PART II: Uses
(6.) Sixthly, it causeth them to prize the light of God's countenance the more when they again obtain it, and so set a higher price upon it, and to endeavour by close walking with God, as children of light, to keep it; to prize it 'more than com and oil.' Cant. 3:2, 'she loseth him;' but at the 4th verse 'she finds him again,' and then 'she holds him,' and will not let him go.
PART II:
Uses Who is among you that feareth the Lord that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light?—ISA.
50:10.
SECTION I
USE I.
To those that fear not God nor obey him; what darkness reserved for such!
IF those that fear God and obey him are exposed to such a condition as hath been described; then, 'Who is among you that feareth not the Lord, nor obeys the voice of his servants?' You that live in known sins, and in omission of known duties, which God's servants, your
ministers, tell you you ought to perform; that pray not with your families; who make not conscience of your speeches nor dealings,
&c.,—'where shall yon appear, if the righteous be thus scarcely saved?' If they whom God hath loved with a love as great and unchangeable as himself, yet suffer his terrors here; what shall you do whom he hath set himself to hate, and to shew the power of his wrath upon, without repentance? 'If these things be done to the green tree, what shall be done to the dry?' Luke 23:31, which is fitted for wrath and the fire, even as 'stubble fully dry,' Nahum 1:10, as the prophet speaketh. If such an estate of darkness and horror befall them that are children of light, whose inheritance is light, Col. 1:12; then what is reserved for you that are darkness, and 'love darkness more than light?' And if this befalls them for not stirring up the grace which they already have; what to you that are utterly devoid of it; and not only so, but despise and scoff it? If this befalls them for not humbling themselves for old sins, though long since committed; what will befall you for going on to add new to the old with greediness? If to them for neglecting the opportunities of drawing nigher to God; what to you for neglecting the offer of grace, and trampling under foot the blood of Christ? All you that think there is no hell, or if there be, that it is not so dark as it is usually painted, look upon Heman ready to run distracted through terrors, and to give up the ghost every moment, Psalm 88, when yet his body was strong and outward estate whole. Look upon David lying upon the wheel, and the Spirit of God 'breaking his bones,' Psalm 51, whenas otherwise, he being a king, had all outward things at will. Look upon holy Job, chap. 6, 'Oh that my grief were weighed! it is heavier than the sand; and my words are swallowed up;'—that is, I am not able to express and utter my grief;—'the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison thereof drinketh up my spirit; the terrors of God do set themselves in battle array against me,' ver. 4. Insomuch, that at the 8th verse he wisheth 'God would cut him off;' and, 'Is my
strength the strength of stones,' says ho, 'or my flesh brass,' as he complains, that he should be able to hold out against such fierce encounters? My brethren, God's people find pains beyond those of the stone, gout, and toothache; the falling of God's wrath on the conscience is more than the dropping a little scalding rheum on a tooth; and yet these, which Job and David felt, are but a taste of that cup which you that obey not must drink off to the bottom; and it is eternity to the bottom. Psalm 75:8, 'There is a cup in the hand of the Lord, and it is full of mixture,'—that is, all the bitter ingredients in the world are in it, the quintessence of evils are strained into it; and here indeed God 'pours out of the same,' as it follows there,—that is, in this life some few sprinklings of it fall from the top of the cup, which his own do taste and drink of; but the bottom, 'the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall drink, and wring them out,'—that is, leave none behind; but the vials of it, which will never be emptied, shall be poured forth, even to the utmost drop. And if God's people do begin to taste of it,—as Christ himself did, it 'could not pass him,' and Zebedee's sons were to pledge him, as was observed,—then, as God says by Jeremiah, chap. 25:27–29, 'If my people have drunk of it,' and begun to you, 'and I have brought evil upon the city that is called by my name; then certainly you shall drink of it, and be drunk, and spue, and fall and never rise again.' If God's people be thus shut up in darkness, what darkness is reserved for you? Even as Jude says, ver. 13, 'blackness of darkness;' 'darkness where is weeping and gnashing of teeth,' Matt. 22:13. Blackness of darkness, because there is not a cranny of light, nor one beam of comfort that shines in to all eternity. And this is not for a moment, or a few years, but for ever. You 'that live many days in pleasure here, and rejoice in them all; remember the days of darkness, for they are many,' says Solomon, Eccles. 11:8. Many indeed! Days! An eternal night that shall know no end, which no day shall follow.