Observation 1: Those who meet with more strokes than others are not to be accounted greater sinners than others
Observation 1: Those who meet with more strokes than others are not to be accounted greater sinners than others
Obs. 1. That those who meet with more signal strokes than others, are not therefore, nor are to be accounted greater sinners than others. The Lord spares some as great sinners, as he signally punisheth, I tell you, nay.
Reasons of this dispensation of Providence.
1. Because of God's sovereign power and absolute dominion, which he will have the world to understand: Matth, 20:15. "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" Thus our Lord accounts for the dispensation of the man's being born blind, John 9:3. All men have that in them and about them, which may make them liable to the heaviest strokes that any of the children of men meet with; And therefore whatever any suffer, the Lord does them no wrong, since he punishes them less than their iniquity deserves: but amongst many whom justice may strike, sovereignity picks out some, and causes them to smart. And who may say, "what dost thou?"
2. Because we are now under the mixed dispensation of providence; not the unmixed, reserved to another world, when all men shall be put into their unalterable state. Now, hereunto this is very agreeable that God signally punish some of a society, while others as guilty do escape, that the whole may, with David, Psal. 101:1, "sing of mercy and judgment too." And thus the dispensation of divers colours is held up in the world, as a display of the manifold wisdom of God.
3. Because the mercy of God to some is magnified by his severity on others. As black set by white makes the white appear the better; so God's severity against some, may be a looking-glass to others, wherein they may see how much they stand obliged to free grace and mercy, Rom. 11:22. Men are never fairer to prize health in themselves, than when they see others tossed on sick beds; nor to prize the exercise of sense and reason, and other mercies, than when they see what miserable and pitiful sights they are that are deprived of these. And this should make folk patient and thankful under the strokes of the Lord's hand, because if he take away a mercy, health for instance, or perhaps a member or limb of their body, being taken away, it may be more serviceable for him, than when they had it, in so far as it shall serve to magnify the mercy of God to others, that see and notice the hand of the Lord. See Matth. 21:3.
4. Because in very signal strokes very signal mercies may be wrapped up. So it was in Joseph's case; there was a very singular blessing on the head of him that was separated from his brethren. Job's troubles were but a dark hour before a very glorious day. The halt Jacob got in his thigh, was more excellent, as a badge of his wrestling with the angel, than Esau's retinue of four hundred men.
5. Lastly, Because this dispensation is in some sort necessary to confirm us in the belief of the judgment of the great day. God punishes some remarkably, that the world may see that there is a God that judgeth on the earth; he does not so punish all, that men may be assured that there is a judgment to come. If none were punished here, the world would improve that for Atheism; if all were punished, it would be improved to Sadducism.
USE 1. Then learn that unordinary strokes may befall those that are not unordinary sinners; and therefore be not rash in your judgment concerning the strokes that others meet with. It is true, whatever we or others meet with, it is deserved at the Lord's hand; and when God follows an unordinary seen sin with an unordinary judgment, as in the case of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, it is no breach of charity to judge that that stroke comes for that sin. But when people, in whose conversation ye see no signal sin, meet with signal strokes, beware of harsh judging. For in the way of the Lord's dispensation, some will meet with a signal stroke for some sin, such as the world would think little or nothing of, if they knew it.
2. Then adore the mercy of God to you, and wonder at his sparing you, when ye see others smart under the hand of God, which ye do not feel. Acknowledge, that whatever others meet with, the same might have been your lot, if the Lord had dealt with you as ye deserve; as the church did, Lam. 3:22, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not."