32. Joining Considerations.
Chapter Thirty-Two Joining Considerations.
T he first. The consideration of the many things wherein God has joined us.
God has joined us together as we are men: we are not dogs, not wolves, let us not be so to one another. Acts 7:26. Moses speaks thus to those who strove with one another: "Sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one another?" The words in Greek are, ἀνδρὲς ἀδελφοὶ ἐστε, meaning "men yet are brethren." There is a consideration in this, that ye are men: if there were no more, yet ye should not strive with one another, but much more considering ye are brethren. If we are men, let us be humane. What is the meaning of humanity but courteousness, gentleness, pleasantness in our interactions with one another?
But still, the consideration grows higher, as we are the same countrymen, of old acquaintance, in the same employment, of the same family and kindred, but above all, joined in such a blessed root, the fountain of all love and peace. Ephesians 4:4 presents this consideration most fully to us. The reason the Apostle gives why we must keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is because there is one body, and one spirit; ye are called in
one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Here you have seven Ones together in two or three lines. It is very significant that the Spirit of God should join so closely together seven Ones; surely it is to be a strong argument for us to unite.
First, one Body. The meanest member is still part of the body. Is it comely for the body of Christ to be rent and torn? Any reference to Christ might persuade unity, but union with Christ as the members with the body—what heart can stand against the strength of this? What can cause one member to tear and rend another but madness?
2. One Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:11 states that one and the same spirit: he does not only say, "The same spirit," but "The selfsame spirit": and as if that were not enough, he adds "One" to the selfsame; and that yet not enough, he says, "That one," all this is in the Greek, τὸ ἒν καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα. The repeating of the article has great elegance in it. And is not this one Spirit the Spirit of love and meekness? What does a rebellious contentious spirit do in thee, who professes thyself to be a Christian? What, says Cyprian, does the fierceness of wolves, the madness of dogs,* the deadly poison of serpents, the bloody rage of beasts have in a Christian's breast?
3. Called in one hope. Are you not heirs, joint heirs of the same Kingdom?
And do you contend as if one belonged to the kingdom of light and the other to the kingdom of darkness?
4. One Lord. You serve the same Lord and Master. Is it for the credit of a Master that his servants are always wrangling and fighting with one another? Is it not a tedious thing in a family that the servants can never agree? Mark how ill the Lord takes this: Matthew 24:49-51 describes that evil servant who begins to smite his fellow-servants and provokes his Lord against him so as to come upon him with such severity as to cut him
asunder and appoint his portion with the hypocrites; διχοτομήσει, he will dichotomize him, divide him in two; he by his smiting his fellow-servants makes divisions, but his Lord will divide him. It may be he pretends that his fellow-servants do not do their duty as they ought; as if he were more careful of the honor of his Lord than others who are of a different way from him. But in the meantime he inveighs against others, smiting them with the tongue and otherwise as he is able. He sits at full tables, eats and drinks of the best with such as are carnal and sensual, but they are great men; to have their countenance is brave; this is extremely suitable to a carnal heart who yet keeps up a profession of Religion and has some form of godliness; he is afraid to lose his fleshly contentment, therefore he smites those who stand in his way. Thus divisions and troubles are made in God's family: The Lord, the Master of it will reward accordingly; he will divide such by cutting them asunder and appointing them their portion with the hypocrites.
5. One Faith. What though we agree not together in some things of lesser moment, yet we agree in one faith. Why should we not then keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace? The agreement in faith one would think should swallow up all other disagreements. We should rather bless God for keeping men sound in faith than contend with them for lesser mistakes.
When the Pharisees, Acts 23:9, understood that Paul agreed with them in that great doctrine of the Resurrection, they presently overlooked his other differences, saying, "We find no evil in this man." Our brethren agree with us in more fundamentals than this, and yet we can find evil in them and aggravate their evil beyond what it is and improve it all we can against them. This is worse than Pharisaical.
Master Calvin in his Epistle to our countrymen at Frankfort,* fled for their lives in witness to the truth yet miserably jarring and contending with
one another there to the scandal of all the Churches of God in those parts begins his Epistle thus: "This does grievously torment me; it is extremely absurd that dissensions should arise among brethren, exiles fled from their country for the same faith and for that cause which alone in this your scattering ought to be to you as a holy band to keep you fast bound together." Their contentions were about Church worship.
6. One Baptism. We are baptized into Christ's death, and is not that to show that we should be dead to all those things in the world that cause strife and contention among men? Our baptism is our badge, our livery; it furthers somewhat the unity of servants that they wear all one livery.
7. One God. Though there be three Persons in the Divine Nature and every Person is God, yet there is but one God; here is a union infinitely beyond all unions that any creature can be capable of; the mystery of this union is revealed to us to make us in love with union. Our interest in this one God is such a conjunction as nothing can be more.
Joseph's Brethren, Gen. 50:17. looked upon this as having very great power in it to make up all breaches, to heal all old grudges. After their father was dead, their consciences misgave them for what they had done to Joseph. They were afraid old matters would break forth and that Joseph would turn their enemy. Now, how do they seek to unite Joseph's heart to them? "We pray thee," say they, "forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father," and the text says, Joseph wept when they spoke unto him.
Oh, this was a heart-breaking speech to Joseph: "The servants of the God of my father; shall my heart ever be estranged from the servants of the God of my father? The Lord forbid." Their offense indeed was great, but their
God is my God, and He was my father's God. This argument had more in it
to draw Joseph's heart to them than if they had said, "We are your brethren; we came from the same loins you did." True, that is something, but "the servants of the God of thy father" is much more.
Let us look upon all the godly, though they have many weaknesses, though they have not carried themselves towards us as they ought, yet they are the servants, yea the children of our God and of our father's God; let this draw our hearts to them. If they be one with us in their interest in one God, let them be one with us in the affections of our heart, to love them, delight in them, and rejoice in communion with them.
One God and Father. Mal. 2:10. Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother? Job 31:15. Did not He that made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb? Is it seemly that one man's children should be always contending, quarrelling, and mischiefing one another? Do you think this is pleasing to your Father?
It follows in that 4th of Ephesians: who is above all, and through all, and in you all. You have enough in your Father to satisfy your souls forever, whatsoever you want otherwise; He is above all. He that is so glorious and blessed, infinitely above all things, has put honor enough upon you that He is your Father; why will you contend and quarrel about trifles? He has absolute authority to dispose of all things as He pleases; let not the different administrations of His, to some in one kind, to some in another, be matter for you to contend about. And He works in all.
Those gifts and graces especially that are in His children are His workings; that some have more than others is from His working. You may see the workings of your Father in the hearts of your brethren. He is in all.
Men may have children in whom little or nothing of their father appears,
but God is in all His children, notwithstanding all their weaknesses; therefore our hearts should be in them and with them. This Scripture is one of the most famous Scriptures for the union of the Saints in one that we have in all the Book of God.
You will say, "If indeed we could see God in such, if we could see grace and holiness in them, our hearts would close with them, but we see not this."
Answer: 1. Take heed thou dost not reject any from being thy brother whom Jesus Christ at the great day will own for His, and God the Father will call Child.
2. Suppose thou canst not be satisfied in their godliness, yet the gifts of the Spirit of God that are in them should cause some kind of closing; common gifts are of a middle nature between nature and grace, as the spirits of a man are neither of the same nature with the soul nor of the body but between both and serve to unite the soul and body together, which otherwise are of natures very different. The common gifts that men who are not yet sanctified have may and should cause some union between the godly and them while they live in this world so far as to be useful one to another in what God has given them.
The Second Joining Consideration:Let us consider how far we can agree.
We differ thus and thus, but what do we agree in? Do we not agree in things enough wherein we may all the days of our lives spend all the strength we have in glorifying God together? Many men are of such spirits as they love to be altogether busied about their brethren's differences; their discourse, their pens, and all their ways are about these, and that not to heal them but rather to widen them. You shall not hear them speak of or meddle with their agreements; their strength is not bent to heighten and strengthen
them. If at any time they do take notice of their agreements, it is to make advantage of them to render their disagreements the more odious or to strengthen themselves in what they differ from them; they desire to get in men and to get from them only to serve their own turns upon them; this is an evil spirit. No marvel therefore though some be so loath to discover to them how near they can come to them.
Pliny tells us of Apelles,* that drawing the face of Antiochus the King who had but one eye, that he might hide this deformity, he devised to paint him turning his visage a little away so he showed but one side of his face: and from him, says Pliny, came the invention first of concealing the defects and blemishes of the visage. But the painters of our time are quite another way; if there be any deformity or defect on any side, they will be sure to paint that side in all the lineaments of it; that must be set forth fully to the view of all men; yea if it may be made to look more ugly and monstrous than it is, all the skill they have shall be improved to do it.
But my brethren, this ought not to be; God does not so with us: He takes notice of the good of His children but conceals their evil. There was but one good word in Sarah's speech to Abraham, Gen. 18:12; she called him Lord.
The speech otherwise was a speech of unbelief, yet the Holy Ghost speaking afterwards of her in reference to that speech, 1 Pet. 3:6, conceals all the evil in it and mentions only that reverent title she gave to her husband, commending her for it. Thus should we do; had we peaceable hearts, thus we would do: all the good of our brethren we would improve to the uttermost and what is evil so far as with a good conscience we might we would conceal. When I shall see this temper in men's spirits, I shall hope there will be peace.
The Third Joining Consideration:Let us consider men's tempers, spirits, temptations, education, years, gifts.
There must be due consideration of all these, and we must accommodate something to them all. This would alleviate much strife: as we read in Numbers 31:23, "Everything that may abide the fire, you shall make it go through the fire, and all that does not abide the fire you shall make go through the water." We must deal with every person according to their temperament.
Some people are, by their nature, of a more harsh and rugged temperament than others. Consider what is the best way of dealing with such individuals: in the main, they are faithful and useful; they will join with you there and spend their lives for you. If the harshness of their nature causes some unpleasant behaviors, consider their temperament. Though no evil in them is to be justified, yet deal tenderly with them and accommodate them as much as you lawfully can.
Some people's spirits, though upright to God and you, have a fervor that is not tempered with the wisdom, meekness, and humility it ought to have. Do not immediately take advantage of them for this; do not attack them as if those unjustifiable expressions that come from them stem from a spirit of malignity. You know the person and the manner of their communication; overlook weaknesses and accept uprightness.
Some people face very strong temptations; perhaps their hearts are burdened with disappointments or they lack many comforts you have. They have family temptations and personal temptations from which you are free.
You do not know what you might do if you were under similar temptations.
Bless God that you are delivered from them, but do not add to your brethren's affliction by taking advantage of them. Instead, follow the
Apostle's rule in Galatians 6:1: "If a man is overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Consider their education. Some people have been brought up entirely among Prelatical men, perhaps among Papists; some have lived all their days in wicked families and never were acquainted with the society of the Saints or with that way of godliness that has the most strictness and power in it. You must not deal with them for all things you see amiss in them in the same way you would deal with those who have had godly education and acquaintance with the most strict and powerful ways of godliness but now manifest a spirit against them.
Consider people's years: old age looks for respect, and justly so; especially those who have gone through hardships and suffered much for your good. Though some infirmities may break forth that are incident to old age, we must cover and overlook what we can, not forgetting the reverent respect due to the hoary head found in the way of godliness.
Consider people's gifts: it may be they are not able to rise to your level or understand what you do; thank God for your strength but do not be angry with your brother because he is weaker. This was one of the arguments for peace that Constantine used in his aforementioned letter to Alexander and Arius: we are not all like-minded in everything, nor do we all have the same nature and gift ingrained in us.
The Fourth Joining Consideration:What we gain by contention will never justify the cost.
A merchant thinks it an ill venture if, when he calculates his accounts, he finds the cost of his voyage exceeds his income. If you have so much
command over your spirit, if you can overcome your passions enough to take time in cool blood to calculate your accounts truly—what good you have done or what you have gained by such contentions—and on the other side calculate what harm you have done, what sin has been committed, what evil has entered your spirit, I fear you will have little cause to boast or rejoice in your gains. To be freed from the expense that comes with strife is no small gain, says Ambrose.
In strife, you will find there is a great expense of time, gifts, and talents.
Many people, because of the good gifts God has given them, might have become shining lights in the Church, but due to their contentious spirits, they become nothing more than smoking firebrands. It may be that despite all the commotion you cause, you shall never get your way; if you do, it will not justify the cost—the expense incurred for it far exceeds its worth.
God deliver me from having my way at such a dear rate.
The Fifth Joining Consideration:The strongest need the weakest.
Let not the hand say it has no need of the foot; nor the eye say it has no need of the hand. God has so tempered the body that every member needs every other member.
It was a sweet spirit in Peter, that great Apostle, writing to the scattered Christians; he begins his Epistle thus: "Simon Peter, a servant and an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us." Little nails may be useful where great wedges can do no good. Little chips may help set great logs on fire.
The Sixth:Consider when anything arises that occasions strife; it may be this is just a trial or temptation.
When people provoke us, we are ready to attack them without looking beyond those with whom we are displeased. But if you look a little further,
perhaps you may see the Devil is on the other side of the hedge and has been the chief agent in this business. Augustine emphasizes this with an excellent analogy: When a fowler sets his net to catch birds, he sets it at a distance from the hedge and then throws stones at the hedge. The birds fly out and flutter about. The fowler does not intend any harm to the hedge nor does he expect to hit any birds with his stones; his aim is at the net on the other side of the hedge—he hopes to drive the birds into it.
Similarly, says Augustine, the Devil prepares his net to catch people; he raises contentions and causes much trouble in churches and among brethren. You think all the evil lies in your present contentions' trouble. Oh no: the Devil is behind it; he intends to bring some of you into great sin through these contentions. He has set his net for you; when you are troubled and vexed by such contentions, the Devil sees you as ripe for temptation: now he hopes to get you to do things which otherwise he could never have persuaded you to do. Oh that we had hearts to consider when we find contentions stirring: Is there not a temptation in them?
The Seventh:Consider how God's heart is set upon making peace with us and what it cost Him.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself: this work has occupied the thoughts, counsels, and heart of God from all eternity above anything else He has done. This is the chief masterpiece of all the works of God. There is more of the glory of God in this than in all that God has done.
This will be the object of the admiration of Angels and Saints, the matter of their praises for all eternity. The heart of God was so invested in this that He was resolved to have it, no matter the cost; it cost more dearly than anything else in this world; indeed, the price was more than ten thousand worlds are worth: it was no less than the blood of the Son of God, of Him who is the
second person in the Trinity, God blessed forevermore. Col. 1:14: In whom we have redemption through His blood, who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature: by Him were all things created, He is before all things: by Him all things consist, in Him all fullness dwells: and having made peace through the blood of His Cross, ver. 20. What God has done for peace with us calls aloud to us to value peace with one another. It is the Apostle's argument, 1 John 3:16: He laid down His life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. It cost His life to make our peace with God. We should be willing to do anything we are able, even to the hazard of our lives, to make peace among the Saints. Christ laid down
His life even for this peace also. Ephes. 2:14: For He is our peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, to make in Himself of two one new man, so making peace, and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross. Christ reconciles both unto God: but how? It is in one body. Lay this consideration warm at your hearts, and it will comfort your hearts and so preserve and increase peaceable dispositions in you towards one another.
Consider how unworthy we were when Jesus Christ received us into union with Himself.
What uncomely, what loathsome creatures we were! Yet Christ took us into His bosom, into His heart, and resolved that nothing should separate us from Him again. But shall every trifle take us off from one another's hearts?
Shall every jealous suspicious thought, every little difference, be enough to separate us and that almost irreconcilably? Do we have the spirit of Christ in us? Is the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus?
Consider that we are called to peace.
God has called us to peace, 1 Cor. 7:15. The case upon which the Apostle mentions our calling to peace is as difficult a case to preserve peace in as any can occur in one's life. It was the case of a man and wife unequally yoked; one is a believer, the other an infidel, yet being man and wife, the Apostle determines that the believer must be content to live with the unbeliever as it becomes a wife or a husband; except he or she chooses to depart on their own accord, but they should give them no occasion for departing, but rather by their holy humble conversation seek to convert them: this no doubt was considered a hard task, but it must be, says the Apostle, and upon this he grounds it, for God has called us to peace. There is another case almost as difficult as this, where patience and quietness of spirit are very much tried, and that is when a servant meets with a harsh, rugged, cruel master who abuses him very injuriously; if anything would provoke one's spirit into a rage, one would think this would do it. No, says the Apostle, such must be the command you must have over your spirits as you must patiently bear this: and he grounds it upon this, For hereunto were ye called, 1 Pet. 2:21-22. But though husbands and wives should live at peace, though they suffer one from another; though servants should endure wrongs from their masters, yet it does not follow that similar patience should be required in us when we are wronged by our equals, by those to whom we have no such bond of relation to tie us. Yes, this argument of calling is strong in this case also: 1 Pet. 3:8-9: Love as brethren, be courteous, not rendering evil for evil or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing, knowing that ye are thereunto called.
Consider the presence of God and of Christ.
Our God, our Father, our Master, our Savior stands by looking on us. It is a most excellent passage that I find in an Epistle of Luther to the Ministers
of Nuremberg. There were great divisions amongst them: he writes to them that he might pacify their spirits one towards another. Suppose (says he) you saw Jesus Christ standing before you,* and by His very eyes speaking thus unto your hearts: What do you, O my dear children, whom I have redeemed with my blood, whom I have begotten again by my Word, to that end that you might love one another? Know that this is the note of my
Disciples. Leave this business; ye wholly cast it upon me; I'll look to it; there is no danger that the Church should suffer by this though it should be stilled; yea though it should die; but there is a great deal of danger if you dissent amongst yourselves if you bite one another: Do not thus sadden my spirit; do not thus spoil the holy Angels of their joy in heaven; am I not more to you than all matters that are between you? than all your affections? than all your offenses? What? Can any words of a brother or any unjust trouble penetrate your hearts and stick so fast in you as my wounds, as my blood, as all that I am to you—your Savior Jesus Christ? Oh that we had such real apprehensions of Christ looking upon us and speaking to us!
Consider what account we can give to Jesus Christ of all our divisions.
When Christ shall come, will you stand before Him with scratched faces, with black and blue eyes? 1 Thess. 3:12, 13. The Lord make you to increase and abound in love towards one another, and towards all men: To what end?
To the end, says the Apostle, He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ with all His Saints. It will be a sad thing to be found in our divisions at the coming of Jesus Christ, Matt. 24:50. The coming of Christ is mentioned as a terror to those who shall but begin to smite their fellowservants. We may wrangle and stand out against one another in our contentions now; but it will not be so easy to answer Jesus Christ as it is to
answer one another. In the Name of Jesus Christ, I now speak unto you, yea as from Him charge you, let no reason move you to contend with, dissent or separate from your brethren, but that which you are persuaded in your conscience, and that after due and serious examination will hold out before, will be approved of, Jesus Christ at His coming.
The Twelfth, Let every man consider his own weaknesses.
You are ready to take offense from others; within a while, you are as likely to be offensive to others. There will be as much need for them to bear with you as there is now for you to bear with them. The common law of those who intend to live at peace with one another is, Veniam petimus, damusque, We desire pardon, and we do pardon.
The Thirteenth, Let us consider our mortality.
It is but a little time we have to live; shall the greater part of it, nay why should any part of it be unraveled with contentions and quarrels? I have read of Pompey, that upon a time passing over diverse hills, where there lived many people in caves, but their order was that the man lived in one cave and the wife in another; he asked the reason, they said, In those parts they live not long, therefore they desired that the little time they did live, they might have peace and quiet, which they had found by experience they could not have if man and wife lived constantly together. Though the means they used for their quiet was sordid, yet the good use they made of the shortness of their lives was commendable. Virgil says if swarms of bees meet in the air, they will sometimes fight as it were in a set battle with great violence; but if you cast but a little dust upon them, they will all be
presently quiet. Sprinkle upon your hearts the meditations of death, that within a while this flesh of yours will be turned to dust; this will quiet you.
The Fourteenth, Consider the life of heaven.
There is and will be perfect agreement there. We are here as bees, flying up and down from flower to flower all day, but at night they come all into the same hive; that is a place where Luther and Zwingli will well agree.
Shall not we whom God from all eternity has ordained to live co-heirs in heaven, to join together in praises there, agree together here on earth?