CHAPTER XII: Upon the Resemblance of Wheat and Tares
But, oh! how dear do souls for lodgings pay!
Few more than I: For thou, my soul, hast been Within these tents of Kedar cooped in; Where, with distempers clogg'd, thou mak'st thy moans,
And, for deliverance, with tears and groans Hast often su'd: Cheer up, the time will be
When thou from all these troubles shall be free:
No jarring humours, cloudy vapours, rheums, Pains, aches, or whatever else consumes My day in grief; whilst in the Christian race,
Flesh lags behind, and can't keep equal pace With the more willing spirit: None of these
Shall thenceforth clog thee, or disturb thine ease,
CHAPTER XII
Upon the Resemblance of Wheat and Tares As wheat resembled is by viler tares; So vile hypocrisy like grace appears.
OBSERVATION
IT is Jerom's observation, that wheat and tares are so much alike in their first springing up, that it is exceedingly difficult to distinguish the one from the other: These are his words, Inter triticum et lolium quandiu herba est, et nondum culmus venit ad spicam; grandis smilitudo est; et indiscernendo aut nulla, aut per difficilis distantia.
The difference (saith he) between them, is either none at all, or wonderfully difficult to discern, which those words of Christ, Mat.
13:30 plainly confirm. Let them both alone till the harvest; thereby intimating both the difficulty of distinguishing the tares and wheat; as also the unwarrantable rashness of bold and hasty censures of men's sincerity or hypocrisy, which is there shadowed by them.
APPLICATION
HOW difficult soever it be to discern the difference betwixt wheat and tares, yet, doubtless, the eye of sense can much easier discriminate them, than the most quick and piercing eye of man can discern the difference betwixt special and common grace; for all saving graces in the saints have their counterfeits in hypocrites.
There are similar works in these, which a spiritual and very judicious eye may easily mistake for the saving and genuine effects of the sanctifying Spirit.
Doth the Spirit of God convince the consciences of his people of the evil of sin? Rom. 7:9. Hypocrites have their convictions too, Exod.
10:16. "Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you."
Thus was Saul also convicted, 1 Sam. 15:24.
Doth true conviction and compunction work reformation of life in the people of God? Even hypocrites also have been famous for their reformations. The unclean spirit often goes out of the formal hypocrite, by an external reformation; and yet still retains his
propriety in them, Matth. 12:43, 44. For that departure is indeed no more than a politic retreat. Many that shall never escape the damnation of hell, have yet escaped the pollutions of the world, and that by the knowledge of the Son of God, 2 Pet. 2:21.
Doth the Spirit of the Lord produce that glorious and supernatural work of faith in convinced and humbled souls? In this also the hypocrite apes and imitates the believer, Acts 8:13. "Then Simon himself believed also." Luke 8:13. "These are they which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away."
Doth the precious eye of faith, discovering the transcendent excellencies that are in Christ, enflame the affections of the believing soul with vehement desires and longings after him? Strange motions of heart have also been found in hypocrites towards Christ and heavenly things. John 6:34. "Lord, evermore give us this bread,
Matth. 25:8. Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out." With what a rapture was Balaam transported, when he said, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and my last end be like his!" Numb. 23:10.
Doth the work of faith, in some believers, bear upon its top branches the full ripe fruit of a blessed assurance? Lo! what strong confidences and high-built persuasions of an interest in God, have sometimes been found even in unsanctified ones? John 8:54. "Of whom you say, that he is your God; and yet ye have not known him." To the same height of confidence arrived those vain souls mentioned in Rom.
2:19. Yea, so strong may this false assurance be, that they dare boldly venture to go to the judgment-seat of God, and there defend it, Mat.
7:22. "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?"
Doth the Spirit of God fill the heart of the assured believer with joy unspeakable and full of glory, giving them, through faith, a prelibation, or foretaste of heaven itself, in those first fruits of it?
How near to this comes that which the apostle supposes may be found even in apostates, Heb. 6:8, 9 who are there said "to taste the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come." What shall
I say, if real Christians delight in ordinances, those that are none may also delight in approaching to God, Ezek. 33:32. It may be you will say, though the difference be not easily discernible in their active obedience, yet, when it shall come to suffering, there every eye may discern it; the false heart will then flinch, and cannot brook that work. And yet even this is no infallible rule neither; for the apostle supposes, that the salamander of hypocrisy may live in the very flames of martyrdom, 1 Cor. 13:3. "If I give my body to be burnt, and have not charity." And it was long since determined in this case, Non pœna, sed causa facit martyrem; so, that without controversy, the difficulty of distinguishing them is very great.
And this difference will yet be more subtile and undiscernible, if I should tell you, that as in so many things the hypocrite resembles the saint; so there are other things in which a real Christian may act too like an hypocrite. When we find a Pharaoh confessing, an Herod practising, as well as hearing, a Judas preaching Christ, and an Alexander venturing his life for Paul; and, on the other side, shall find a David condemning that in another which he practised himself, an Hezekiah glorying in his riches, a Peter dissembling, and even all the disciples forsaking Christ in an hour of trouble and danger: O then! how hard is it for the eye of man to discern betwixt chaff and wheat? How many upright hearts are now censured, whom God will clear? How many false hearts are now approved, whom God will condemn? Men ordinarily have no clear convictive proofs, but only probable symptoms; which, at most, can beget but a conjectural knowledge of another's state. And they that shall peremptorily judge either way, may possibly wrong the generation of the upright; or, on the other side, absolve and justify the wicked. And truly, considering
what hath been said, it is no great wonder that dangerous mistakes are so frequently made in this matter. But though man cannot, the Lord both can and will, perfectly discriminate them. "The Lord knoweth who are his," 2 Tim. 2:19. He will have a day perfectly to sever the tares from the wheat, to melt off the varnish of the most resplendent and refined hypocrite, and to blow off the ashes of infirmities, which have covered and obscured the very sparks of sincerity in his people: he will make such a division as was never yet made in the world, how many divisions soever there have been in it.
"And then shall men indeed return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked; betwixt him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not." Meanwhile, my soul, thou canst not better employ thyself, whether thou be sound or unsound, than in making those reflections upon thyself.
REFLECTIONS
And is this so? Then, Lord, pardon the rashness and precipitancy of my censorious spirit; for I have often boldy anticipated thy judgment, and assumed thy prerogative, although thou hast said,
"Why dost thou judge thy brother? And why dost thou set at nought thy brother? We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.
For it is written, As I live (saith the Lord) every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more," Rom. 14:10, 11, 12, 13. And again; "He that judgeth me is the Lord. Let us there fore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the heart; and then shall every man have praise of God," 1 Cor. 4:4, 5.
What if God will own some of them for his sons, to whom I refuse to give the respect of brethren? I may pass hasty and headlong censures
upon others; but where is my commission for so doing? I want not only a commission, but fit qualifications for such a work as this. Can
I pierce into the heart as God? Can I infallibly discover the hidden motives, ends, and principles of actions? Besides, O my soul, thou art conscious of so much falseness in thyself, that were there ho other consideration, that alone might restrain thee from all uncharitable and hasty censures. If others knew but what I know of myself, would they not judge as severely of me as I do of others?
2. Though I may not judge the final state of another, yet I may, and ought to judge the state of my own soul; which is, doubtless, a more necessary and concerning work to me. For since every saving grace in a Christian hath its counterfeit in the hypocrite, how needful is it for thee, O my soul, to make a stand here, and solemnly to ponder this question, Whether those things, whereon I depend, as my best evidences for the life to come, be the real, or only the common works of the Spirit? Whether they may be such as can now endure the test of the word, and abide a fair trial at the bar of my own conscience?
Come then, my soul, set the Lord before thee, to whom the secrets of all hearts are manifest: and in the awful sense of that great day make true answer to these heart-discovering queries: For though thou canst not discern the difference betwixt these things in another, yet thou mayest and oughtest to discern it in thyself: For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man that is in him!
1. Is my obedience uniform? am I the same man at all times, places and companies? Or, rather, am I not exact and curious in open and public, remiss and careless in private and secret duties? Sincere souls are uniform souls, Psal. 119:6 the hypocrite is no closet-man, Matth.
6:5.
2. Doth that which I call grace in me oppose and mortify, or doth it not rather quietly consist with, and protect my lusts and corruptions? True grace tolerates no lust, Gal. 5:17. No, not the bosom, darling corruptions, Psal. 18:23.
3. Doth that which I call my grace, humble, empty, and abase my soul? Or rather, doth it not puff it up with self-conceitedness? All saving grace is humbling grace, 1 Cor. 15:10. "But the soul which is lifted up, is not upright," Hab. 2:4.
Lastly, Canst thou, my soul, rejoice and bless God for the grace imparted to others? And rejoice if any design for Christ be carried on in the world by other hands? Or, rather, dost thou not envy those that excel thee, and carest for no work in which thou art not seen?
But stay, my soul, it is enough: If these be the substantial differences betwixt special and common grace, I more than doubt, I shall not endure the day of his coming, Whose fan is in his hand. Do not those spots appear upon me, which are not the spots of his children? Woe is me, poor wretch! the characters of death are upon my soul! Lord add power to the form, life to the name to live, practice to the knowledge, or I perish eternally! O rather give me the saint's heart than the angel's tongue; the poorest breathing of the Spirit than the richest ornaments of common gifts! Let me never deceive myself or others in matters of so deep and everlasting consequence.
THE POEM IN eastern countries, as good authors write, Tares, in their springing up, appear to sight,
Not like itself, a weed, but real wheat;
Whose shape and form it counterfeits so neat, That 'twould require a most judicious eye,
The one from t'other to diversify.
'Till both to some maturity be grown, And then the difference is eas'ly known.
Even thus hypocrisy, that cursed weed, Springs up so like true grace, that he will need
More than a common insight in this case, That saith, this is not, that is real grace.
Ne'er did the cunning actor, tho' a slave Array'd in princely robes, himself behave
So like a king, as this doth act the part Of saving grace, by its deep hellish art.
Do gracious souls melt, mourn, and weep for sin?
The like in hypocrites observ'd hath been.
Have they their comforts, joys, and raptures sweet?
With them in comforts hypocrites do meet.
In all religious duties they can go