Arrows of Reproof and Apostasy
be lukewarm in matters of religion, is far from offering violence to Heaven, Rev. 3:19. 'Be zealous and repent.' If any should ask us why we are so violent, tell them, it is for a kingdom. If any shall ask us why we make such haste in the ways of religion, tell them, we are running an heavenly race, and a softly moderate pace will never win the prize. Moderation hath made many lose Heaven; they have not made haste enough; they have come too late (like the foolish virgins) when the door hath been shut.
Arrows of Reproof and Apostasy Out of this text I may draw forth several arrows of reproof.
1. It reproves slothful Christians who are settled on their lees: they make a lazy profession of religion, but use no violence.—They are like the lillies, which toil not, neither do they spin. The snail, by reason of its slow motion, was reckoned among the unclean, Levit. 11:30. St.
Austin calls idleness the burial of a man alive. There are some faint wishes, oh that I had Heaven! but a man may desire venison, and want it, if he doth not hunt for it, Prov. 13:4. 'The soul of the sluggard wisheth and hath nothing.'
——Neque mola‚ neque farina—— Men could be content to have the kingdom of Heaven; but they are loth to fight for it. They choose rather to go in a feather bed to Hell, than to be carried to Heaven in a 'fiery chariot' of zeal and violence.
How many sleep away, and play away their time; as if they were made like the Leviathan, to play in the sea! Psalm 104:26. It is a speech of Seneca, 'No man is made wise by chance.' Sure it is, no man is saved by chance‚ but he must know how he came by it, namely, by offering violence. Such as have accustomed themselves to an idle lazy temper, will find it hard to shake it off, Cant. 5:3. 'I have put off my coat, how shall I put it on?' The spouse had laid herself upon the bed of sloth, and though Christ knocked at the door, she
was lothe to rise and let him in. Some pretend to be believers, but are idle in the vineyard.—They pretend to make use of faith for seeing, but not for working; this faith is fancy. O that christians had a spirit of activity in them, 1 Chron. 22:16. 'Arise and be doing, and the Lord be with thee.' We may sometimes learn of our enemy. The Devil is never idle; he 'walketh about,' 1 Peter 5:8. The world is his diocess, and he is every day going his visitation. Is Satan active? is the enemy upon his march coming against us? and are we asleep upon our guard? As Satan himself is not idle, so he will not endure that any of his servants should be idle. When the Devil had entered into Judas, how active was Judas! he goes to the high priest, from thence to the band of soldiers, and with them back to the garden, and never left till he had betrayed Christ. Satan will not endure an idle servant vant; and do we think God will? How will Heathens rise up in judgment against slothful Christians! What pains did they take in the Olympian games; they ran for a garland of flowers, and do we stand still who run for a crown of immortality? Certainly, if only the violent take
Heaven, the idle person will never come there. God puts no difference between these two, slothful and wicked, Matt. 25:26.
'Thou wicked and slothful servant.'
2. It reproves the formalist‚ who puts all his religion in gestures and vestures, emblems of devotion, and thinks this will entitle him to Heaven, Rev. 3:1. 'Thou hast a name to live and art dead.' The form and outside of Christianity is judged necessary.
1. It is a means to keep up men's credit in the world. Should they be visibly profane, such as are sober would not come near them: they would be looked upon no better than baptized heathens: therefore they must make a shew of devotion, out of policy to gain some repute and esteem among others.
2. A form serves to stop the mouth of conscience: had not they some kind of outward devotion, their conscience would fly in their face, and they would be a terror to themselves; therefore they think it expedient to have a form of godliness. But alas! what is all this? The
text speaks of offering violence to heaven. What violence is there in a form? Here is no taking pains with the heart; a form, but no power. 2
Tim. 3:5. Formalists are like the tombs in the church, which have their eyes and hands lift up to Heaven, but no soul.—The formalist's devotion runs out most in punctilios and niceties: he neglects 'the weightier matters of the law, faith and mercy,' Matt. 23:23. He scruples superstitious fancies, but makes no reckoning of sin: he is more afraid of an hare crossing his way, than of an harlot in his bed.
He hates sanctity. Christ had no such bitter enemies as the formal pharisees. The formalist is never violent, but in persecuting the power of godliness.
3. It reproves such as are violent in a bad sense: they are violent for hell; they go thither in the sweat of their brows, Jer. 8:6. 'Every one turned to his course: as the horse rusheth into the battle.' A warhorse rusheth violently among the guns and pikes: so did they rush into sin violently. Men are violent, 1. In opposing good.
2. In pursuing evil.
1. In opposing good. Several ways. 1. They offer violence to the Spirit of God.—The Spirit knocks at the door of sinners' hearts; he waits till his head be 'filled with dew,' and 'his locks with the drops of the night;' but sinners repulse and grieve the Spirit, and send away this dove from the ark of their souls, Acts 7:51. 'Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.' The Spirit offers grace to the sinner, and the sinner offers violence to the Spirit, Isaiah 63:10. 'They rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit;' and may not the Lord give over striving. God who is willing to come in when we open to him, hath not promised to come again if we unkindly repulse him.
2. They offer violence to conscience.—Conscience is God's preacher in the bosom; and this preacher cannot flatter: it tells men of their pride, covetousness, abuse of mercy; but they, instead of being
violent against their sins, offer violence to conscience: they silence and imprison conscience. But as the prophet Zachariah, when he was dumb called for a writing table, and did write, Luke 1:63. So when conscience cannot be permitted to speak, it will write: it writes down men's sins; and when at death they shall be forced to read the handwriting, it will make their hearts tremble, and their knees smite. This
I fear is too common, for men to offer violence to their conscience: and what will be the issue? They who will not hear the voice of conscience, shall be sure to feel the worm of conscience.
3. They offer violence to God's image. The saints (who are God's lively picture) are opposed and shot at. This is a cursed violence, Gal.
4:29. 'As he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him who was born after the Spirit; so it is now.' Christ himself is stricken at through believers.—The church hath been always in the torrid zone: the ploughers have ploughed upon her back. The earth hath been sown with the bodies of the saints, and watered with their blood.
Persecutors, I grant, are of an ancient family. The first man that was born in the world was a persecutor, namely Cain; and he hath a numerous offspring. Nero, Trajan, Domitian, Dioclesian, Maximinus.
Chrysostum saith, that the apples of his eyes fell out. Fælix, earl of Wartemberg being at supper at Ausburg, did take an oath, that before he died, he would ride up to the spurs in the blood of the Lutherans; but was afterwards choaked in his own blood.
Persecutors are the curse of the creation; being some of those 'thorns and briars' which the earth brings forth.
2. Men are violent in pursuing evil.
1. They are violent in their opinions, 2 Peter 2:1. 'Privily they shall bring in damnable heresies, denying the Lord that bought them.'
Arrius was such an one; and afterwards his bowels gushed out. And truly the spirit of Arrius is yet alive at this day, while men dare deny the Deity of the blessed Son of God. Many of the heretics of old were so violent, that their opinion was to them a Bible: and some of them died in maintaining their heresies. These were the Devil's martyrs.
2. They are violent in their passions.—Anger is a short frenzy, James 3:6. 'The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.' In this little member there is a great world, viz. a 'world of sin:' such as would be counted sober, yet are drunk with passion. Their prayers are cold, but their anger hot. They spit fire as the serpent doth poison. Fiery passions without repentance, bring men to the fiery furnace.
3. They are violent for their lusts, Titus 3:3. 'Serving divers lusts.'
Lust is an inordinate desire or impulse, provoking the soul to the gratifying its carnal desires.—Aristotle calls them brutish lusts, because when lusts are violent, they will not let reason or conscience be heard; but a man is carried brutishly to the satisfying the flesh.
1. Men are violent for their drunken lusts. Though death be in the cup, they will drink it off. One having almost lost his eye-sight, the physician told him there was no cure for him, unless he would leave off his excessive drinking; then saith he, farewell sweet light: he would rather lose his eye-sight than leave his drinking.
2. They are violent for their unclean lusts. Men are said to 'burn in lusts,' Romans 1:27. The apostle intimateth that lust is a kind of fever. Feverish heats are not more pernicious to the body, than lust is to the soul. O what folly is it for a drop of pleasure to drink a sea of wrath.
3. They are violent for their oppressive lusts: who wrong and defraud others, and by violence take away their right. Instead of cloathing the naked, they make them who are cloathed naked. These birds of prey live upon rapine. They are cruel, as if with Romulus they had been suckled with the milk of wolves. They smile at the curses of the poor, and grow fat with their tears. They have forgotten Christ's caveat,
Luke 3:14. 'Do violence to no man.' Ahab violently took away Naboth's vineyard, 2 Kings 21:11. Hell is taken by this violence, Prov.
4:17. 'Who drink the wine of violence.' This wine will turn to poison at last, Psalm 11:5. 'Him that loveth violence God's soul hates.'
4. They are violent for their covelous lusts. Covetousness is the soul's dropsy, Amos 7:2. 'Who pant after the dust of the earth.' They compass sea and land to make money their proselyte. Their god is made of gold, and to it they bow down.—Those who bowed down on their knees to drink of the waters, were accounted unfit soldiers for Gideon, Judges 7:6. So are those unfit for Christ, that stoop immoderately to the care of earthly things. They who are violent for the world, what have they but the wind? Eccles. 5:16. 'What profit hath he who hath laboured for the wind?' The world cannot enrich the soul, it cannot remove pain. If pangs of conscience come, the world can no more give comfort, than a crown of gold can cure the head-ach.
4. It reproves them who have in part left off that holy strictness and violence in religion as once they had. Their fervour is cooled and abated. What they do is so little that it cannot be called violence.
They serve God, but are not fervent in spirit.—They do not leave off duty, but they grow dead in duty. They have 'left their first love,' Rev.
2:4. It is with them as fire when it is going out; or as the sun when it is going down. Like aguish men, before they were in a paroxism, or hot fit of zeal; but now the cold fit hath taken them; they are formal and frozen in religion. Time was when they 'called the Sabbath a delight,' Isaiah 58:13. How were their hearts raised in duty! how diligently did they seek him whom their soul loved! but now the case is altered; their religion doth languish, and even vanish. Time was when they were in an agony, and did send forth strong cries in prayer. Now the chariot wheels are pulled off, and the spirit of prayer is much abated. Their prayers do even freeze between their lips; a clear sign of the decay of grace. These persons are grown both lethargical and consumptive.
1. Lethargical, Cant. 5:2. 'I sleep, but my heart wakes.' Though grace was alive in her, her heart waked; yet she was in a dull drowsy temper, I sleep. When the heart burns in sin, and cools in duty, it is a sure sign of growing to a stupid lethargy.
2. Consumptive. There are two signs of persons in a spiritual consumption.
1. When their desire after Christ and Heaven is not so strong as it was. A consumptive man's stomach decays. Christians have not such violent affections to heavenly things; they can desire corn and wine, and the luscious delights of the earth; but, Christ is less precious; they are not in pangs of desire after him, a sad symptom their grace is in a consumption.
2. When they are not so vigorous in motion. A man that is lively and stirring at his work, it is a sign he is in health; but when he is listless, and cares not to stir, or put his hand to any thing; a sign nature is declining. So when men have no heart to that which is good, they care not to put themselves upon the exercises of religion; they have lost a spirit of activity for God; they serve him in a faint sickly manner; 'tis a sign they are consumptive.
When the pulse can scarce be felt, it beats so low, men are near dying. So when those who were once violent for heaven, but now we can scarce perceive any good in them, the pulse beats low, grace is ready to die, Rev. 3:2. To you who have abated in your holy violence, and are grown remiss in duty, let me expostulate with you, as the Lord did by the prophet, Jer. 2:5. 'What iniquity have your fathers found in me?' What evil have you found in God, that you leave off your former strictness? Hath not God fed you with manna from above, and given you his holy Spirit to be your guide and comforter?
Hath he not made you swim in a sea of mercy? What evil have you found in prayer, that you are less violent in it? Have not you had sweet intercourse with God? Have not you sometimes been melted and enlarged, insomuch that you have thought yourselves in the suburbs of Heaven when you have been upon this mount? Hath not the dove of prayer brought an olive-branch of peace in its mouth?
What evil have you found in the word? Time was when you did take this book and eat it, and it was honey in your mouth: hath the word less virtue in it now? Are the promises like Aaron's dry rod, withered
and sapless? What iniquity have you found in the ways of God, that you have abated your former violence in religion? 'O remember whence you are fallen and repent, and do your first works,' Rev. 2:5.
Consider seriously, 1. The less violence for heaven, the less peace. Our consciences are never at peace in a drowsy state. It is the lively acting of grace makes the heart calm and serene.—These two go together, walking 'in the fear of God,' and 'in the comforts of the Holy Ghost,' Acts 9:31.
Christian, if once thou growest remiss in religion, conscience will chide. If thou belongest to God, he will never let thee be quiet, but will send some affliction or other to awaken thee out of thy security, and make thee recover that active lively frame of heart as once thou hadst.
2. You that grow more dead in God's service, and leave your first love, give great advantage to Satan. The less violent you are, the more violent he is; the less you pray, the more he tempts: and what a case are you now in? How can grace that is weak and sickly withstand violent temptations? Hence it is God suffers his own people sometimes to fall into sin, as a just punishment of their lukewarmness, and to make them more zealous and violent for the future.
3. Your remissness in religion, though it may not damn you, it will damage you. You will loose that degree of glory, which else you might have had. Though your remissness may not lose your crown, it will lessen it, and make it weigh lighter.
4. The more lazy a Christian's desires are, the more lively his corruptions. The weaker the body grows, the stronger the disease grows. O therefore pray for quickning grace, Psalm 143:11. Beg fresh gales of the Spirit to blow upon you. Never leave till you have recovered that holy violence which once you had.
2. It reproves those who have quite left off all violence: they have left off reading and praying in their family. There is not so much as a face of religion to be seen, they are fallen finally. Such were Joash, Jehu,
Julian. The goodly building of their profession which others admired, now hath not one stone left upon another.
But why do men thus run retrogade in their motion, and quite throw off that violence which they seemed once to have?
1. Because they never had a principle of spiritual life. Things that move from a principle of life are constant, as the motion of the pulse; but things artificial are apt to be at a stand, and their motion ceases.
As a clock when the weights are hung on, goes, but take off the weights and it stands. So the apostate never moved in religion but for gain and applause; and when these weights are taken off, he is at a stand, he goes no further. That branch must needs wither that hath no root to grow upon.
2. Men throw off all violence, and degenerate into apostacy, because they never did duties of religion with delight. St. Paul 'delighted in the law of God in the inward man,' Rom. 7:22. It was his Heaven to serve God. A man that delights in pleasure will never give over: but the apostate never had any true delight in the ways of God; he was rather forced with fear, than drawn with love: he served a master that he never cared for; no wonder then he leaves his service.
3. Men degenerate into apostacy through unbelief, Psalm 78:22.
'They believed not in God,' verse 41. 'They turned back and tempted God.' Sinners have jealous thoughts of God, they distrust his love, therefore desert his service: they think they may pray, and hear, and to no purpose, Mal. 3:14. 'What profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?' We may draw near to God in duty, but he will never draw near to us in mercy. Thus unbelief and atheism prevailing, the livery of religion is presently thrown off, and all former violence for Heaven ceases. Infidelity is the mother of apostacy.
4. Men leave off their former violence, and prove Judases and Devils because they love something else more than religion.—There is some lust or other their heart is engaged to, and their violence for sin hath destroyed their violence for religion. Solyman, the great Turk, seeing many Christians go over to Turkism, he asked them what moved them to turn Turks? They replied, they did it to be eased of their taxes. They were drawn from God through the prevalency of covetousness. If there be any lust in the heart predominant, it will get head, and destroy all former zeal for religion.—Abimeleck, a bastard, destroyed 'threescore and ten of his brethren upon one stone,'
Judges 9:50. If there be any lust the heart runs after, this bastard-sin will destroy threescore and ten duties; it will murder all that violence for Heaven which a man did once seem to have.
5. Men leave off former violence out of pusillanimity: if they are violent in religion, they fear they may lose their profits and preferments; nay, their lives. The coward never yet won the field.
When carnal fear grows violent, all violence for Heaven is at an end.
Incipit esse malus, qui timet esse bonus.
Many of the Jews who were great followers of Christ, when they saw the swords and staves, left him, Prov. 29:25. 'In the fear of man there is a snare.' Carnal fear makes sin appear less than it is, but danger greater.
6. Men leave off violence for Heaven for want of patience. Sensible feeling of joy is withheld, and they have not patience to stay for the full recompence of reward. Hypocrites are all for present pay; and if they have not that suddenly which they desire, they bid adieu to religion; and say as that wicked king, 2 Kings 6:33. 'Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?' They consider not that God is a free agent, and will dispense his blessings in the fittest season, but they go to tie God up to their time.—They forget that joy is a part of the reward, and would they have the reward and their work not yet finished? Doth the servant use to receive his pay before his work is
done, James 5:7. 'The husbandman waits for the precious fruits of the earth:' he doth not look to sow and reap in a day. But hypocrites are always in haste: they would reap joy before they have done sowing the seed of repentance: and because comfort is a while deferred, they are offended; they will serve God no longer: their patience is at an end, therefore their violence is at an end.
7. Men leave off holy violence, and degenerate into profaneness, out of a just judgment of God, leaving them to themselves; they oft resisted the Spirit, and sent it away sad from them, and now as a just judgment, God saith, my Spirit shall no longer strive; and if this wind doth not blow upon their sails, they cannot move. If this sun withdraw from their climate, they must needs freeze in impenitency.
They before sinned against clear convictions; they silenced conscience, and God hath seared it. And now if an angel should preach to them from Heaven, it would do them no good. O how dismal is this! the thoughts of it may strike us into an holy consternation. Thus we see why men apostatize and leave off their violence for Heaven.
Well, but what do they get by this? let us see what a purchase apostates make.
They proclaim their folly; for all their former violence for Heaven is lost. He who runs half the race and then faints, loseth the garland,
Ezek. 18:24. 'When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned.' All men's prayers and tears are lost. The apostate unravels all that he hath been doing. He is like a man that with a pencil draws a curious picture, and then comes with his sponge and wipes it out again, Gal. 3:4. 'Have ye suffered so many things in vain?' Perhaps for religion a man hath suffered many a reproach and affront; and have ye suffered all this in vain? here is folly indeed.
It will be bitterness in the end, Jer. 2:19. 'Know therefore that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord.'—Men, by
leaving off their violence for Heaven, get a thorn in their conscience, a blot in their name, a curse in their souls. What got Judas by his apostacy but an halter?—So that it will be bitterness in the end. The apostate when he dies, drops as a windfall into the devil's mouth.
5. It reproves those who put off this violence for the kingdom till old age. When they are fit for no other work, then they will begin this. No man saith, I will learn my trade when I am old. It is imprudence for one to begin to work for Heaven, when he is past his labour. There is a night of sickness and death coming, and our Saviour saith, 'The night cometh when none can work,' John 9:4. Sure a man can put forth but little violence for Heaven when old age, and old sins are upon him. Besides, how unworthy and disingenuous is it, to give the Devil the flower of youth, and God the dregs of old age! Therefore
God rejected Cain's sacrifice, because it was stale before he brought it, Gen. 4:3. There is little hope of their salvation, who are never violent for Heaven, till their disease grows violent.
6. It reproves those who are so far from using this violence for Heaven, that they deride it. These are your zealous ones, 2 Peter 3:3.
'In the last days there shall be scoffers.' Holy walking is become the object of derision, Psalm 69:12. 'I am become the song of the drunkards.' This shews a vile heart. There are some, who though they have no goodness themselves, yet honour them who are good. Herod reverenced John Baptist. But what devils are they who scoff at goodness, and reproach others for doing that which God commands.
This age produceth such as sit in the chair of scorners, and throw their squibs at religion. In Bohemia, when some of the martyrs were the next day to suffer, they comforted themselves with this, that this was their last supper, and to-morrow they should feast with Christ in Heaven; a Papist standing by, asked them in a jeer, if Christ had any cooks in Heaven to dress their supper? Oh take heed of such an Ishmael spirit! It is a sign of a man given over to the devil. God
'scorneth the scorner,' Prov. 3:34.—And sure he shall never live with God, whose company God scorns.