Chap. 37 XIV. sin is worse than affliction, because it hardens the heart against God, and the means
CHAP. XXXVII.
Sin is Worse than Affliction, because it Hardens the Heart Against God and the Means of Grace.
The opposition sin has to our own good, It has more evil against our selves than any affliction; & for the manifesting that we have opened Thirteen Particulars: Thus far we have gone. There is two
Particulars more to discover the evil of sin as against our good more than afflictions.
XIV. sin is worse than affliction as against our selves, For it is that which hardens the heart against God, and the means of Grace more than any affliction. I do not speak now of hardening the heart against God in opposition to him; but as in opposition to our own good that we should receive from God, in the use of the means of grace; and so sin is more opposite to our good than afflictions.
Affliction rather, usually, does further the means of grace, and prepare the heart for the entertaining of the means of grace; affliction does: But sin hardens the heart against it, and hinders the efficacy of the means of grace upon the souls of men and women;
Hosea, 5. and the last, In their afflictions they will seek me early: then the more afflictions are upon them, the more ready are they to seek me; Isaiah, 26. 16. When thy chastening was upon them, they powered forth their prayer.
Many men and women that never knew how to pray, that would say they could not pray in their families, that they could not pray in secret, any otherwise than to say a prayer, or that they had learned
when they were children to say so many words; they could not pray otherwise:
But when their afflictions are upon them, then their hearts could be driven to God, and they could find how to pray otherwise. There is a speech concerning Mariners, He that knows not how to pray, let him go to Sea: noting, that when he comes into the waves, and tempests, and storms, that would teach him to pray: You Mariners, consider if ever it have taught you to pray: my thinks, of any sort of men in the world, Mariners should have the gift of prayer, because so often in affliction, and in danger of their lives; and many times they find, though they know not how to use their mouths, to fashion their tongues to any thing but oaths at other times; yet when in danger of their lives, they can fall to prayer, and power forth their prayer; when thy chastening is upon them, they power forth their prayer: and that word there translated Prayer, in the Original is a word that signifies to Enchant; and the reason comes from hence, because Enchanters did put a great deal of efficacy in a few words, closed their Sentences in a few words, and thought there was much efficacy in them: So the prayers that comes from men & women in affliction has much efficacy in them, they be not vain light words, but have abundance of efficacy.
So, then, afflictions further the means of grace in the hearts of men and women; it brings them to the Word, and furthers that also; it is as the rain that softens the Earth, and fits it for the Plow; Plow up the fallow ground of your hearts, said the Lord: the Word of God is as the Plow, to plow up the fallow ground of your hearts.
Now Husband-men know when the Earth is dry and hard they cannot plow, their plows are kept out; but when Rain comes and softens the Earth, then their Plows can go. Many times it is so with the hearts of many men and women when they are in prosperity, the Sun-shine of prosperity being upon them, the Plow of the Word cannot get into their hearts; but when afflictions or sickness comes, then the Plow of the Word can get in, and cast up the fallow ground
of their hearts: times of affliction do bring men and women to the Word.
Therefore I remember I have read of Chrysostom, in a Sermon of his to the people of Antioch, where he preached, he tells them,
When they were in trouble, then their Congregations were thrust and filled: It was at such a time when Theodocius the Emperor by the Instigation of the Empress, his Wife, was angry with the City, and threatened to come against it and destroy it in a Warlike manner: then all the people got together, and the Congregations were thrust; and then they prayed and sighed, and great and much prayer there was, when they were afraid the King would come in anger against the City to destroy it.
So that afflictions and troubles, and fears, they do bring men and women to the means of grace, and they do further the means of grace, and make the means to be profitable many times: As it is with the Seed that is sown, if there be a dry hot time after the sowing, it lies under the clods, and comes not up; but if there come rain, then that which was sown divers weeks before, springs up. So we sow the Word of God in your hearts, but the Seed lies under the clods so long as there is the hot Sun-shine of prosperity, till afflictions come, and the rain of affliction brings the Word out, and then something appears.
We have known men that never seemed to be wrought on by the Word, yet when God has laid his hand upon them in some affliction, then there has been brought to their remembrance such a Truth that they heard such a time, and then they have acknowledged the power of the Word, and conscience has then been awakened, and not before.
I remember it is reported of Beza, that famous Instrument of God in the Church, That being a Papist, and living in Paris, and in great
Honor, as he was there, being a man of great Esteem, and good Birth, and had Preferments there; yet he had often times misgiving
thoughts that he was not right, that the Popish Religion was not right, and that the Protestants were in the right, because he had read the Scriptures and compared the Controversy; yet because of his great Honors and preferments in Paris, all went away and could not prevail: but God laid upon him a great sickness, and great afflictions, and then that which he had but overly upon his spirit before, now sunk into his heart more deeply, that as soon as he began to recover, he left Paris, and all his Preferments, and got to Geneva, and there made public profession of the Truth. Thus afflictions further the means of grace; but it is otherwise with sin, that, if let alone, hardens the heart desperately against all the means of grace: Though it be true, God may sometimes put forth his
Almighty Power, and notwithstanding all the sin in the soul of a man or woman, he may make the means of grace effectual; though mans heart be never so stout and stubborn in their ways of sin, yet God may please to come by his Almighty Power, and over power the heart, as he does many times.
Yes, God sometimes lets men go on in horrible wickedness, to manifest his power the more: As the Prophet Elijah; when he would have fire come to devour the Sacrifice, he poured much water upon it, that so the Power of God might the more be manifested: so God suffers deluges of sin to be sometimes in men and women, that he might magnify his Power so much the more in the efficacy of the means of grace.
But yet we are to know that sin, and every sin of its own Nature, does harden the heart against God in the use of all the means of grace; yea, and so hardens the heart, that if men and women live any long time under the means of grace, and continue in the ways of sin, it is a thousand to one whether ever they be wrought upon afterward: usually we find where the means of grace comes to any place, it works for the most part at the first; I do not, nor will not limit God, but for the most part at first it works upon men and women, before they have by sin hardened themselves against it; if once they have continued some little time under it, and their hearts