"there the wicked cease from troubling." Those that were most
glorify God and to adorn our profession, which is done most effectually by meekness and mildness, under the hardest censures and the most cruel usage; so demonstrating that we are indeed under the power and influence of that holy religion for which we think it worth our while to suffer.
5. It makes us fit for death and eternity. The grave is a quiet place; "there the wicked cease from troubling." Those that were most troublesome are there bound to the peace; and "their hatred and envy" are there "perished." Whether we will or no, in the grave we shall lie still and be quiet. Job 3:13. What a great change then must it be to the unquiet, the angry and litigious; and what a mighty shock will that sudden, forced rest give them, after such a violent, rapid motion. It is therefore our wisdom to compose ourselves for the grave; to prepare ourselves for it, by adapting and accommodating ourselves to that which is likely to be our long home. This is dying daily, quieting ourselves, for death will shortly quiet us.
The meek and quiet soul is, at death, let into that rest which it has been so much laboring after; and how welcome must that be. Thoughts of death and the grave are very agreeable to those who love to be quiet; for then and there "they shall enter into peace," and "rest in their beds."
After death we expect the judgment, than which nothing is more dreadful to those who are "contentious." The coming of the Master brings terror along with it to those who "smite their fellow-servants;" but those that are meek and quiet are likely to have their plea ready, their accounts stated, and whenever it comes it will be no surprise to them: to those whose "moderation is known to all men," it will be no ungrateful news to hear that "the Lord is at hand." It is therefore prescribed as that which ought to be our constant concern, that
whenever our Master comes, we may "be found of Him in peace," that is, in a peaceable temper. Blessed is that servant whom His Lord when He comes shall find in such a frame. "A good man," says the late excellent Archbishop Tillotson, in his preface to his book of Family Religion, "would be loath to be taken out of the world reeking hot from a sharp contention with a perverse adversary; and not a little out of countenance to find himself in this temper translated into the calm and peaceable regions of the blessed, where nothing but perfect charity and goodwill reigns forever." Heaven is a quiet place, and none are fit for it but quiet people. The heavenly Canaan, that land of peace, would be no heaven to those that delight in war. The turbulent and unquiet would be out of their element, like a fish upon the dry ground, in those calm regions.
They are the sheep of Christ—such as are patient and inoffensive— that are called to inherit the kingdom; outside are dogs, that bite and devour. Rev. 22:15.
They are the wings of a dove, not those of a hawk or eagle, that David would fly upon to his desired rest. Psalm 55:6.
Now lay all this together, and then consider whether or not there is a real excellence in this meekness and quietness of spirit, which highly recommends it to all that love either God or themselves, or have any sensible regard to their own comfort, either in this world or in that which is to come.
LACK OF MEEKNESS LAMENTED
And now, have we not reason to lament the lack of the adornment of a meek and quiet spirit among those that profess religion, and especially in our own hearts? If this is Christianity, how little is there of the thing, even among those that make great pretensions to the name! Surely, as one said in another case, either this is not gospel, or these are not gospel-professors. And oh, how bare and unbecoming does profession appear for lack of this adorning! When the Israelites had stripped themselves of their ornaments to furnish up a golden calf, it is said they were "made naked to their shame." How naked are we—like Adam when he had sinned—for lack of this ornament. It is well if it be to the shame of true repentance.
I am not teaching you to judge and censure others in this matter; there is too much of that to be found among us: we are quick-sighted enough to spy faults in others, the transports of whose passions we should interpret favorably. But we have all cause, more or less, to condemn ourselves, and confess guilt in this matter. In many things we all offend, and perhaps in this as much as in any, coming short of the law of meekness and quietness.
We are called Christians, and it is our privilege and honor that we are so: we name the name of the meek and lowly Jesus, but how few are actuated by his spirit, or conform to His example! It is a shame that any occasion should be given to charge it upon professors, who, in other things, are most strict and sober, that in this they are most faulty; and that many who pretend to conscience and devotion, should indulge themselves in a peevish, contentious, and morose temper and conversation, to the great reproach of that worthy name by which we are called. May we not say, as that Mahommedan did when a Christian prince had perfidiously broke his league with him, "O Jesus, are these Your Christians?"
It is the manifest design of our holy and excellent religion to smooth and soften and sweeten our temper; and is it not a wretched thing that any who profess it should be soured and embittered, and less conversant and fit for human society than others? He was looked upon as a very good man in his day, and not without cause, who yet had such an unhappy temper, and was sometimes so transported with passion that his friend would say of him, "He had grace enough for ten men, and yet not enough for himself." The disciples of Jesus Christ did not know "what manner of spirit they were of," so apt are we to deceive ourselves, especially when these extravagances shroud themselves under the specious and plausible pretense of zeal for God and religion. But yet the fault is not to be laid upon the profession, or the strictness and singularity of it in other things which are praiseworthy; nor may we think the worse of Christianity for any such blemish: we know very well that the wisdom that is from above is peaceable and gentle, and easy to be entreated, and all that is sweet and amiable and endearing, though she is not herein justified of all who call themselves her children. But the blame must be laid upon the corruption and folly of the professors themselves, who are not so perfectly delivered into the mold of Christianity as they should be; but neglect their ornament, and prostitute their honor, and suffer the authority of their graces to be trampled upon. They let "fire go out of the rod of their branches, which devoured their fruit;" so that there is no meekness as a strong rod to be a scepter to rule in the soul, which is "a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation."
And yet, blessed be God, even in this corrupt and degenerate world there are many who appear in the excellent ornament of a meek and quiet spirit; and some whose natural temper is quick and choleric, yet have been enabled, by the power of divine grace, to show in a good conversation their works with meekness and wisdom. It is not