VII The Deliverance of the Kirk of God.—JER. 50:4, 5
Eighteen Quaint Sermons
By Samuel Rutherford
Table of Contents
I "Fear not, thou worm Jacob." (No. 1.)—ISA. 41:14–16
II "Fear not, thou worm Jacob." (No. 2.)—ISA. 41:14–16
III A Charge to the Lord's Prophet.—HOSEA 8:1–3
IV The Weeping Mary at the Sepulchre.—JOHN 20:9–13
V The Spouse's Longing for Christ.—SONG OF SOLOMON 5:3–6
VI The Church Seeking her Lord.—SONG OF SOLOMON 5:7–10
VII The Deliverance of the Kirk of God.—JER. 50:4, 5
VIII The Kirk's Holy Resolution.—JER. 50:4, 5
IX The Forlorn Son.—LUKE 15:11–12
X The Forlorn Son seeks away from his Father.—LUKE 15:11–13
XI The Forlorn Son—The Grounds why he came Home, and his Prayer.—LUKE 15:14–19
XII The Forlorn Son—The Father's Welcome.—LUKE 15:20–1
XIII The Forlorn Son—The Father's Expressed Welcome.—LUKE 15:22–23
XIV The Forlorn Son—He was Lost and is Found.—LUKE 15:24–28
XV The Forlorn Son.—LUKE 15:29–32
XVI The Worth and Excellence of the Gospel.—2 COR. 10:4–5
XVII The Apostle's Choice. (No. 1.)—PHIL. 3:7–8
XVIII The Apostle's Choice. (No. 2.)—PHIL. 3:8
Preface
SAMUEL RUTHERFORD'S "Letters" are known in the churches everywhere; and here are notes of his preaching. These sermons, as quaint as his "Letters" in some respects, have never till now appeared in print. They form part of a manuscript volume in which are included other sermons of the same author that have already been published. They are carefully and neatly written in the old style of handwriting. Who it was who took down the notes of these sermons at the time, and who it was that gathered all together into the volume, we do not know. One thing is certain, viz., he was a most attentive hearer and a faithful attender on the minister's preaching; for at p. 232 he notes that he had the misfortune to miss one sermon in the course by absence. It is something of a guarantee for the authenticity of the whole to find, as we do on a close examination, that the first half of the MS. collection contains the discourses that have already been published, but in a much more archaic spelling, and with Scotch words that must have been modernised in the printed copies. Besides, the character of the somewhat peculiar penmanship suggests that it is quite possible the writer was a cotemporary of Rutherford, and not a mere transcriber of original notes.
This MS. volume of which we speak has been a sort of heirloom in the family of one who knew its value, viz., the Rev. David Russell, for fifty-seven years an earnest minister of Christ, first in Hawick and then at Errol, in Perthshire, in connection with the "Relief" and "United Presbyterian" Church. About six years ago his son, James Eccles Russell, Esq., London, was led to tell me of the manuscript volume, and to let me examine it. Other friends also became interested in it, and the result was that Mr. Russell kindly agreed, at the suggestion of these friends, that the portion of it which as yet had not appeared in print should be published. A greatly esteemed brother in the ministry, Mr. J. H. Thomson, of the Free Church, Hightae, skilled above many in deciphering such documents, and in fullest sympathy with the spirit of the author, was not loath to spend time and labour in preparing the work for the press.
The Discourses are throughout characteristic of the man. Try, for example, the lecture on John 20:1–9. Christian reader, you may glean many a sheaf of the finest of the wheat in these fields. Samuel Rutherford never fails to set Christ on high, for truly he had—
"A thirst no earthly stream could satisfy—
A hunger that must feed on Christ, or die."
ANDREW A. BONAR, D.D.
GLASGOW, April, 1885.
Note
IN transcribing the sermons from the manuscript volume, a faithful reproduction has been the great aim. The proof sheets have also been carefully compared with the manuscript volume. In transcribing, it has not been thought necessary to reproduce the original spelling, which is plainly that of the first half of the seventeenth century, such as "behooved" for "behoved," "bot" for "but," "considder" for "consider," "heir" for "here," "lyke" for "like," "noblie" for "nobly," "sall" for "shall," "sould" for "should," "sweit" for "sweet," "whilk" for "which," "wold" for "would," &c.; but the Scotch, or Northern English words, amounting to about 400, have been carefully retained. Notes explanatory of their meaning are printed at the foot of each page.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature about the following sermons is the apparent correctness with which they have been taken down from the lips of Rutherford. The proper names, and the one or two Latin phrases that occur, are always correctly given, so that their writer must have been an educated man, and, from the skill with which he has caught the line of thought, in full sympathy with the preacher. There is no sign of abridgment throughout their pages. The student of Rutherford's letters and his other works will recognize in them a full transcript of what he must have said.
Dr. Bonar has kindly read my transcription, sheet by sheet, as it was made, and he has again read the proofs with me. Our common aim has been to reproduce the sermons in a form that will not in any way do discredit to their author, Samuel Rutherford.
J. H. T.
HIGHTAE, LOCKERBIE, N.B.
Fear not, thou worm Jacob
No. I
"Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them; and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel."—ISAIAH 41:14–16.
THE Lord, beloved in Him, in this chapter is looking upon the case of a captive people, looking upon the case of a people that were both weak, few, poor, and were also amongst the midst of their enemies. And the Lord knows well what are the thoughts of His children when they are in such a case. He knows well enough what is in the heart of these who are strangers unto Him. And He knows also the heart and thoughts of His people when they are in captivity. And for that reason, to hold up their head above the water, which now might have swallowed them up, and put them in peril of losing for ever the promise that the Lord had made, in the words that now are read there is an encouragement given unto the captive Kirk, unto a base, miserable, weak, and destitute people, amongst the midst of their enemies. And in the words there be thir particulars remarkable.
First of all there is an encouragement, "Fear not." (2) A description of the party to whom the Lord speaks this: "Worm Jacob" and the "Men of Israel." And (3) There is a warrant why the Lord speaks this, and why He comforts "Worm Jacob." "Fear not, says the Lord thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." (4) There is a reason of this taken from a promise of God, and the promise it is set down two ways in the words: first, in general terms on God's part, "I will help thee;" second, more particularly on the people's part, what they shall be, "I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as caff." All the powers in the world that are against thee, albeit they be grown, and high above the rest, as indeed the enemies of the Kirk of Christ, they are swelled pieces of clay, and yet the Lord says that the Kirk shall get strength from Him to thrash these mountains, and to beat the hills, &c. And, lastly, by whose strength is this done, and who shall get the thanks of it? "Thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and glory in the Holy One of Israel." That is, thou shalt thank Me for doing of this, and not thyself and thy power.
Now, if ye will consider to whom it is that the Lord speaks this, and gives this encouragement—to a worm and to Jacob, a worm! He says to them, "Fear not." It would teach us this meikle, that a distressed Kirk and people they have cause to rejoice upon luck's head, long before the deliverance come. And the reasons wherefore a distressed Kirk and people may rejoice on luck's head, even before the deliverance come, they are very good.
First, if ye will look to God, who bids them rejoice, He knows very well what will be the end of all the troubles of the Kirk, and He knows very well what will be the end of these who are troublers of them; for His Kirk and people He knows that they shall laugh, and in the end shall rejoice in His salvation. He knows there the rod of the wicked shall not always rest upon the lot of the righteous. The Lord's Kirk maun laugh and rejoice when He calls them to it. And there is none who has right to be merry and to rejoice but the Kirk and people of God, and so He knows that their time is coming. And He knows also what shall be the end of the wicked who are troublers of them (Psa. 37:13); it is said of them that the Lord laughs at them, for He sees their day afar off. He sees them when they are in all their mirth and joviality, and knows there is a black hour coming upon them, albeit they see it not themselves; and therefore He laughs at them.
And then a second reason wherefore the Kirk may rejoice upon luck's head before the deliverance come, is because the Kirk of God they see this also, what is to come, and so may rejoice beforehand, they know how all shall be in the end. And that is the difference between the Kirk's enemies and the Kirk. The enemy knows not what will be the night-year, and what the end of things will be, and therefore they are led to hell blindlings. They know not what is at the foot of the stair where they are coming down. But where faith is, it has the gift of prophesying and foresight there, albeit hand should join in hand, and all armies by sea and land should gather against them, yet it shall be well with them in despite of them all, as it is, Isa. 3:10: "Say ye to the righteous, it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him, for the fruit of his doings shall be upon him." Faith tells these news beforehand.
A third reason whereupon they may rejoice beforehand is this—if we will look unto God's dispensation, His people under trouble may rejoice upon luck's head before their deliverance come; I say, if we look unto His dispensation of justice and mercy, albeit the people of God be worms and despised ones in the eyes of the world, they need not to cast away their confidence for all that, because there is mercy in God, and it maun out to His people. Let them mourn and weep before noon; yet in God's wise dispensation they maun laugh afternoon. Let them be sorry and afflicted, and borne down this year, yet there is light sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart. And if ye will look upon the other side, to the wicked, and to those who trouble the Kirk, there is justice in God, and so they may not win away with it. They maun in the dispensation of God's justice be taen order with. They may not aye be in prosperity and laugh. They maun of necessity mourn at last, and the righteous shall rejoice. Their shell of the balance shall go down, and the godless shall go up. When the short heaven of the wicked is expired, they maun sorrow then, for there are righteousness and justice in God, and it is a righteous thing with God, that He recompense to them who trouble the Kirk vexation and sorrow, and to them who are troubled joy and peace.
Whom to is it that the Lord speaks thus? To "Worm Jacob," and to the men of Israel, or to "the few men of Israel." This is sweeter nor if the Lord had said "My people," and it is liker God nor if He had called them "My sons," or "His spouse and married people with whom I am in covenant, by all the people of the earth." It says this meikle to us that the Kirk of God is never so miserable, nor so desolate and forsaken, but they have a Lord that pities them, One who sees their misery, and takes notice of it with a pitiful eye. That is an eye, indeed, that is spoken of, Exod. 3:7: "I have seen, I have seen the affliction of My people, and their groaning which are in Egypt." There is a Father's eye in heaven that is lifted up towards the Kirk when they are in trouble, and He pities their case. See what a style the Kirk gets from God, Isa. 54:11: "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours," &c. Even such another style as that which is given to the Kirk, Ezek. 37:4: "Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord," &c.
Why would not the Lord say to them, "My beloved people," "My people with whom I am in covenant," &c., but "Worm Jacob"? This is a word of pity, and it sets our Lord very well to show pity. The use of this is, let us learn to make use of all these styles that the Lord gives unto His Kirk and His children in this world. Isa. 52: Zion, wallowing in the dust, is comforted with many sweet promises and encouragements. And fra our Lord casts comforts into our hand that way, let us put out our hand and to take a grip of them. Fra the Lord is pleased to make many fair promises to His Kirk, when it is black in the West, let us take them unto us when we are under trouble, let us learn to take all our crosses from our [Lord] as it becomes us to do, and spill not our crosses by taking them from any other cause than the hand of God. If we could learn to put all our crosses over into our Lord's hand to be disposed of by Him, and take them all from Him, we would get a better gate of them nor for the most part we do. But it is well wared that thy cross and trouble be thy death, when thou wilt not put it over upon thy Lord, that puts not a crazed estate or the cross of an ill husband, or an ill wife, or wicked children, or fears for the cause of God, that it go not well, that puts not all over upon the Lord. If all these things could be put over upon the Lord Himself by us, there is no doubt but He who is a giving and a pitying Lord, who sees our sufferings and our crosses, He would no doubt send a sure deliverance to such who, in faith and patience, commit themselves and all things that come upon them unto Him.
Again, "Worm Jacob, and men of Israel." This is as base a style as can be given to any—a worm. Where met they His married people and the people in the world whom He thought most of, and why should He not [have] given them a more honourable name? The Lord is now speaking of them as they are in the eyes of the world, and not as He thinks of them; for His people are never the most in multitude, nor are they the strongest to look to, nor the wisest, nor the richest, &c. No; for the most part they are the basest bodies. Jerusalem is a forsaken woman; and (Lam. 2) when all go by Jerusalem and see it so sore sacked they say, "Thou city which men call the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth, all the enemies opened their mouth against her to devour her." And yet ye will get the Lord's Kirk no better (Mic. 4:6), ye will get the Lord's Kirk there, a halting cripple woman, that has but one leg to gang upon. Aye (1 Cor. 1:27), His Kirk there is called the nothings of the world, those that are not worth the uptaking, the kinless things of the world, the ignoble, base, contemptible ones, the refuse of men! and (chap. 4) "the off-scourings of the world." Are the Lord's people so, indeed? No. They are not so, indeed; for (Mal. 3:17) they are called the Lord's jewels, His beloved people. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? (Jer. 31:20.) How comes it to pass, then, that God speaks so of His Kirk? Answer: The Lord speaks so of His Kirk and people as men speak of them and according to their outward estate in the world, for the world sees not the Kirk's best side. The world knows not our Father, nor they know not our joy nor our inheritance; they see not our day of rejoicing. That which makes the Kirk glorious is hid from the eyes of the world (Prov. 14). A stranger meddles not with the joys of the Kirk. They know not our joy, for it is hid up with God in Christ. All our best things are hid from the eyes of the world; they only see our worst.
The thing that we have to learn from this is, if the Kirk of Christ seem to be thus in the eyes of men, and then if the Lord, upon the other hand, count so highly of them, then let us not despise them, bourd not with them, albeit they be baselike in the eyes of the world; for rise against the Kirk who will, because they think her strength not to be great, for, as weak as she is, they shall be broken in pieces whoever they be who draw a sword against the Kirk of Christ, or rashes hard heads with it. Look there! they had not an arm to put up their sword again. See there! they be not all broken in pieces. What a cursed word is spoken of these who are enemies to the Kirk and haters of Zion! Psa. 129:6: "They shall be as grass upon the housetop, which withereth before it groweth up: wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. Neither do they who go by say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you: we bless you in the name of the Lord." None that sees them at their work shall bless them, but the wrath of God shall be upon them; the mowers, nor shearers, shall get no good of them, but wrath and calamity shall seize upon them.
There is another thing in this style. He calls them Jacob, and Jacob is the Lord's covenanted people. And so it is as meikle as if He had said, "Fear not, despised and weak people, and yet the Lord's covenanted ones." There is not a cross, misery, or affliction that comes upon the people of God but it is the Lord's, and is sib to Him, for the first word is as meikle as they were despised and silly—a worm; but the next word, "Jacob," is a word of honour. We have to learn here that the very misery of the Kirk of God it is glorious, the very crosses of the Kirk have another sort of lustre nor all the glory that is in the world; for thir two words are as meikle as if it had been said, "Base bodies, and yet highly honoured of God, the refuse of the world, and yet for all that those whom the Lord has taen by the hand to be His people, and He has taken upon Him to be their God." There are three blessed things that befall the children of God in all their crosses that the world has not in its troubles and crosses.
First. There is a moderation while they are under them. We may see the proof of this in this text. "Worm Jacob" He calls them, and yet He says to them, "I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, to thresh the mountains and to beat the hills to caff." The Kirk under affliction dreeing, and yet they live, hungered and yet well fed, persecuted but not forsaken. The enemies are doing what they can to put us in the grave; and yet even then, when we are in the grave, we shall live. No; there is such a moderation of the troubles of the Kirk of God and of His children that there is not one ounce of sorrow or trouble that comes upon them but it is all weighed in heaven before it come upon you, and thou shalt get no more of it nor the Lord pleases. The Lord will have you to drink no more of that cup nor thy stomach will bear. He will not have you to drink till thy heart stand. Such a sweet attemperation have the children of God in all their troubles. This meikle baseness shall come upon them, and no more; and it shall be mixed with honour.
Another thing that is in the afflictions of the children of God, even a trim lustre upon them. "Worm Jacob," and despised of the world, yet thee whom I have chosen from among all the people in the world to be Mine. O! there is such a trim lustre on all the crosses of the children of God, that whatever befall them it is well watered over with the love and favour of God, Rev. 14:13: "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours and their works follow them." What is sourer and more fearful-like than death, and yet death being in the Lord it is sweet, and well watered to the children of God, for then they rest from their labours, and Job (chap. 5:17) says: "Blessed is the man whom Thou correctest." Of itself correction is sour, and yet coming from the Lord, and being watered with His love, it is sweet, and so sweet, that it is a thing wherein blessedness stands (Acts 5:41). The apostles when they were scourged before the council for preaching the gospel, it is said of them, "They went out rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus." There are two trim coverings there put upon their sufferings. First, the Lord's blessed estimation of them. He "counted them worthy." Second, they themselves rejoicing "that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus." Well is it that we get a blae hide and bloody shoulders for preaching our Lord's gospel. There is glory in such baseness as that is. Our shame it is a glorious shame. Our hunger is His fulness. With it our Christ is a refreshing Christ. Our death it is a life unto us.
Third. "Worm Jacob." This is as meikle as the Lord He esteemed Himself sib to their crosses. There is no cross or misery that befalls the Kirk of God or any of His children, but it is sib to God. There is an excellent word which is spoken by the apostle (Col. 1:24), "I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh;" and (Heb. 11:26) speaking of Moses, he says of him: "He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." The sufferings of the Kirk and the children of God, they are Christ's sufferings. Thy wae heart, thy losses, thy sufferings, they are Christ's. The world's afflictions, they are bastard afflictions, they belong not to Christ. There are enew under crosses that Christ has nothing ado. Well's them who are under crosses, and Christ says to them, "Half mine." And you should learn to make use of this and see when you are under crosses how sib they are to Christ. Is it your grief and your sorrow for fear that the Lord's cause and His people in the camp be not well? That is a sorrow that is sib to Christ, and He will comfort those who are under sorrow that way. But if your grief and your sorrow be that ye will be poorer nor ye were before, because there is something sought of you to the cause of God that ye will be in greater danger nor ye were before by entering in a covenant with God ye will get none of Christ's comfort then for your cross and trouble: He has nothing ado with it. Well's them who know their crosses are not their own, but they are Christ's crosses, and then their crosses are well winded up in a web of His love, for then it shall neither hurt you nor kill you, but thou shalt bear it patiently and handsomely. That is a happy affliction that is Christ's affliction, and He has waled it to thee.
"Fear not, worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel," and to speak the word with a warrant, he adds to it: "I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." What ground of comfort were this if it were said by one that could not help?—but the Lord says it.
There are three sorts that take upon them to comfort under trouble.
First. There are some who can do more, but only speak a good word to them. And that is but a cold comfort, to speak a word, and no more, to a troubled conscience.
Second. There are some who take upon them to comfort under trouble, and they can do something; but it is but man's help when all is done, and we are forbidden to trust in any help of man—Psa. 146:3: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help."
There is a third, again, that helps in trouble, who only should take upon Him to help, for He can infallibly help in trouble. But He is a king of His word. He helps indeed where He promises. When God says "Fear not," albeit thou wert compassed about with enemies on all sides, and there were as many devils round about you as there are piles of grass upon the earth, or as there have fallen of drops of rain since the world began, thou needst not to fear; thou may go through the sea then, and the sea shall not drown you, the fire shall not burn you; thou may'st dance on the grave, for the grave shall not rot you. And so this is a well-fard word: "I will keep thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." What if Jeremiah or Isaiah had said this to them! No, certainly that had not been enough, but the Lord says it, and that maun stand sure. Then hang by this word, and this word is putten to to tell us that a trembling and doubting soul in trouble, it can get no fastening word, but only that which the Lord speaks. Albeit an angel or a king should say, "Fear not," or twenty or thirty thousand armed men should say it, it is nothing; and God grant that we trust not more in men nor we do in the Lord at this time. But if the Lord say to a soul in trouble, "Fear not," we may trust in that word. A doubting soul it gets no sure word to fasten on until it get God's word to uphold it. Bind a ship to a rash bush to hold her by! That is but a slim anchor; it cannot hold her when she begins to be moved. Even so to bid a distressed soul believe in the Kirk, or in the Pope's word, or lippen in a Service-book, it is worth nothing to it, especially to a soul under perplexity and trouble, when many enemies are besetting it. And, you know, a worm is a beast that has as many enemies as any beast has, for when it is creeping on the ground it has as many enemies as there are feet going upon the ground ready to tramp upon it, and to put out the guts of it. So is the Kirk and the children of God, environed with enemies on all hands. But there is a binding word here for "worm Jacob:" "I will help thee, saith the Lord," and so they may ride it out against all storms and temptations that can overtake them. You may know how many doubtings are ready to overtake the children of God, especially if there be armies about them, and if the power of those who are against us be great, as, if there be kings upon their side. But even when it is so, the Lord's "Fear not" is a powerful word to them who can grip to the promises of God, who can say in faith, "If I die God's promise shall die with me, for I shall hold by it." When God, who is a king of His word, says, "Fear not," what need you to care for hundreds, or thousands, or fear them when they are about you? The Third Psalm says, "I will not be afraid for ten thousands of the people that have beset themselves against me round about." That is a stout soul, and he is the best sojour and the stoutest that draws a sword that lippens more to the promise of God nor to all other outward helps in the world beside.
Again, some may object and say, "I know that there is enough every way in God, but what is that to me, when I am so unworthy? What the better can I be of His promises, I am so sinful and unworthy?" Answer: Whom to is His promises made if not to you? If Christ be thy Redeemer, and thou be in covenant with Him, then all His promises, they are made to thee whoever thou be, though never so unworthy in thy own eyes. But that is our great neck-break in the point of believing, and in the point of faith, that because we may justly find fault with ourselves, therefore we are ready also to find fault with God and with Christ. O, say we, "There is meikle guiltiness in me, and so I cannot believe your word of promise that I have anything to do with it." That is as meikle as to say, that because thou art ill, therefore Christ is ill also. A doubting soul is ready to find many faults with God and with Christ. Thou wilt say He is long in coming, and complains that He lets them not soon enough into Him. The truth is, because thy eye is ill therefore thou believest His to be ill also. It were good for us in looking to the promises of God, to look out of ourselves and to look to them in Christ only; for if ye look for any cause or ground of believing in yourselves, or in the creature, ye shall never believe. That is the surest way of believing to say, "Thou, thyself, art toom, but Christ is full. I am a lost soul, but He seeks that which is lost, and He is found of them who seek Him not." When once we come to this, and rest upon the Lord this way, then we take a right grip of the promises. Now for all that we have heard of, or seen, to be against us, and for as weak as we are, yet we may bless God for what is done in this land: four and twenty or thirty thousand men going into a neighbour kingdom. But they may raise five score thousands to come against them: yet if we could grip to this word of promise, "Fear not, worm Jacob, and men of Israel, I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel;" and if they resolve (if they be put to it) to fight because they believe; and if we who stay at home can be instant in praying to God for them, that the Lord would make many to favour them and make the hearts of their enemies to faint, what would not our Lord do for them who believe in Him?
The style that God gets here. It is a new style, for God has two sorts of styles in His word. There is Jehovah and God; and the Lord, He would hold these styles albeit the world had not been or any created thing. But if there had not been a world, and lost sinners, and a Kirk, He had not been a Creator, nor a Redeemer, nor a Husband to His Kirk. And so the Lord He has these styles of Creator, Redeemer, the Lord of the whole earth, the Husband of His Kirk, the Holy One of Israel, from us, and our house. And we may say two things of these styles that the Lord has from us. First: That they are very humble styles, and very comfortable to us; for by that we may see, that He has married with us, and with our house, because He has taen styles from us: from His lost people He takes the style of a Redeemer; from the covenant that He has made with His people He takes the name of the Holy One of Israel; from marrying with His people He takes the name of Husband. This is even like unto a house that is like to go out of the name for want of male heirs, and there comes in one and marries the heritage of the house, and takes styles from the house, and calls himself after the name of it and so keeps it in the name. Second: We may say again that the Lord He has no toom empty styles. Many in the world indeed they have toom names and toom styles. The Lord has made many kings, and many of them fill not the chair of a king; albeit they be princes, yet they have not the minds of princes. And magistrates in the Psalm (Psa. 82:6) they are called "gods;" and yet they will die the next day, and so they fill not the chair of a god, for God cannot die. And many that are called friends, yet they fill not the rowme of a friend; for either they will change their mind, or they will die the next day, and then their friendship is gone. But for the Lord our God He has no toom names at all; Isa. 43:3: "I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour;" and Mal. 3:6, He says, "I am the Lord that changeth not." This should teach us to put our trust and confidence in this Lord who thus takes styles to Himself from us, and to trust more in Him nor in all the men in the world who are not able to fill their seat—to trust in Generals and Commanders, and such others as these who are not able to fill their seat. No, it is better to trust in the Lord who never yet tint a field and who takes no toom styles to Himself. Whatever God is called in His word that He is indeed. It is a damnable doctrine that the Arminians teach to say that Christ is a King, and yet it may be that He have no subjects; for they make His kingly office only to stand in this, that He has right to be a King, albeit all His subjects they should be apostates. And they say He is a Husband because He has right to marry a spouse, albeit she will not marry Him. O, but that be a most damnable doctrine to say, that Christ is a King and yet it may be that He have no subjects! That He shall be a Lord and not have a willing people! He taketh no toom names to Himself. Whatever name the Lord takes unto Himself is salvation. The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are saved. Is that the letters of the name Jehovah that is a strong tower? No; it is the Lord Himself. The righteous trust in the name of the Lord, and to trust in the name of the Lord is to trust in Himself. So that if we can learn to acknowledge the Lord in His styles, and in His lordship and dominion, and put Him in His chair of state, then no doubt but He will be all unto us that He is called, He will be a friend to you who want thy friend, a father to the fatherless, a king to those who trust in Him, and want no earthly king, or has a king who does not his duty to them. He will be a husband when the husband of those who trust in Him dies, or have a husband who does not his duty to them. He fulfils all the wants that those can have who trust in Him.
"Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as caff.Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away." Lest the Kirk should take ill with this style, "Worm Jacob" and "Men of Israel," as base styles—as base styles they ofttimes cast our hearts down—the Lord says to them: "Giving, but not granting, that it be so, yet I will help you, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." And the help it is set down in the 15th verse, "I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth." There is a doubt met with here in this 15th verse. They might have said, "Why have not we just cause to fear, we being but a worm and few men (as the word in the first language reads); and so why have we not cause to fear?" The Lord says to them, "Ye have no cause to fear for all that;" and I shall meet with that objection as there is no ground of doubting in a weak believer, but the Lord He has a wedge to meet it with to ding it out again: "I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth." How meets this with their objection? Very well; for first they are called a worm, and now they are called a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth. A base and a despised Kirk, and base and lightly esteemed in the eyes of the world; and yet for all that a flail to beat the mountains of the earth to nothing, and to beat them so small that they shall be blown away, so that they are not able to bide their straikes. Then ye see the Kirk, it is a small party in the eyes of the world, and despised of them; and yet for all that the hardest party that ever the powers of the world yoked with. Rise up against the Kirk of Christ who will, they shall find that they never yoked with the like of them. Let kings and antichrist, the Pope and his power, and prelates and Papists, rise up against the Kirk of Christ, they shall find that they had never such a tough party as the Kirk is, for the Lord He has ways anew to make His people strong, that they may prevail.
How is it that they become a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth? The Lord makes them so, and were it not so that they are something of the Lord's making they were nothing indeed. But fra they are something of the Lord's making they are strong enough against all opposers; an' the kirk were slain He can win a battle with them; and they were dry bones He can put sinews and flesh and skin upon them and put life in them to make them prevail; and ye were a worm, ye shall be a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, to beat the mountains of the world and make them small, and to make the hills as chaff. Then the strength of the Kirk it is from God's making of them strong. We are daft that looks to our own strength, and to the number of our men. God grant that our eyes be not fixed upon men for our security! And, indeed, I fear that more nor anything that our eyes be fixed upon men over meikle. Let us look to the Lord's making of us strong. And, indeed, we look all wrong if we look not to our Lord's strength and to anything else. This says that we look all wrong when we look to anything that is in ourselves, and look not only to that which is in Christ. Alas! says some one, "I am a great unbeliever, and will Christ lay His fair face to my black cheeks? Will He kiss me who has so foul a mouth? No." And God make you something, then ye shall be something indeed. It is not our wit or strength or worthiness that will do our turn. It is our Lord and His strength who must do it. Paul he is nothing in himself and in his own account, and yet through Christ that strengthens him he is able to do all things (Philip. 4:13). And, Heb. 11:34, it is said, of weak He makes strong—"they waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the enemies," through His strength; Rev. 1:6: "The Lord makes us to be kings and priests unto Himself;" and Rom. 8:37, who are made "more than conquerors through Him that loveth us."
How will the Lord do this to His weak Kirk, to worm Jacob, and to the few men of Israel? There are four ways how the Lord does this. The first way is this. Sometimes the Lord He gives unto them worldly strength to overcome their enemies outwardly; as sometimes the Lord He will make some few thousands to rise against many thousands and to put them to flight. The Lord will make good that word which is spoken, Numb. 24:5, 7, 8 (albeit he was a false prophet who spake it, yet it is the Word of God for all that): "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! He shall pour out the waters of his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters, and his king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of unicorns: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, he shall break their bones, and pierce them through with arrows." This was spoken of the seed of Jacob when they came out of Egypt, and had not a foot of ground of heritage; nor had they a cothouse above their heads, nor a sheaf of corn growing, to show that our Lord He can give security to those who are mean and weak in the eyes of men, and as it is, Isa. 10:33: "He will lop the boughs with terror; and the high ones in stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled." He can make them to bow down under the prisoner. Ay, albeit we of this nation were blocked up by sea and land, yet they wanting the Lord's strength and we having it, they shall fall under us.
A second reason of this is, Because they who come against Zion, whoever they be, they have seen their fairest day. Fra once they come against Zion they have never a day to do well again. You know what end Babylon made fra once they carried away the Lord's people to captivity, and Babylon is called the Lord's hammer for beating the earth; and yet fra once they carried away the people of God, their well days are done. And Jeremiah he brings in all the nations about against Babylon; fra once they come against God's people, and His land. And among many other plagues pronounced against them, Jeremiah he pronounces this, 51:26: "And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the Lord." Fra once Pharaoh came against Israel and against Moses, there came one plague after another upon him till at last he was made meat for the fishes, and the wrath of God lighted upon him and upon his princes and his people. The Kirk of God is a mite, but crack that mite who will they will break their chaft-teeth upon it, that they shall never eat well again. Be an enemy who will to this covenant that God has made with this land and they with Him (and it were but to be an heart enemy to it), it is a hundred to one if ever they have a day to do well. Can the husband endure that any should come against his married wife to wrong her? No; we believe certainly that the Lord He will take vengeance upon the enemies of our Covenant in Scotland, and of this cause that we are now called to go unto the fields for.
The third way, How the Kirk is victorious over her enemies is because her head, Christ, has strength enough for Him and her both. You know what is said of Christ, Psa. 2:9: The Lord has put a rod of iron in His hand to dash all His enemies in pieces therewith as a potter's vessel. All that rise against the Lord and against His Kirk they shall be broken in pieces. In Isa. 49:25, there is a terrible word spoken there to the enemies of God's people: "I will contend with them that contend with thee, and I will save thy children; and I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob." So this is all done through Christ's strength. For as He is Mediator there is a promise made unto Him (Psa. 110:5) that whoever they be who are His enemies they shall never thrive nor do well; and fra the Lord has given Him all power in heaven and earth He may take order with all His enemies, for He may head and hang within His own bounds. He shall fill the pits with the dead bodies of His enemies; and in the pursuing of His enemies He shall be so hot, and in such a haste, that he shall not go into the tavern to take a drink of wine there and to take good cheer, but He shall drink of the water out of the brook until the time that He has brought utter judgment and desolation upon His enemies.
Fourth. The Kirk of Christ it maun be a sharp threshing instrument because of this gospel, for the ill and sorrowful days of the enemies of the Kirk they are contained in this gospel and in this Covenant that Scotland has sworn with God. And whoever they be who will not obey this gospel there is vengeance prepared for them; to let all the world see this, that it is better to make any party in the world your enemy nor to make Christ and His Kirk your enemy, and to comfort those who are upon our Lord's side of it. Let the world say the contrary, whoever they be who are upon our Lord's side of it when He triumphs, they shall also triumph. And is it not enough that we get a part of our Lord's triumphant victory, and that He will rain vengeance upon His enemies and ours? And it is a part of the Kirk's joy that there is a day coming when no devil in hell, nor no Pope, nor no prelate, nor any whoever they be, who have given wicked counsel against His people, if they have not repented unto Him thereof He shall tread them all under His feet, and He shall say to them, "Bring hither those My enemies who would not that I should reign over them: bind them hand and foot and cast them in utter darkness." That is a sore sentence, and yet our Lord has left it in His Testament to His enemies, and to the enemies of Zion. And they shall have a share of Christ's joy who love His cause and covenant, and rejoice when Zion rejoiceth, and sorrow when it is in distress. Look, what is your greatest fear and sorrow?—that which wakens you first in the morning and is last in your thought at night? If it be concerning the estate of the Lord's Kirk and Zion there cannot be a more blessed mark of a child of God than to be rightly mindful of Zion's case; Psa. 137:5, the penman of that Psalm says there: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, then let my right hand forget her cunning." If thy joy or thy sorrow be according as the Kirk of Christ is joyful or sorrowful, thou shalt then get a share of her victory thou shalt help to divide the spoil with her. When Christ has overcome all His enemies, Rome, and Spain, and Pope, and prelates, and thou shalt sit down beside Christ all sweating, then He shall take the napkin of His consolations to dry thee withal. And He shall then lay thee into His heart and bosom, and shall say: "Come sing a song of victory with Me! All ye who were partners of My woe, come now and take a share of My joy. Come and sit down in a cushion beside Me, and rejoice in Me and in My salvation." Now, to this Lord who has purchased this unto us, and fights for the keeping of it, to His Father and our Father and to the Holy Spirit be all praise, dominion, and glory for ever.—Amen.
Fear not, thou worm Jacob
No. II
"Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel."—ISAIAH 41:14–16.
MOUNTAINS and the greatest powers in the world (beloved in our Lord), they will not be able to bide God when He is angry, when the Lord kindles a fire in His anger, as it is spoken by Himself, Deut. 32:22, He burns up the foundations of the mountains, the mountains they become valleys before the Lord when He is angry; the sea it becomes as dry land. Then all the powers in the world, how great soever they be, they maun bow to Him. Who was there ever that drew a sword against Him and prospered? Who was there that ever exalted himself against Him, and was not laid low in the dust? We have here as weak a party mentioned as you could speak of: "Worm Jacob." And here, on the other hand, there is as strong a party as any can be—the mountains of the world; and yet, for as strong as they are, and for as weak as the Kirk is, here they are brought to confusion before the Kirk of God. And the Lord He does this; for it is borrowed strength from God that does the Kirk's turn, and no strength of her own. "Behold, I will make you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth; and thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat the hills as caff." And who shall get the Psalm and song of victory for doing this? "Thou shalt rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel." It is not thy own arm, and thy own strength, and the multitude of thy own men whom thou shalt thank for this; but thou shalt thank the Lord for it, and rejoice and glory in Him.
Will there be any poor and needy ones within the Kirk at this time? Let it be so, yet, "when the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will help them. I shall make fountains and rivers for them in the wilderness," when they are thirsty. And they shall want nothing that may do them good.
Is this like the Lord's Kirk and the estate thereof to be in such a case as is here spoken of, who are cumbered this day with the Papists about the falling away of the true Kirk, and what are the marks whereby to discern the true Kirk from the false Kirk? They put this in a question. If Christ shall have a true Kirk to the end of the world? And that is but a foolish question for any to propose, "If Christ shall have a Kirk?" for the Kirk of Christ shall never fall away totally, for albeit there be few of the Kirk, and they be silly like to look unto, yet they shall never fail. Many shall be hungry before they die for hunger, for Christ has His Kirk written upon His loof, and upon the palms of His hands. And let hell and devils and all contrary powers rise against them to destroy them; yet they are builded upon the rock, and who can put them off that rock? Well's them who take part with them who are upon Christ's side of it, for all the mountains in the world shall not be able to overcome them and to bear them down.
A second question that may be proposed is this: looks this like the meek saints of God to thresh the mountains and ding the hills to caff, and to winnow them? Are Christ and His Kirk fighting folks. Where fra comes this that Christ, He will make His Kirk a new sharp threshing instrument against their enemies to beat them all to dust? Indeed, the cause of this is not in Christ nor in His Kirk, for they love peace best of anything else. Christ says, "I came to make peace in the world and not for war." And how comes it, then, that Christ and His Kirk, they have aye commonly the fighters' part of it; and His Kirk maun be made a flail to thresh the world, and a wind to winnow them away as caff? Christ and His Kirk, they would live in peace, but the wicked in the world would not let them live in peace and ease, since that day that war was pronounced in Paradise between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent; they have never been at peace yet to this day. Neither will they ever be at peace so long as the world lasts. The Kirk of Christ maun still be pursued till they be up in heaven with their Father and Lord; except the devil be dead, and so his instruments cease. Christ maun evermore fight so long as He is here and has a Kirk. The mountains and powers of the world they dow not endure Christ. Is this for any wrong that Christ does to them that they dow not endure Him? What is the controversy that is this day between Christ's Kirk and the powers of the world? Nothing else is the controversy but because He is seeking His own from the powers of the world, because we are seeking to have the gospel established, and to have it established in purity and with peace. We are seeking no more, and that makes the pley, and this pley it will last as long as the world stands, and as long as Christ has any followers to follow Him. It is a pley that has evermore been, and a pley that will evermore be; so that it is no new thing to see Christ in the camp. Christ is as oft to be found in the camp as He is to be found in His royal palace. And who are these who are against Christ? The mountains and the great powers in the world. Those have evermore been cold friends to Christ and of His Kirk, and yet for all that they are left by the Lord in this world to be tutors and defenders of Christ, and of His Kirk, for they ought to be mountains to hold the stormy winds off the kirk, that they do her no harm, and to keep the rains of afflictions off her, and, Isa. 49:23, it is said, kings they should be nursing fathers, and queens they ought to be nursing mothers to the Kirk of Christ; and yet, albeit they should be so for the most part, they dow not endure Christ. When Herod hears that Christ is born, he says, "He is come to take my kingdom from me, and therefore I will have Him slain now when He is young, that so I may keep my kingdom." Fool! Christ came not to take crowns off the heads of kings in the world. No; by the contrary, there are no such friends for kings, and none so meikle for keeping their crowns upon their heads as Christ is; for, Prov. 8:16, the wisdom of God even Christ says: "By Me kings reign and princes decree justice." If kings would become Christ's tenants, they might be more blessed under Him than under any other master.
Who are these who are called mountains? Even the great powers of the world who rise against Christ and against His Kirk. And the mountains and these great ones who rise against Christ's Kirk, they agree very well in thir particulars.
First. You know there is no difference between the mountains and the rest of the earth. There are valleys, but only that they are some higher than the rest of the earth is, and by that means the sun when it rises, it shines upon them first, and it shines last upon them at night. Even so the great powers of the world they are flesh and blood as other men are, only they have a glance of glory beyond others when they come into the world, and it may be when they go out of it again; as one when he is born he may be born a king, and he gets a glance of glory then and another glance of glory at his burial—that is all the difference. They are called gods indeed, but they are only clay gods, for they maun die as well as others. Death and judgment miskens them. No; but it searches upon them as well as it does upon the poorest in the world.
Second. Another difference between the mountains and the valleys is: their uses to come spates of rain off the mountains to the valleys, that do the valleys meikle harm. Even so there has come meikle harm to the Kirk of Christ from the mountains of the world since the beginning: There is a destroying mountain spoken of, Jer. 51:25; the Lord says He will stretch out His hand upon it, and will roll it down from the rocks, and make it a burnt mountain.
Third. Mountains, they are impediments to a servant when they are going a hasty errand of their masters, being in their way. Even so the mountains of the world, they are ofttimes a stone in Christ's gate, when He has ought ado, and yet (Isa. 40:4) it is said every mountain shall be made low which stands in Christ's gate, when He has ought ado. When will these mountains go out of Christ's gate? As soon as He begins to reprove them, Zech. 4:7: "Who art thou, O mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain." When Christ is angry at them He can shool the mountains into the sea. What have these mountains for them to boast themselves against Christ our Lord and against His Kirk, for those of them who are torn away out of the gate, even kings themselves, they are now lying in as little bounds as the poorest bodies that lived with them, and yet those who are behind they will boast also. But the Lord He takes some of them away that all the mountains of the world may know against whom they come, when they come against Christ and against His Kirk, He will make them low valleys.
Here is a lesson to Scotland and a lesson to us this day. Our dear Lord has been letting us see that the mountains in the world they are not able to bide Christ when He is angry. Poor Scotland! that is the outcast of all the nations of the world, the Lord has done this for it when the mountains of the world could not abide it. And there were fourteen great mountains in this land, and there were enew who builded their nests under these mountains, doctors and deans and archdeans, and all these who looked to be prelates; but the Lord He has casten down all these mountains and all the nests also that were bigged under these mountains. And we trust that we may say of them that that shall be upon them which David says of the mountains of Gilboa, "Let never rain nor dew fall upon them, nor any grass grow upon them." So we trust in God shall it be with them. They shall never rise that rain may fall upon them or that anything may grow upon them. The Lord will make them as it is spoken of the Mount of Olives (Zech. 14:4), to cleave in the midst toward the East and toward the West, and they who bigged their nests under them shall flee to the valleys for safety. The Lord will make these mountains to cleave in the midst who rise up against Him and against His Kirk. Alas! they have ever far the worst part of it who come against the Lord and His covenanted people; but happy are they who are upon the Lord's side of it, for they shall prevail.
What sort of instrument makes the Lord His Kirk to be? "A new sharp threshing instrument having teeth." Is not [this] against the meekness of the Kirk? for if any want teeth, should not the Kirk and children of God want teeth, for who was more toothless-like nor our Lord Jesus was? When they were putting Him away out of the world, were scourging Him, mocking Him, and doing all the ill that they could to Him, He says, "Father, forgive them: they know not what they do;" "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Should the Kirk of Christ then have teeth, seeing Christ Himself had none? Yes; the Lord's Word tells us of three teeth that the Kirk has, and come into their chafts who will, the Lord has given them teeth to bite them so that they shall never do well again (Psa. 58:9–11).
The tooth of revenge is given unto them. "The righteous shall rejoice, when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." Why, but we may be glad if so be that we insult not over men's persons, but only for their wicked courses, to see our righteous Lord kything Himself to be righteous in revenging Himself upon His and our wicked enemies; and if we sacrifice not the praise of the doing thereof to our own net, we may justly say, "Blessed be God for it," when we see Rome and Spain and Antichrist, and the mountains of the world that are against Christ and His Kirk and people, fall to the ground.
Second. There is a tooth of justice also which is given unto the Kirk of God. What sort of a direction is that which is given to Saul against Amalek? (1 Sam. 15:3)—to slay Amalek and all that was within his land, both men and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass, and to spare none. There is a sword sometimes put in the Kirk's hand to destroy her enemies, and this proves our Lord Jesus to be a victorious Lord over His enemies. These are not the special weapons of our Lord's warfare, for they are not carnal but spiritual for dinging down of strongholds, even prayer, fasting, &c. And (Psa. 137:9) there is a direction given there to take Babylon's young ones off their knees and to dash their heads against the stones, and they are pronounced to be blessed who do so.
Third. There is a tooth of the power of the Mediator Christ put into the Kirk's head. Christ and His people are brought in, coming so sonsy-like,Isa. 63:1, and all His garments dyed with blood: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength? I, says the Lord, that speaks righteousness, mighty to save." The Lord and His Kirk have a tooth to eat up all the mountains that come against them, prophesied by that false prophet Balaam, whether he would or not—Num. 24:8: "He shall eat up the nations His enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with His arrows." Who will, who will no, the Lord will have the Kirk to have teeth to bite her enemies, so that the enemies they shall stoop and fall under the sword of the Lord and of His Kirk. And the Lord is likely to make it to be so at this time. Who knows but this great work which is begun in Scotland now when it is going into England, and it has tane some footing there, but the Lord He will make it to go over sea? Who knows but the Lord will make Scotland, who is a worm indeed in comparison of other nations, to be a sharp threshing instrument, to thresh the mountains and to beat the hills to pieces? Who knows but He will make them a sharp threshing instrument to beat Rome and the Pope and Antichrist to pieces, and make all her merchants to cry, "Babylon, Babylon, that great city, is fallen"? O! for to see that great stumbling-block that stands into the way of Christian religion tane out of the way, and then to see the people of the Jews brought in again to Christ, their old Husband, and married upon Him, and the fulness of the Gentiles! O! to see our Redeemer Christ have one fair day of it in the world; to see Jew and Gentile married on Christ, and to see His dominions going from the East to the West and from sea to sea, and to see the whole earth in one sheepfold, obeying the voice of one Shepherd! That is the blessedest day that ever we saw if it were come, and we should pray to the Lord to hasten it that so that may be fulfilled which the Lord promises.
"Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them;" the enemies they shall be as chaff before the wind. That is a mark of the false Kirk that when Christ and His Kirk rise against them they have no more standing, but they are blown away. Cast the wicked in a furnace of affliction and trial, they will not win out of it again. But cast the godly in a furnace when ye will, they will win out of it unburnt. Cast dross in a hot fire, it will never be seen again. But cast pure gold in a fire, it will come out as good as it was put in. Cast the wicked under the stroke of an angry God, they dow not bide Him, but they are consumed, Isa. 50:9: "They shall wax old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up;" Isa. 51:8: "The moth shall eat them like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool." When God is angry at a wicked man, and He begins to strike him, there is no more strength in him to stand against Him than in an old moth-eaten clout that falls out all in holes when any hand touches it; the hearts of the enemies of God's people fail them like water when the Lord grows angry at them. That is a nation that is void of grace that are not able to stand before the Lord when He begins to blow at them. That great and strong city of Jericho, the people heard but news of the great and valiant acts that Joshua and the people of God had done, and incontinent there remained no more spirit in them. There is news of death and of the wrath of God told unto that wicked man Nabal, and incontinent he tynes all his courage. Wherefra is it that all this comes? Will temporal afflictions take away faith, or will it deprive a man of the common gifts of God—as of reason, of sense, of joy? No. No more will any outward trouble take away faith, or take any of these common gifts of God where they are, nor a fire will burn the devil, and that is impossible. But whenever God sets Himself against wicked men, there is another thing backing crosses and troubles nor we see, even the wrath of an angry God backing the judgment, whether it be sword, or famine, or death; and that is the thing that blows away their faith and all their natural parts, and makes them to tyne their strength and courage. Who is the man that will be able to bide a battle, and to stand out when the ill day comes? Only the man who is in Christ and has true faith. Hell shall not fear such a man, nor anything he can be threatened with. Once get saving grace and be in Christ, then thou may be sure thou shalt not be caff before the wind in the day of God's anger. I know if the Lord would kythe in His might and in His power against the strongest in the world, He would make their blaw to fall. But the Lord never tries the strength of His omnipotence upon His own Kirk. But there is vengeance poured out upon His enemies, and upon the enemies of His Kirk, that which the Lord says to Eli by the mouth of Samuel, "When I begin to punish I will make a full end." That is true concerning the wicked. But, by the contrary, the Kirk of God and His children, notwithstanding of all the enemies that be against them, be they never so strong or never so many, they shall be made as caff before the whirlwind. But for the children of God, who are His own Kirk, He says of them (Isa. 43:2), "When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." And these are the two most merciless enemies that can be—fire and water; and yet He will preserve His own from both. But here is a terrible destruction threatened to come upon wicked men. Have they no more courage nor caff before the wind when God is angry with them? No; no more. There is a terrible destruction told to come upon the wicked—Job 18:6: "The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him." Woe to that man whose candle God puts out! "The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare. The girn shall take him by the heels," &c. It is cursed ground that he gangs upon. What more terrible thing can be spoken of the wicked man nor is spoken of here? Look again, Job 20:6: "Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. The eye which saw him shall see him no more; neither shall his place any more behold him. His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods," &c. He shall be like a ghost in the night that folks think they see, and, incontinent it passeth out of their sight. They are like a dream that a man cares not for. The Lord shall pull the wicked man out of his sheets, and He shall make him to perish as his own dung from the earth. He shall not swallow down the riches that he gets, or if he swallow them down, they shall be like gravel between his teeth. And (Job 21:17–19) among all other judgments prepared for the wicked, the wrath of God is prepared for his children and posterity. The fools of the world, they will not take a lesson of this, for as meikle as God has spoken against them and against their seed. Woe would the hearts of wicked men be, I am sure, if they kent this! I am sure a wicked man would never laugh if he kent this. The fear of hell is a very rare thing. There are few who think upon that what the mystery of hell is. Would ye think upon thir two, ye would think it a very ill thing to go on with the wicked. 1. To think that there is an eternity, and an eternity of wrath, abiding them. 2. To think upon the anger of God, and that it is an anger which will never be quenched. What a terrible oath is that which the Lord swears (Amos 8:7) against them who sell the poor for a pair of shoes; who wished the Sabbath to be gone that they may sell the refuse of the wheat; who would have the ephah small and the shekel great. By God Himself, "I shall never forget their ill-doing as long as I am God." Woe's ye that have such an oath sworn against you for thy wickedness. Remember what a terrible word is spoken against the house of Eli—1 Sam. 3:14: "I have sworn unto Eli's house, that the iniquity of the house of Eli shall never be put away by sacrifice nor burnt-offering for ever." And there is no greater oath the Lord can swear by nor by Himself, as the apostle says. That is a sore word that there are some whose sins the Lord God has them written with the point of a diamond that they shall never be forgotten. That is a fearful imprecation that is put up against Babylon (Isa. 13–14), and against Saul and those who were the enemies of David and of the Kirk at that time (Psa. 109). Woe unto the wicked, and to them who have tane up a banner against God! Meikle misery and woe abide them. Pre-suppose that a man had a sea of poison to drink, and aye as he drank it filled again, it would be thought a very hard matter. And that sea of wrath that the Lord is brewing for His enemies they shall drink thereof and be mad, and shall fall and never rise again; and yet they fear it not, albeit that be the lot there is appointed for them.
Now whom shall the Kirk thank for all this? "And thou shalt rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel." God will not have the glory of the victory to go by Himself, and we have more reason to fear this nor any other thing. And God grant that Scotland put not her trust in so many thousands of men and so many gallant spirits. Lord, save us from the sin of idolatry in taking away the thing from God which is His own due. There is an excellent word spoken in Psa. 115—when the Kirk had gotten many victories at that time they say, "Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but to Thy name be the praise." Not unto Scotland be the praise of victory, albeit we had thousand thousands of men moe nor we have, but unto the name of the Lord be the glory of all. Lord, save us in anyways from meddling with the Lord's glory. It becomes us rather to humble ourselves in the presence of God, and to acknowledge Him in what He is doing. Now the praise of all our works, both in us and for us, be ascribed to Christ's Father and our Father, and to His Son Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.—Amen.
A Charge to the Lord's Prophet
"Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant, and trespassed against My law. Israel shall cry unto Me, My God, we know Thee. Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him."—HOSEA 8:1–3.
THE Lord's prophet, beloved in the Lord, he had to do with very rough and hard timber at this time; he had to do with a stiff-necked people. And not only had the prophet of God to do with the ten tribes to prophesy to them; but sometimes also he prophesies against the Kirk and the kingdom of Judah. The most part of this chapter it is prophesied against the kingdom of Israel, the ten tribes, and the last verse thereof it is prophesied against Judah. And because the Lord's prophet he had to do with such a stiff-necked and rebellious people, therefore he uses more threatenings nor he does promises; and he has more threatenings nor any of the rest of the prophets has. For this prophet lived in a time when the people where he lived had no sense, nor knowledge of God. And the kings and princes of these lands, they had set their heads and their shoulders together for bearing down the true worship of God. And, ye know, an ill and a great knot of timber it requires a hard wedge to make it to rive. Even so because they had all revolted from God, and had taken them to a false worship, he maun speak to them as one who kent very well what was in their hearts; and therefore, for the most part, he speaks to them of the wrath and anger of God. And in this chapter, the prophet, inspired by the Spirit of God, he begins with a charge and a proclamation: "Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord." That is, declare unto them that there is war coming against them from the Lord. And then he gives a reason for it why he makes this proclamation. Some expone this to be king of Assyria, Salmanasar, that was come to against this people, "who should come as an eagle against the house of the Lord;" and some expone it otherways. But this is sure that this was some swift judgment that was to come against them. Some of them thought this judgment is long a coming; but when it comes, it comes with eagle's wings. It is a better judgment, if any judgment can be better nor another, that comes upon feet nor that which comes upon horseback. Against whom shall this judgment come? Not against the wicked folks in the world, but against the house of the Lord, against His own sworn and covenanted people, His main quarrel and controversy that He has is against them. What ailes the Lord to come against His own house? He maun be very angry when He does so. A father that comes against his own child to strike him if he be wise, he must have a just cause for it and be very angry at him. And the prophet says that the Lord He has just cause to do this. In the first verse He gives one reason of it: "Because they have transgressed My covenant, and trespassed against My law." That is a warrantable judgment that comes for such a cause. When there is sin against God's law and transgressing of His covenant among a people He has just cause to punish them.
What, will Israel make no apology for themselves when the wrath of God comes thus upon them? Yet, says the prophet, they will have their own excuses at that time. "Israel shall cry unto Me, My God, we know Thee." That is the first skonce that ever the pursued people of God gets to hide themselves under, and a hypocritical people when they are plagued make this objection against the Lord first. Will the Lord, say they, send a destroying enemy against us fra Thou art our God and Thou art in covenant with us, and so why should we be put to the worse? Why should Assyria come as an eagle against us, seeing we say, "We know Thee," and we profess Thee to be our God? In the third verse that objection is answered, as there is nothing that a plastered hypocrite can say to God as an excuse of his ill but the Lord has an answer to it. "Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him." It is not said that they have forsaken good, but they have forsaken the thing that is good. They have forsaken the Lord and tane them to Balaam; they have forsaken the fountain of living waters, and digged to themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. And therefore judgment shall come upon them; the enemy shall pursue them.
Now for the first part that there is a charge given to the Lord's prophet, "Set the trumpet to thy mouth." What is the duty of those who are the Lord's ministers when wrath is coming upon a people? They maun either tell them of it, or their blood shall be upon the pastor's head. Isa. 58:1: "Cry aloud and spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins." All ministers and prophets of God who would be free of the blood of lost souls are bound and obleist before God to tell them freely of their sins. The Lord says to the prophet (Ezek. 2), "Tell them from Me what it is that they have deserved." Then all ministers they are heralds sent out in God's name to denounce woe against all God's foes, and to speak peace unto God's friends, and they are messengers sent out from the Lord to tell what is the will of God to His people, to declare whether He be at peace, or if He be at war with a nation.
The use of this is, any prophet or minister that changes God's message by the way, and tells it not as God bids him tell it, he is not a faithful messenger, nor a right blower of the Lord's trumpet. He cries not the alarm at the command of the general, as he should that cries not unto the righteous, "Mercy, mercy unto you for all thy doubting and fainting; salvation to you for all the contrary thoughts thou hast, for there is blood enough in Christ's wounds to cleanse and to save you." And that tells not to the wicked man, "Laugh and rejoice as thou wilt, the anger of God is biding you, albeit thou seest it not." That is a false minister that changes God's wine, and puts in his own water instead of it, that changes God's copy in any point and fills it up with his own devices, that has not his warrant to show you for what he does. As he is a false messenger that will not show his message to you when he summons you. It is a token he is not right. Even so, all these who cannot let you see the copy of God's Word for anything they speak to you, it is a token that they are bastard trumpeters, and are not sent of God to speak to His people. Such ministers run and God sends them not; they speak the lies of their own head without the warrant of God's Word; and whenever there is a service pressed upon the kirk that is not warranted out of the Word of God, that contains such things therein as bowing before altars and sets apart days of man's devising for worshipping of saints, that is a false copy of God's will, and whoever follows it they speak and God sends them not.
Wherefore is a trumpet mentioned here? Because a trumpet is a shrill instrument of war, and a trumpet it is ordinarily blown to waken all and to stir them up who are not thinking of war, nor has any mind of it. So this is as meikle as if it were said, "Set thy trumpet thy mouth; let them hear on the deaf side of their head." The thing that we are to learn here is that a sleeping world and a sleeping Kirk they maun have a trumpet blown to waken them, for they will not be wakened with rounding into their ear to tell them that God is angry at them. But we maun blow a trumpet, and tell you of the wrath of God and of His anger against you. And there are four reasons wherefore we maun blow with a trumpet to waken secure sinners.
First. Because they dawt their own conscience that it may not accuse them for that which their mind lets them see to be wrong. Even as a father does to a dawted bairn lets him not wit by correcting him when he does wrong. Even like unto that spoken by the prophet (Isa. 30:10) they "say to the seers, See not; prophesy not," so that sinners have need to be shouted unto as with a trumpet that they may be wakened. Woe's them that can never be wakened with nothing till hell waken them, and if anything in the world be our wreck that same is it, even a spiritual security and sleeping in sin.
A second reason wherefore there maun be blowing with a trumpet to waken sinners is because there is meikle din, and that hinders hearing when God speaks unto us. Gain is crying so loud in some men's ears, and court, and the honour and pleasing of kings, and ease, &c. These things, and the like, cry so loud in the ear of the natural man that all that God's ministers and His prophets can cry unto him of the Lord's righteousness, of His justice, of His truth, they will not hear, neither can they hear. They who know what a disease in the ears means say this of it, that when there is a wound within, it makes a crackling there, and it hinders hearing of any sound without; and that is it which makes deafness. Even so, when the day of the Lord's anger and wrath, of His taking vengeance on transgressors is spoken of to some, there is something within that cries louder to them, that makes them not to hear the other, and therefore the Lord He bids sound a trumpet unto such.
A third reason wherefore the Lord bids sound a trumpet is, it is an ordinary thing for the devil to hold men off their compts till they be over the score, to keep them from seeing them till they can do no better, until they come to that that he makes them to think that they are over long a counting with God. Woe's them that let their compts run long, or without taking order with them, for it is a very dangerous thing. Our Lord, again, will have His messengers to set a trumpet to their mouth to tell His people what sin is, for nature will never tell a man what sin is. There are two sorts of convictions for sin that the Lord's Word tells us of. First: There is a natural conviction, and that never lets a man see what sin is. The natural man he is only a patient in that conviction; he never comes to be an agent. The conscience of the natural man may convict him of sin, but for his will and his affections they are mere patients, and join not at all in the work. They know that there is death and hell. But they would have death and hell to bide away from them, and this is the cause of that which is spoken, Isa. 26:11: "Lord, when Thy hand is lifted up, they will not see;" Amos 6:3: "They put the ill day far from them," and fra they think the ill day to be far fra them, and fra they see not the hand of God lifted up, albeit all the world should cry to them, they will not hear nor make them to know what they are doing. Second: The Word of God tells us of a spiritual conviction where God is an agent, and man himself He convicts also—1 Cor. 11:31: "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord;" Mic. 7:9: "I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against Him." There is an evident mark of one who hears the voice of God convicting of sin when they come to that.
A fourth reason wherefore a trumpet maun be blown is because to believe news of the wrath of God and of the Lamb is a supernatural thing, and so the spirit of nature will never make a man to believe them. Nature will never tell a man the thousandth part of the ill and sinfulness of sin, and therefore the Lord maun cry it into the soul as with a trumpet.
Use. Well's that soul whom the Lord works upon in time, and He makes to hear Him when He cries. Well were Scotland if they wakened in time out of their security! I durst say, if Scotland were wakened in the name of that Lord, who sent me here to speak to you, that mercy should be the end of all thir tumults and troubles that have been among us. There is nothing that hitherto has been the wreck of Scotland but only security, and that the sinners of Scotland have never been wakened. There be two things that serve for wakening sinners out of their security, and we have both these to waken us.
First: The sins of the land wherein we live call upon us to be humbled. And there were no more but the drunkenness, the atheism, the hypocrisy, the ignorance of God, the sins of the families of the land in not setting up the worship of God, we have just cause to be humbled for these and for the like.
Another thing which calls for humiliation is when judgment is already begun, and that is among us. And God knows if it be not time for us now to take our pleasure and ease, and to lay down our heads upon a eod of the devil's stopping when the Lord's ark is in the fields, and when the Lord's people of this land are entering into a strange land; and God knows who are their friends or who are their foes into it; and yet we trust that God will make the people of that land to be for their good, and will cause them sell them meat and drink, and what they stand in need of, and that He who has said, "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm," will do for them, albeit they should not show themselves friends to them. But when the Lord's glory is in such hazard, woe to them who are not praying to God for preserving, and for them who are in hazard for it, and are not humbled now for them, for they shall get none of our Lord's comforts in that day when He shall laugh and rejoice, and shall be set up high above all His enemies. They will not do something now when our Lord maun either die, or die when we are like to be an undone people, if He die not for us. Woe to them! but we trust that our Lord's salvation is not far off, but He will help us in time for His covenant's sake, seeing we are a people that are in covenant with Him; albeit the people of this land were all devils and remediless sinners. He will help us now, and take another time for punishing any wrongs of that kind.
There is a reason given for this in the next place why the Lord's prophet should set the trumpet to his mouth: "He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord." What king this was that at this time was threatened to come against thir people is differed upon by some of the interpreters. That it was Salmanasar, as some say, it is not likely, and yet it is sure that Assyria was to come against thir people, and to overcome them, and he was to come against them in a fierce and terrible manner, but we leave that. There are two sorts of judgments that come against the Kirk of God. There are some judgments that come upon four feet to them, that come, as it were, upon eagle's wings. And some judgments that come at leisure again, such as the wrath of God that came upon the old world. It was an hundred and twenty years coming upon them or it lighted, and yet for all that it came [at] last. Let the wicked in the world say as they will, yet the wrath of the Lord is long in coming, yet He is aye coming, and His judgment and wrath against the wicked sleep not. Isa. 30:18: "The Lord waits that He may be gracious, therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you, for the Lord is a God of judgment." The judgments of God sometimes they go at leisure, but they will come. 2 Pet. 3:4, there is a reason asked for this, wherefore the Lord's judgments that He has threatened are so longsome in coming? And it is answered, "The Lord delays it, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." This is referred to the words that are spoken before; He is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish. So that the enemies of the grace of God they can get no ground for their false doctrine.
But the Lord has other judgments that come not slowly but swiftly, and upon four feet as it were. And the Lord's Word, it uses three comparisons to show this swiftness of the Lord's judgments. This text that we have read says that they come with eagle's wings, and this is the king of all flying fowls, and comes with a clap upon the prey thereof. So do the judgments of God upon His enemies sometimes. The second word that is said for that is written, 1 Thess. 5:3, destruction shall come upon the wicked as pains upon a woman in travail. So is it with those who are wicked men. When they think least of destruction to come upon them, and when are preaching peace to themselves, and are bigging their castles upon high that they think no evil shall come near them, then the wrath and anger of God it breaks out upon them and destroys them. The third comparison for showing the swiftness of the coming of the judgment of the wicked, it is in the Prov. 1:27, it is said thereof that their destruction cometh as a whirlwind, and ye know a whirlwind is a thing that comes very suddenly. For presently before it there is a calm, and incontinent after the calm there comes a blast of a whirlwind that blows away all light things where it comes. Even so does the wrath of God when it comes upon the wicked. They see nothing but a calm before, and then after their greatest calm incontinently the whirlwind of the wrath of God comes, and blows them away root and branches.
Let our use of this be to learn to make use of the time which God gives unto us, for if the Lord's wrath come after such a manner upon His enemies, it is best for all to be looking their counts in time. Well's them that has all their counts laid and fitted before the Lord come upon them to call them to account. He is a blessed soul who can learn wisdom from the foolishness of the five sleeping virgins, and so escapes the wrath of God that comes upon the wicked in the world. O, but that be a sorrowful saying which that man in the gospel says, "Soul, take thy rest, for thou hast enough laid up for many years. Fool!"—is that well said?—"this night thy soul shall be taken from thee, and then whose shall all these things be?" The very time when he is proclaiming peace and ease to himself, aye, when thou art proclaiming rest every way to thyself, it may be that even then the Lord shall send a messenger to take thy soul from you as was done to Him. And what will all thy full barns and thy renewed confidence in the world that thou lippened so meikle unto, do to you then? Well's them who are prepared again the Lord come to call upon them. They fear not His call when it comes. What if the Lord shall be pleased to send a trial upon this land, and upon us of this congregation who think they shall be most able to stand out against any trial? None shall be able to stand out against the trial as these who can say in effect that there is no new event come upon them but that which formerly they looked might be, and were preparing themselves for the same; who can say there they resolved to be content, and they are content to quit husband, wife, children, life, lands, and rents, and all for their Lord and for His cause? And so let every one take pains to read over the count of their old sins—the night-drinker for his drunkenness, the blasphemer of God's name for his blasphemy, and such as were anyways art and part bringing in a new worship in the Kirk of God in this land, who consented unto the five articles of Perth, &c., and be humbled before God for them. If ye would have a lap of Christ's garment to cover you in the ill-day, if ye would be safe when the Lord comes against the sinners of Zion as an eagle, count for your old sins and be humbled for them and ye shall be safe.
Another thing that we have to mark in this comparison is, What is it that leads the eagle to come against the prey? Nothing else but the smell of the prey. What was it, think ye, that led Assyria to come against the people of God when they came? Was it the glory of God? No; it was nothing else but the love of the world and the things thereof, without any respect to God's glory. Our Saviour Christ says, Matt. 24:28: "Where the carcases are, thither will the eagles resort." Wherever there is a breakfast for the eagles, they will be there. Even so, wherever the enemies of the Kirk of God may get their vantage against the same, they will be there. It is a plain instinct of nature that leads the eagles to the prey, and hunger is enough to them to make them seek where the prey is. And the thing that leads the enemies of the Kirk of God to come against the Kirk is nothing else but the malice they have against the Kirk and the love of blood. They have such a greedy desire after it. And the Lord's Spirit tells of Nebuchadnezzar that was drunk with the blood of His people, and that he coveted after the same. We may thank the Lord for this that we know what it is that leads on the enemies of the Kirk to come against His Kirk, that it is not the Lord nor His glory. Is the end that they have before them, think ye, the Lord or His glory? No, no! say what they will. They will say the Divine Service-book which our enemies stand for this day, as one of them imprudently has said of it, that it is a Divine book, and that there is more sound divinity therein nor in all the extemporal prayers of all the ministers, both in our neighbour land and in this land also. But let them say what they will, it is nothing but themselves and the filling of their fat bellies and the pleasures of the world which they have been and are still seeking. It is a foolish thing for the enemies of the grace of God to say that man's free will it is a thing indifferent to choose or to refuse anything as it pleases, whether it be good or ill. Is the eagle's hunger a thing indifferent for the eagle to seek to have it stayed or not? No; it is natural for it to seek to have it stayed by the prey. They say there be three things that show this that the will of man is a thing indifferent. First, they say there is in man a thing which they call indifference to do good or to do ill at his pleasure. Second, they say that there is a conscience within those who are enemies to God as well as these have a conscience who are in favour with Him; but that conscience will not keep them in if so be they want grace. Third, they say they have the awe of the Lord in His Word to keep them from sin, and that will be a restraint to them. But there are other three which we may set against these, which are also in every man by nature, that sets them a work to do as ill from their conception. First, there is the habit of natural corruption, that leads them to commit sin; for natural corruption, as they say, is not like a pirate, that comes out of the harbour, and it is a thing indifferent for it to go east or to go west, and so they go where they think they may best find their prey. Nay, natural corruption is not a thing indifferent, but it leads every man captive to the law of sin. Second, there is in every man the habit of acquired corruption, beside the natural corruption which is in all by nature. He has more sin added to that sin wherein he was born, and that leads him on to commit sin. Third, is an individual induration that is come upon wicked men, whereby God has tied them in His righteous judgment to sin and given them over to their own wicked heart, that whether they will or not by reason of that individual induration that is come upon them they maun sin. Well's them that has their will guided by the grace of God, and not by another thing. See what it is that makes ye to stand for the cause of God, whether it be because there are thousands and multitudes upon Christ's side of it, and it would be hard with thee if thou dost otherways? That is a wrong motive, and it will not miss to fail thee if there come any trial. But that is a gracious freewill that resolves to stand in defence of the cause of God, and to stand by the same albeit there were no more upon Christ's side of it, that albeit all others should turn their backs upon Him, yet they will stand with Christ where He is.
What is the quarrel that this eagle has against the house of the Lord, and against His covenanted people, for it would be thought, Who should be free of straik if so be that the Lord's people be not free of it? No; by the contrar, you know it is said, "Judgment must begin at the house of God;" and, Ezek. 9:1, where those six men are sent out with slaughter weapons in their hands to slay all in the city save only those that were marked by the man with pennar inkhorn, even Christ, they are commanded to begin at the Lord's sanctuary. Whenever wrath is a dealing, professors that have gone on in a wrong course they shall be sure to get the first dint of it. And so think not with yourselves that a profession will save you when the ill days [come]. Now there be three ills in a bare profession that will rather hasten wrath upon men nor keep it off.
First. Where there is a profession of religion there is more light, nor where there is not a profession; at least, there should be more light, and that makes the wrath to come sooner, and to light fiercer and hotter upon those who have it, nor upon those who have no profession at all. The more profession and the greater light thou hast, if so be that thou go against the same, thou shalt get the more straikes, and the greater wrath shall light upon you. Of all the enemies [he] that is an house enemy, ye know he is the worst enemy. A minister that goes with a gown upon him, and bears a Bible about with him, if so be that he be false, he is the worst enemy that the Kirk of Christ has. You know who it was that sold Christ our Lord. Even Judas who was one of His disciples, and when he was betraying Him he seemed to be very kind to Him, for even then he would kiss Him, and our Lord says to him, "Friend, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" and it is very ordinary to be so. The worst enemies that the Kirk of Christ has in our neighbour kingdom are those that are called the heads of the Kirk, and the reverend fathers in God, Canterbury, and those of that kind. Those are the greatest enemies that Christ and our Father and His have, and it is they who betray Him and His cause.
Another ill that comes of a profession is; ye know the Spirit of God in His word uses to reckon from a profession; Amos 3:2: "You only have I known of all the families in the earth: therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities;" "I made you My chosen people beyond all others, and therefore I will not let you gang unpunished." The Lord cannot endure a people who have a profession of religion to sin against Him as others do. A lord or a laird dow not endure a thrisle to be in his garden, but gars pluck it up by the roots, and cast it over the dike. He cares not to let many thrisles stand in the mountain, but for a thrisle in his garden he dow not endure that. Those who give out themselves to be the Lord's beloved people, and yet are barren of any good fruits, and there be a sore judgment in the world it shall light upon such.
A third ill that comes of a profession is; we trow that a profession makes black sins to become white sins. No; it is not so. David's adultery is adultery as well as the adultery of the greatest reprobate that is; albeit his adultery be tane away, and theirs is to be kept to the fore against them, yet in themselves they are one. The enemies of the grace of God they put a calumny upon us in this, when they say that we say, "God hates not the sin of the elect." No; we say, and affirm it, that the Lord He hates their sin; but withal, He hates not their persons but loves them, and for temporal judgments, albeit they miss spiritual and eternal judgments, they shall not miss them who are guilty of any sin or goes against the Lord's covenant, or seem to be for it, and are not so in heart. Though they were never so dear to God, even as dear as Coniah, as it is said, Jer. 22:24: "As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah were the signet upon My right hand, yet would I pluck thee hence; and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life," &c. And so of all the sore judgments that come upon any people, it shall come upon them who profess the Lord and religion, and are not an honour to their profession. I am sure this is Scotland's note. Some it may be will be ready to say, "I am sure the Lord will defend me, seeing I am a covenanter, and it is God's covenant." No; but if there be a waled straik for any, if thou be not a heart-covenanter, it shall light upon you. The Lord has a judgment prepared for you, albeit thou shouldst never go unto the fields because thou hast no more but a name and a profession thereof. Woe's them that know no more of religion but only the bare name of it!
The prophet goes on in the next verse to tell what a people the people of Israel were, and what they shall do under their trouble. Israel shall say unto me, "My God, we know Thee;" "Thou art our God, and we know it that Thou art our God." This is an objection to what has been said before; shall Assyria come against the Kirk of God as an eagle? No; it may not be so, for we will tell Him that He is our God, and we are His people, and therefore we will cry unto Him in our distress and trouble. There are three things contained in this prayer. First, that Israel in their distress they will cry. Second, that in their distress they will cry, "My God." Third, they will cry, "My God, we know Thee."
First: That they will cry to God under their distress and trouble; it teaches us this far that hypocrites when they are under the hand of God they are all very holy folks then. In Judges 10:10, and in divers other parts, it is said of the predecessors of thir same people, in their distress they cried unto the Lord, and acknowledged they had sinned against Him; Jer. 2:27, in prosperity people turned their back upon God, "and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us." This is an ordinary way that we use when we can do no better, then we cry unto the Lord for help and deliverance; Psa. 78:34: "When he slew them, they sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their Rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer." When the vengeance of God was lying sore and heavy upon them, they cried unto the Lord, "Lord, save us." When anything ailes hypocrites they will cry fast to Christ then. O! but there be many who will be content to winter Christ that cannot be content to summer Him also. When worldly men see the hand of God to be upon them; O! but they will seem to be holy and to be devout then. But whenever the hand of God is tane off them again, incontinent they return unto their old ways. This should make us to examine bed holiness, and holiness that comes by reason of crosses very well. For there are many that in their sickness, and when they are under the hand of God any way, they will cry fast for the minister then, and seem to be sorry for their former ill-spent time, and will promise very fair if God will spare them then they shall be better servants to Him in all time coming; and yet when time is granted to them they will return after that to be as ill every way as ever they were before. There are three things that we would try of our holiness in such a case. First: We would try whether it be our own holiness and ease, or if it be God Himself that makes us to cry to Him, and to humble ourselves. Well's that soul that humbles itself under the mighty hand of God, and is brought home to himself by its troubles. Second: In trouble compare thir two together, whether you think it better to be guilty, or if ye think it best to be miserable; if you had rather choose misery before you choose guiltiness; and if ye be more for sin committed than ye are for the misery that come upon you because of sin. There are three things that we look not to in our afflictions. First: For the present our punishment or the afflictions of any, they are not grace. Affliction may well restrain the act of pride for the present, but it cannot restrain the habit thereof. As in Ahab and in Cain when punishment was upon them, the act of pride it was restrained indeed, but the habit thereof was not restrained. Second: We would consider that all the crosses in the world they will do no good unto any, if so be they be not blessed unto us by the cross of Christ. No; they will rather make us worse if He bless them not. The Lord He complains of His people, Amos 8, that the more He struck and plagued them the more they ran away from Him. Third: We would remember that affliction of itself is not grace at all, albeit it be a means whereby the Lord works grace in the hearts of His own children, and makes them pliable for it. Fire, ye know, changes not the nature of metals, to make one metal of another; it may well make them hot and soft, yet for all that it cannot make iron gold. Even so affliction cannot make the devil's iron to become God's gold; it may well make it some softer. And so we had need to try whether our afflictions they be blessed of God or not; and we had need to try our holiness then. There are many who make a form to pray to God now, who have their son in the camp, or their husband, that, it may be, never made an errand to pray to God before, and yet for all that has a crooked heart within them. It is not an easy thing to come rightly to Christ. It is no marvel, nor the enemies of God's grace say it is an easy thing to come to Christ and to believe, because they know nothing of it; but it is not easier than that which is spoken of, John 12:32: "When I am lifted up, I shall draw all men unto Me." It is a pull of God's arm that maun do our turn to draw us to Him, and not all the afflictions and calamities in the world. Oh, that the Lord will be pleased to bless our public trials in this land, and that He would let all see that it is not good bourding with the Lord now at this time, when the Lord is taking away the husband from the wife, the father from the children, the child from the parents, the friend from the friends, the minister from the flock, &c. It is time for us to lift up ourselves in prayer to God, now beseeching Him that He would make His hand to work more and more for us. Well is the soul that comes under the hand of God. Hos. 5:15 it is said, "In their affliction they will seek Me early." Well's that soul that seeks home to God by its afflictions. There is a blessed word spoken (Hos. 2:6), when the Kirk is running away from God and there is a hedge of thorns set in her way that she cannot win away from Him; when she is following her other lovers and cannot overtake them, she says, "I will go and return to my first love, for then it was better with me nor now." Well waured trouble and affliction that come upon any soul when it comes home to the Lord, and all the dross thereof is tane away, and when a people are brought home, as it is spoken (Jer. 50:5) of Israel and Judah. "Come, and let us join ourselves in a perpetual covenant with the Lord, never to be forgotten." That is a blessed trouble for evermore that leads us home nearer to our Lord. Now the Lord Himself, who is able to do this unto us, draw us nearer unto Himself by all the crosses and afflictions that come upon us. And to this Lord who can do this for us, to the Son of God, Christ Jesus, to His Father and our Father, and the Spirit of grace, be everlasting praise and glory.—Amen.
The Weeping Mary at the Sepulchre
"For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him."—JOHN 20:9–13.
IN these passages of our Lord's Word, beloved in Him, we have first set down the earthly witnesses that came to the grave to seek our Lord after He was risen from the dead. And they be of two sorts. The first sort of them are public men in a public charge, Peter and John, the Lord's disciples; and how they sought Christ, and what speed they came in seeking Him! The second sort of persons are private persons coming to seek our Lord, Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had before casten seven devils. And good reason that such think meikle of our Lord, who have gotten renewed souls, or any good thing from Him. Then we have the fruit that follows the apostles' seeking of our Lord. They go their ways home again and find Him not. Again you have the fruit of this woman's seeking of Him. She will not give over her seeking Him, albeit she cannot find Him at the first. Indeed it is a blessed thing for a poor soul to wait on still at Christ's door till they get Him, albeit they should die there, waiting for Him. And in her waiting for Him, first of all she meets with the angels. And after she was comforted of them, telling her that He was risen from the dead, and was rebuked of them for her weeping and seeking Him there, she leaves them and goes on to seek Him. And she meets with Christ Himself, and speaks to Him, but she miskens Him as many times the children of God are speaking to Him, and He is speaking to them again, and yet they misken Him. She supposes Him to be the gardener, and speers if he had carried Him away, and where he had laid Him that she might know where He was. And then our Lord discovers Himself unto her by a short preaching that He made as our Lord. He is evermore kent by His word, and when she hears Him speak she turns herself to Him, and she being willing to embrace Him she is forbidden to do it at that time. He would not have her to think so meikle of her bodily presence at that time, because there is a better presence coming when He is ascended to His Father. Only she is commanded to tell the Lord's disciples of that which she had seen, and so she is made the first preacher of Christ's rising from the dead.
First: We observe one thing in the general, that concerns the estate of our Kirk at this time. Herod and Pilate, and Jew and Gentile, they have all joined themselves together at this time to do the worst they can to Christ our Lord, and yet, when they have done all that they can, they cannot mend themselves. For now they had buried Him to hold Him down, and yet for all that that mends them not. The worst that the enemies of the Kirk can do to the Kirk is to put her to death, and yet when they think they have gotten that done, it will not do their turn when all is done. For wherever our Lord's bride be, albeit she were even in the grave, she maun rise again, and in a triumph over her enemies. Let our Lord and His Kirk be where they will, He and His Kirk and cause, albeit they were dead, they maun live the third day again, as Christ Himself did, according to that triumphant and glorious word which He spake (Rev. 1:17, 18): "Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore." When John had seen His glory, and fell down dead because he was afraid thereof, He says that to him. There is news to comfort the Kirk of God, and to comfort all those who doubt whether our Lord will tyne the battle that He has against His enemies or not. No; He will make good that word that He speaks there of Himself: "I was dead, but I am alive; and, behold, I am alive for evermore." Fra a dead man cannot do the turn, He will let it be seen that a living man can do it. We need not to doubt of it, but the enemies of Christ they thought that they were quit of Him now, that He would cumber them no more; but it is not so for all that yet, for He shall live when all is done, for all the ill they have done to Him. And within these few years our adversaries, they thought with themselves that long or now they should have been quit of our cumber, and that this gospel should [have] been clean borne down long or now. But with their leave Christ is letting us see this day that He will not have it to be so, that He will have that gospel which they thought to bear down so far, to come to some perfection again. So is the Kirk brought in, speaking in Hosea's prophecy (6:2): "After two days thou wilt revive us again, and the third day we shall live." This gospel it maun live, whoever they be who are against it, for the bearing down thereof, and the end of it maun be glory to Christ, and so those who are upon His side of it. Now, to say nothing of the race that Peter and John had in going to Christ's grave, it is said the other disciple he outran Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. John is he who is called the other disciple, and he outran Peter. As it is among the children of God, all of them have not a like speed. Some of them get a sight of Christ before others ever get a sight of Him. Christ has some into His Kirk that are old and experienced with His ways, and so they run fast in the same; and He has others also, who are His children and belong to Him, who are young ones, and cannot run so fast. But whoever they be who have the life of God in them, and so are walking on towards Him, they shall, either first or last, meet with Him without doubt.
He which came first went into the sepulchre and saw, and he believed. He might [have] believed that Christ was risen by that which he had heard, but he believed not till he saw. Many a time had the Lord said to them that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinners, and must suffer many things of them; that He must die and be buried, but the third day He shall rise again; but notwithstanding of all that He had said, John believed not till he had seen tokens that He had risen from the dead. However it be, yet this is sure, that it is good for every one to use the means that God has appointed for attaining to the knowledge of any thing. For John gat this meikle good by using the means at this time and coming to the grave—that he was assured that Christ was risen. Who was there ever that made a race for Christ but gat some good by their seeking after Him? Seek ye and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Zacchæus, he had a longing desire to see Christ, and because he was low of stature, and the throng was great, he ran before the multitude, and clamb up upon a tree to see Him; and ye have heard what good come of that, as there comes aye good of seeking Christ rightly: He says, "Come down, Zacchæus, this day is salvation come to thy house." He will not fail, but He will make that word good which He has spoken Himself, "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." Could we be earnest in seeking our Lord—and I am sure ye know that this is a seeking time now, and never was there more need to be seeking at the hands of God—as the Lord lives, I durst promise it in His name, if we would seek Him we should see the salvation of the Lord. And so, albeit ill news should come unto us, let us not be discouraged for the same. But let us rest upon this, and put our confidence in the same, that our Lord is to be found of them who seek Him; and He has given signs thereof already unto us, and will do so hitherto if we will seek unto Him.
For as yet they knew not the Scripture that He must rise again from the dead. The rest of the disciples, they believed not these Scriptures that foretold of Christ's resurrection from the dead. Can it be possible that there can be a scholar in Christ's school that has not learned his lesson that Christ taught him? Can it be that any who has heard Christ Himself make so many preachings of His resurrection, that they believe not for all that? Aye, ye may see the proof of it here. The doctrine that arises from this it is clear, that it is not the means, nor hearing Christ as a man preach out of His own mouth, that will do the turn to bring us in to God, and to make us understand things spiritual. Preaching, indeed, is God's mean that He has appointed for that end, and the way that He ordains for bringing in souls to Him. But when all is done, it is not the only mean of bringing us to Him. The special thing is that which is spoken by our Saviour Himself (John 3:8), that wind that bloweth where it listeth, and no man knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth. We may preach unto you until our head riveand our breasts burst; aye, we may preach unto you until doom's day, and yet that will not do the turn unless the inward calling of the Spirit be joined therewith. For an outward sound to the ear is one thing, and Christ's loosing all knots and removing all impediments another thing. Christ says Himself while He was in the flesh (John 6:44), "No man can come unto Me unless the Father draw him." Christ is speaking in that place to them who had the outward means, and yet He says, it is no strange thing that they come not unto Him, albeit they have the means, because they want the Father's draught to draw them to Him. The scribes they heard Christ ofttime preach, and yet for all that they consented to the slaying of the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:8). Christ is preached there both to the Jew and to the Gentile, and yet for all that to the Jew He is a stumbling-block, and to the Grecian the preaching of Christ is foolishness. We have meikle for us when the Lord's word is preached to pray to Him that He would join His Spirit and His wind with His word. Ay, all means that can be used by ourselves or by others are nothing without that be joined. It is in vain for us to rise early and to lie down late, and to eat the bread of sorrow all the day, if the Lord give not the assistance of His Spirit to the means that we use.
And again, we may learn from this that arms of men are not the thing that will save us, if so be that the Lord Himself watch not over the camp. God keeps evermore the issue and the event of all things into His own hand. And this serves to teach us not to trust in means of any sort whether it be inward or outward matters, we should not lippen in man, nor in weapons, nor any second causes whatsoever, but only in the Lord Himself, that is the only strength of His people. And so learn to overlook second causes when you look that way, and look no lower nor heaven, to Him who sits there and guides and overrules all battles in the world and all things else, and will let it be seen in the end salvation, salvation, even His salvation to all them who trust in Him.
What gars that it is not said, "They believed not Christ," but they "believed not the Scriptures" concerning this point? For there is no part of Scripture so clear as the Lord Himself when He is preaching with His own blessed mouth concerning that article of the resurrection from the dead, albeit it is true the five books of Moses and other Scriptures spake also of this article.
The reason of this is to teach us that Christ and the Scriptures they have but one tongue, and they who believe not the Scriptures they believe not Christ. It is not the sound of Christ's trumpet that many who profess to be preachers blow, but a sound from themselves and from men. This tells us what is Scripture and what is no[t] Scripture. That only is Scripture and no other that agrees with the will of the Son of God, and is according to His will revealed to us in His Word. And again, that is not Scripture, and so not to be believed or practised, which is not according to the Word of God. And so we may see that ceremonies and inventions of men they are but a dumb Bible, and a ground that none should follow for their salvation. If we have no other ground for our faith but only this, that the Pope, or the Kirk, has said such a thing, or the great learned doctors have said it, and therefore we believe it. As the poor men yonder over in the north, they have been deceived by believing what grave-like men spake to them, and men who gat the name of learning. That is a blind guide to follow, and will lead us in the mire. But these that are indeed the called and the elect of God, they can discover the voice of Christ from the voice of men, and they only will follow Christ's voice, and will follow no other, whatever they be.
Then the disciples went away again unto their own home. They were oversoon tired of seeking, for they might have waited on as well as the poor woman did. But God has our seeking of Christ, and all our supernatural works of that kind, into His own hand. We believe, pray, repent, seek after Christ and His Spirit, praise, hear, read aright, &c., as long as Christ holds us by the hand, but we do it no longer. A stone that is up into the air is out of its own element, and so long as it has an impediment it will stay there. But take away the impediment that holds the stone from the ground, incontinent it falls to it again. Even so is it with us. When we are employed about these spiritual duties we are out of our natural element; and if the Lord take away His hand from the strongest of His children, a woman will go beyond them in doing good duties. Thank God for any good thing that thou hast, and that thou art kept in a good estate. They never kent Christ's help well who put man in such a tutor's hand as free-will, to be kept by it; who say that Christ has conquershed salvation to all, and when He has conquershed it, He puts it in the hand of free-will to be disposed of as it pleases, to keep or not to keep it. This is to make Christ a fool merchant, and not to take accompt whether it be misspent or not; but Christ is not so. He knows what shall become of all whom He has bought. You know it is evermore the happiness of the weaker to depend upon the stronger. So it is the happiness of the poor soul to depend upon Christ and upon free grace. The happiness of the ship stands in that to have a good pilot; the happiness of the lost weak sheep depends on a good shepherd to seek it in again, and to keep it from the enemies thereof; the happiness of the weak, witless orphans depends in a good, wise tutor. Even so the happiness of lost and tint souls depend on this, to lippen to Christ and His strength for their salvation, and not to such a changing tutor as their free-will is.
But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping. Here is a strange thing to think on. The Lord's own disciples they ran away from seeking of Him. One of them that had said, "If all should forsake Thee, yet shall I never forsake Thee;" and yet here is a woman more forward, and more constant in seeking Christ nor he is, for all his fair profession. It is not fair words and a golden profession that will take a soul to heaven, and will make us to seek Christ rightly. We are all meikle oblist to saving grace in our seeking Christ. Here is a woman more forward in seeking Christ nor all His eleven disciples are. Because she gat not her errand that she was seeking, she could not get Christ, and therefore she will not leave, nor give over, but will wait on and seek Him. A soul that is in love with Christ, they never get their errand till they get Christ Himself. Ye that are seeking Christ, never give over seeking till ye meet with Him, for they shall at last meet with Him who lie at His door, seeking, as this woman did, who say, "I shall lie still at Thy door, let me die there if Thou likest, and albeit it should come to that, I shall die, or I go away and meet not with Him." Ye may know the ardent desire of a soul after Christ can be satisfied with nothing but Himself.
We use to say the thing that one longs for is the thing they maun have, and no other thing will satisfy them. A man that is hungry, and longing for meat, he maun have meat, and meat only, or else he is not satisfied, albeit he get some other thing. A man that is in prison and longs to be free, nothing will satisfy him but liberty. Even so it is with this woman at this time; albeit the disciples were with her, yet nothing can comfort her till she get her lovely Lord whom she was seeking. Learn that lesson of spiritual importunity, never to give over seeking of Christ when once ye have begun to it. Blessed are they that ware their time this way, in seeking Christ.
Mary stayed there weeping for want of Him, and yet looking into the grave to see if He were there. That is a good and blessed desire, and sorrow that is backed with doing. That is heaven's sorrow indeed that is backedwith doing and using the means. There are two things said of Jacob (Hos. 12:4), that he wept and wrestled in prayer with God. What is the matter of a dumb sorrow for the want of Christ? But that is a right sorrow for want of Christ that is joined with using the means to get Him. As it is in Solomon's Song 3:3, the spouse is wanting Christ there; she uses all means to get Him again. She goes to the watchmen, and says to them, "Watchmen, saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" She goes round about the city, and to the daughters of Jerusalem, and charges them. That proves her sorrow to be a right sorrow for the want of Christ. And ye know what sort of tears the Scripture says Christ had (Heb. 5:7). He shed tears while He was in His flesh, and withal He offered up prayers and strong cries to Him who was able to save Him, and was heard in that He feared. And that is the grief and sorrow that will only hold the feet when men are sorrowful for want of Christ, and withal use the means to get Him; and not only has a raw wish for Christ, and will not want a morning nor a night's sleep to meet with Him. That sorrow that is so is but a vain sorrow, and will do no good. What followed upon this?
She saw two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. What needs this guard to be here now when the Lord is risen from the dead? They stay here to be witnesses of Christ's resurrection, and to preach the same to this woman and to the disciples. And Matthew, he has a circumstance of this preaching of the angels that John has not. "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" Why are ye papists, to seek Christ at the holy grave now when He is risen? You may see that the work of man's redemption it is a very glorious and a very honourable work, for the angels in all the parts thereof are appointed to attend Christ and to wait. When He is born they maun speak to Joseph and His mother to flee for His safety, they foretell His birth, when they are to return with Him again they tell them, and when He was in the garden the angels are appointed to wait upon Him, to dight the bloody sweat off His face. And now, when He is in the grave, they are set to be a guard to His blessed and glorious body, and to preach of His resurrection. When He shall come again at the last day to judge the quick and the dead, He shall come with innumerable multitudes of angels—to let us see that the work of our salvation it is a very honourable work; and the angels they wait well upon it, and upon us. Even like a loving brother, who has his brother lying sick: O but he will run many errands for him in the time of his sickness, and will make all the house ado to get him well and at ease. Even so do the angels to us. They run many errands for us, and O but they are glad of our welfare; and (Heb. 1:10) it is said the angels are ministering spirits for the good of the heirs of salvation. Count ye little or meikle of your salvation as ye will, yet it is the angels' great task that they are employed about. They are appointed to wait on Christ, when is about the working thereof, both in His birth, in His agony, in His burial, in His ascending to heaven, and shall attend Him in His coming again to judge the quick and the dead. The Lord has them sent out to all the airts of the world to bring in His elect ones. Woe to ye who think little of salvation, fra the Lord employs such honourable messengers about the same. Alas! the work of our salvation is little thought upon by many. Twenty—a hundred thoughts will come in men's heads fra morn to night. And scarce have we one thought of this great work at any time. And what think ye shall become of them who are so careless of the work of the salvation of mankind whereof the angels are so careful?
Thir witnesses, they were clad in white. The angels, they have not our common country clothes, but they are like heaven in their apparel; to teach all those who are looking to be heirs of heaven to be clad like their country. The angels, they are clad with glory and with majesty, and therefore a sight of them will make a sinner to fall to the ground dead. If we think to be heirs of God in Christ, let us not be like the rest of the corrupt world. The apostle, he has a word for this (Rom. 12:2): "Be not conformed to the world, but be ye transformed in the spirit of your mind." When ye are drunkensome, and swearers, and break the Lord's day, as the rest of the world does, that proves you to be of the world, and not to have your affections up above. If ye would prove yourselves to be heirs of heaven, strive to be like your father, and like your country, and wear the livery of the house which is holiness: "Holiness becomes Thy house, O Lord." Mind the things that are above.
And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? This would seem to be a needless question to propose to her, for she might [have] said, "I have tint my Saviour; who can blame me to weep? who can reprove me for it, seeing I want my Lord? But there is something in this question that is unseen, that is the reason wherefore they ask it, and this is it: "Your salvation is now finished, and the devils are casten out of you, and so what gars you weep now?" Our Lord would tell us by this, that ofttimes we weep when we have cause to rejoice. She should have said, "This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will be glad and rejoice in it." "This is a day when a decreet is passed in heaven in your favours, that the lost seed of Adam is redeemed; and thou also art in the decree of redemption among the rest, therefore thou should not weep." O that we could learn to accommodate our affections, and all that is in us, to God; to weep when He weeps, and to rejoice when He rejoices. And when our Lord is without in the fields, it is not time for us then to laugh, and to rejoice, and to be feasting. It is a time matter for mourning, now when our Lord is out into the fields, and when His armies are out, and are in scarcity. And yet we trust that our Lord is keeping a day for us of this land, wherein we shall say, "This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it."
Whom seekest thou? This question is speered at her to make her hunger to be the greater, for the greatest hunger that any has for Christ they may, aye, be more hungry for Him. And so learn to rap out all your desires and affections for Christ, not only love Him, but be sick of love for Him. That is more than ordinary love to be like to die for love of Him. And so all your desires and longing for Christ, strive to make them more, ay, till you come to that which the spouse has; "I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell Him that I am sick of love. I charge you, as ye will answer to God, that ye tell Christ I am sick of love for want of Him," and till ye come to heaven to sing songs of Him eternally.
"They have tane away my Lord, and I wat not where they have laid Him." This is her apology that she uses for justifying of herself in her weeping, "Why may not I weep, who once had Christ, and now I want Him?" That is a sorrow that may be avowed before God and before the world, to be sorrowful for the want of Christ. There are some who are sorrowful, and it is a shame to hear of it, the cause thereof not being good. Sorrow for want of my bairns, for want of my husband; sorrow for the loss of something of the world, or giving out something for Christ, &c.; that is a shameful sorrow that cannot be avowed. But that is an honest sorrow that comes from the want of Christ. Look that ye ware all your affections that way as ye may avow them, and avow the cause of them before God and man. That is a sorrow that may be avowed that a soul has for want of Christ.
What is the matter and cause of her sorrow?
"They have taken away my Lord, and I wat not where they have laid Him." He is out of my sight, and yet He is my Lord for all that; He is dead, and yet He is my Lord; for that she says, "They have taken Him away, and wat not where they have laid Him," is as meikle as if she doubted yet of His resurrection. And a little after she says to Christ Himself, supposing Him to be the gardener, "Sir, if thou hast borne Him away, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away." "I will think Him a sweet burden to come upon my back for all the pounds weight of spices that are about Him."
The doctrine is clear. To the children of God, lost Christ is their Christ when all is done. In Cant. 5 the Lord's party, the Kirk of Christ, is there sleeping in her bed, and Christ, her husband, standing at the outside of the door knocking, and she says, "I slept, but my heart waked; it is the voice of my beloved." Thy beloved, and, yet for all that, He is out of thy sight. Let the believer's Christ be where He will, yet He is theirs. If they were in hell and He up in heaven, the believer will say, "He is my Christ, albeit Christ should cast me off, and not count me to be His, yet He is mine." So does David's word as the type, and Christ's word as the antitype, testify, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He is a forsaking Lord, and yet He is their Lord when all is done. Ay, the believer will say, "He is my Lord, albeit He forsake me, and I will come to Him." Then true faith when it has the back at the wall will claim to Christ, and count Him to belong to them. And that is a very good mark of faith, that when one is setting Christ a speering on all airts, and cannot get Him for no seeking, yet to count Him to be their Christ. This is the thing that the devil would fain be in hands with, to make you to doubt that He is your Christ or your Lord. This was the temptation wherewith he assaulted Christ our Lord. "If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down from the pinnacle of the temple," &c. All that the devil would be at in his temptations is to make us doubt that Christ is ours. But never give it over when all is done, but evermore take Christ for thine.
And, oh, that this land would believe this now, that He is our God, and the God of this land. Then suppose that our armies were put to the worst that are now out into the fields—as we trust in God it shall not be—but albeit it should be so, I say, yet seeing He is Scotland's Lord, if so be that we will wait upon Him, and trust in Him and in His salvation, it shall be found that it is not a vain thing to do so, but that He shall grant us His salvation who trust in Him. And to this Lord, &c.
The Spouse's Longing for Christ
"I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake; I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer."—SONG OF SOLOMON 5:3–6.
"I HAVE put off my coat." This is the spouse's answer full of Christ. Like one gone to bed, and having washen his feet, as the custom was in these hot countries, because of sweat after travel. As the friend answereth (Luke 11:7), "Trouble me not; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed." This shows while we are asleep, and bedded with our sweet pleasures, Christ's sweet words, "My sister, my love, my dove," His holy and dear head, frozen with cold, cannot move her to open and let Him in. While the temptation is up and upon horseback, and takes us on the right nick, and finds us on a ground of sinning with hot blood, we can hardly stand on our feet and resist, or hold out. The prophets rose early in the morning, and sat late up, and spake to Israel to return from their ill ways; yet Israel hearkened not (Jer. 26:5), for idolatry had taken them on the right nick, and jumped with their ease (ver. 18). David was not himself in commanding to number the people, for Joab, otherwise a bad man, had better light nor David, a man after God's own heart, for he was against the numbering of the people. But the devil stood up, and took David at the right side, when his pride was swollen over the banks (1 Chron. 21:1). Job's friends, finding him in a fit of distemper, sometimes through vehemency of his pain, caused him to sclent a little off the line. The devil, winnowing Peter, came upon his right side to put him upon the denying of his Lord when he was upon a cold blood in the fear of his life.
There be four reasons of this:
The first is common—a withdrawing of God's working grace; for, if the dam grow dry or ebb, the mill stands. Psa. 30:7: "Thou didst hide thy face"—now the horse is saddled—"and I was troubled." So, then, unbelief makes a road. When free-will holds the bridle, up goes the rider's heels, and he feels his own weight; and so it cannot but be, for obedience is not a web of our making.
2. The temptation in this case is many stone weight, heavier than our shoulders dow bear. Pride, lust, laziness, and security are the meikle water, the saints are the short-legged horse, and down they go. God gives the devil liberty to break many a weak back. Be humble and fear. He knew us full well when He bade us pray, "Lord, lead us not into temptation."
3. There be two herbs that grow quickly in our souls in summer weather—security and pride. Humility is a strange flower; it grows best in winter weather, and under storms of affliction. When security and pride and other neighbour-like weeds are rank and up, the temptation has us in the nick. Then if ye would be kept from the temptation's black hour, swell not in pride, turn not lazy in the use of good means. If you do, look for a temptation, as God's lance to make a hole and let out the wind.
4. Light is turned blunt and wants an edge, and then the temptation of a hot bed will prevail to hold Christ at the wrong side of the door. For here I provoke to your experience to discern two nicks you will be on. In the one, the temptation goes home without its errand; in the other, ye are taken, at a preaching, communion, a renewed glance of the face of Christ, at the death of a friend, or under a sharp rod. At such a time the temptation comes, and your light is like a new sharp knife. There is much steel into it, and the light shall cut the temptation in the weft at the first wipe. Let that light be a quarter of a year beside you, and it turns rusty and blunt, and loses the edge; and then let the devil come, my friend, say you, and I will foot his boul. The temptation comes on; and by and by without a host it is made welcome and the light stands by looking on like a dead witness, and says nothing.
It were a good use of this doctrine to observe the right stots of your soul, to sharp blunted light, to beware of pride and security, and eye well often the case of your heart. Learn to know the gate to the bottom of it. Plumb often, and see how many fathom deep it is. When the heart is up on the devil's nick, now, now take yourselves quickly, guide well, wale your steps, fear and quake, cry to your rock, put your blunt light to the grinding-stone again.
"How shall I put it on?" This she says, as thinking it impossible and unreasonable, as Joseph said to his mistress (Gen. 39:9), "How can I do this." There is a dispute here with chiding. "Is not this," would she say, "an unreasonable suit of my well-beloved to bid me fyle my feet, lose my sweet pleasures, go naked in the winter night? Is He not a cumbersome Christ, are not His commandments untimeous, might He not have knocked ere the sun went down, ere I went to bed? It is strange this Christ of mine must have service betwixt midnight and cockcrow, when all other folks are at rest."
We see there be some dainty white and thin-skinned temptations, yea, holy-like, reason-like, and velvet sins, so well favoured to us that they seem to prove Christ to be an unnatural, savage, cumbersome guest, as wild as Turk or Jew. Such reasons will say: "I dow not hold up Christ's cumbersome yeas and nays. He will flay the skin off poor nature." For some temptations are of base metal, made of clay, yea they are wholly gross and round spun and ill-litted (Ezek. 13:10). The prophets slew souls that should have lived, for handfuls of barley and pieces of bread. But ordinarily Satan has strong and well-spun reasons on his side; and the chief one that makes great din is the world for the world's pleasure, profit, a hot soft bed, well perfumed, daintily made. The devil has drawn the curtains, ushed the house, and kept the chamber quiet that ye may take your headful of sleep; and all these are set against Christ, to hold Him out. No marvel then the hot bed prevails with the spouse. For a mess of pottage prevailed with Esau as a good one. "What? I am hungry; I may not die; you will tell me of the dignity of my birthright, a type of heaven. But answer me this question, Let the birthright go play itself while hungry and famishing Esau breakfasts." This is strong with the whore against God and the seventh commandment. Prov. 7:17, 18: "The bed is trim and decked; we will get our fill of love; the good man is from home." The robber has his logic on his finger ends. It is not to seek against God and the eighth commandment. Prov. 1:13: "We shall find all precious substance; we shall fill ourselves with spoil." You know that it is a notable token of sanctified light when men are deaf at all reasons that are against Christ and His word. The flesh cries out, "What fyle my feet, lose my place, leave my hot bed for I wot not what?" If the Lord's spirit is in you, answer, "What, fyle my conscience? Better boolie in my bed, quit my true peace, and lose my Christ." A reason from gold would not be a golden one to Paul; seeing for Christ, all were loss and dirt and dung to Him. The disciples' nets and their lines and their fish-hooks were not worth a straw when Christ said, "Follow Me." Thou who art teddered to thy delights, when Christ comes by and cries, "Follow Me," if then thou canst break thy tether like a rotten straw rope, and gallop after Him, thou hast clear eyes and seest well.
But here is a question that were worthy the loosing, What makes this so hard to us, to go but the breadth of the house barefooted to let in Christ? Certainly the reasons are these.
1. Our light is corrupt and looks awry, and with a gleed eye upon Christ, and it looks with many eyes to the world. Hence when Christ knocketh it says, first, He cannot come here. Second: I doubt if it be Christ that knocketh, because I wish it were not He. Third: I must live. Fourth: I dow not suffer. Fifth: This and this will befal me if I do it. Sixth: If I would let Him in, then my lusts would get no quarters with Him. My will, my affections, and He would never give one jot. They would flee upon each other. Nay, men's lusts are up where eyes should be, and their eyes down at their feet.
2. This is like the first. The devil has litted the world and the pleasures of it. Thirty pieces cast a scad of golden glance upon Judas. His light said, "Sorrow, make care, howbeit the Pharisees had my hungry Master, so be it I had a purse for my part of Him." Colours, and the purple skin of things, and not the things themselves, cross our eye.
3. Our heart and our affections hold us still in our hot sheets, that we dow not rise to let Christ in. Yea, hardness of heart, the worst believer, and the toughest disputer in the world, carveth all, and when we come to choose what to do, then we speer counsel. Again, what sayest thou, lust? what is your will and vote? honour, ease, &c.?—tell me. Shall I let him in? and then we hear not the other side till amen. O but beloved, there is a thing they call "Try all things," and look again and fear always, so needful here that they would pull the covering off all things, and let you see all things, whose skin is black, and whose is white.
"How can I? how can I, spouse?" thou askest, "how can I arise? how can I put on my coat?" I will tell thee how thou canst. Stir thy legs and arms, raise thy frozen fingers. It is strange to make a question how a whole strong man not bound can rise out of his bed! Stir ye, and cast the covering and bed-clothes off, and come to the floor. If men would suffer their light to play fair play, and think judiciously and spiritually on the world, and the delights of it, which is their soft bed, they might open to Christ. Men are but sleeping on a bed of ice. It will melt with the heat of God's anger, and they, and their night sheets, and the bed will swim, nay, men have reason to tire of this bed, both short and narrow. Luke 12:20: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be taken from you;" 1 Cor. 7:31: "The fashion of this world passeth away." Is not this a short bed? Fools cannot get down their feet.
2. Is it not often hard, and so hard that Ahitophel, a king's counsellor, who could not but have a well-made bed, could not sleep a wink in it? he leaped over the bedstock, and hanged himself, and slipped down to hell.
3. Yea, cold, cold lie they, the clothes fall all over the bedstock, when (Jer. 14) nobles cannot get a drink of water. Nebuchadnezzar, with many kingdoms, is driven from them all, and from among men, to eat grass with the oxen (Dan. 4:33). Here narrow sheets and a cold bed.
4. These who have been snoring and sleeping here are pulled out of their sheets by the Lord, and they leave foul sheets behind them. Job 20:6: Though the hypocrite's "excellency mounteth to heaven"—a fair and well-made bed—"yet he shall perish for ever, as his own dung" (ver. 7). Are not these foul foldings? "The memory of the wicked shall rot" (Prov. 10:7). When he is gone his name shall stink. It were good then that all who sleep in this bed would waken and rise, and seek rest to their souls, else God shall send three sharp toothed hands—the devil, death, and judgment—to pull them over the bedstock. And when (2 Pet. 3) the earth and works therein shall be burned with fire, these who lie hottest, and softest, and sleep sound, shall, even they, their bedclothes, and bed straw, shall all be set on fire, and the bed will be burnt to ashes.
"My beloved put in his hand." That is, with the outward ministry of the word. He put in His hand—it is His Spirit (Acts 11:21; Ezek. 3:13; Luke 11:20)—in the hole of my heart, to make a wider hole. I confess this putting of Christ's hand in the key-hole of the heart is better felt nor told. But it is this: when Christ sent His voice and tongue through the door, it did not [do] the turn, and therefore He caused His hand to follow His tongue. He gave with the hand of His Spirit such a dunt, until bed, and house, and all did shake, and the door fell on the floor. Who knows not this who knows Christ's working—that when Christ speaks, His Spirit will make in the heart a stirring and such a glowing, that they will find His soft hand rubbing their cold heart? And when a key and lock are rusted, we rub oil upon the rusty part. When Christ cometh, He finds the wards, sprents go in and out at will, and He takes will and heart and affections in His hand, and scours them with His file. Phil. 3:12: "I am apprehended of Christ Jesus;" Luke 24:32: "Did not our hearts burn, burn within us, while He spoke;" Cant. 2:4: "He brought me to His banqueting-house." This was a pull of Christ, taking her by the shoulders, and bringing her into the king's pantry. Hence here be two actions.
One of the word, painting out with alluring and soul delighting words, Christ's fair white and ruddy face; this is a moral yoke.
And withal there is a real action of the hand of the Spirit in all His ten fingers working upon the lock, and setting, engraving, and stamping Christ in deep letters upon the soul. As when a fish is taken there are two actions, the bait alluring and beguiling the fish with hope of meat. This is like the working of the word which is Christ's bait; but when He wins us to dry land, then, when the fish is hooked, there is a real action of the fisher, drawing and hauling the fish to land; it leaping and flightering and wresthng while it bleeds with the hook. And this answereth to the Holy Spirit's powerful hauling and drawing of the soul in all the affections, that the soul feeleth joy, comfort, delight, desire, longing, believing, nibbling, and biting Christ's bait.
The use is; Because there are odd times, we should take Christ at the right stot. When His hand is thrusting itself down upon our heart you should thrust your hand on above it, and thrust His stamp and His burning iron even down to the bone, that there may be great letters left behind, and all your life after you may bear Christ's marks. Till such a time, you shall never get such fair quarters or such odd conditions of Christ. Therefore make a double knot, neglect not to work with Christ, and set out all the sails of your soul, and write up the time, and this shall help your doubtings afterwards, and shall be a fair seal of your election. It must be a great guiltiness to smore Christ's fire, and cast water on it, by other bye-thoughts, refusing to take Christ's ball at the stot, and strike the iron while it is hot, in the means of praying, reading, conferring, and telling to the daughters of Jerusalem your love-sickness for Christ. But we silly, narrow, and ebb-hearted creatures have not a hand to receive Christ's sweetmeats. We are like the bairn when his father gives him a hearty handful of sweetmeats, his little hand and short fingers let the half of them slip from him and skail upon the ground. Our little fingers skail the comforts of Christ, and we lose (1) comfort, (2) confirmation of our charters, and (3) we lose the increase of faith.
"My bowels were moved for him." This is the moving and rumbling of a sorrowful and broken heart and true repentance, that Christ stood while His head took cold, as Isa. 16:11: "My bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab; "Jer. 4:19: "My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at the very heart; my heart maketh a rumbling sound." She would say, "My heart and bowels within me are turned upside down." My soul said, "Woe is me, that my beloved Christ stood the cold winter night at the doors of my heart with His wet head and His frozen hair. O lazy wretch that I am, who could not arise and let Him in." We see in true repentance there is meikle sorrow: (Luke 7) one woman furnished as many tears as washed Christ's feet. No scant of sorrow there. Ezek. 7:16: "But they that escape of them shall escape, and they shall be on the mountains like doves in the valley, all of them mourning, every one for their iniquity." Hos. 11:11: "They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt, and as a bird out of the land of Assyria," while they, repenting, follow after the Lord. Zech. 12:10: "They shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only begotten son, and they shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Jer. 31:19: "After that I was instructed I smote upon my thigh." Ephraim bemoaning himself, did this as one very sorry for offending the Lord.
This reproveth those who know as much of what turned bowels for the loss of Christ means as they know a great burgh town up beyond the moon. They had never wet cheeks nor a woe heart for Christ. They say it not in words, but they think it in heart: "If Christ go by me, and be lordly, I will live without Him. If the gospel leave us, we will get the old law again, and the good old sonsie world." To their comfort, then, be it said, who have a woe heart for Christ's wet and frozen head, and would put in His frozen hair in their bosom, and thaw His head, they have an undoubted mark of Christ's love, and sister and undefiled one.
But what is the measure of sorrow required in those who have turned bowels for holding out of Christ? I answer, this is indeed a needful question, because many deceive themselves here, and many have sorrow who cannot climb so high as to turned bowels for holding out of Christ, and for neglecting of Christ's call. Hence—
1. Beware your sorrow be not too little, or ill-bottomed for fear of strokes, not for love toward Him whom you have offended. The devil can come upon an Ahab with a crack of sorrow like the shot of a child's paper gun, yet it was not humbling sorrow. True sorrow so humbleth a man as—
(1) He dare not play the wanton, and ride the carrie, in sinning as before, as Ahab did.
(2) True sorrow that humbles, sets the party in a purpose to creep into Christ, howbeit He should ding out his harns, as the woman with the bloody issue feared and trembling came to Christ.
(3) The hole made in the heart is only for sin, and this breeds a loathing of ourselves (Ezek. 20:43): "And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loath yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed."
(4) True sorrow seeks after the Lord, as here the Church rises and cries after her well-beloved; and these whom Peter converted (Acts 2:37) were pricked in their hearts, and were at "Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?"
2. Some think they do right if they sorrow out of measure for sin, and take their pennyworth of themselves. But God seeks no more of you but as much as to toom your souls of pride, that Christ may come in with His full vessel to fill it. Do not think to buy God's kindness with tears, as if sorrow were a fat feast to God; for some here go so far on as they will overscore and give God a lucky measure, and an inch to the ell, one to the hundred, as the hearty merchant who delighteth to be called "a good fellow." Nay—
(1) Look when you come near to the edge of the brae to a gaping hell. Hold your hand—it is now time to rainzie about your heart.
(2) When you find any smell of the Lord's blood and merits, it is time to look up and smile for joy.
(3) When the desire and hunger for Christ are nipping and sad, speer about for a Saviour. The evil of much mourning is that, first, it is rank papistry. God thinks not a penance of your tears good cheer. You see not that you give suck now to merits. Second: it will make way now to pride. When the water goes out of the bag, wind comes in. When many tears go out, a windy conceit comes in: "I am sure God cannot but be pleased now. He is in my debt now."
So in seeking cooling humility, Satan slips in their neive a hot coal of pride. Men see not that God will hold back an ounce or two of sorrow that you may sorrow because you have not sorrowed enough. If wind came in, it would breed a new boil. Third: it is Satan's gate to despair, and he leads us on in Christ's way to his own lodging, for he himself is a despairing and trembling devil.
But a doubt here seemeth to stand in our way. Sorrow for Christ ariseth from our love to Christ; and as much as we love Him, as much should we sorrow for the losing of Him. We owe Him love with all the heart and in the highest degree, and therefore we owe Him sorrow of that same mould.
Answer. The argument would conclude strongly if Christ were altogether lost to the saints; but the saints have always a hank in their own hands. Second: howbeit sorrow for Christ's absence spring from a love of Him, yet it follows not that love and sorrow should be in alike length and breadth. Joy and love in extremity are commanded because there is no danger in overjoying. Neither is there danger that love for length and breadth rax itself out of joint, and strain a sinew. But there is danger in over-sorrowing, because despair dwells upon the march with sorrow; and so a friend and a foe are neighbours in town-row together.
3. I will conclude with this needful watchword, that we take heed to our high-tuned affections. They are often ravelled through other. When we sorrow extremely for Christ's wet head, it is much if faith fall not a sound, and if joy grow not lean and withered, because sorrow is fat and rank. Again, when the promise comes in and shoulders out mourning, and a blink of His new revealed face, then I will readily borrow a dispensation and sorrow no more, and there, I am fanked and ravelled, ere I be aware, upon security. It is here as when a bairn's little hand holds two meikle apples—as the one comes in his loof, the other drops down upon the ground.
"I rose up to open to my beloved." Inward grief brings out the spouse's seeking of Christ. Why rose she not to open while He spake, and knocked sweetly, and cried, "Open, my sister, my love, my dove?" Here are words to have moved a heart of stone, and no question they moved her with sense in the meantime; but faith was weak. Hence when Christ was away from the door, and she deserted, she makes her to obedience, for obedience is quicker and more powerful under faith, and hunger, and absence, than under feeling and presence. Feeling, or motions at the word heard, will make us soft, foggie and lazy; sweir faith makes us sharp, laborious, and puts us to a doing. In faith, in a manner, we feed Christ. In feeling and presence we feed ourselves. In feeling we take in; in faith we give out; and sense ofttimes makes us idle. While the bairn eateth an apple the book is laid by. But whether the spouse had feeling while Christ spake and knocked or not, yet the doctrine holdeth when Christ leaveth off to speak in His word, and when to our feeling He is absent, we are often very humble in doing and seeking Him. When Christ is either not answering or giving rough answers, the woman of Canaan is then busiest, crying and again crying to Christ, following on, worshipping on her knees, disputing the matter hotly with Christ by force of reason to carry away her desires. So His Kirk (Cant. 3), having lost Him, rises, seeks, and, better seeks in the streets, in the open gates, and, about the walls: "Watchman, good watchman, saw ye him whom my soul loveth?" And so was Mary Magdalene when her Lord was lost. What a din she made with watery eyes. She saith, "Angels, saw ye Him?" "Gardener, sir, have ye carried Him away?" "Grave, hast thou Him?" We, like fools, can complain, "He is away." Fye! "Now all is gone." Fye! Now say ye, "He is away. What will I do?" and ye cry black hunger. But if ye be carefully seeking Him, you are fatter now nor when ye were doated and feasted with His presence.
"I rose up to open." After a refusal of Christ the conscience of the child of God begins to overcast. She had given a short and a dry answer. Now she is woe at the answer she gave Him, and her hot bed cannot keep her. After the saints and Christ are aside, and have broken a straw, I defy you to bide ten days from Him. After you have given Christ a rough and cankered refusal, there is a knot in the conscience that you dow not bide all this time under a refusal of Christ. The conscience has been saying, "Fye upon you, where is love now, where pity, when Christ standeth cold and frozen at the door, and thou wilt not let Him in?" Thus all the time while He knocked was a long thorn or great pricking stob sticking in her conscience. There will, I grant, sometimes be much deadness in the saints after sin, and a purpose to take the play a day or two longer. But ordinarily after sin there is a pulled ear, and God's Spirit crying, "Wrong; come home again." In wicked men after sin there is no scant of false peace, and their heart says heartily, "So be it," and "amen" to all that they have done. After Jezebel had killed innocent Naboth, she said to her husband (1 Kings 21:15): "Arise, go take possession of the vineyard which Naboth the Jezreelite refused to give thee for money." This she spoke with an edge, and took a hearty mouthful of it. She would say, "I have taught Naboth good manners, what it is to be a good neighbour to his prince, and to buy and sell with his king. He would not give his vineyard for money, now take it for nothing." Here is Jezebel's "so be it," and her seal, "well done," put to the murder. When the rulers have crucified Christ, and a stone is above Him in the grave, they say to Pilate, "Sir, we remember this deceiver said while He was alive He would rise again the third day;" calling the slain Man when He is lying under a cold stone "a deceiver." They say they rue not a hair all that is done. I deny not, but sometimes wicked men after sin will halt and clinch like a crazy, tired horse after a long journey. Their conscience, as it were, bearing up a leg, not daring to set down both its feet heartily to the ground. But this is not from an ilka day's disposition, but from some holiday notion and a sudden awakening. But a Cain will go asleep again, and leave God and his sick conscience both behind him, and go and build a city. Then try how your conscience dow bear with an outcast with Christ. If you be halting home over to Christ, and looking a greedy and hungry-like look again; if there be a gnawing in the conscience to look home again, because in Satan's bounds, you are out of your own element, you take not with the country nor with the air, home you must be, it is a good token. It is not to be worse thought of that the lazy flesh will say, "Rise not yet to open to Christ. It is too early. It is long to-day. (2) It is a cold night. (3) It is an unreasonable suit. (4) It is an untimeous and hard charge. (5) Give Him not a naysay, but put off awhile, you have no scant of days before you." Howbeit the flesh has all these, yet if ye see through these shifts, and can find nothing but thorns in your way until you return to your first husband again (Hos. 2:7), you will to the gate again, and Christ and you will, without fail, meet again.
"My hands dropped with myrrh." In the Hebrew, passing myrrh, current myrrh, that is for excellency, passeth well among many merchants.
"Upon the handles of the lock." That is, the Lord left the smell of His words that flowed from His sweet lips (Cant. 5:13). As well smelled as myrrh whereof the holy oil of the sanctuary was made (Exod. 30:23). And not only that, but a smell of the effectual working of His grace was left upon the lock of my heart, my will, and consent, which made my hands, that is, my actions, to smell sweetly. We see when Christ is gone Himself He leaves a sweet disposition of obedience behind Him that will do His turn. His grace rubbed and scoured the lock, and made it gleg and easy to open. Christ's fingers wherever they come leave drops of grace behind them. If He go away Himself He leaves a pawn behind Him. Where Christ walketh ye may discern the print of His feet behind Him. After a full sea, and the tide has gone in again, at the utmost point of the coast, the sea has left a white score of foam to tell the sea came to this point, and no further. Luke 24:32, "Did not our hearts burn within us, while He talked with us by the way?" Christ can come by you suddenly in a blast of a whirlwind, in a preaching, and cast in a coal at the window of your soul, and leave it smoking, and slip His way? And He can shoot an arrow of love even to the feathers, and post away Himself, and say, "Pack you out. Here is a bone for you to gnaw on." And with all this He Himself in the joy of His presence is close away only He has left some token, either the gnawing worm of red-wood hunger that is like to eat in at the one side and out at the other, or some work of believing, or of godly sorrow behind Him. Then ye are far in the wrong to Christ who tie Christ and His graces to the running of a sand-glass, and the time of preaching, and eating, and drinking. He can work by His hand when He is absent Himself, and preaching is sowing time, and sowing and harvest, yea, sowing time and growing time, are not aye together. Offend not, storm not, because aye when He knocketh He makes not open doors. Thank God for the smell of Christ when ye cannot get Himself. O say ye, "I had rather have Himself nor the smell of Him." Who can blame you? I know you had rather have twenty thousand crowns of gold as two crowns only. But you get no more for the time. Be thankful and wait on and steward well what you get.
"I opened to my beloved; but my well beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone." Upon sorrow for not opening follows a further degree of repentance for not opening. But when it is done to her great sorrow He is away, and has withdrawn Himself. This ordinarily follows our refusing to let Christ in that He go His way, and this is sad news. Now take up your hot bed, your lazy sinews, your tender feet, you dought not, for cold fyle your feet, and now you have lost your Lord. See then how far you wrong your Lord under desertions. We can complain and lay all the blame on Him and say, "O unkind Christ." Nay, but lay all the blame on thyself, and say, "Unkind fool that I am, who held Him at the door while His head was wet and frozen." He knocked, and ye would not let Him in. Well warred you knock and He hold you out.
Use. Then take your pennyworths of Christ while you have Him. We sit our market, and lose our Lord in the throng, and we cry wrong on Him instead of ourselves. By refusing to let Christ in we incur three great ills.
1. We are pyned with hungry desires, and we draw at word and sacraments as a hungry bairn sucking dry breasts, and Christ will not let a mouthful of milk down His breasts. This is because we took not our tide of Christ. As Hos. 5:6, "They shall go with their herds to sacrifice, to seek the Lord, and shall not find Him, for they dealt treacherously against the Lord."
2. We lose increase of faith, joy, peace, and much grace, for we do think that Christ knocketh at our door toom handed, and that when He comes in He brings nothing with Him. Nay, this were to judge Christ scarce worthy of His room.
3. We lose in special manner joy and comfort. Sorrow and challenges fill the heart. When the husband is dead and buried let the wife see his coat, it shall cause her heart to bleed afresh for sorrow. The memory of the Lord's crying at the door, "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove," and your obstinate refusing to let Him in is the coat of absent and buried Christ. The thought of His loving face you once saw, of His sweet tongue you once heard, is the very bleeding of a holed and wounded soul pierced through with sorrow.
"My soul went out of me" [Authorized Version, "My soul failed"]. (As Gen. 39:18.) Or, My soul fainted; I fell in a sound because of His speering. But how did she fall in a swoon when He spake? for when He knocked and spake she gave Him a haglie answer, that she would not go the breadth of the house, barefooted, to let Him in. This I take to be the sore and fainting heart she had in hearing Christ's last rap at the door, and His last angry word, like that word of Christ to His sleepy disciples (Matt. 26:45): "Sleep on now, take your rest: sleep your fill, I will go seek My lodging where I best may." And withal remembering His loving words, and remembering her dear Saviour and husband, meaned His dear head in the cold, raw, and stormy air in the night. This brought on a sound, that her soul for sorrow was gone out of her. We see, when the saints remember Christ's sweet promises and fair offers, and, withal, their unbelief and disobedience, it is a sting of conscience and a worm going to the bone, that makes a bleeding heart, and that makes a sound. This, then, is a deep, hot, bleeding wound of conscience, remembering how her Lord spake, and how she refused His offer, for conscience is the two feet of the soul. When the conscience is dashed against a stone and gets a broken leg, the soul halteth, and this is painful and causes a sound. Men know not what danger there is in cutting some master vein that is seated either upon heart or liver, and yet a little chap there may bring on present death. Conscience is the master vein of the soul, and is threaded upon the life of the new birth. Draw blood in this vein by sending Christ away without His errand, and it is a hundred to one that the vein bleed not to death, and the sorrow be excessive even to bring sounding; and in a swooning, man is betwixt life and death. This sickness and swooning are a little matter to beholders. It is easy to stand on the shore and see the swimmer in danger of drowning, wresthng with the floods. But faith has been now at over giving in the Church. Faith and sense are tough in such cases. For the first word of a troubled conscience is, "He is away;" and faith can say, "Liar! he is not away." Sense says, as Psalm 77, "He has forgotten to be merciful;" and faith saith, "Thou liest! this is my infirmity." This should teach us to dote and handle very kindly a tender conscience, and to be loath either to break a wheel of it by some great guiltiness, or to draw blood of it by security, impenitence, neglect of a fair offer. We may soon, with a reckless or sudden chap, call out a lith in the conscience; but none in heaven or earth can stem the blood but Christ Jesus only. If, unseen Christ had not holden up the Kirk's head in her sound, it had been her death.
"I sought Him, but I found Him not; I called on Him, but He answered me not" [Authorized Version, "I sought Him, but I could not find Him; I called Him, but He gave me no answer"]. Then under desertion we should seek. Christ is gone His gates now, yet the Kirk lays Him a speering. Peter, after his denial the third day, came to the grave to speer for his Master Christ. The forlorn son, after a long outcast, yet looks home over again, and he thinks him of his father's house. So in Hos. 14:2 the fallen Kirk is bidden go home again, and take words with her and say, "Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." So also Jer. 31:18, 19. Ephraim, chastised and put out of his father's house, is weeping, and with watery eyes looking home over and crying, "Turn me, and I shall be turned." When the saints are put out of God's house they resolve never to take unto another shift, but lie about God's house, and dree about His door, and greet and weep and howl, at door and window, until God rue upon them and call them in. When wicked men are put from God, they are like the servant put from service that seeks a new master; or like the ship-broken man who, seeing the ship going in pieces and ready to sink, resolves to quit it, and take him to swimming, purposing to make arms and legs serve him for a ship. I love it not when men put from God could resolve to seek about for a new master, and when Christ seems a broken ship they take them to swimming to seek another rock.
But here are two doubts: God will not be mine, how can I be His? Answer: Faith will bid you halve the covenant here, and say, "Lord, howbeit Thou wilt not be my Father, yet I will evermore be Thy son;" "howbeit Thou wilt not be my God, yet I will evermore be one of Thy covenanted people." We must learn to hang by little under outcasts. He is a blessed man whom God cannot slay, and a happy man whom his Father dow not forsake. (2) I have sinned. Shall I go home again in my guiltiness? Answer: There is but one of two ways. Let me reason with such as saith it is a death for a guilty man to go home to God. Now I will give but not grant you it is death, but it is a greater death to bide away. There are fire and water before you. One of them ye are chased to run to—either to the water or to the fire. Of two deaths that you cannot choose but one of them must end you. Take the little death, and pass the meikle death. To bide from God after an outcast, is fire and the great death. Eschew that to creep near Christ's bleeding wounds. Howbeit Christ should slay you to speak to your mind—howbeit it be death, it is but water, not fire; the little death, not the great death.
2. When all is done, it is life, and only life, to go to God after an outcast. Fear not, He will not slay you. Fools! that slandered Christ and called Him a man-slayer. The devil lies falsely, for Christ is a sinner saver.
"I sought Him, but I found Him not." A fearful and heavy temptation, as Lam. 3:8: "When I shout, He shutteth out my prayer." Where His promise now? Prov. 8:17: "Those that seek Me early shall find Me." Isa. 65:24: "And it shall come to pass, before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." And now here seeking and not finding, and calling and not answering. We may say here there is meikle betwixt market days. This doctrine is preached daily true to the saints. Let experience be the pulpit. When Christ prayed the same things thrice over (and "O My Father, if it be possible, remove this cup," it was this unco world with Christ), the first two times to His soul's feeling He got but a dumb answer. In this doctrine there is more need to comfort men than to prove it true. The ground would be redd, and all answered that possibly can be said. And—
First: God will tempt His own promise, as we think. Will not the promise look hungry like then? But there is no hunger at the heart of it. A worm will gnaw and nibble at the root of a plant, and cause it [to] lower to the one side, and droop and change colour; yet it liveth and wants not sap at the root. This same is yet clear, Our Lord will tempt His own word of promise, as we think, and yet the promise bruiks life. "In Isaac shall thy seed be called" (Rom. 9). A word of promise yet (Gen. 22:1, 2): "Abraham," says the Lord, "slay thy son Isaac, whom thou lovest." There is a worm at the root of the promise. The promise lowereth to the one side. This is a sore cross cavil to Abraham's faith. So Luke 21:18: "Not a hair of your head shall fall," says our Lord to His disciples. Yet Acts 12:2: "Herod vexeth the church," and James his hair and head both are stricken off, and fall upon the ground. There was another cross langel to the apostles' faith. Christ says the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Kirk; yet His Kirk is now as it was long since, and saying (as Jer. 8:20): "The harvest is past, and the summer is ended, and we are not saved." The Lord stands looking on, and beholds fair play, and we are killed all the day long. Is not here in our seeming a withered and dry promise? What is then to be done here? I answer: Let faith lean not only upon a tottering promise (for if God's promise fall, no great matter, howbeit thy bit bridle faith fall also), but also let thy faith lean upon the very temptation as upon an ordinary and special work of God. When God's honour is impawned in saving His Kirk, He will come and loose His pawn; and when ye have foughten your fill, and your faith is at the latter swaek, He can then come and say, "Poor body! stand thou by, and dry the blood off you, and look on Me, and I will fight My part here." All the several objections are answered.
Objection 1. I am like to let my grips go, and my weakness is giving over.
Answer. Faith is not faith if it yield to carnal fears. Faith should be like the good wrestler who laid on his back yet keeps his grip. Like a man that is drowned with a bush in his hand, if you die here, die with a promise in your fist, and Christ in your arms; and how weak your flesh is, as spiritually wilful should your faith byde by the mark.
Objection 2. Where is Omnipotence so long when I cry with a dry throat and pained breast, and am not heard?
Answer. Omnipotence is in God, and no elsewhere. Be sure not aye at a call to claw your scabbed back. Neither is it Omnipotence's part to flatter you, or, as a pick-thank servant ready waiting on, to say "aye" and "nay" to your "yeas" and "nays." In a word, Omnipotence is at hand to save you when God will, not to humour your impatience as you will. We see not our hasty missing of God's power is not so much faith as the yooking scab of our impatience.
Objection 3. Nay,—but I believe; I am sure I believe, and my very faith is not answered.
Answer. I am far from putting you from assurance of faith, and I am sure it is so. But hasted humours and faith riding both in one race, posting together, our dazzled eyes will take the one for the other. He that believes makes no haste. Faith will knock seven times at God's door, and still wait on. You would have at first in your neive what you seek, else you will not play. That faith of yours has soon done with it. A doubt may be made of a hastered faith that it looks like the prophet's cake unturned, and so raw on the one side. Therefore see that it be not a hot, sudden humour; for God has promised to answer your faith, but not your humour; your patient request, but not your hasty command; your submissive desire, but not your wild, fiery passion.
Objection 4. Then you would put me from all assurance that I believe, because I dow not wait?
Answer. Far be it from me; but that faith that ye think faith, in as far as it is so hot-spurred that it will either have a present answer or nothing, it is not faith as ye think. Howbeit it be with faith as smoke is beside fire, but it is not fire. Impatience beside faith is smoke, not fire. Discern, therefore, the one from the other.
Objection 5. My not seeing or feeling God filling my hand, breaks my faith in pieces. Would He let me see He were coming, I would delay.
Answer. Friend, ye may go to your watch, for (Heb. 11:1) "faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," and faith doth cast an anchor in the night where it sees neither brim nor bottom. Faith is content with a fair unseen God's venture, and you, a man, may weep and say (Isa. 8:17): "I will wait upon the Lord that hides His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him."
Objection 6. It is hard to see and believe.
Answer. Then ye say nothing but it is hard to believe, for faith believeth God's bare word with a pair of covered eyes. Secondly, yet ye have the light of the promises, and that is as good as Christ Himself. When it is told a wife, after seven years' absence of her husband, "I saw him: this and this he was doing: he said he would come home by and by to his wife:" this is a next best thing to the poor woman until he come home himself; and believing her husband will not lie, she sets down her stake there in a piece of patience until he come. Hab. 2:3: "For the vision is for an appointed time, but in the end it shall speak and shall not lie; though it tarry, yet wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry."
Objection 7. It is a wearisome, toilsome, and dreary life that He keeps me in, to hold in His hand and cause me to wait on with little joy, no feeling, and skant and want of old kisses.
Answer. Measure the life by the profitableness of it, and by the sweetness of your submission to God's wise dispensation, and not by your wearying. Little matter ye want sweetness if your faith be on its journey to God. If the traveller be going home, the less matter he be wet to the skin.
Objection 8. I want comfort in calling and getting no answer.
Answer. Faith may be without comfort, and offend ye because ye cannot get aye an apple to play the bairn with when ye would. Let it be your comfort that for God's cause, and in a humble submitting of your spirit to an absent Christ, ye can want comfort. He shall get his wombful of comfort that can want comfort, that God may be honoured with his believing and on waiting.
Objection 9. I would believe in the dark, and wink and believe, if I had comfort.
Answer. And little thanks to you to swim when Christ holds up your chin. The greatest praise to your faith, the greatest honour to Christ that can be, is when faith walketh upon fewest legs, neither feeling nor joy, nor comfort, nor experience, nor sight, but only this one: He is faithful who has promised; so said my beloved Christ, and I will believe.
Objection 10. Nay, I see of purpose God holds me off, and shifts me from day to day.
Answer. I grant you, and He well avows that He suspends the subscribing of your bill; for His delay is the seeking of your further kindness, faith, patience, &c. He knows that it is true, "soon had, soon gotten, soon forgotten;" soon heard of Christ, and soon unkind to Christ. A dear coft from Christ is well locked up.
Objection 11. Nay, but His delays are plain judgments, and bode anger.
Answer. Your mind, in my mind, is in a night dream. Expone His delays right, and ye ought to thank God for them. The longer leisure an earthly prince [give] to a poor complaining subject to tell his errand over again and over again, the greater is he obliged to the patience of the prince. When God is delaying you that ye may pray again, He is like a father saying to his bairn, "Hold up your head, my bairn; speak loud and tell it over again. I heard not what my bairn said." Cant. 2:14: "My dove that dwelleth in the clefts of the rock, cause me to hear thy voice."
Objection 12. When He delays, I wonder where He is all this time. I fear He come not at all.
Answer. Where He is where He is not, even coming to tryst with your faith's last sob, and purposeth ye shall not die through His lingering. But in waiting till He come, beware ye believe He will never come.
Objection 13. It were great glory to God, and a great confirmation to my faith, that He is a ready help at hand, and heard my prayers at the first call.
Answer. Nay, but His glory is your onwaiting for the trial of your faith and patience and love. When He has gotten this, and is first served, then ye shall be much served in His deliverance of you. But when ye pretend God's glory, and that ye should be served, you are gaping for your own ease, and that ye yourself should be first served in a present deliverance, and no reason but He be first served.
The only principal use of all is that we be charitable of our Lord when He answereth not at the first. Love thinks no ill. Far less should it think ill of God. Faith should be long-breathed and not soon tired, and lie believing and praying till the grey hairs. Well betideth all God's on-waiters. They get their errand with meikle joy. The devil takes the word out of Christ's mouth to unbelievers, and saith, "He will not come;" and they take a false answer from Christ. What! shall I wait any longer upon the Lord? And so their faith falls in two in the waft. Wait upon Christ's answer. If it be not an answer of mercy, wait on still, for there is a better one coming from Christ—to Whom, with the Father and Holy Ghost, be glory, praise, and honour, for ever and ever.—Amen.
The Church Seeking her Lord
"The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love. What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us? My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand."—SONG OF SOLOMON 5:7–10.
IN this text we have two things. 1. What befell the Kirk in seeking of her Lord—the watchman gave her straiks. 2. What speeches fell out betwixt her and her fellow friends. And there is a dialogue betwixt them. 1. The Church not finding Christ Himself to her desire, layeth a charge on her companions to take her blessing and her hearty commendations to Him whenever they meet (ver. 7). 2. They upon the occasion of the vehemency of her charge not so spiritually affected as need were, answer, What a walie beloved is this? What din is that ye make to charge us so peremptorily about your Christ? Have you a Christ of your own? Whereof is your Christ made that you charge us this way? And (ver. 9) the Church's stomach arising that her Lord should be despised, falls out in a higher commendation of Him to the end of the chapter in all His proportions.
"The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me"—with their tongue (Jer. 18:18); wounded me, and drew blood of me (Luke 20:12). No doubt she asked of the watchmen, as chap. 3:3: "Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?" But they not only refused to tell her, but they wounded her conscience with reproachful words, and persecuted her. We see in the way of seeking lost Christ there are persecutions and troubles. I think Christ is even like dear over-sea wares. Men hazard both life and goods to sea for them, and (Matt. 13) He is the pearl that men must buy with the loss of all they have. The woman with the bloody issue gat a thrust in the throng, thrusting in through a multitude to be at Him; and the two blind men crying, for ilk one of them had a pair of blind eyes, gat rebukes of the disciples. We may know, first, we shall never get Satan's goodwill to come to Christ, and therefore he professeth he will wait the gate for us. Second, sufferings and persecutions are in the way to Christ. This is a piece of old rent that lies to Christ's house. He suffered Himself ere He went into glory. Let them put on courage who seek Christ. Let them resolve to take cuffs, blae-straiks, and bloody wounds, in the seeking of Christ and the professing of His name. "If any man will be My disciple, let him take up his cross and follow Me." We will not get this changed. The cross is upon Christ's back. It follows Him and backs Him. Sufferings are hard, and we love to lodge in a whole skin, yet we would seek Christ and profess Him, and jouk about to beguile the cross of Christ, and play it a slip; and we think to slip to heaven another way, and therefore men study the art of wiliness now to hide their profession. Nay, that this is not straight dealing and fair play ye must fill the field and throw honestly and fairly, and be marked as one that follows the Lamb wheresoever He goeth.
"The watchmen." Christ's governors are sometimes Christ's persecutors. Scribes and Pharisees and high priests were always against Christ and His disciples. Paul found the rulers of the Jews always against him and the gospel, wherever they had any hand or authority. And Christ told His disciples (Luke 21:12), "Ye shall be brought before kings and rulers for My name's sake." The leaders of the people have been their persecutors. Ezekiel 34:4: "With force and cruelty have ye ruled;" verse 18: "They made the people to eat trodden on grass, and they gave them foul water to drink."
But ye will say: Seeing God has laid a great burden upon rulers, especially upon watchmen, why may not the people lay the same burden on them and commit our souls to them? Nay, but we must know God is Lord of the decree of reprobation, and for His own glorious ends gives some over to corrupt teachers, and yet we sin in selling our conscience to their doctrine. But there is (1) something to be said here for people, (2) something for watchmen.
1. Something for people. There be here two extremities.
Pride giveth too little, and slavish consciences give too much, to watchmen. Therefore let their feet be pleasant that publish good tidings. Rulers are tutors to Christ's bairns that are minors. Therefore let rulers get all their own, for pride against them stots off them upon God; and when their laws are unjust we owe to them an upholding of the majesty, dignity, credit, and honour which God has given them. Therefore so to disobey unjust laws as that we take at the majesty and face of rulers is unlawful, seeing we are willed to honour the king (1 Pet. 2:17; Eccles. 10:20). So all comes to this, that troublers of the peace of the kirk or commonwealth condemned (Rom. 12:18; Heb. 12:14), and discrediting authority in the very act of refusing obedience to the unjust decrees, is unlawful. Again, the patience of an ass in any man that has a conscience is unlawful. People here stand still without a halter in their head while rulers lay a load of dirt upon them, and their best devotion here resolves in "God forgive our teachers if they lead us wrong, for we know no better." If the watchmen forbid or command, and load your conscience under the pain of straiks, he is but an ill market man who would give much for such people's part of their inheritance. Men forget that we watchmen can put a toom spoon in a bairn's mouth, and cry, "The Church rulers! authority, authority! the law, the law!" as if the Bible were long ago burned. But know ye not that watchmen in Christ's matters can totter; yea, the chair and the pulpit can reel; and therefore if your light be your Scripture, God help you. I will not give much for your faith, for our faith often sits door-neighbour with the world, and the world prisoneth light. Go over sea to Rome and learn this. In the doctrine of the law of nature, of the Godhead, of two natures in Christ, for the most part they are sound, for this truth has little trafficking with the world's fatness. But because Purgatory (denied by a famous Papist to have any just claim to truth by any patent in Scripture) doth lie in the world's fat arm, gain, giving milk and suck to it, therefore this chamber in hell is stiffly maintained, because this lie is a ship that bringeth home much gold, and one dying will toom his purse to ease his conscience. Therefore when the command of rulers has ease, honour, the world and the fatness of the earth on the one side, and on the other there is nothing but losses and sufferings, the question speaks clearly the world's side is thief-like and to be suspected. And this is too ordinary in rulers, as also in us all by nature, to seek the truth as the wanton child doth his book, wishing he may not find it, and fearing the finding of his book cost him the loss of his pastime. Would men in the fear of God dig for wisdom as for gold, they would find it. But as if men forsaw the less light the more false peace, they take as much of conscience as makes for them, and no more. And when light of conscience cries on them too fast they wish it wanted the tongue, and in their heart pray a sorrow to the well-shod tongue of an enlightened conscience.
"The keepers of the wall took away my vail from me." Either they took away the scarf that covered her face, or her vail, or kerchief that did cover her head, which was both an ornament (Isa. 3:23) and a sign of subjection of the wife to her husband (1 Cor. 11:7); for because (Ezek. 23:25) they took away the vail from lewd women, as a token they were harlots, whereas the vail is a sign of modesty. It is clear the rulers beat the Kirk from obedience to her Lord, and called her a harlot, heretical, and schismatical, and covered her with a vail of traditions. In Solomon's days rulers have been playing and encroaching upon the woman's vail and her subjection to Christ, her husband in hearing, and obeying his voice only; and this is again decorous and modesty to pull the poor woman's vail off her head and send her out barefaced and bareheaded among the enemies to be laughen at and mocked. This has come in rulers and tutors under pretence they owe obedience and subjection to the watchmen. Because watchmen think they get not in commanding too much (whereas Christ allows them in commanding only the chair of sent servants, straitly bound with a written commission from the Lord), therefore they make a hole in the poor woman's vail, or they pull the kerchief off her head, and busk her with a vail of human traditions, a vail of fig-leaves, not a kerchief of Christ's fine linen. This is pride in men of eminent place in the Kirk; and pride is an ill and cumbersome neighbour beside Christ. It is always going over the line, and not content with its own side, and thinking its own bounds strait and narrow. It will be over the march in Christ's hained pasture. It is a curse in the law to remove our neighbour's landmark, and take in a piece of Christ's furrow. Watchmen have power and authority here, and it cannot be denied but they are often like the man who shearing away the hair, that he cuts both quick hide and flesh. Rulers, in cutting off hair and exercising what power Christ has given them, they too oft cut Christ's quick hide and come in upon the flesh with their knife, meddling with the woman's kerchief and vail, which only should be of His busking, for it is His own kingly power to govern His Kirk and to busk her as He pleases. When men take upon them to do it they cut the quick flesh; and therefore our Lord had good cause to say (Psa. 2:10), "Be wise, be instructed ye judges of the earth; guide well; look to your tackling;" but the mischief is, honour is an apple so sweet that Balaam will stem the spirit of prophesying, howbeit the form should nip in pieces. To come to the purpose, and men's honour and their unbounded appetite to be at the chair of it and to keep it has often made a wide hole in the kirk wall, and such a slap in the Confession of Faith as an idol as great as a kirk has come into Christ's house. Men would fain be at this to clip in length and breadth the woman's vail, to make it as meet for policy as a strait coat for a woman's body until it pain her, and she pains it until the seam skaileth and loupeth out. The woman's vail is most seemly when rulers suffer it to keep the just quantity and length and breadth of the Lord's pattern on the Mount, and it is the wife's part to stick by the vail and put on no other. Better lose her tutors than her husband.
"From me." The Church gat this ill turn of the watchmen because she held her Lord at the door. For this cause, because (Lam. 1:8, 10) "Jerusalem had grievously sinned.… The adversary hath spread out his hands on all her pleasant things (and so also upon her vail); for she hath seen that the heathen hath entered into her sanctuary, when Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy congregation." The Kirk of God gets carnal lords to rule over her, and gods of wood and of stone to serve every day and night—Jer. 16:13; and verse 11, "Because your fathers have forsaken Me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and served them and worshipped them." We can complain of our Lord's absence and of His unkindness, and of cruel watchmen, and we are only to be blamed. We made the broust ourselves, and we can lay the blame of spoiled drink upon God. Would we keep good quarters with Christ, we should get pastors according to Christ's own heart. People under blind shepherds should rather then cry out against themselves who are wandering sheep, than against their shepherds who cause them to err. A repenting man is more angry at his own heart that consented to sin than he is at the devil who did tempt him to sin. There is oft too much crying out against rulers who have not always hap to steer the rudder of the ship cannily, and too little godly sorrow for our sins, that procure that "leopards and lions shall watch over our cities" (see Hosea 13:7, and Jer. 5:6).
"I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem." The Church with much ado hath escaped the hands of the watchmen, and finding small and very cold comfort from them, and no news about her beloved, turns her to followers and companions, and conferring with them to tell her well-beloved that she is sick of love for Christ.
This teaches what duty the saints owe one to another, to love one another (1 Thess. 4:9), and to teach one another (Col. 3:16); "Exhort one another daily" (Heb. 3:13); "Provoke one another to love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together" (Heb. 10:24, 25); and among themselves to speak that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers (Eph. 4:29), having speech always with grace seasoned with salt (Col. 4:6). This God commanded: "Say to your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ru-hamah. Plead with your mother, plead." This charge is given to every one of the faithful to plead with the apostates of their time. And Mal. 3:16, "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and a book of remembrance was written before Him." Our Lord thinks so meikle of the sweet and comfortable speeches among the faithful ones, that He lays to His ear and hears it, and writes it up in a book; and Zech. 8:21: "And the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts; I will go also." This speaketh and crieth aloud against those who confine all exercise of God's worship within the walls of the kirk, making all their worship holiday worship, using godliness for holiday as they do their Sabbath clothes. But Abraham had religion within his house. He taught his children sitting and walking in his house, and in the field, lying down at night, and rising up in the morning; and Philemon had a kirk at his house. Are not ministers Christ's stewards? and who knows not the bairns may possibly not be disposed to eat at the set time of the ordinary meal, and in the public ministry, for the Word's working and Spirit's working are not always confined to the hour of the sand-glass, neither is the Spirit tied to a pulpit, and a gown, and a minister's tongue. Shall we then think Christ's house is so narrowly holden and his pantry so scant that He will not allow a four hours' drink upon His bairns or a piece between meals? Shall not hungry bairns get no more nor public allowances in church assemblies? Nay, our Lord allows His bairns to carry home to their houses grapes and apples off the tree of life, and eat at home. For many coals make a great fire, and private Christians will rub one another's memory and their cold hearts; and often what ministers cannot do in public, God's Spirit with private helps will do it at home. It is seen when a great doctor of physic has given over the man, an old wife has come in after him, and wrought the cure, and made the man sound whole. This doctrine should be right understood, for it warrants not the conventicles and unwarrantable meetings of Separatists and Brownists, who despise public meetings, and make a kirk in private houses of their own. They learn not this from Christ, who honours the Pharisees' preaching sitting in Moses' chair with His own presence, and commanded others so to do; howbeit they had leaven in their doctrine. We will not get a church of clean paper and of new velvet as Separatists and Anabaptists would have, and it is a fearful sin to make a rent and a hole in Christ's mystical body because there is a spot in it; and this place will not help the conventicles of Separatists, for the Church here has conferred publicly with the watchmen, as chapter 3:3. She so honoured the public means that she said, "Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?"
"Tell Him that I am sick of love." This is a broken, fiery, and passionate kind of speech, wherein she lays a charge upon her companions that they would in their prayers to God show Christ her errand, and take her hearty commendations and blessing to Christ because for the present she cannot get Himself. In a desertion anything is good meat to a hungry soul. When the Church had Christ, and was near to Him, there being a thin door only betwixt Him and her, she counted little of Him, and would not fyle her feet to let Him [in]. To a full soul even the honeycomb is loathsome. But now, having lost Christ, with a great desire she is content to get one that will carry her commendations to Him. Hunger for Christ is good cheer, and a good feast. Experience may confirm this doctrine, for sometimes a kiss of Christ's mask when ye cannot get His bare face is a full dinner. When David is at home the worship of God and His tabernacle is not so sweet, when he may have the best rowme in it. But in Psalm 84 he would be content with all his heart of the swallows' rowme in the bowers of the house, and then a psalm was sweetmeat. But when he yoked with Bathsheba both the tabernacle and Psalms dreed of cold, and were laid up to a full sea. Compare here faith and sense together, and you will find sense prouder nor faith. Sense will have nothing except it find an open door to go into God, and faith will be content to busk and to look in through the key-hole to see but the half of Christ's face or one of His ruddy cheeks. The Kirk's sense is at this—Cant. 1:2: "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth." That is a piece of pride to rest with nothing as content but the Lord's bare face, His breath, and a kiss. But (Luke 7) a poor woman is content to kiss His feet. "Set Me as a seal upon thy heart," says the Kirk (Cant. 8:6). Sense there will be in no place except at the board-head, and the first mess and the hand in the plate with Christ. But the woman of Canaan's hungry faith is glad to lie under the table with the dogs, and to eat the crumbs that fall from His table. Thomas his sense has not except he see Christ and put his finger in the print of the nails and his hands in the hole of His side. The silly hungry woman with the bloody issue will be content to touch the hem of His garment. Servants' bread is good cheer to the home-coming forlorn son. It was once another world when bairns' bread was no delicacy to him. This reproves doated lovers, who when they have full wallets and abundance of Christ's love and their armful of Him, misregards Christ, and makes small reckoning to anger Him, and set not by His presence because wealth causes wit to waver. Such spoiled bairns in a wealthy world let wisdom's good meat spoil and sour. And when that world is away they would be glad of the licking of Christ's trencher. O, but humble hunger will think meikle of half a smile and half a kiss of Christ. And the reasons are these:
1. Desertion and absence of Christ is a great scourge to pride and security. When we have Christ at will and access, presence, sense, and liberty, ere we are aware we turn wanton and secure, and count little of Christ's sweet tongue and His lovely knocks. It is even so here. Beggars dow not bear wealth, Christ's lordly beggars, His full spoiled and doited louns, find the ground of their stomach then. And because you are too full and know not well wherefore the well serveth you till it go dry, it is the wisdom of Christ that ye go over hungry grass, and seek after the half blinks that ye counted little of before, and eat sweetly the last year's leavings, and be glad of Christ's mouldy bread.
2. Humility is never well-fed, and fat till sense grow traiked and lean, and then when sense is traiked and lean, and like to starve in a famine, spiritual humility (to speak so) gets cheeks, and grows fat, under desertion, while hunger makes a wide mouth: then comes David's "How long, Lord?" (Psa. 5)
"I am sick of love"—or, as the Hebrew word beareth, "weak through love." That is, feeling wrath and the curse of the land, and wanting the sense of His pardoning love. I am sick through longing to have reconciliation and forgiveness, as is exponed well in Isa. 33:24: "The inhabitant shall not say I am sick; the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." So is it in this song at chap. 2:5; at Matt. 9:12: "They that are whole need not the physician, but they that are sick." He means Saviour-sick for the physician Christ; and, Psa. 103:2, 3: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, and healeth all thy diseases." This is her pained conscience saying: "I am pained, I am in a fever, the health, constitution, and frame of the life of my soul is troubled because I want Jesus." To take the thing up that aileth the Kirk now we must know that it is not the bairn's truant sickness, nor the loun ill that aileth the Kirk, for there is pain and sorrow in this sickness: "My soul panteth after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" (Psa. 42:1, 2.) "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God." When the heart panteth and the flesh has a tongue to cry, David was not at himself. It is with the saint's longing for Christ as when a woman's husband has been long over sea; every ship she sees makes her both blith and sad, for hope deferred is a breaking of the bones. The first sight is half joy, but with pain, when all the passengers land and her husband is not there, then her heart breaketh. Every one that knocketh at the door makes her both blith and sad when she sees it is another, she sighs and says: "Alas! it is not my love." In this Saviour-sickness the soul in the word and sacrament waiteth for Christ. When it is not He, oh! then the heart is woe: "I missed Him and I got Him not." Second: As in other sickness so here, meat and drink do the sick man little good, and sleep can he not. The sick man now has no mind of sleep; his absence holds her waking. Word, sacraments, reading, prayer, conferring, have no taste. They feed not. The soul is ill-like and sick, until Christ come Himself, with a drink of cold fountain water of the well that runneth out from the sanctuary from under the throne of God and the Lamb (Rev. 22) The poor soul gets never a kindly cool of love fever. Third: In this sickness there is fear of wrath, a fire in the soul, and a sort of unbelief and fear He come not, for hunger is hard of faith. When hunger and faith run together hunger is speediest of foot, and out-runneth faith. Old Jacob hearing this that his son Joseph liveth, he believeth not, for his heart fainted (Gen. 45:26). Yet he would fain have had it true, but desire made such a wide mouth and racked itself so far until faith took the cramp. It is as we say, "What good news! Alas! I fear they be not true," and say to a sick soul burnt up with God's wrath, "Be blith, Christ is coming;" he will let out a look with a watery eye, and death, earth hunger. "Alas! I fear it be not He, I would so fain have it Him. I dow not believe it. Fear fills my heart, and that fear is a pain of the fever."
But is it not a dangerous case, may you say, to be thus sick? Answer: As Christ said in another sense, so may we here: "This sickness is not unto death, but to the glory of God," for there are speaking and crying tokens of life here. And, first, this sickness has a fair long tail. It is drawing Christ down out of heaven to the broad side of the poor soul that is Christ-sick. Christ comes always to the cooling of the fever. Nay, He is always in the house, howbeit the person in the fever know Him not; He is at the sick man's bedside preparing drugs and washing herbs for him. He is looking on. Her groans and her sighs are of my well-beloved Christ, my dear husband, and His groans and His sighs, howbeit not heard by her, answer hers behind the curtain. Oh! for my dear bride, the Lamb's wife. And—
Second: There is here another good token, a sweet impatience in this love-sickness. Every hour for absent Christ is a day, every day a year. "And oh!" says the soul, "Saw ye Him.… Oh! He is long in coming. He goes slowly. Oh! run, well-beloved like a roe, or a young hart upon the mountains."
Third: This one sympton of a Saviour-fever is also that there is a deadly sorrow until He come again. The harp of joy [is] laid by and hanged up until Christ come again and put in tune.
Fourth: All this time there is a fire of love to Christ in the heart, and His absence is like a fan to cause it to burn faster.
Fifth: The special prevalent mark that proveth it will end well is hunger and thirst for Christ, and a rude working hunger, and hunger that has hands and feet, and it is the only choice token of life.
But a question may be asked here in this sickness. That there is here a heart fainting and hunger for Christ, pronounced by Christ to be a mark of those whom God shall fill (Matt. 5:6); yet the hungry soul will not accept of this mark; and because he has the mark of hunger rather reasoneth the contrary, he is none of God's? Answer: Because extreme hunger would so fain believe that often out of desire to have it true that Christ cometh, it unbelieveth, as is said before.
Second. Hunger is of kin and blood to want, and is of its own nature a toom, empty thing, and thereupon the man thinketh he wanteth all.
Third. God disposes it to be so because hunger is given to man that he should not rest upon it, but seek meat. But we may learn how to spain our desires, even to send them out in love-sickness for Christ. If the pulses of many souls in our time were graiped, they would be found not sick of love, but sick of lust. Some have, alas! sickness for their neighbour's vineyard, others Haman's sickness after he led Mordecai through the streets, sick of court because his honour got a scad. This age is full of sick men, fevers are rife, every man seeks for this world.
If ye find my beloved what shall ye tell Him [Authorized Version, "If ye find my Beloved that ye tell Him"]. The Church must find Christ ere she can tell Him. It is only a found Christ we must pray to. If we start Him not, and snapper not on Him where He is, we cannot pray to Him. This condemns those who tell Christ's news and they never find Him. They pray and speak to Christ, and they never meet with Him. They must then be dumb prayers; and so they are. When men get not access at all, they but cast away prayers in the air. He that prays in one measure or other, must win in to the King's chamber of presence, and to the feet of King Jesus' chair of state: "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace, wherein we stand" (Rom. 5:2).
Objection: Oh! I pray often, and I think I have not found Him. Are all these prayers then lost? Answer: All find not Christ in a like measure, yet little faith is faith, and every weight of gold is gold, a mool as a mountain of gold. Second: If you have found yourself in prayer, you may soon find Him. If you get but in prayer the sense of a pair of blind eyes, and a dead heart, it is a degree of finding Him. Third: Know there be three degrees of those that find Christ. First: Your Lord gives you sometimes but the beggar's welcome, a closed door, and liberty to set your mouth to the hole of Christ's lock, and cry through that ye find Him, when ye find but the very hole of Christ's lock. Second: Sometimes the half-door is casten up, howbeit your weak arms dow not cast up the door to the wall; and this is more than the first, and here they lie whining and scraping at His doors with some degree of motion and liberty, wresthng with an unbelieving heart. Third: Sometimes you find the whole door casten up, and your bridegroom taking an hearty armful of you, which is possibly a feast by the common.
Any of these are a finding of Him. Only beware of fashionable and dead prayers coming from custom, not from conscience. One of the marks whereof, is that men cast in their bill to Christ, and never ask whether it be heard or not. Then ere ye go away, leave a loud, last knock, and observe what God sayeth, and always so pray as that you instantly urge the answer of your bill.
Objection: Then when I cannot find Christ, shall I not bide aback, and pray none till I find Him?
Answer: This is a deep one of Satan, that some men will not come to Christ until they be so busked that there is not a wrong pin upon them. Nay, it is best to go to Christ with ragged and rent clothes. Necessity cannot blush. Young children rive two or three books ere they learn one. Better spill a prayer or two and fumble at it, as be deluded of Satan to wait until your heart be on a good blood. Nay, a cold man must walk and stir himself until he be hot. Prayer is like God's file to stir a rusty heart; blowing helpeth a cold fire, and by moving, working, and stirring upon the new birth, the heart will grow warm. To stay from praying until the heart say, "Now, God, now I am prepared," is the way to lose what ye have, but not to find more. Be doing though weakly. If there be something of yours and something of Christ's, He will accept of His own, and pardon yours freely and fully.
"If ye find my beloved." Then Christ is a seeking, and [is] lost in the Kirk's feeling, yet notwithstanding is her well-beloved, as ver. 1. Christ standeth without at the wrong side of the door, yet is her well-beloved. Nay, the covenant standeth if ye were in hell and He in heaven at the right hand of the Father, yet He is my Lord and my God. We see want of present possession of Christ depriveth not the saints' right and just claims to Him. A man year and day our king's rebel loses his life-rent of present possession, yet the heritage is his and his heirs. He loses the use, but not the right. A nobleman having three houses to dwell in, the king for his fault confines him for all his life within one of them. His confinement forfaults the use of the other two, but his right remaineth. So right doth it fare with the saints; they, being Christ's outlaws for some offence, do often lose a very life-rent of spiritual joy and comforts, and so are Christ's confined rebels, and they lose joy, comfort, and present access, liberty, feelings, love blenks; Christ in His felt presence being under a wadset to them; yet faith all this time will not deny They will say, "My Lord, my Saviour, my well-beloved;" Isa. 49:14: "Zion said, My God hath forsaken me." Well, Zion, think on of that! "Thy God," and yet He has forsaken you that is thy God and not thy God. Your tongue makes you a liar. But here under the fore-faultery the claim standeth still. Jonah 2:4: "Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight." I said, whilk I? "Even I roving, dreaming, Jonah said." God said it not, for Jonah's claim, right, and title to God stood still. They are fools, then, who hang up all the rights of their salvation upon a felt presence; a loose, rotten pin. Money lent out upon bank is a man's proper goods, howbeit not in his coffer. Christ to the saints is sometimes lent-out money, yet is He yours. You see the furnace making for you, and finding Christ behind the wall you learn to swim, howbeit a wombful of feeling be not at hand to hold up your head. Dauted bairns, you must learn to go your alone, howbeit your mild nurse Jesus be not at the bairn's back to hold you by the two shoulders. If you can do this and keep your assurance, howbeit hell and wrath were in the shell of your heart yet Christ and heaven are in the yolk of it.
"What is thy beloved more than another beloved?" The companions of the kirk being somewhat carnal and not well acquainted with love-sickness as the Church is, giveth her a sore check, for the Kirk spake with feeling, and took an hearty mouthful of it in charging of her well-beloved. And therefore the companions of the Church double the question, and they say, "Have you any beloved of the new cut. Whereof is your Christ made more than other Christs? There is fell2 great din of your beloved. What needs all this? You are fell hot in the chase that you come on with adjurations and charges. I would not have you overfine. Be like neighbour and other. Neighbour-like in holiness is very good." We see in as far as we are carnal we dow3 not bide heat and forwardness in religion. We love still a moderation in God's matters. We need not think but the old world thought Noah too holy and too just. He will make a great vessel on dry land far from the sea, and he will have all the world but seven moe and himself drowned for sin. Noah in all the world, and none like him; he is the only man. You know Jeroboam in bringing in the golden calf in 1 Kings 12:28: "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem to worship. Behold thy gods, O Israel! which brought you up out of the land of Egypt." He would say: "It cannot be denied but it is God's law to go up to Jerusalem to worshipping, but, saving his own wisdom, it is a strait one, it is too much and more nor necessity. If God be worshipped I doubt not but the place where is indifferent. Therefore it is not good to be fiery and lay too sore a burden upon the people, to pain ourselves to take the young ones, the male children, thrice a year up to Jerusalem." Therefore Jeroboam with a piece of desertion would slack the girth. There is a thing now in religion that they call discretion and a wise moderation. This is the only safeway. Let cold, politic, canny2 men go before you, and follow them and dance ye as they pipe, and that is now sure work. "He is old enough, ask himself," say the parents of the blind man. They thought the rulers burdened their discretion with a tempting question, and therefore they would not take the tale ere it came to them. "I love Christ," says the middoway man or the half-lan man, "but I would not make a blowing horn of my religion. They shall never know upon what side I am. Fye! fye! for wisdom to this age. I hope I am as good a Protestant as any of them. I hope I have a soul to keep, but ill mot4 I thrive if I endure too great preciseness, and that men should start at a strae and carry so kittle6 stomachs, and they will not do as neighbours and others do, having forgotten what common people say, 'Too holy was hanged.' I would not have men's consciences too small spun. A conscience of small linen and cambric dow not, for the thread will soon break. It is good to be holy, but not over8 holy." It can hardly be thought but such men as seek this way, and they live as they speak, believe that God's law is too high a tuned lute, and therefore let moderation slack the string. When David says (Psa. 16:4), "The idols' drink offering of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names in my lips;" such men would judge David had precise lips who would not name an idol. This mid-course Christ blamed. People thought they might come to heaven, and there was no necessity to be so holy as Scribes and Pharisees. But Christ said: "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven."
Men are gone so far that atheists have taken this course as to think, not to swear, drink, and not to follow the ordinary chambering and wantonness of the time, is to be precise so as lewdness is no moderation. Nay, I wish men were persuaded in the contrary, and would know that Christ's pass to heaven is either go quickly and with all your speed to heaven, or then miss your lodging at night; take even your choice. The old job-trot, the old mid-course, well-a-ways brother, will not do the turn. Therefore no marvel nor2 this world think that the saints have another beloved than the rest of the world has. It is known our divines think not in matters [of] faith much of what Papists say; as learned, as holy as you believe other ways, and we hear this daily, "Others have a soul to keep as well as you." What then? Must not every man be his own herd here? Men think with one stroke of the hammer they have felled a man cold dead to the ground. And yet all they have said is no better nor a rotten argument from excellent logic that is not sure in the dry land, and very dangerous in the sea. Let the pilot say to the passengers, "A better seaman nor1 even I was, or will be, and who loveth life, goods, ship, as well as we do, sailed upon yon rock. Come, I will try my skill to follow him that way." Is not this unhappy sea logic? And conscience in God's matters sailing by another man's compass must then be in danger. It were better ask for truth; then, whither he goeth, truth cannot go in the mire, but men may.
"More than others." That the companions of the Church ask this question, "What the Kirk's beloved is more than others?" shows they were not so well acquainted with Christ, nor with the fits of spiritual ague and fevers for absent Christ. The Lord has bairns in His house, and Christ's bairns must creep ere they gang. All within the Church have not a like experience of Christ. 1 John 2:13 makes some fathers, some young men, and some little children. There may be two sons of one and the same father, and the one be thirteen years of age, and the other a sucking child that can neither speak, stand, nor walk as yet.
The use is, that the aged bear with the infirmities of the younger and weaker, and if a weak one fall and break his leg, the apostle (Gal. 6:1) will have those that are spiritual to put the broken leg in joint again with the spirit of meekness. Love should bind up softly and tenderly. Spelk the broken bones. Who are in this carriage toward men to keep these rules?
First: The wilful and proud Pharisee is not to be borne with in obstinacy. No man owes his tongue to lick his neighbour's running boils.
Second: It is rashness to break up a window in any man's soul, and fly upon his conscience at the first. Let God sit judge there.
Third: In Church controversies, in a great wood of sundry controversies anent matters of faith, we should attentively go by the thorny bushes, and walk so with men who worship one and the same God with us, albeit they err in some things from the truth as we put on a compassionate mind towards them. Know Christ will send no man to hell for errors coyning from mere weakness.
Fourth: We are to look as well to that which men have as to that which they want. We look always to the blind and bloody side of a man, and to men's cloudy part. Men would say, "Turn the leaf and cast up the other page, and look upon the enlightened part of the man and his moon side." We are like the fly that cannot sit down upon the whole skin, but with eyes, smell, and tongue, we fall down upon the sore boil at the first.
Fifth: Let them be wicked men, we are then not only to look what they want, but what possibly the grace of God may give them. Fish playing in the sea to-day, for aught we know, may be ordained for Christ's hook the morn.
Sixth: A common fault in us all that we look to sick men with pity, and not to sinful men with pity. Christ wept for Jerusalem, and yet Jerusalem slew Him. Samuel wept for Saul and envies him not, howbeit he had taken his office over his head. Pity in place of grudging, thankfulness for what Christ has given us, a humbling fear for what justice has denied them, would turn our spirits if we considered the matter right.
Seventh: The judge not perversely wicked claimeth the largest share of every subject's love and charity. Thou barkest at him and smitest him with thy tongue, but little knowest thou he sits in the cleaving of a windy mountain. Four temptations from all the four airts come on him every day. Thou art on the shore and he is in the raging sea. And this is one of Solomon's ills, the poor man can lie in his cothouse. Under David and Solomon the music went not unpleasant to all men's ears. Many eyes are on government, and to many it seems to crook and bear a leg; but men are ready to give authority more judgment nor2 mercy.
Eighth: All men have holes and wants, but here is the matter. Some men have a crooked toe, and yet it is not seen; and some a crooked nose, and that is soon seen; because some carrieth the blot on their face they are soon seen and spitted at. You pity your own crooked toe and offendeth at your brother's crooked nose. You pity yourself, and summon your love home to lick all your own sore. Lend charity and love to others, and send some of it from home to love and pity others, and so much the more because fire will be under much ashes, and if the man be good gold will you cast him off because he wants some grains, or because his King's stamp is clipped in the edge, and it wants half a letter? Christ will pay the skaith, and take him in His own treasure, whom you have casten out of your heart; and beware of that when God is taking in you are casting out. That is to be feared. In a word, where there are weak and strong in a Kirk, every man should have a back and saddle in readiness to bear in love his brother over the water. Our Lord Jesus will not cast away a bruised reed, or deny a poor, weak bairn of his kindred and blood, because he has a little crook or halt. Neither should we cast away any but in love. "Wait on, pity, help, and be thankful for what our Lord has given us.
"That thou so chargest us" [Authorized Version, "That thou dost so charge us"]. The adjurations of the Kirk sick of love are to naturally disposed daughters of Jerusalem, [as if] uncouth things and miracles. "O what means the woman," say they, "to come on with fiery cannon yell? We have seen many holy folks before, but we saw never the like of her who cometh on with cursing and oaths to bid us speak to Christ for her." We see in as far as we are carnal, we are ignorant of God's true wisdom and God's way of spiritual love and fever in the conscience of His own children. Paul heareth this of Festus, "Too much learning hath made you mad." And so did they to Christ. Others say, "Why hear you Him? He is mad." 1 Cor. 1:25: "But the foolishness of God is wiser than men." That which men call foolishness and stark daffing in God, is wisdom above all worldly wisdom, and they think God's saints silly gouks,3 and God's bodies climbing crow-nests, and they wot not what they are seeking. "Honest man," say they, "he means well, but he has no wit. There are bees in his head." And in so far as men are natural they can put Christ till an assize, and hold a justice court upon the power of godliness, and give out a doom that holiness is plain fancy. Howbeit nature had now to be God's scholar, yet it will needs put a book in God's hand and be His master, and teach God a lesson. Jehu and his companions call one of God's prophets a mad fellow (2 Kings 9:11). And what was Jeroboam's natural estimation of obedience to God's law? 1 Kings 12:26, 27: "And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David: if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me." Does not here [the] head of wit speak a fool's tale? God had said that by obedience to God his throne should be established (1 Kings 11:38). He says in plain language, "If I be holy I shall never do well. If the people worship God as He has commanded in His word, then farewell good policy. I and my new honours shall shoot short." Any man that has nature in him let him take up his cross and follow Christ, and when it comes to obedience with a hazard or seen danger, his wisdom shall say, "Take heed what you do. Look ere you loup. You resolve well, but you walk upon coals covered with ashes. You spit further nor you will loup, and these that obey Christ because natural reason leads them, they obey natural wisdom, and not Christ." In God's matters men had need to take heed to their natural wisdom else it will lead them in the briars. When God calleth you either to do or to suffer, hear no voice but one, even Christ's own word; for our wisdom has a rank smell. Go at leisure, pity yourself, see to your own standing. Christ sayeth (Matt, 11), "Wisdom is justified of her children." Then God's wisdom is condemned of His own bastards. They can call God's wisdom rash folly. The ill-step bairn will never speak good of its stepmother. Worldly minded men are not wisdom's full gotten bairns, and therefore they speak ill of their mother; but the full gotten and lawful sons of God's wisdom speak good of their mother, and follow her footsteps. It is not good to obey God upon conditions, and the condition comes home to his door. "Carnal wisdom, shall I do it?" This wisdom is the devil's wife, and will lord it out against Christ; but it does always dance as the ill world pipeth, and thinks it folly and ill manners to be out of tune and fall out with the multitude and come to daggers, as Christ did with the Scribes and Pharisees, and court, and time, and the doctrine of the elders. Oh! learn to deny yourselves, and be in tune, and keep measures with Christ Jesus. A good conscience is a good, soft, well-made bed. He is wise enough who is wise to salvation, and has saved his own soul, and shall hear God's "Well done, good servant." What is well done must be wisely done. Goodness cannot be a fool.
"My beloved is white and ruddy." The Kirk with an edge of words takes Christ's part. "My beloved, my beloved," I would you wist what you say when you speak of my beloved. I scorn He be made fellows with any [one, be] he in heaven or earth. One thing is here worthy in the Kirk.
First: That hearing Christ laid in an uneven balance, she starts quickly and takes the temptation presently by the nose, and with a long speech sets Christ even up presently in the skies, and dings speedily, with force of words, her companions out of an opinion that Christ has any mortal match. This is right, not to let the temptation go on. We should not let men away with it when they would put a ruffle upon Christ Jesus. Nay, true grace will borrow strength from a tentation,2 as Paul, seeing idolatry at Athens, and God put out of His room, he grew hotter nor4 he was before, like a horse that cannot endure the spur. So when Christ says (John 6) to His disciples, upon occasion that Capernaum had played turncoat, and left Him, "And will ye also leave Me?" Peter answereth with a piece of stomach: "Leave thee, Lord! To whom shall we go?" Leave you! Whither then? To the devil. The disciples (Acts 4) were charged to speak no more in the name of Jesus. Peter and John draw out a strong one against that. They will not leave it so, but speer, "Whether it be righteous to obey God or man, judge ye." This speaks right against such as will hear Christ ill-spoken of, and will hang their head and let a reproach, lighting upon Him that died for them, blow over their shoulder, and misken that there is a good friend ill-spoken of. Nay, ye cannot be fiery enough when Christ gets a tout; when the black-mouthed dogs in the world bark against that well-given stranger Christ, there should be a staff in your mouth. Now the curse of God be on them that love not my well-beloved. You hold with your own; ilk one takes part with his own country. A man will speak for his own father, brother, bairn, wife, or friend he will plead for; but not a word in favour of his own Christ. He will go his own errands and speak his own business to his prince, but not a word for Christ. Christ has tongue enough, let Him speak for Himself. Well, well, nobles of Scotland! I dare not say; so be ye served when your eye-strings break and your life is come to your lip; but God forgive you. And what better are they who will stand at Christ's back and see His head broken in His cause, in His members, in His Church, and not party their well-beloved, and never say it is ill done. True zeal makes a quarrel of a wrong done to Christ, and He gets too many wrongs now; and He is like the man that has many kin and few friends. Many now are with Christ, and few for Christ. He is worn out of friendship in the world.
"White and ruddy" is the best temperature, and strongest and most lively constitution of a man, and seemeth to note his Godhead—white, pure, innocent, holy—as (Dan. 7:9) He appears in the vision all white as snow and as pure wool; and in His glory His face shineth as the sun, and His raiment white as light (Matt. 17:2); in Him dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9). And read the Hebrew Adam, the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), flesh and blood with us (Heb. 2:14). This shows that Christ is the beautifullest and fairest among the sons of men (Psa. 45:2). Fair things delight us much, and perfect white and perfect red make a beautiful person. Beauty be a great conqueror of love, and will take a castle in the heart. We love fair things, as fair sun, fair moon, fair roses, lilies, men, women, &c. But put out all the beauty of the creatures in one; they are all but caff and sand to fair-faced Jesus. I had far rather have one look of fair-faced Jesus as have all the world, and ten worlds, with sevenfold more beauty than they have. See Isa. 63:1: "Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength?" The Kirk, wondering at Christ's beauty to see Him go so manly-like, says, "O, who is yon goes so manly and so sonsy-like? He is a lucky-like3 person." It would rejoice one's heart to see Him go in the greatness of His strength. Is not yon fair, glorious Jesus, in red scarlet, having all His clothes dyed in blood? And the answer is made, "It is I, even I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." John 1:14: "He dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, as the glory of the only-begotten Son"—like the heir of a great king. His beauty is answerable to all that is said here (Col. 1:15–19; Rev. 1:13–16, and 10:1–3, 19:11–13). If any fair thing allure your heart, and fair, lovely Jesus do it not, ye must be lordly, and ill to please.
You make a good use of this doctrine if you take Him with all His forms and fairness as your husband whom you love, as your Master whom you fear and serve, as your King and Lord whom you obey, as your Shepherd and Guide whom you follow. And for all His beauty, He is not proud, nor lordly; He will match with black ones. Surely Christ's beauty helps to marry Him. He is always white, ruddy, and most when He wooeth. I marvel not that He seem black and dun to some men who get a sight of Christ but2 in Satan's dark glass (for there be two sights and representations of Christ); and in that He is all black, for He comes upon men's wrong side with His beauty.
First: Natural men, without faith, with only natural eyes, see Him, and they see but Mary's son—not Christ white and ruddy; they see not the King in His beauty, nor in His holiday clothes.
Second: Some see Him in His law of commandments, commanding hard things to flesh and blood—to deny themselves, to enter in at the strait gate which leads to life. Men would love Christ's beauty if He only shined with light and love; but His light commandeth, accuseth, summoneth, challenges, condemns, and this makes Christ both gray and black-skinned. Men should love light as well because it commandeth and convinceth as because it shineth as light; and should break the devil's glass, and learn out of love to obey; and then Christ's yoke would be easy, and then you would say, "O, fair Jesus! O lovely, white, and ruddy Jesus!"
Third: Man looketh to His cross; and this is Christ's black skin and His black dool clothes. Isa. 52:14: "As many were astonished at thee; His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men." Then to many He cannot be white and ruddy, if He have under His sufferings a marred and a holed face, blue and black, and all bleared with strokes. These that cannot rejoice in Christ's cross, and think it exceeding joy when they fall in divers temptations, as in their crosses they have communion with Jesus, they see only but Christ's outer half, and start aback at His marred visage; but faith here shall look Christ within; He is well lined within, even under sufferings.
"The armour-bearer among ten thousands." In the Hebrew it is, Bannerer above ten thousand. The banner, or standard, is a war-like thing. He that carries it is the chief of the thousands that follow him. So Judah (Numb. 2:2, 3) was the tribe that was chief standard-bearer; and out of this tree Christ sprang (Heb. 7:14), who is the lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5). He standeth for an "ensign of the people" (Isa. 11:10); Him the armies and thousands in heaven follow (Rev. 19:6, 14); He ruleth over the Gentiles (Rom. 15:12). Put white and ruddy, which betoken health and strength, with this, that "He is the standard-bearer," then we see that Christ is a strong, active soldier, and the prettiest man of His hands in all the company. Bring ten thousand—that is, many—yea all the armies in heaven and earth together, and Christ is the fairest, prettiest, bravest, and ablest man among them all. One look of Jesus is worth them all. So speak of all Christ's virtues, this is among the first of them, that He is a tried man of war; for who but He fought the Lord's battles, and fought it out with the curse of the law, with sin, with the devil, with death, with hell, and goes with many crowns on His head to conquer. He His alone has laid many a pretty soldier on the broad of his back. But this description bodeth2 that Christ will have ado with His strength; nay, ay, while there is a devil, ay, until he be bound and cast into the lake of brimstone, and locked up, Christ will have but the fighter's life. Christ and the ten thousand, His brave bairn-tyme4 at His back—God bless them all—must fight. It would even do a man good, and rejoice his heart to see Jesus fight. It sets Him to fence and wale His sword. But take Christ at His best, He has the soldier's life; therefore, all you that come to take or leave, you must come upon these terms—either to do or to die; either to fight with your standard-bearer, or lie down and be slain. "O," say you, "suffering is a hard life. Will Christ and His Kirk never get rest?" Certainly little until they be at home together. It was never otherways with Christ. He was aye6 oftener in the camp, watching, than in a soft bed sleeping; and therefore, as you who would follow Him, rise up off the hearthstone and from the fireside, and to the camp with you! Put on your shoes and all your armour—blood, the blood, the cross of Christ, for you to your dying day until you be at home! It is proclaimed at our King's Market-cross, in Jesus' name, red war betwixt you and three—the devil, the world, and sin. But Christ bears the colours; He is well worthy of that place. He ventures foremost with white and red, God and the Kirk's colours and their arms. Silly, tempted, wounded, crossed soldier, look up to the standard-bearer, Ensigner Jesus, in red and white! Take courage and buy a heart from Christ. "O, but," you will say, "Jesus is often in His cause, and members put to the worse, and His colours slapped2 with cannon bullets." Answer: Nay; but God sews the holes in Christ's standard again, and we may certainly say two things of Christ—
First: This text makes Him white and ruddy, and so strong, lively, able. Our Captain is not sickly; He is able of person to fight, to watch, and ward, and not take sickness. Neither cannon bullet, arrow, nor spear will go through His corset of proof. He is God, and not man only; the strength of Israel, and He wearies not.
Second: I dare lay a wager He will win yet; and when it comes to the last onset, He will make bloody brooks; the ark will be sent home again, and glory shall dwell in our land. Christ will mow down His enemies, and loose the belt of the rulers of the earth that are against Him. When Christ puts His finger in the loop, both belt and sword will fall from them; and how will they then fight? In Rev. 17:14: "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called chosen and faithful." And in end, when Christ and we shall lay down our swords together in heaven's entry, and put on our crowns of glory and our king's robes, Christ shall be all in all. To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be dominion and glory for ever.—Amen.
The Deliverance of the Kirk of God
"In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten."—JEREMIAH 50:4, 5.
IN this Scripture, beloved in our Lord, we have a prophecy of the fall of Babylon, the golden city. And in it we have a description of the full and final wrath that shall light upon all the enemies of Sion, and the enemies of all them who have such a bill to give in to the Lord's court as the Kirk has in this chapter. "The violence done to Me and to My flesh be upon the inhabitants of Babylon." There is a violence done to the Kirk of God by Babylon, and their complaint is put in before the Lord; and the complaint is heard by Him, and there is a prophecy given out here before the people of Israel be carried away to their captivity, for this prophecy is given out in the time while they were in the way of carrying away captive. And the Lord here He gives out a prophecy—first, of the ruin of Babylon; and, secondly, He has another prophecy here of the deliverance of Jerusalem. Now to take the words as they lie in order. (1) The time of the deliverance is set down: "At that time and in these days saith the Lord." (2) We have the parties that are delivered: these of Israel and the ten tribes, and with them the children of Judah. (3) We have the union and sweet fellowship of a divided Kirk and the people of God who before could not join with either: "The children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together." They were separate from others for many years, because the ten tribes they had desertion from the true religion, as that is the thing that makes a separation among people; and, upon the other hand, there is nothing that is such a needle to sew people together as when people join all together in the truth of God—when we have all one Lord, and faith, and baptism, and hope, and inheritance, &c. The (4) particular is, What shall be the thankfulness when they are delivered from their captivity? And this is set down unto us in many particulars. The first is, they shall take a journey from Babylon towards Zion. Second: We have the manner how they go to Zion—they shall go weeping while they are going there. Third: The errand wherefore they shall go to Zion, shall be to seek the Lord their God. Fourth: They shall speer the way to Zion, and while they are speering it, their faces shall be towards the same. And then, lastly, while they are thus going to Zion together, there is a conference between them, and, in their conference, they resolve both of them upon this: "Come, and let us join ourselves in a perpetual covenant to the Lord that shall not be forgotten."
Now for the first, To wit—The time when the Lord will deliver His people from their captivity and bondage. Look unto the time when this prophecy is given out, and that is. They are not well come to Babylon at this time, and yet there is a triumph promised even before they be sent away. And there is in this chapter a prophecy of the destruction of Babylon, and that is for the heartening of the people of God, who were carried thither; and before utter misery and desolation come upon them, there is a prophecy of their delivery and of the destruction of their enemies.
The first doctrine arising from this point is, The Kirk of God never sooner enters in any trouble, but they have the Lord's backband given unto them that they shall be brought out of it again; and they have law burrows and caution of the Lord that death, hell, and all sort of trouble shall not do at them to destroy them (Psa. 16:10). When our Lord Christ is put to that strait that they get Him put dead into the grave, that any would think He is gone now for evermore, He has it backed with that promise: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in grave, neither wilt thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption." Blyth may that subject be to go into prison who beforehand has his king's pardon and assurance that he shall not die into the prison. And the Kirk and children of God, they have this meikle for them when they go under any strait or trouble, or, as it were, to prison, that they shall not die into that prison, but Christ shall bring them safe out of it again. And there are two special reasons wherefore this is that the children of God, albeit they be under trouble, yet they succumb not under the same.
The one is, If there be anything in the world that sees over the water, it is faith, and so it sees over beyond the trouble, and therefore succumbs not under it; as ye see it is said (Mic. 7:8): "Rejoice not over me, O mine enemy: when I shall fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." There is a stout look of faith looking over to the other side of the trouble, and taking the answer before the answer come, and gathering faith that all shall be well, albeit, for the present, it stand hard with them. The 118th Psalm, it was penned when the servant of God was in very great trouble; and yet in it he promises to himself in the Lord's name: "I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord." There faith on the one side, and yet looking to the other shore and believing life in death. And he believes salvation when all is black about, and that foul winter will turn in a fair, clear summer. He believes, and the Kirk of God in trouble believes, that He that will come, will come, and shall not tarry, believing this, that none shall die in prison who look out at the window of their prison to God. And this, indeed, should hearten us, and make us not to cast down our hearts for any appearance of ill that yet we see, although they were greater than they are. But this I speak only to the children of God, who when they are in trouble, or it is in coming on them, they can send letters to their friends, as faith does, and say, "I shall live, and not die, and declare the works of the Lord."
Another reason of this promise of delivery beforehand is by reason of that fair promise made to the Kirk and people of God, that the waters shall not drown them, the fire shall not burn them, nor the flame kindle upon them—a promise made that even death itself, which has so awesome a grip, and so strait, yet it shall not slay them, as our Saviour says (John 11:26): "He that believeth in Me shall never see death." And having such promises as these, it is no wonder that good news He preached to the Kirk beforehand that their King and their Lord lives, and so His salvation is near to them who wait on Him.
Now the second thing we observe upon the time, it is said "in these days." What days were these? Days wherein the vengeance of the Lord lights upon Babylon and upon the enemies of the Kirk. Then Israel and Judah shall come back to their own land to seek the Lord and to join in a covenant with Him.
So that the second doctrine is this, that the fall of the enemies of the Kirk of God, and the rising of the fallen Kirk, these go together; for the enemies and we laugh not together, and weep not together, but when we weep they laugh, and when we laugh they weep. When the Lord drowns Pharaoh and his chariots and all his army in the midst of the Red Sea, then Moses and the people of God they are set safe upon the shore to sing of the praises of the Lord. When the land of Canaan spews out the inhabitants thereof, as a foul stomach spews out the meat that is in it that troubles it, then the Lord He plants His people into the land, and as it is in Psalm 42:4, the Lord has a safe house to keep His children in, while there is a pit digged for the wicked (Psalm 94:13). When Haman's cup is full, and he is at the top of the ladder in his court, that he must fall down again, then Mordecai and the people of God they must be delivered. It is even here as it is in war. When a sojour has watched out his glass, and has bidden the night and the cold, when his glass is gone, another is put in his place, and he is sent to his warm bed. Even so is it here. When the people of God get rest, then the enemies of God they fall, and these go aye together, the rest of the people of God, and the trouble of the wicked. And therefore a word of terror to those who are the enemies of the Kirk of God. You, who are enemies to the Kirk of God, laugh as ye will before noon, I will assure you there will be a change afternoon. I would not have your next day in another life, and be in your case afterdays, for all the world. Albeit they have a fair-like blink in the morning, yet it is but beguiling, for they will have a foul afternoon of it. Sorrow and indignation will come upon them. And therefore, I beseech you, eat none of their dainties, nor take no part with them, for the Lord laughs at them, as it is Psa. 37:13: He laughs at the wicked, for He sees their end afar off; He knows what will be the end of all their good cheer and all their merry days. And therefore woe is that man who has no more, but only a part of the laughter of the wicked, for that is but like the crackling of thorns under a pot, that is but a blaze and away. This looks very much like us and our time, that wicked men and the enemies of the Lord, they must come into the rowme of the Kirk of God and His people, who before were in distress and calamity, and yet He will perform that word (Jer. 20:12, and Isa. 10:12). When the Lord has performed His work in Zion, then He will fall to and punish the stout heart of the king of Babylon. When the Lord has humbled His Kirk, and done His work with His fire there, then the wicked they must fall on it and be consumed thereby, that we may know that it is good for the children of God to wait upon Him. And that is the second part of the use, that faith and hope are evermore waiting for good at God's hand and for daylight. We never heard of any who waited upon the Lord, but at last they might say: "This poor man cried unto the Lord, and the Lord heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles."
Again, thirdly, that the delivery of the Kirk of God is not for the present, but "in those days and at that time." We learn here, that there are none who wait upon God but they must frest Him, and as men frest well so God pays well that which is frested. It is not salvation in hand, but an onwaiting life that the Kirk of God has while they are here. And this is to meet with a doubt and a knot that thir people could not loose for the present. They might say, for all that the Lord says of the destruction of Babylon, yet we are there captives, albeit the wrath of God be pronounced against them, yet the sparks thereof have come upon us. And we have sore drink of that cup, and, for the present, we have sad days; for the temple of the Lord is burnt, our princes are hanged, our priests massacred, and we ourselves are carried away captive from mount Zion. How shall this then be that Babylon shall be destroyed and we restored? The Lord answers this, that the deliverance is coming, but it would not come until that day that He had appointed for it. To teach the Kirk of God to give God that mickle—as alas! He gets over little of that kind of us—that He will do for His own people at length, though not for the present, and to look to that word in Psalm 25:22, that the Lord will redeem Israel out of all his troubles, and Psalm 62:5: "My soul wait thou only upon the Lord, for my expectation is from Him," even to make God's omnipotence the object of their faith and of their hope, and learn to wait upon God only. "I would do that," says some, "but I have nothing in hand." But we must remember that all their stock is in God's hand who hope rightly in Him; for if they had anything in hand, it were not hope, as it is, Rom. 8:24: "Hope that is seen is not hope." But the thing which one sees not is properly the thing that he hopes for. And so the less we have in hand we have the greater reason of hope. That no man may be troubled with this, I have nothing for the present; but in such a case learn to believe in God, and then ye have the more. How many rich men are there in the world who have no more but only pieces of paper for all that they have, and yet men will account them rich, albeit there be not two pence in their purse. The hoper and on-waiter upon God is this way rich, yet all his sums are in God's hands, who pays His annuals well, so that His annuals they are better than the world's principal sum.
A third objection: "I have waited long for deliverance but it cometh not." The text answers, "At that time and in these days," to teach us to set no time to the Lord the creator of time, for His time is always best, and as it is Hab. 2:3, "Albeit it tarry, wait for it; for it will surely come;" and as it is 2 Peter 3:9, speaking of the Lord's general coming to judgment, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness," &c. The Kirk says that the Lord is long in coming, and slack of His promise; but He says He is no slack as men count slackness, but will come and will show mercy to His people and deliver them. As meikle then as we frest God as meikle faith and hope indeed have we. He that will go to heaven and have nothing at all in hand, his faith and his hope are strongest; he that believes in Him when he sees not, but believes in the mirk, that is likest faith. Let no man then call godliness fancy, or say, "What have the children of God for the present? They have moe weary hearts here nor the kye of Bashan, and moe tears nor they who laugh and rejoice in the world." Let it be so, yet it is an unseen heaven and happiness which the children of God believe. And, indeed, the thing that is seen is not believed. If they saw heaven they could not be said to believe it. As the man that sees Rome, he cannot say that he hears only of it but by report. But believe life, and what is said of it without any more, and that is true faith. To say I believe in God, and I love Him, albeit I never saw Him, as the Apostle Peter speaks, "Whom not having seen, yet ye believe with joy unspeakable and glorious." And ye know the Lord's word He spake to Thomas, "Blessed are they which have not seen, and yet have believed." Blessed are they, blessed are they who believe when they see nothing but contrary appearances; who will die, and yet will hope and wait for the salvation of God, and were at that, as it is in Psalm 23:4: "Albeit I should walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet will I fear none ill." When a man is under the shadow of a tree he is near it then, so when a man is within the shadow of death, that is, to be near death, it is faith then to believe in God.
Now the second particular in the text is, the parties that are delivered, and these are Israel and Judah. Israel that was hardly handled by proud Assyria, that was the rod of the Lord's anger and indignation, as ye may read Isaiah 10:5; and poor Judah that was carried away captive to Chaldæa by that proud tyrant who was the hammer of the devil to beat them. What nation would have said that ever they should be a kingdom?—the one of them being in Assyria, and the other of them in Chaldæa, the temple burnt, their city sacked, the land spoiled, and more, the anger and indignation of God lying upon His people; where we learn this shortly—he is in a weak estate whom the Lord cannot help; he is near death whom He will not quicken. Fatherless! and will not the Lord be a Father to you? Comfortless! and will not the Lord comfort you? Let Israel and Judah be in as hard and miserable a case as they will, the Lord, who is the help of the poor and needy, He will deliver them.
The third particular is the union that is between Israel and Judah at this time. And there is a number of marks of this union. First: That they shall come together to Zion. Second: That they shall serve the Lord together. Third: That they shall speer the way to Zion, weeping. Fourth: That their faces shall be thitherwards while they speer the way to Zion. And, lastly, that they shall all of them have this common resolution: Let us be joined in a perpetual covenant with the Lord, never to be forgotten. So then here the Lord giving unto us a proof that when He sews a Kirk together, that not only people of sundry families, but even people of sundry tribes and of sundry kingdoms, their fellowship shall be seen, and especially in this that they shall worship God together. They shall both have their faces one way, and shall ask the way to Zion together, seek the Lord together. And they shall have a common covenant and band with the Lord, never to be forgotten. Now, whether or no was this ever historically true that Israel and Judah took such a journey as this towards Zion after such a manner and for such an end, there is no necessity to stand upon it now, because many of thir prophecies they are accomplished in the Messiah. But there is a ground here to prove the lawfulness of that private service and worship that Israel and Judah performed to the Lord together, albeit they were of sundry kingdoms. And before this they were of contrary worship, for Israel was filled with idolatry, had a calf at Dan, and another at Bethel, and corrupted and changed the whole true worship; yet now they come together and say, "Let us join ourselves in a perpetual covenant with the Lord, never to be forgotten." Now that not only they of sundry towns and of sundry families, but even those of sundry kingdoms, may meet together this way, this text will bear; and that they may worship the Lord privately, it will bear that also; for some to come from one politic kingdom to another, and join together this way, for them to come to Zion, and ilk one of them to speer the way at another, and to make a covenant and to have conference amongst themselves: "Let us be joined in a perpetual covenant with the Lord, never to be forgotten." Now in the public worship of God there is no such speeches among private persons: "Let us be joined in a perpetual covenant with the Lord." Neither, as Calvin says, is there in the public worship by words a public spurring up one of another. So, then, this text it will warrant that which all our interpreters and our divines allow, that those who are of diverse kingdoms and diverse families, when they meet together, they may speak one to another, exhort, comfort, instruct, admonish every one another in the mutual duties of the worship of God, ilk one of them lending their shoulder to another before they come to the part where the public worship of God is.
It may be said that this concerns not us meikle, that the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom they shall worship God together, and shall speak good words one to another, that they shall enter in a covenant together, but what is that to us? We are another kirk than they were. And so it concerns not us. But remember what the apostle says, "What is written is written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the world are fallen." And howbeit this prophecy should never be historically fulfilled in the persons of Israel and Judah, yet it will serve to warrant the children of God on this point, to exhort, instruct, comfort, rebuke, and to speak of those duties that the Lord requires of His children, and of them toward another before they come to the public worship of God. Now for the better understanding of this, the Lord would have private Christians to be considered in a threefold relation. The first is as they are a master of a family. Second, as they are fellow-members of the grace of God. Third, as they are extraordinarily graced of God above others. For the third and last of these, we need not to speak meikle of it; for a private Christian so graced and qualified it has not been found fault with that they write commentaries, and do other things of that kind.
And for the first again, the duty of a private Christian as he is a master of a family, that is also far out of controversy, that a Christian as he is the head of a family, and so has the charge of them who are within the same, ought to discharge himself in this. To say nothing of that place (Deut. 6:7) which warrants this point, and of the Lord's commendation of Abraham (Gen. 18:19): "I know that He will command His children and His household after Him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord," &c., and (Exod. 12:26) where the master of the family is commanded when the children shall speer at him what the Passover means, the Lord says, Ye shall tell them it is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses. There the master of the family, albeit he be not a minister, nor a public man, has a charge to expone the doctrine of the sacrament of the Passover to his family, Psa. 78:5: "The Lord established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children." So that the fathers they are bound to teach the children, and the rest of those who are in the family. Now under the name of a family, ye know we must expone it according to the fourth command, when that is set down that masters of families should be careful to have those within their families keeping the service of God. Ye know there is set down "the manservant," "the maidservant," "the stranger that is within the gates." So when the charge is laid on masters for their families, it is laid on them for all the members of the family, and for all the strangers that are in the same; for while he is there, he is a fellow and joint-member with the rest of the family. Now all the question is about the duty which the Lord requires of private Christians, as they are fellow-members of the same body one with another; as they are hands, feet, eyes, &c., of the blessed body of Christ. What seeks the Word of God in this case? Hear the Word of God. It is clear also—Lev. 19:17: "Rebuking one another;" Col. 3:16: "To teach and exhort;" Mal. 3:16: "To speak often one to another;" Heb. 3:13: "To exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day." And that is recommended as a special means for preventing hardness of heart; and there are none, I am sure, but they will acknowledge that whatever is recommended as a means to prevent hardness of heart, it is a duty commanded and ordained of God. But so it is that this duty of exhorting one another is recommended as a means for preventing hardness of heart, and therefore it is a duty commanded of God, and so lawful and necessary. And 1 Thess. 5:11: "Comfort yourselves together, and edify one another as ye also do." "Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak."
Now these places they will not only warrant the master of a family to do so, but also all Christians as they have commerce with others, that they join with others in such a manner, and the moe coals be together the hotter will the fire be. And there is another place not far from this—Psa. 37:30: "The righteous man he speaketh of wisdom and of judgment, and the law of God is in his heart;" and Prov. 10:21: "The lips of the righteous feed many." This is not to be understood of a pastoral feeding, that because one is a righteous man he should go to the pulpit and take the charge of souls upon him; but he feeds many in a private way, and it is a meaning unknown to the text to restrain it that otherways.
Anything that can be said against this is, that it is very like the public teaching, that if they may exhort, instruct, comfort, rebuke, admonish, &c., one another, what difference is there between this and the public teaching, except only in the place, that the one is done in public and the other is done in a house. For answer: This is not so much against us as it is against the Scriptures of God, and yet the difference is clear; for every Christian is commanded to exhort, instruct, rebuke, comfort, &c., one another; but for the other it is said, none can preach except he be sent. And so the conclusion of this argument it is as much against the Scriptures of God as against these who defend the lawfulness of this ordinance. And this argument will be as much against these who speak one to one, as against him who speaks one to twenty. And, thirdly, there is very great difference between private exhortation and public preaching; even as when a common sojour gives warning to the army that the enemy is coming on them, and he who is appointed watchman, he gives also warning of the same. Now speer the difference between these warnings. It is clear the one has a calling to it, and authority from the general and the army, to give warning. The other, again, is not so bound. But yet, as he is a part of the army, he is obleist to give warning when he sees them in any danger though not in such a public, and failing therein, he does wrong. And as the difference is between a master, who is clad with public authority for teaching of scholars, and one of the condisciples teaches another on that same lesson that he teaches. Now there is none who will say that either the one usurps the watchman's place or the other the master's charge; but the one does what he does by a special designation for that effect, and the other as he is a member of that body. Again, the one has his place by public authority; and there are two wrongs done when he is disobeyed, one against the Lord's calling and authority, and another against his message and that which he bears. But disobedience to the other is not so great. Again, the public watchman he is ordained to use all means ordinary and possible for the good of people; but the other is only to do in an ordinary way. A private Christian he ought to help others in the way to heaven; but he ought not to make that his study—to study divinity for that effect.
Again, another objection is that this is like interpreting of Scripture, and this is a thing that is altogether unlawful for any but for them who are authorized persons. For answer to this: All who know the controversy between us and the Papists, know that Bellarmine he lays this to the charge of the heretics, as he calls us, that they will not have the interpreting of the Scriptures bound to any kind of men as to pastors, but they will have it a thing common to all. And another of no less note than Bellarmine, to wit, Becan, says, while he is reasoning about the Scriptures: "Wherefore would the Lord have the Scriptures to be obscure, but only because He would have the order of pastors and teachers and doctors and people to be kept and observed." And in his 1 tom. quest. 10, he makes that question, "To whom belongs the interpreting of the Scriptures?" And answers, "Only to the Kirk, that is, only to Kirkmen." But this is our judgment in this point, that the power of interpreting the Scriptures in public is due to the pastor only and to no other; but for the private spirit of interpretation of the Scriptures it is a thing that belongs not only to pastors, but also to all Christians. And this is not a thing that is only my device, but that which our divines do approve; for Junius says, in the third chapter of his book, these: "We will not have interpreting the Scripture bound to particular men, but to be a thing belonging to omnibus fidelibus (all the faithful) in a private way and manner." Trelcatius he says also the like, and also Rivetus. And Luther and Calvin agree unto this while they are exponing that place. They say of ministers their public interpretation of the Scriptures is not to say that none has power of interpreting the Scriptures but Kirkmen, but all have power and yet difference—the private interpretation from the public. And all our divines, they acknowledge thus far; and Rivetus, while he is answering that Jesuit, he says: "There is a twofold interpreting of the Scripture. The first is public only belonging to pastors, a second is private belonging to omnibus fidelibus; and the professors of Leyden they agree unto this also." And yet this is not to put private persons, whosoever they be, in the chair of ministers, but only this—it is impossible for them to believe the Scriptures unless they can apply such Scriptures for rebuking, comforting, instructing, &c., one another, and to reclaim such as are wandering out of the way. Now if this be true, that the word of God thus gives place to exhort one another for comforting one another, rebuking one another, &c., then the meeting of Christians together for that end cannot be unlawful, for there is none who will meet that way but those who are bairns of that same house.
Again, it is objected that this rebuking, comforting, instructing, &c., is but only of one to one, and no further. But if ye will compare this form of speaking with the original, both in Greek and Hebrew language, and ye will find that it comes very far short of their mind who say so. If ye will look for the Greek language (Rom. 13), you will find the apostle says there: "Owe nothing to any man but love one to one." Now will any think that the law of God will bind one to love only and no moe; or rather does it not bind us to love all these who are called our neighbour? And Gal. 5:13 the apostle says, "Serve one another in love." The meaning of that place is not that only one man should serve another man, but the law of God it binds moe. And sicklike, "Bear ye burdens one of another." Is that only meant of one man? The Word of God will carry it towards all men in so far as a good conscience will permit; and James 5:16: "Pray one for another, and confess your faults one to another." The meaning there is for all the members of Christ's body, so that the Word of God it will not bear us to this, that it is only one to one this duty belongs.
And then, if ye will come to the Old Testament, ye will find the word not so strict. As Gen. 42:21: "And they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul," &c. The word is that every one of them spake to his brother. The text there is about Joseph's brethren. When they saw the hand of God upon them they spake thus. Now will any think that this was one to one, or rather not every one of them to another; and 2 Kings 6 we will find the like also. There was a whole army there, and will any man believe that one of them only spake at once, speaking such a word as they do?—there so that this is nothing else but a subterfuge and a way of escaping. And so they will find no face for this, that this duty it should be only of one to one.
A second objection is, that anything that is done in this, it must be done but by way of occasion, for it is not a direct command that we should be about any such thing, and have set time and place for the same, but only as it is occasioned by the way.
Answer. Anything is called occasional that is occasioned by us and by our blindness and ignorance, and this way the preaching of the word is a thing occasional, and a worthy divine, Rollock, he said this, and so in this sense men might carceir public preaching.
Again, secondly, the meaning is, Ye shall not intend such a thing, but what ye do therein ye shall do it by your intention. And certainly, that cannot be a fair way, as the philosopher could say. They failed in this who said, Men should do anything that is good by their intention. And they who write of moral philosophy, they say thus far, that a good action is the better that it be intended, and where a good action is [not] done by the intention it is so much the worse.
A third objection is that it is not lawful to appoint such a set time, and a set place for such actions. Certainly if it was lawful for Job's friends to meet together to comfort him, then this was not unlawful, neither that they made a meeting to come together for that effect. I believe that that place says that both the time and the place were appointed beforehand; and is the action the worse of it? No, certainly; for if the ordinance of God be lawful, then the fore-setting of time and place for the same cannot make it unlawful, except they will put religious worship to be used in an unlawful time and place. As to preach upon a day of man's invention to make it holy, that must not be. But for the other part, again, the appointing of time and place for a religious action makes it not worse but rather better. And we should beware of that, to distinguish in these things where the law of God distinguishes not. If it be lawful for a man to pray in private, there is none who will say that for him to appoint six hours in the morning, and such a house [to] pray in at that time, makes his prayer unlawful; and sicklike for preaching in the week time, will that make it unlawful to appoint Tuesday and Thursday for preaching?
Another objection is about the number of those who may together discharge this duty. Say they, "If two or three or some moe may meet together for such an exercise, then why may not as well three hundred or a whole congregation meet that way?"
That is an objection soon answered. Solomon he might have houses to dwell in, but he might not exceed in the number of his houses. So Christians, they may thus meet in a private way. But if numbers of them meet together, then it is not a private worship, but a public. A man is bound to give to the poor, but he is not tied to give all that he has to them; that is superfluity and ostentation.
The last objection is: "All that is yet said," say they, "will not authorize a manner of conference that has been used by some, that two or three private Christians should meet together, and that every one of them should pray about." I believe there be none against this. But they say there is no warrant for three or four persons to pray per vices at one time. And the argument they use is this: say they, "What ever point of worship wants either promise, practice, or command of God, that is an unlawful point of worship. But so it is, that praying thus per vices is a point of worship that wants practice, promise, or precept, and therefore it is unlawful. But I would answer this with retortion to them who object, the same praying privately is not commanded, and is therefore unlawful to pray in private. No man will say that, I believe. And, again, if it be a thing lawful to preach, will that make it unlawful that one preach after another? A third reason is, because all the public actions of the worshippers of God, they are this way ordered by the public worshippers, even so are the private actions of his worship by the private worshippers. If this were retorted to us: "What Scripture have we for that in our public worship, to have first prayer, then singing of Psalms, then prayer, then preaching, then prayer, then singing, &c.," I believe no man would think it needful to give particular Scripture for that, for it belongs to the office-bearers in the house of God to order these things. So if it be lawful for one to pray in private with another, why may not as well one pray after another? And we will find preaching thus allowed (1 Cor. 14:31, and Acts 15). Peter begins, and then Barnabas, and Paul, and then James. So that all this proves clear enough that there is no necessity of objecting against this point of worship, providing that all things be done in the right manner, as the Word of God allows.
Now a word of the manner of their seeking to Zion. They go weeping to seek the Lord. They weep because they had angered the Lord, and weep for the desolation of the holy city, and truly a work of reformation it requires weeping. And it should not have so meikle rejoicing and so meikle security joined therewith. And it looks the liker a judgment, that so few are drawn to repentance by this work of reformation, for the former breach of our covenant and our turning away from the Lord. The work of reformation should draw us to this, as the harlot wife who has been put out from her husband for her harlotry, when she is brought home again to her provoked husband, and he delivers to her again the keys of the house. If she be honest, it grieves her and makes her heart to melt, that she should have provoked such a loving husband. Even so, when the Lord has dealt so graciously with us after our falling away from Him, should there be so many dry cheeks among us as there are? It is not honest like. But withal—
"They speeredthe way to Zion." All the tears in the world without this, they are but like to Esau's tears, for he resolved in the days of mourning to kill his brother; and like Judas's tears of desperation. But these are better tears that are spoken of Acts 20:19, when the apostle was there leaving the Ephesians to serve the Lord, with many tears and temptations. It is nothing to weep for sin for a time, but to have their faces towards Zion, and asking the way to it, and to weep, that is more. That is an excellent stance their face has. While they are serving the Lord, and wat not where to find Him, yet they have their faces towards Him. There is nothing more easily describes the seekers of Zion and of the Lord than their right look. They know not the way to Zion, and yet they have their face there away, and so speer the way thereto.
There are three excellent looks spoken of in the Word of God: Psa. 69:3: "My eyes fail while I wait for God;" and David's comparison that he uses—"As the eyes of the watchmen wait for the morning, so wait we for Thee, O God." And then to wait upon God in the day of trouble, that is an honest look also, that look spoken of Isa. 17:7: "At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel." What day is that spoken of there? That day when the Lord shall visit Zion, and the Kirk shall be left desolate, and there shall be only as it were gleaning grapes in it; even that which is spoken of, Isa. 8:17: "I will wait upon the Lord that hideth His face, and I will look for Him."
To look to the Lord when the wind blows motes and sand in your eyes, that is an honest look, and then to look to the kingdom of heaven, and farther nor time into eternity; as it is, Heb. 11:9, Abraham, content to dwell in tents, and to seek no abiding city here, because he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And to have Moses' look in the twenty-sixth verse of that chapter. He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, because he had respect to the recompense of reward. Moses looked higher nor all the courtiers in Pharaoh's court did—beyond time to eternity.
And a third good look is to look to slain Christ. When the Lord shall refine the house of David, and pour the spirit of supplications upon them, then they shall mourn when they look upon Him whom they have pierced. This condemns all the thrawn looks that sinners in the world have, whatever they be. There is a look, Prov. 21:4, a high look, the Lord cannot endure it. And Prov. 23, for the eyes to behold strange women; and Isa. 56:2, "They all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter;" and that look, Ezek. 18:15, that the house of Israel has its eyes toward the mountains and the hills. They look not to the Lord, but to their own gods. The Lord condemns all those who look not to Himself. And that is sure, every man who in faith looks to God and Christ and heaven, he will follow his look. O! that we had hearts and eyes to seek Him, and to look after Him, and to Him who is able to do this for us, to draw our hearts and eyes towards Himself; to that Lord, only wise, eternal, immortal, invisible, to Christ's Father and our Father, and Himself and the Holy Spirit, be all praise, glory, and honour now and for ever.—Amen.