enjoyed in the Christian’s bosom *hath a sweet influence into his self-denial—*as grace so necessary to suffering, that Christ lays the cross, as I may so say, upon the back of it. ‘Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,’ Mark 8:34. Another, with Simon of Cyrene, may be compelled to carry Christ’s cross after him a little way. But, it is the self-denying soul that will stoop willingly, and down on his knees, to have this burden laid on him at Christ’s hand. Now the sense of a soul’s peace with God will enable the creature in a twofold self-denial, and by both, sweetly dispose him for any suffering from or for Christ.

(1.) The sense of this peace will enable the Christian to deny himself in his sinful self. Sin may well be called ourself; it cleaves so close to us, even as members to our body. [It is] as hard to mortify a lust as to cut off a joint. Some sins too are more ourself than others, as our life is more bound up in some members than others. Well, let them be what they will, there is a good day, in which, if Christ asks the head of the proudest lust among them all, he shall have it with less regret than Herodias obtained the Baptist’s at Herod’s hands. And what is that gaudy day, in which the Christian can so freely deny his sin, and deliver it up to justice, but when Christ is feasting him with this ‘hidden manna’ of pardon and peace? A true friend will rather deny himself than one he loves dearly, if it be in his power to grant his request. But, least of all can he deny him, when his friend is doing him a greater kindness at the same time that he asks a less. No such picklock to open the heart as love. When love comes a begging, and that at a time when it is showing itself in some eminent expression of kindness to him at whose door she knocks, there is little fear but to speed. Esther chose that time to engage Ahasuerus’ heart against Haman her enemy, when she expressed her love most to Ahasuerus, viz. at a banquet. When doth God give, or indeed when can he give, the like demonstration of his love to a poor soul, as when he entertains it at this gospel banquet? Now sure, if ever, God may prevail with his child to send the cursed Amalekite to the gallows, his lust to the gibbet. Do you think that Mary Magdalene, when that blessed news dropped from Christ into her mournful heart, that her ‘sins, which were many, were all forgiven her,’ could now have been persuaded to have opened the door to any of her former lovers, and gone out of these embraces of Christ’s love to have played the whore again? No, I doubt not but she would sooner have chosen the flames of martyrdom than of lust. Indeed, that which can make the creature deny a lust, can make the creature it shall not deny a cross.

(2.) The sense of this peace will enable the Christian to deny himself in his carnal enjoyments. And these the Christian finds his great pull-backs from suffering. As the heart burns in the hot fit of love to the pleasures and profits of this world when he abounds with them, in that degree will his shaking fit of fear and grief be when Christ calls him to part with them. What the sweet wines and dainty fare of Capua was to Hannibal’s soldiers, that we shall find any intemperance of heart to the creature will be to us. It will enervate our spirits, and so effeminate us, that we shall have little mind to endure hardship when drawn into the field to look an enemy in the face. Now the sense of this gospel peace will deaden the heart to the creature, and facilitate the work of self-denial as to the greatest enjoyments the world hath. ‘God forbid,’ saith Paul, ‘that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world,’ Gal. 6:14. Paul’s heart is dead to the world. Now mark what gave the death’s wound to his carnal affections. ‘By whom,’ saith he, ‘the world is crucified to me, and I unto it;’ that is, Christ and his cross. There was a time, indeed, that Paul loved the world as well who most. But, since he hath been acquainted with Christ, and the mercy of God in him to his soul —pardoning his sins and receiving him into favour and fellowship with himself—he is of another mind. He leaves the world, as Saul his seeking of the asses, at the news of a kingdom; his haunt lies another way now. Let the Zibas of the world take the world, and all they can make of it with their best husbandry. He will not grudge them their happiness, forasmuch as his heavenly Lord and King is come in peace to his soul. None can part with the comfort of the creature so cheerfully as he who hath his mouth at the fountain-head, the love of God himself. Parents are near, and friends are dear, yet a loving wife can forget her father’s house, and leave her old friends’ company, to go with her husband though it be to a prison. How much more will a gracious soul bid adieu to these, yea life itself, to go to Christ, especially when he hath sent the Comforter into his bosom, to cheer him in the solitariness of the way with his sweet company?

4. Influence. This peace, where it is felt, promotes the suffering grace of patience. Affliction and suffering to a patient soul are not grievous. Patience is, as one calls it, BXR4H J0H RLP0H—the concoctive faculty of the soul —that grace which digests all things, and turns them into good nourishment. Meats of hard digestion will not do well with squeamish weak stomachs, and therefore they are dainty and nice in their diets; whereas men of strong stomachs, they refuse no meat that is set before them; all fare is alike to them. Truly thus there are some things which are of very hard digestion to the spirits of men. The peevish, passionate, short-spirited professor will never concoct reproaches, prison, and death itself, but rather quarrel with his profession, if such fare as these attend the gospel. ‘When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended,’ Matt. 13:21. This will not stay in his stomach, but makes him cast up even that which else he could have kept—a profession of Christ—might he have had it with a quiet life and a whole skin. But now the patient soul, he makes his meal of what God in his providence sets before him. If peace and prosperity be served up with the gospel, he is thankful, and enjoys the sweetness of the mercy while it lasts. If God takes these away, and instead of them, will have him eat the gospel feast with sour herbs of affliction and persecution, it shall not make him sick of his cheer. It is but eating more largely of the comforts of the gospel with them, and they go down very well wrapped up in them. Indeed the Christian is beholden to those consolations which flow from the peace of the gospel for his patience. It were impossible for the people of God to endure with what sometimes they meet with from men and devils also, as they do, had they not sweet help from the sense of God’s love in Christ, that lies glowing at their hearts in inward peace and joy. The apostle resolves all the saints’ patience, experience, and hope, yea, glorying in their tribulations, into this, as the cause of all, ‘Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us,’ Rom. 5:5. Sin makes suffering intolerable. When that [sin, viz.] is gone, the worst part of the trouble is removed. A light cart goes through that slough easily, where the cart deeply laden is set fast. Guilt loads the soul, and bemires it in any suffering. Take that away, and let God speak peace to his soul, and he that raged before like a madman under the cross, shall carry it without whinching[1] and whining. ‘The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds,’ Php. 4:7. Now what is patience but the keeping of the heart and mind composed and serene in all troubles that befall us? But a word or two for application.

[Use or Application.]

Use First. The preceding doctrine informs our judgments in two particulars. 1. What to judge of their patience in affliction that have no interest in the gospel’s peace. 2. What to think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience at all.

1. What we are to judge of their patience in affliction who have no interest in the gospel’s peace. Some you shall see very still and quiet in affliction, yet mere strangers to this peace, ignorant of Christ the Peace-maker, walking in opposition to the terms God offers peace in the gospel upon, and yet very calm in affliction. Certainly all is not right with this poor creature. If he had any sense how it is with him, he would have little patience to see himself under the hand of God, and not know but it may leave him in hell before it hath done with him. When I see one run over the stones and hard ways barefoot and not complain, I do not admire his patience, but pity the poor creature that hath benumbed his feet, and, as it were, soled them with a brawny, dead kind of flesh, so as to lose his feeling. But, save your pity much more for those whose consciences are so benumbed and hearts petrified into a senseless stupidity, that they feel their misery no more than the stone doth the mason’s saw which cuts it asunder. Of all men out of hell, none [is] more to be pitied than he that hangs over the mouth of it, and yet is fearless of his danger, while thus the poor wretch is incapable of all means for his good. What good does physic put into a dead man’s mouth? If he cannot be chased to some sense of his condition, all applications are in vain. And if afflictions—which are the strongest physic—leave the creature senseless, there is little hope left that any other will work upon him.

2. *What are we to think of their peace who, in affliction, have no patience at all—*those that are great pretenders to gospel peace, yet cannot think with any patience of suffering from God or for God. Certainly, so far as the creature is acquainted with this peace, and hath the true sense of God’s love in Christ lying warm at his heart, he cannot but find proportionably his heart stand ready to submit to any suffering that God lays out for him. And therefore it behooves us well to try our peace and comfort. If thou hast no heart to suffer for God, but choosest a sin to escape a cross, thy peace is false. If thou hast but little patience under ordinary afflictions, to compose thy spirit from murmuring, and sustain thy heart from sinking, thy faith on the promise is weak. ‘If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small,’ Prov. 24:10.

Use Second. Let this doctrine stir thee up, Christian, to be very tender and chary of thy peace with God and thy own conscience. Keep this peace clear and unbroken, and it will keep thy heart whole, when the whole world breaks about thee. So long as this peace of God rules in your hearts, you are safe from fear or danger, though in a prison or at a stake. But if thou sufferest it to be wounded, then thy enemies will come upon thee as Simeon and Levi on the men of Shechem when sore, and be too hard for thee. O it is sad, friends—you will find it so—to go with sore and smarting consciences into a suffering condition. A thorn in the foot will make any way uneasy to the traveller; and guilt in the conscience any condition uncomfortable to the Christian, but most of all a suffering one. Now, if you will keep your peace unbroken, you must bestow some attendance on it, and set as it were a life-guard about it. The choicest flowers need most looking to. The richer the treasure the safer we lay it. This peace is thy treasure; look well where thou layest it. Two ways our Saviour tells us that worldly treasure, such as silver and gold is, may be lost—by thieves that break in and carry it away, and by rust that eats and corrupts it, Matt. 6:19. There are two ways something like these, wherein the Christian may go by the loss in this his heavenly treasure of inward peace and comfort.

1. Presumptuous sins, these are the thieves that ‘break through and steal’ the saint’s comfort away. When the Christian comes to look into his soul after such a bold act, and thinks to entertain himself, as formerly, with the comforts of his pardoned state, interest in Christ, and hopes of heaven through him, alas! he finds a sad change. There is no promise that will give out its consolations to him—the cellar-door is locked, Christ withdrawn, and the keys carried away with him. He may even cry out with a sad complaint, as Mary when she found not Christ’s body in the sepulchre, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.’ Thus the Christian may, with aching heart, bemoan his folly, ‘My pride, my uncleanness, my earthly-mindedness, they have taken away my treasure, robbed me of my comfort. I could never have a comfortable sight of God’s face in any duty or promise since I fell into that foul sin.’ And therefore, Christian, have a care of such robbers of thy peace as this. ‘The spirit of man’ is called ‘the candle of the Lord,’ Prov. 20:27. Hath God lighted thy candle, Christian—cheered thy spirit, I mean, with the sense of his love? Take heed of presumptuous sins. If such a thief be suffered in this thy candle, thy comfort will soon sweal out. Hast thou fallen into the hands of any such presumptuous sins as have stolen thy peace from thee? Send speedily thy hue and cry after them—I mean, take thy sad moan to God, renew thy repentance out of hand, and raise heaven upon them by a spirit of prayer. This is no time to delay. The farther thou lettest these sins go without repentance, the harder thou wilt find it to recover thy lost peace and joy out of their hands. And for thy encouragement know, God is ready, upon thy serious and solemn return, to restore thee ‘the joy of his salvation,’ and do justice upon these enemies of thy soul for thee by his mortifying grace, if thou wilt prosecute the law upon them closely and vigorously, without relenting towards them, or being bribed with the pleasure or carnal advantage that they will not spare to offer, so their lives may be spared.

2. Again, as presumptuous sins are the ‘thieves’ that with a high hand rob the Christian of his comfort; so sloth and negligence are as the ‘rust,’ that in time will fret into his comfort and eat out the heart and strength of it. It is impossible that the Christian who is careless and secure in his walking, infrequent and negligent in his communion with God, should long be owner of much peace or comfort that is true. What if thou dost not pour water of presumptuous sins into the lap of thy joy to quench it? It is enough if thou dost not pour oil of duty to feed and maintain it. Thou art murderer to thy comfort by starving it, as well as by stabbing of it.

End of Volume I.

1. A falling on; a sudden attack.—From Webster’s 1828 Dictionary—SDB

[1]I need to find out what the word “whinching” means.

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← Direction VI: The Breastplate of Righteousness · Contents · Direction VIII: The Shield of Faith, First General Part (Eph. 6:16) →

Footnotes

1. Qui litteris addicti sumus, saith Erasmus, animi lassitudinem à studiis gravioribus contractam, ab iisdem studiis, sedamænioribus recreamus. ↩

2. *Forlorn—*a small group of soldiers detached from the main group for a very dangerous mission; with very little chance of success. From Webster’s. ↩

3. *Preponderate—*outweigh; to weigh down; to exceed in weight; to descend or incline downward; to exceed in influence, power, or importance. — From Webster’s. ↩

4. *Lacedemonians—*This is the same as Sparta, a city-state in ancient Greece, before the time of Rome. — SDB ↩

5. Makebate, any thing or person that excites dispute—a bone of contention.—Ed. ↩

6. Encomium, High or glowing praise.—From Webster’s. ↩

7. Ea sola emi putamus, pro quibus pecuniam solvimus; ea gratuita vocamus, pro quibus, nos-ipsos impendimus, &c.—Sen. Epist. 42. ↩

8. *Boke—*to nauseate, to vomit, to belch.—Halliwell. ↩

9. Connatural, connected by nature; inborn; of the same nature. — From Webster’s. ↩

10. ILLAPSE, n. illaps’. [See Lapse.] A sliding in; an immission or entrance of one thing into another. ↩

11. Cozenage; to cheat, defraud; the act of cozening or deception — From Webster’s. ↩

12. ingeminate—to stress or make more forceful by repeating. From Webster’s.—SDB ↩

13. Fadge, to suit or fit.—Ed. ↩

14. Awkness, clumsiness, oddness.—Ed. ↩

15. Hectical: — of, relating to, or being a fluctuating but persistent fever (as in tuberculosis); having a hectic fever; flushed, red; marked by feverish activity.—From Webster’s. ↩

16. Boult, or bolt, to sift, separate the pure from the impure, to examine.—Ed. ↩

17. Conning —[ME, connen, to be able] to peruse carefully; study; fix in the memory.—From Webster’s ↩

18. Huckle, i.e. to haggle in trading.—Imp. Dict. ↩