Chapter II: Although God takes no delight in afflicting his people, yet he sometimes exposes them to great and grievous
the flesh to rebel, and the enemy that is within to renew his opposition.
Thirdly, I am ready; that is, my heart is so fixed to follow the call of God, whatever shall befal me, that all your tears and intreaties to the contrary are but cast away; they cannot alter my fixed purpose; you had as good be quiet, and cheerfully resign me to the will of God.
Thus you see the equipage and preparation of Paul's spirit to receive both bonds and death for Christ at Jerusalem; this made him victorious over the temptations of friends, and the malice and cruelty of his enemies: By this readiness and preparation of his mind, he was carried through all, and enabled to finish his course with joy. From hence the observation is,
Doct. That it is a blessed and excellent thing for the people of God to be prepared, and ready for the hardest services, and worst of sufferings, to which the Lord may call them.
This is that which every gracious heart is reaching after, praying, and striving to obtain; but, ah! how few will attain it! Certainly there are not many among the multitudes of the professors of this generation that can say as Paul here did, "I am ready to be bound, or to die for Christ."
CHAPTER II
Although God takes no delight in afflicting his people, yet he sometimes
exposes them to great and grievous sufferings Shews, that although God takes no delight in afflicting his people, yet he sometimes exposeth them to great and grievous sufferings; with a brief account why, and how he calls them thereunto.
THE mercies and compassions of God over his people are exceeding great and tender, Psalm 103:13. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." He delights not in afflicting and grieving them, Lam. 3:33. "He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." The scripture intimates to us a seeming conflict betwixt the justice and mercy of God, when he is about to deliver up his people into their enemies hands, Hosea 11:8, 9. "How shall I give thee up,
Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together." Which shews us with what reluctance and great unwillingness the Lord goes about such a work as this. The work of judgment is his strange work, it pleases him better to execute the milder attribute of mercy towards his children. Hence we find, when he is preparing to execute his judgments, that he delays the execution as long as the honour of his name and safety of his people will permit, Jer. 44:23. He bears till he can bear no longer: he often turns away his wrath from them, Psal. 78:38,
39. He tries them by lesser judgments and gentler corrections to prevent greater, Amos 4:6. When his people are humbled under
the threatenings of his wrath, his heart is melted into compassion to them, Jer. 31:17, 20 and whenever his mercy prevails against judgment, it is with joy and triumph, Jam. 2:13.
Mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
For he feels his own tender compassions yerning over them; he foreseeth, and is no way willing to gratify the insulting pride of his and their enemies. Deut. 32:26, 27. "I said I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men, were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, &c.
Yet all this, notwithstanding, it often falls out, by the provocations of his sons and daughters, that the Lord gives them up into the hands of their enemies for the correction of their evils, and the manifestation of his own glory. Seneca, though a heathen, could say, that God loves his people with a masculine love, not with a womanish indulgence and tenderness: If need require, they shall be in heaviness through manifold temptations, 1 Pet. 1:6. He had rather their hearts should be heavy under adversity, than vain and careless under prosperity; the choicest spirits have been exercised with the sharpest sufferings, and those that now shine as stars in heaven, have been trod under foot as dung on the earth. 1 Cor. 4:11, 12, 13.
"Unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and buffetted, and have no certain dwelling-place, and labour working with our hands; being reviled we bless, being persecuted we suffer it, being defamed we intreat; we are made as the fifth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things unto
this day." The eleventh chapter to the Hebrews is a compendium of the various and grievous sufferings of the primitive saints:
"They were tortured, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword, they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being afflicted, destitute, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy, they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, in dens, and in caves of the earth." And since the earth hath dried up those rivers of precious blood, whereof the sacred records make mention, what seas of Christians blood have since those days been shed by bloody persecutors?
Histories inform us that in the ten primitive persecutions, so many of the saints and martyrs of Jesus Christ have been slain, as that you may allow five thousand a day to every day in the whole year. Those bloody emperors sported themselves with the death of God's dearest saints; many precious Christians were burnt by night at Rome, to serve as torches to light their enemies in the passage through the streets; eight hundred thousand martyrs are mentioned within the space of thirty years, since the Jesuits arose out of the bottomless pit.
To what grievous sufferings did the Lord give up those precious servants of Christ, the Waldenses and Albigenses, who received the light of reformation about the year 1260, when the fogs of Antichristian darkness overspread the earth! a people sound in judgment, as appears by their letters, catechisms, and confessions, which are extant; a people of a simple, plain, and inoffensive behaviour: Yet, with what fury and rage did that impious pope Pius persecute them to destruction! driving them into the woods and mountains, except the aged, and children that could not flee, who were murdered in the way: Some
famished in the caves and clefts of the rocks; others endured the rack for eight hours together; some beaten with iron rods, others thrown from the tops of high towers, and dashed to pieces.
What bloody shambles and slaughter-houses have France, Ireland, and England, been made by popish cruelty! More might be related out of each story than a tender hearted reader is able to bear the rehearsal of. But what God hath done, he may do again: We are not better than our fathers, dismal clouds of indignation are gathering over our heads, charged with double destruction; should the Lord please to make them break upon us; we cannot imagine the rage of Satan to be abated, now that his kingdom hastens to its period, Rev. 12:12. nor are his instruments grown less cruel and skilful to destroy. The land, indeed, hath enjoyed a long rest, and this generation is acquainted with little more of martyrdom, than what the histories of former times inform us of: But yet let no man before himself with a groundless expectation of continuing tranquillity.
Augustin thinks that the bloody sweat which over-ran the body of Christ in the garden, signified the sharp and grievous sufferings which in his mystical body he should afterwards endure; and indeed it is a truth, that these are also called the remains of Christ's sufferings, Col. 1:24. His personal sufferings were indeed completed at his resurrection, that cup was full to the brim, to which no drop of sufferings can be added; but his sufferings in his mystical body are not yet full; by his personal sufferings he fully satisfied the wrath of God, but the sufferings of his people have not yet satisfied the wrath of men: Though millions of precious saints have shed their blood for Christ, whose souls are now crying under the altar, How long, Lord!
how long! yet there are many more coming on behind in the same path of persecution, and much Christian blood must yet be shed, before the mystery of God be finished; and notwithstanding this lucid interval, the clouds seem to be returning again after the rain. Thus you see to what grievous sufferings the merciful God hath sometimes called his dearest people.
Now God may be said to call forth his people to suffer, when he so hedgeth them in by providence, that there is no way to escape suffering, but by sinning; whatsoever providence labours with such a dilemma as this, is a plain signification of God's will to us in that case. We may not now expect extraordinary calls to suffering work, as some of the saints had of old, Gen. 22:2. Acts
9:16 but when our way is so shut up by providence, that we cannot avoid suffering, but by stepping over the hedge of the command, God will have us look upon that exigence as his call to suffer: And if the reasons be demanded, why the Lord, who is inclined to mercy, doth often hedge in his own people, by his providence, in a suffering path; let us know, that in so doing, he doth both, 1. Illustrate his own glory. And, 2. Promote his people's happiness.
First, Hereby the most wise God doth illustrate the glory of his own name, clearing up the righteousness of his ways by the sufferings of his own people: By this the word shall see, that how well soever he loves them, he will not indulge or patronize their sins; if they will be so disengenuous to abuse his favours, he will
be so just to make them suffer for their sins, and by those very sufferings will provide for his own glory, which was by them clouded in the eyes of the world. He hates not sin a jot the less, because it is found in his own people, Amos 3:2. And though, for the magnifying of his mercy, he will pardon their sins, yet for the clearing of his righteousness, he will take vengeance upon their inventions, Psal. 99:8.
Moreover, by exposing his people to such grievous sufferings, he gives a fit opportunity to manifest the glory of his power in their support, and of his wisdom, in the marvellous ways of their escape and deliverance. It is one of the greatest wonders in the world, how the church subsists under such fierce and frequent assaults as are made upon it by enemies. "I will turn aside (said
Moses) and see this great sight, why the bush is not consumed,"
Exod. 3:3. That flaming bush was a lively emblem of the oppressed church in Egypt; the crackling flames noted the heat of their persecution, the remaining of the bush unconsumed in the flames, signified the wonderful power of God in their preservation: No people are so privileged, so protected, so delivered, as the people of God. Much less opposition than hath been made against the church, have overturned, and utterly destroyed, the mighty monarchies of the world.
* —— Sic Medus ademit Assyrio, Medoque tulit moderamina Perses, Subjecit Persen Macedo, cessurus et ipse
Romanis ——
'Assyria's empire thus the Mede did shake, The Persian next, the pride of Media brake;
Then Persia sunk by Macedonia prest, 'That, in its turn, fell by Rome at last.' ——
And no less admirable is the wisdom of God, in frustrating and defeating the most deep and desperate designs of hell, against his poor people. Now, you may see the most wise God going beyond a malicious and subtle devil, overturning in a moment the deep laid designs and contrivances of many years, and that at the very birth and point of execution, Esth. 6:1. snaring the wicked in the works of their own hands; making their own tongues to fall upon them; working out such marvellous salvations with his own hand, as fills them with astonishment and wonder, Psal. 126:1. "When the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dreamed."
Secondly, As God provides for his own glory, by the sufferings and troubles of his people; so he advanceth their happiness, and greatly promotes their interest thereby.
For, First, These troubles are ordered as so many occasions and means to mortify the corruptions that are in their hearts; there are rank weeds springing up in the best soil, which need such winter weather to rot them: And, certainly, if we reckon humility, heavenly mindedness, contempt of the world, and longing desires after heaven, to be the real interest and advantage of the church; then it is evident, nothing so much
promotes their interest, as a suffering condition doth: Adversity kills those corruptions which prosperity bred.
Secondly, By these trials their sincerity is cleared, to the joy and satisfaction of their own hearts; many a doubt and fear, which had long entangled and perplexed them, is removed and answered. When adversity hath given them proof, and trial of their own hearts, one sharp trial wherein God helps us to be faithful, will do more to satisfy our fears, and resolve our doubts, than all the sermons that ever we heard in our lives could do.
Thirdly, These sufferings and trials of the church, are ordained to free it of abundance of hypocrites, which were its reproach, as well as burden, Amos 9:9, 10. Affliction is a furnace to separate the dross from the more pure and noble gold. Multitudes of hypocrites, like flies in a hot summer, are generated by the church's prosperity; but this winter weather kills them: Many gaudy professors grow within the inclosure of the church, like beautiful flowers in the field, where they stand during its peace and prosperity, in the pride and bravery of their gifts and professions; but the wind passeth over them, and they are gone, and their places shall know them no more; to allude to that in Psalm 103:16. Thunder and lightning is very terrible weather, but exceeding useful to purify and cleanse the air.
Fourthly, The church's sufferings are ordered and sanctified, to endear them to each other. Times of common suffering, are times of reconciliation, and greater endearments among the people of God; never more endeared, than when most persecuted; never more united, than when most scattered, Mal.