Thomas Watson-The Beatitudes Part two

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embowelled and locked up in the mine? And what is it the better to have a great estate if it be so

hoarded and cloistered up as never to see the light?

As God commands, so grace compels to works of mercy and beneficence. ‘The love of Christ

constraineth’ (2 Corinthians 5:14). Grace comes with majesty upon the heart. Grace does not lie

as a sleepy habit in the soul but will put forth itself in vigorous and glorious actings. Grace can no

more be concealed than fire. Like new wine it will have vent. Grace does not lie in the heart as a

stone in the earth, but as seed in the earth. It will spring up into good works.

This doctrine may serve to justify the Church of England against the calumny of malevolent men.

Julian upbraided the Christians that they were Solifidians, and the Church of Rome lays upon us

this aspersion, that we are against good works. Indeed we plead not for the merit of them but we

are for the use of them. ‘Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses’ (Titus 3:14).

We preach that they are needful both as they are enforced by the precept and as they are needful

for the general good of men. We read that the angels had wings, and hands under their wings

(Ezekiel 1:8). It may be emblematic of this truth. Christians must not only have the wings of faith

to fly, but hands under their wings to work the works of mercy. ‘This is a faithful saying, and these

things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to

maintain good works’ (Titus 3:8). The lamp of faith must be filled with the oil of charity. Faith

alone justifies but justifying faith is not alone. You may as well separate weight from lead or heat

from fire as works from faith. Good works, though they are not the causes of salvation, yet they

are evidences. Though they are not the foundation yet they are the superstructure. Faith must not

be built upon works, but works must be built upon faith. ‘Ye are married to another that we should

bring forth fruit unto God’ (Romans 7:4). Faith is the grace which marries Christ and good works

are the children which faith bears. For the vindication of the doctrine of our Church, and in honour

of good works, I shall lay down four aphorisms.

1 Works are distinct from faith. It is vain to imagine that works are included in faith as the diamond

is enclosed in the ring. No, they are distinct, as the sap in the vine is different from the clusters that

grow upon it.

2 Works are the touchstone of faith. ‘Show me thy faith by thy works’ (James 2:18). Works are

faith’s letters of credence to show. If, says Saint Bernard, you see a man full of good works, then

by the rule of charity you are not to doubt of his faith. We judge the health of the body by the pulse

where the blood stirs and operates. O Christian, judge of the health of your faith by the pulse of

mercy and charitableness. It is with faith as with a deed in law. To make a deed valid, there are

three things requisite the writing, the seal, the witnesses. So for the trial and confirmation of faith

there must be these three things the writing, the Word of God; the seal, the Spirit of God; the

witnesses, good works. Bring your faith to this Scripture touchstone. Faith justifies works; works

testify faith.

3 Works honour faith. These fruits adorn the ‘trees of righteousness’. Let the liberality of your hand

(says Clemens Alexandrinus) be the ornament of your faith, and wear it as an holy bracelet about

your wrists. ‘I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame. I put on righteousness and it clothed

me. My judgement was as a robe and a diadem’ (Job 29:14-15). While Job was the poor’s benefactor

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and advocate, this was the ensign of his honour; it clothed him as a robe and crowned him as a

diadem. This is that which takes off the odium and obloquy and makes others speak well of religion

when they see good works as handmaids waiting upon this queen.

4 Good works are in some sense more excellent than faith; in two respects:

Because they are of a more noble diffusive nature. Though faith be more needful for ourselves, yet

good works are more beneficial to others. Faith is a receptive grace. It is all for self-interest. It

moves within its own sphere. Works are for the good of others, and it is a more blessed thing to

give, than to receive.

Good works are more visible and conspicuous than faith. Faith is a more occult grace. It may lie

hidden in the heart and not be seen, but when works are joined with it, now it shines forth in its

native beauty. Though a garden be never so decked with flowers, yet they are not seen till the light

comes. So the heart of a Christian may be enriched with faith, but it is like a flower in the night. It

is not seen till works come. When this light shines before men, then faith appears in its orient

colours.

If this be the effigy of a good man, that he is of a merciful disposition, then it sharply reproves

those that are far from this temper. Their hearts are like the scales of the Leviathan, ’shut up together

as with a close seal’ (Job 41:15). They move only within their own circle, but do not indulge the

necessities of others. They have a flourishing estate, but like the man in the gospel, they have a

withered hand and cannot stretch it out to good uses. They have all as for themselves, not for Christ.

These are akin to the churl Nabal. ‘Shall I take my bread and my water and give it unto men, whom

I know not whence they be?’ (1 Samuel 25:11). It was said of the emperor Pertinax, that he had a

large empire but a narrow scanty heart.

There was a temple at Athens which was called the Temple of Mercy. It was dedicated to charitable

uses; and it was the greatest reproach to upbraid one with this, that he had never been in the Temple

of Mercy. It is the greatest disgrace to a Christian to be unmerciful. Covetous men, while they

enrich themselves, debase themselves, setting up a monopoly and committing idolatry with Mammon,

thus making themselves lower than their angels, as God made them lower than his angels. In the

time of pestilence, it is sad to have your houses shut up, but it is worse to have your hearts shut up.

How miserable is it to have a sea of sin and not a drop of mercy! Covetous hearts, like the Leviathan,

are ‘firm as a stone’ (Job 41:24). One may as well extract oil out of a flint, as the golden oil of

charity out of their flinty hearts. The philosopher says that the coldness of the heart is a presage of

death. When men’s affections to works of mercy are frozen, this coldness of heart is ominous and

sadly portends that they are dead in sin. We read in the law that the shellfish was accounted unclean.

This might probably be one reason, because the meat of it was enclosed in the shell and it was hard

to come by. They are to be reckoned among the unclean who enclose all their estate within the shell

of their own cabinet and will not let others be the better for it. How many have lost their souls by

being so saving!

There are some who perhaps will give the poor good words and that is all. ‘If a brother or sister be

naked and destitute of food and one of you say to them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled;

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notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit?’

(James 2:15). Good words are but a cold kind of charity. The poor cannot live as the chameleon

upon this air.’ Let your words be as smooth as oil, they will not heal the wounded. Let them drop

as the honeycomb, they will not feed the hungry. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of angels and

have not charity, I am but as a tinkling cymbal’ (1 Corinthians 13:1). It is better to be charitable as

a saint than eloquent as an angel. Such as are cruel to the poor, let me tell you, you unchristian

yourselves. Unmercifulness is the sin of the heathen (Romans 1:31). While you put off the bowels

of mercy you put off the badge of Christianity. Saint Ambrose says that when we do not relieve

one whom we see ready to perish with hunger, we are guilty of his death. If this rule hold true there

are more guilty of the breach of the sixth commandment than we are aware of. St James speaks a

sad word: ‘For he shall have judgement without mercy that hath showed no mercy’ (James 2:13).

How do they think to find mercy from Christ, who never showed mercy to Christ in his members?

Dives denied Lazarus a crumb of bread and Dives was denied a drop of water. At the last day behold

the sinner’s indictment, ‘I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me

no drink’ (Matthew 25:42). Christ does not say, ‘Ye took away my meat’, but ‘Ye gave me none;

ye did not feed my members’. Then follows the sentence, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed’. When

Christ’s poor come to your doors and you bid them depart from you, the time may come when you

shall knock at heaven’s gate, and Christ will say, Go from my door, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed’.

In short, covetousness is a foolish sin. God gave the rich man in the gospel that appellation, ‘Thou

fool’ (Luke 12:20). The covetous man does not enjoy what he possesses. He embitters his own life.

He discruciates himself with care either how to get or how to increase or how to secure an estate.

And what is the issue and result? Often as a just reward of sordid penuriousness, God blasts and

withers him in his outward estate. That saying of Gregory Nazianzen is to be seriously weighed:

God many times lets the thief take away and the moth consume that which is injuriously and

unmercifully withheld from the poor.

Before I leave this matter, I am sorry that any who pass for honest men should be brought into the

indictment. I mean, sorry that any who profess Christianity should be impeached as guilty of this

sin of covetousness and unmercifulness. Sure I am that God’s elect put on ‘bowels of mercies’

(Colossians 3:12); but I tell you that devout misers are the reproach of Christianity. They are wens

and spots in the face of religion. I remember Aelian in his History reports that in India there is a

griffin having four feet and wings, his bill like the eagle’s. It is hard whether to rank him among

the beasts or the fowl. So I may say of penurious votaries, they have the wings of profession by

which they seem to fly to heaven, but the feet of beasts, walking on earth and even licking the dust.

It is hard where to rank these, whether among the godly or the wicked. Oh take heed that, seeing

your religion will not destroy your covetousness, at last your covetousness does not destroy your

religion. The fabulist tells a story of the hedgehog that came to the cony-burrows in stormy weather

and desired harbour, promising that he would be a quiet guest, but when once he had gotten

entertainment, he set up his prickles and never left till he had thrust the poor conies out of their

burrows. So covetousness, though it has many fair pleas to insinuate and wind itself into the heart,

yet as soon as you have let it in, this thorn will never leave pricking till it has choked all good

beginnings and thrust all religion out of your hearts.

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I proceed next to the exhortation to beseech all Christians to put on ‘bowels of mercies’. Be ready

to indulge the miseries and necessities of others. Saint Ambrose calls charity the sum of Christianity,

and the apostle makes it the very definition of religion. ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God

and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction’ (James 1:27). The

Hebrew word for ‘poor’ signifies ‘one that is empty’ or ‘drawn dry’. So the poor are exhausted of

their strength, beauty, substance; like ponds they are dried up. Therefore let them be filled again

with the silver streams of charity. The poor are as it were in the grave. The comfort of their life is

buried. Oh Christians, help with your merciful hands to raise them out of the sepulchre. God ’sendeth

his springs into the valleys’ (Psalm 104:10). Let the springs of your liberality run among the valleys

of poverty. Your sweetest and most benign influence should fall upon the lower grounds. What is

all your seeming devotion without bounty and mercifulness? I have known many, says Basil, pray

and fast, but relieve not such as are in distress. They are for a zeal that will put them to no charges.

What are they the better (says he) for all their seeming virtue? We read that the incense was to be

laid upon the fire (Leviticus 16:13). The flame of devotion must be perfumed with the incense of

charity. Aaron was to have a bell and a pomegranate. The pomegranate, as some of the learned

observe, was a symbol of good works. They lack the pomegranate (says Gregory Nazianzen) who

have no good works. The wise men not only bowed the knee to Christ, but presented him with gold,

myrrh and frankincense (Matthew 2:11). Pretences of zeal are insufficient. We must not only

worship Christ but bestow something upon his members. This is to present Christ with gold and

frankincense. Isaac would not bless Jacob by the voice, but he feels and handles him, and supposing

them to be Esau’s hands, he blessed him. God will not bless men by their voice, their loud prayers,

their devout discourses, but if he feel Esau’s hands, if their hands have wrought good works, then

he blesses them.

Let me exhort you therefore to deeds of mercy. Let your fingers drop with the myrrh of liberality.

Sow your golden seed. In this sense it is lawful to put out your money to use when you lay it out

for good uses. Remember that excellent saying of Augustine, Give those things to the poor which

you cannot keep that you may receive those things which you cannot lose. There are many occasions

of exercising your mercifulness. ‘The poor goes to the wall.’ Hear the orphans’ cry; pity the widows’

tears. Some there are who want employment. It would do well to set their wheel a-going. Others

who are past employment: be as eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. In some cases whole families

are sinking if some merciful hand does not help to shore them up. Before I press arguments to

liberality and munificence, there are three objections lie in the way which I shall endeavour to

remove:

1 We may give and so in time come ourselves to want.

Let Basil answer this. Wells (says he), which have their water drawn, spring ever more freely. ‘The

liberal soul shall be made fat ’ (Proverbs 11:25). Luther speaks of a monastery in Austria which

was very rich while it gave annually to the poor, but when it left off giving the monastery began

to decay. There is nothing lost by doing our duty. An estate may be imparted, yet not impaired.

The flowers yield honey to the bee yet do not hurt their own fruit. When the candle of prosperity

shines upon us we may light our neighbour that is in the dark and have never the less light ourselves.

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Whatever is disbursed to pious uses, God brings it in some other way. As the loaves in breaking

multiplied or as the widow’s oil increased by pouring out (1 Kings 17:10).

2 I cannot do so much as others — erect churches, build hospitals, augment libraries, maintain

scholars at the university.

If you cannot do so much, yet do something. Let there be much goodwill though there be not much

wealth to go with it. The widow’s two mites cast into the treasury were accepted (Luke 21:14).

God (as Chrysostom observes) looked not at the smallest of her gift, but at the largeness of her

heart. In the law, he that could not bring a lamb for an offering, if he brought but two turtledoves,

it sufficed. We read that the people brought ‘gold and silver, and goats, hair, to the building of the

tabernacle’ (Exodus 35:22-24); on which place (says Origen), ‘I desire, Lord, to bring something

to the building of thy temple, if not gold to make the mercy-seat on, if not silk to make the curtains

on, yet a little goats’ hair, that I may not be found in the number of those that have brought nothing

to thy temple’.

3 But I do not have anything to bestow upon the necessities of others.

Have you anything to bestow upon your lusts? Have you money to feed your pride, your Epicurism?

And can you find nothing to relieve the poor members of Christ?

Admit this excuse to be real, that you do not have such an estate; yet you may do something wherein

you may express your mercy to the poor. You may sympathise with them, pray for them, speak a

word of comfort to them. ‘Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem’ (Isaiah 40:2). If you can give them

no gold, you may speak a word in season which may be as ‘apples of gold in pictures of silver’.

Nay more, you may be helpful to the poor in stirring up others who have estates to relieve them.

As it is with the wind, if a man be hungry the wind will not fill him, but it can blow the sails of the

mill and make it grind corn for the use of man. So though you do not have an estate yourself to

help him who is in want, yet you may stir up others to help him. You may blow the sails of their

affections, causing them to show mercy, and so you may help your brother by a proxy.

Having answered these objections let me now pursue the exhortation to mercifulness. I shall lay

down several arguments which I desire may be weighed in the balance of reason and conscience.

1 To be diffusively good is the great end of our creation. ‘Created in Christ Jesus unto good works’

(Ephesians 2:10). Every creature answers the end of its creation. The star shines, the bird sings, the

plant bears; the end of life is service. He that does not answer his end in respect of usefulness,

cannot enjoy his end in respect of happiness. Many, says Seneca, have been long in the world, but

have not lived. They have done no good: ‘a useless weight of earth’. A useless person serves for

nothing but to ‘cumber the ground’. And because he is barren in figs he shall be fruitful in curses

(Hebrews 6:8).

2 By mercifulness we resemble God who is a God of mercy. He is said to ‘delight in mercy’ (Micah

7:18). ‘His tender mercies are over all his works, (Psalm 145:9). He requires good for evil, like the

clouds which receive ill vapours from us but return them to us again in sweet showers. There is not

a creature lives but tastes of the mercies of God. Every bird, says Ambrose, in its kind sings hymns

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of praise to God for his bounty, but men and angels in a more particular manner taste the cream

and quintessence of God’s mercies.

What temporal mercies have you received! Every time you draw your breath you suck in mercy.

Every bit of bread you eat, the hand of mercy carves it to you. You never drink but in a golden cup

of mercy.

What spiritual mercies has God enriched some of you with! Pardoning, adopting, saving mercy!

The picture of God’s mercy can never be drawn to the full. You cannot take the breadth of his

mercy, for it is infinite, nor the height of it, for it ‘reacheth above the clouds’, nor the length of it,

for it is ‘from everlasting to everlasting’ (Psalm 103:17). The works of mercy are the glory of the

Godhead. Moses prays, ‘Lord, show me thy glory’ (Exodus 33:18). Says God, ‘I will make all my

goodness to pass before thee’ (verse 19). God accounts himself most glorious in the shining robes

of his mercy. Now by works of mercy we resemble the God of mercy. We are bid to draw our lines

according to this copy. ‘Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful’ (Luke 6:36).

3 Alms are a sacrifice. ‘To do good and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God

is well pleased’ (Hebrews 13:16). When you are distributing to the poor, it is as if you were praying,

as if you were worshipping God. There are two sorts of sacrifices; expiatory the sacrifice of Christ’s

blood; and gratulatory the sacrifice of alms. This (says holy Greenham) is more acceptable to God

than any other sacrifice. The angel said to Cornelius, ‘Thy alms are come up for a memorial before

God’ (Acts 10:4). The backs of the poor are the altar on which this sacrifice is to be offered.

4 We ourselves live upon alms. Other creatures liberally contribute to our necessities. The sun does

not have its light for itself but for us; it enriches us with its golden beams. The earth brings us a

fruitful crop, and to show how joyful a mother she is in bringing forth, the psalmist says ‘The

valleys are covered over with corn, they shout for joy, they also sing’ (Psalm 65:13). One creature

gives us wool, another oil, another silk. We are fain to go a-begging to the creation. Shall every

creature be for the good of man and man only be for himself? How absurd and irrational is this!

5 We are to extend our liberality by virtue of a membership: ‘That thou hide not thyself from thine

own flesh’ (Isaiah 50:7). The poor are ‘of the same clay’. The members by a law of equity and

sympathy contribute one to another. The eye conveys light to the body, the heart blood, the head

spirits. That is a dead member in the body which does not communicate to the rest. Thus it is in

the body politic. Let no man think it is too far below him to mind the wants and necessities of

others. It is pity but that hand should be cut off which disdains to pluck a thorn out of the foot. It

is spoken in the honour of that renowned princess, the Empress of Theodosius the Great, that she

herself visited the sick and prepared relief for them with her own imperial hands.

6 We are not lords of an estate, but stewards, and how soon may we hear the word, ‘Give an account

of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward!’ (Luke 16:2). An estate is a talent to

trade with. It is as dangerous to hide our talent as to spend it (Matthew 25:25, 30). If the covetous

man keeps his gold too long, it will begin to rust, and the rust of it will witness against him (James

5:3).

7 The examples of others who have been renowned for acts of mercy and munificence.

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Our Lord Christ is a great example of charity, he was not more full of merit than bounty. Trajan

the Emperor rent off a piece of his own robe to wrap his soldiers’ wounds. Christ did more. He rent

his flesh; He made a medicine of his body and blood to heal us. ‘By his stripes we are healed’

(Isaiah 53:5). Here was a pattern of charity without a parallel.

The Jews are noted in this kind. It is a rabbinical observation that those who live devoutly among

the Jews distribute a tenth part of their estate among the poor, and they give so freely (says Philo

the Jew) as if by giving they hope to receive some great gratuity. Now if the Jews are so devoted

to works of mercy, who live without priest, without temple, without Messiah, shall not we much

more profess our faith in the blessed Messiah!

Let me tell you of heathens. I have read of Titus Vespasian, he was so inured to works of mercy

that remembering he had given nothing that day, cried out, ‘I have lost a day’. It is reported of some

of the Turks that they have servants whom they employ on purpose to enquire what poor they have

and they send relief to them. And the Turks have a saying in their Alcoran, that if men knew what

a blessed thing it were to distribute alms, rather than spare, they would give some of their own flesh

to relieve the poor. And shall not a Christian’s creed be better than a Turk’s Alcoran?

Let all this persuade to works of mercy. ‘Believe me, it is a royal deed to succour the fallen.’

When poor indigent creatures like Moses are laid in the ark of bulrushes weeping and ready to sink

in the waters of affliction, be as temporal saviours to them and draw them out of the waters with a

golden cord. Let the breasts of your mercy nurse the poor. Be like the trees of the sanctuary both

for food and medicine (Ezekiel 47:12). When distressed and even starved souls are fainting, let

your costly ingredients revive and fetch spirits in them. Let others see the coats and garments which

you have made for the poor (Acts 9:39).

8 The sin of unmercifulness. The unmerciful man is an unthankful man, and what can be said worse?

You to whom the Lord has given an estate, your cup runs over, but you have a miserly heart and

will not part with anything for good uses; it is death to you to relieve them that are dying. Know

that you are in the highest degree ungrateful; you are not fit for human society. The Scripture has

put these two together ‘unthankful, without natural affection’ (2 Timothy 3:2, 3). God may repent

that ever he gave such men estates, and may say as Hosea 2:9: ‘Therefore will I return and take

away my corn and my wine in the season thereof and will recover my wool and my flax.’

The unmerciful man lacks love to Christ. All men would be thought to love Christ and would be

very angry with them that should question their love; but do they love Christ who let the members

of Christ starve? No, these love their money more than Christ, and come under that fearful

‘Anathema’ (1 Corinthians 16:22).

9 Lastly, I shall use but one argument more to persuade to works of mercy, and that is the reward

which follows alms-deeds. Giving of alms is a glorious work, and let me assure you it is not unfruitful

work. Whatsoever is disbursed to the poor is given to Christ. ‘Inasmuch as you have done it to one

of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ (Matthew 25:40). The poor man’s hand

is Christ’s treasury, and there is nothing lost that is put there. ‘Whatsoever you give by stretching

forth your hand on earth is as it were given in heaven’. The text says, ‘the merciful shall obtain

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mercy’. In the Greek it is, ‘they shall be bemercied’. What is it we need most? Is it not mercy?

Pardoning and saving mercy? What is it we desire on our deathbed? Is it not mercy? You that show

mercy shall find mercy. You that pour in the oil of compassion to others, God will pour in the

golden oil of salvation unto you (Matthew 7:2). The Shunammite woman showed mercy to the

prophet and she received kindness from him another way (2 Kings 4:8-37). She welcomed him to

her house, and he restored her dead child to life. They that sow mercy shall reap in kind; ‘they shall

obtain mercy’. Such is the sweetness and mercifulness of God’s nature, that he will not suffer any

man to be a loser. No kindness shown to him shall be unregarded or unrewarded. God will be in

no man’s debt. For a cup of cold water he shall have a draught of Christ’s warm blood to refresh

his soul. ‘For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which you have shown

toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints . . .’ (Hebrews 6:10). God’s mercy is a

tender mercy, a pure mercy, a rich mercy. Mercy shall follow and overtake the merciful man. He

shall be rewarded in this life and in the life to come.

The merciful man shall be rewarded in this life. He shall be blessed —

In his person: ‘Blessed is he that considers the poor’ (Psalm 41:1). Let him go whither he will, a

blessing goes along with him. He is in favour with God. God casts a smiling aspect upon him.

Blessed in his name: ‘He shall be had in everlasting remembrance’ (Psalm 112:6). When the

niggard’s name shall rot, the name of a merciful man shall be embalmed with honour, and give

forth its scent as the wine of Lebanon.

Blessed in his estate: ‘He shall abound in all things’. ‘The liberal soul shall be made fat’ (Proverbs

2:25). He shall have the fat of the earth and the dew of heaven. He shall not only have the venison,

but the blessing.

Blessed in his posterity: ‘He is ever merciful and lendeth; and his seed is blessed’ (Psalm 37:26).

He shall not only leave an estate behind, but a blessing behind to his children, and God will see

that the entail of that blessing shall not be cut off.

Blessed in his negotiations: ‘For this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and

in all that thou puttest thine hand unto’ (Deuteronomy 15:10). The merciful man shall be blessed

in his building, planting, journeying. Whatever he is about, a blessing shall empty itself upon him.

‘Wherever he treads there shall be a rose’. He shall be a prosperous man. The honeycomb of a

blessing shall be still dropping upon him.

Blessed with long life: ‘The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive’ (Psalm 41:2). He has helped

to keep others alive, and God will keep him alive. Is there anything then lost by mercifulness? It

spins out the silver thread of life. Many are taken away the sooner for their unmercifulness. Because

their hearts are straitened, their lives are shortened.

Again, the merciful man shall be rewarded in the life to come. Aristotle joins these two together,

liberality and utility. God will reward the merciful man hereafter, though not for his works, yet

according to his works. ‘I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were

opened, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according

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to their works’ (Revelation 20:12). As God has a bottle to put our tears in, so he has a book to write

our alms in. As God will put a veil over his people’s sins, so he will in free grace set a crown upon

their works. The way to lay up is to lay out. Other parts of our estate are left behind (Ecclesiastes

2:18), but that which is given to Christ’s poor is hoarded up in heaven. That is a blessed kind of

giving which though it makes the purse lighter, it makes the crown heavier.

You that are mercifully inclined, remember whatever alms you distribute:

You shall have good security. ‘He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord; and that which he hath

given will he pay him again’ (Ecclesiastes 11:1; Luke 6:38; Proverbs 19:17). There is God’s

counter-band to save you harmless, which is better security than any public faith. Yet here is our

unbelief and atheism; we will not take God’s bond. We commonly put our deeds of mercy among

our desperate debts.

You shall be paid with over-plus. For a wedge of gold which you have parted with you shall have

a weight of glory. For a cup of cold water you shall have rivers of pleasure, which run at God’s

right hand for evermore. The interest comes to infinitely more than the principal. Pliny writes of a

country in Africa where the people for every bushel of seed they sow receive an hundred and

fifty-fold increase. For every penny you drop into Christ’s treasury, you shall receive above a

thousand-fold increase. Your after-crop of glory will be so great that, though you are still reaping,

you will never be able to inn the whole harvest. Let all this persuade rich men to honour the Lord

with their substance

Before I conclude this subject, let me lay down some rules briefly concerning works of mercy.

1 Charity must be free. ‘Thou shalt give, and thy heart must not be grieved . ..’ (Deuteronomy

15:10). That is, you must not be troubled at parting with your money. He that gives grievingly,

gives grudgingly. It is not a gift, but a tax. Charity must flow like spring-water. The heart must be

the spring, the hand the pipe, the poor the cistern. God loves a cheerful giver. Do not be like the

crab which has all the ver-juice squeezed and pressed out. You must not give to the poor as if you

were delivering your purse on the highway. Charity without alacrity is rather a fine than an offering.

It is rather doing of penance than giving of alms. Charity must be like the myrrh which drops from

the tree without cutting or forcing.

2 We must give that which is our own (Isaiah 58:7). To deal bread to the hungry, it must be ‘thy

bread’. The word for ‘alms, in the Syriac signifies ‘justice’, to show that alms must be of that which

is justly gotten. The Scripture puts them together, ‘To do justice, to love mercy.’ (Micah 6:8). We

must not make ‘a sacrifice out of robbery’, a sacrifice of sacrilege. ‘For I the Lord love judgement,

I hate robbery for burnt offering’ (Isaiah 61:8). He that shall build an almshouse or hospital with

goods ill-gotten displays the ensign of his pride and sets up the monument of his shame.

3 Do all in Christ and for Christ.

Do all in Christ. Labour that your persons may be in Christ. We are ‘accepted in him’ (Ephesians

1:6). Origen, Chrysostom, and Peter Martyr affirm that the best works not springing from faith are

lost. The Pelagians thought to have posed Augustine with that question, Whether it was sin in the

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heathen to clothe the naked? Augustine answered rightly: ‘The doing of good is not in itself simply

evil, but proceeding from infidelity it becomes evil’. ‘To them that are unbelieving is nothing pure’

(Titus 1:15). That fruit is most sweet and genuine which is brought forth in the vine (John 15:4).

Out of Christ all our alms-deeds are but the fruit of the wild olive. They are not good works but

dead works.

Do all for Christ, namely, for his sake, that you may testify your love to him. Love mellows and

ripens our alms-deeds. It makes them a precious perfume to God. As Mary did out of love bring

her ointments and sweet spices to anoint Christ’s dead body, so out of love to Christ bring your

ointments and anoint his living body, viz., saints and members.

4 Works of mercy are to be done in humility. Away with ostentation! The worm breeds in the fairest

fruit, the moth in the finest cloth. Pride will be creeping into our best things. Beware of this dead

fly in the box of ointment. When Moses’ face shone, he put a veil over it. So while your light shines

before men and they see your good works, cover yourselves with the veil of humility. As the

silkworm, while she weaves her curious works, hides herself within the silk and is not seen, so we

should hide ourselves from pride and vainglory.

It was the sin of the Pharisees while they were distributing alms that they blew the trumpet (Matthew

6:2). They did not give their alms, but sold them for applause. A proud man ‘casts his bread upon

the waters’, as a fisherman casts his angle upon the waters. He angles for vainglory. I have read of

one Cosmus Medices, a rich citizen of Florence, that he confessed to a near friend of his, he built

so many magnificent structures, and spent so much on scholars and libraries, not for any love to

learning but to raise up to himself trophies of fame and renown. An humble soul denies himself,

yes, even annihilates himself. He thinks how little it is he can do for God, and if he could do more,

it were but a due debt. Therefore he looks upon all his works as if he had done nothing. The saints

are brought in at the last day as disowning their works of charity. ‘Lord, when saw we thee an

hungered and fed thee . . .?’ (Matthew 25:37). A good Christian not only empties his hand of alms,

but empties his heart of pride. While he raises the poor out of the dust, he lays himself in the dust.

Works of mercy must be like the cassia which is a sweet spice, but grows low.

5 Dispose your alms prudentially. It is said of the merciful man, ‘He orders his affairs with discretion’

(Psalm 112:5). There is a great deal of wisdom in distinguishing between those that have sinned

themselves into poverty, and those who by the hand of God are brought into poverty. Discretion

in the distribution of alms consists of two things: in finding out a fit object; in taking a fit season.

The finding out a fit object comes under a double notion. Give to those who are in most need. Raise

the hedge where it is lowest. Feed the lamp which is going out. Give to those who may probably

be more serviceable. Though we bestow cost and dressing upon a weak plant, yet not upon a dead

plant. Breed up such as may help to build the house of Israel (Ruth 4:11), that may be pillars in

church and state, not caterpillars making your charity to blush.

Discretion in giving alms is in taking the fit season. Give to charitable uses in time of health and

prosperity. Distribute your silver and gold to the poor before ‘the silver cord be loosed or the golden

bowl be broken’ (Ecclesiastes 12:6). ‘He who gives quickly gives double’. Make your hands your

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executors; not as some who reserve all they give till the term of life is ready to expire, and truly

what is then bestowed is not given away, but taken away by death. It is not charity, but necessity.

Oh do not so marry yourselves to money that you are resolved nothing shall part you but death. Be

not like the medlar which is never good till it be rotten. A covetous man may be compared to a

Christmas-box. He receives money, but parts with none till death breaks this box in pieces. Then

the silver and the gold come tumbling out. Give in time of health. These are the alms which God

takes notice of, and (as Calvin says) puts in his book of accounts.

6 Give thankfully. They should be more thankful that give an alms than they that receive it. We

should (says Nazianzen) give a thank-offering to God that we are in the number of givers and not

receivers. Bless God for a willing mind. To have not only an estate, but an heart, is matter of

gratulation.

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16. A description of heart-purity

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matthew 5:8

The holy God, who is ‘of purer eyes than to behold iniquity’ calls here for heart-purity, and to such

as are adorned with this jewel, he promises a glorious and beatifical vision of himself: ‘they shall

see God’. Two things are to be explained the nature of purity; the subject of purity.

1 The nature of purity. Purity is a sacred refined thing. It stands diametrically opposed to whatsoever

defiles. We must distinguish the various kinds of purity. First, there is a primitive purity which is

in God originally and essentially as light is in the sun. Holiness is the glory of the Godhead: ‘Glorious

in holiness’ (Exodus 15:11). God is the pattern and prototype of all holiness. Second, there is a

created purity. Thus holiness is in the angels and was once in Adam. Adam’s heart did not have

the least spot or tincture of impurity. We call that wine pure which has no sophistication; and that

gold pure which has no dross mingled with it. Such was Adam’s holiness. It was like the wine

which comes from the grape, having no mixture. But this is not to be found on earth. We must go

to heaven for it.

Third, there is an evangelical purity; whence grace is mingled with some sin, like gold in the ore,

like air in the twilight, like wine that has a dash in it, like fine cloth with a coarse list, like

Nebuchadnezzar’s image, part of silver, and part of clay (Daniel 2:35). This mixture God calls

purity in a gospel-sense; as a face may be said to be fair which has some freckles in it. Where there

is a study of purity and a loathing ourselves for our impurity, this is to be ‘pure in heart’.

Some by pure in heart, understand chastity, others sincerity (Psalm 32:2). But I suppose purity here

is to be taken in a larger sense for the several kinds and degrees of holiness. They are said to be

pure who are consecrated persons, having the oil of graces poured upon them. This purity is much

mistaken.

Civility is not purity. A man may be clothed with moral virtues justice, prudence, temperance yet

go to hell.

Profession is not purity. A man may have a name to live and yet be dead (Revelation 3:1). He may

be swept by civility and garnished by profession, yet the devil may dwell in the house. The blazing

comet is no star. The hypocrite’s tongue may be silver, yet his heart stone. Purity consists in two

things; rectitude of mind, a prizing holiness in the judgement (Psalm 119:30); conformity of will,

an embracing of holiness in the affections (Psalm 119:97). A pure soul is cast into the mould of

holiness. Holiness is a blood that runs in his veins.

2 The subject of purity: the heart: ‘pure in heart’. Purity of heart does not exclude purity of life, no

more than the pureness of the fountain excludes the pureness of the stream. But it is called purity

of heart, because this is the main thing in religion, and there can be no purity of life without it. A

Christian’s great care should be to keep the heart pure, as one would especially preserve the spring

from being poisoned. In a duel, a man will chiefly guard and fence his heart, so a wise Christian

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should above all things keep his heart pure. Take heed that the love of sin does not get in there, lest

it prove mortal.

Christians should above all things breathe after heart purity: ‘Holding the mystery of the faith in a

pure conscience’ (1 Timothy 3:9). Justification causes our happiness, sanctification evidences it.

1 The reasons for purity are: (i) Purity is a thing called for in Scripture: ‘Be ye holy for I am holy’

(1 Peter 1:16). It is not only the minister bids you be holy, but God himself calls for it. What should

the Holy God do with unholy servants?

(ii) Because of that filthy and cursed condition we are in before purity be wrought in us. We are a

lump of clay and sin mingled together. Sin not only blinds us, but defiles us. It is called filthiness

(James 1:21). And to show how befilthying a thing it is, it is compared to a plague-sore (1 Kings

8:38), to spots (Deuteronomy 32:5), to a vomit (2 Peter 2:22), to the infants ‘tumbling in blood’

(Ezekiel 16:6), and to a ‘menstruous cloth’ (Isaiah 30:22), which (as Jerome says) was the most

defiling thing under the law. All the legal warnings which God appointed were but to put men in

mind of their loathsomeness before they were washed in the blood of Christ. If all the evils in the

world were put together and their quintessence strained out, they could not make a thing so black

and polluted as sin does. A sinner is a devil in man’s shape. When Moses’ rod was turned into a

serpent, he fled from it. Would God open men’s eyes and show them their deformities and damnable

spots, they would be afraid and fly from themselves as serpents! This shows what need we have

of purity. When grace comes it washes off this hellish filth. Of Ethiopians it makes us Israelites. It

turns ravens into swans. It makes them who are as black as hell to become white as snow.

(iii) Because none but the pure in heart are interested in the covenant of grace. Covenanted persons

have ‘the sprinkling with clean water’ (Ezekiel 36:25). Now, till we are thus sprinkled, we have

nothing to do with the new covenant and by consequence with the new Jerusalem. If a will be made

only to such persons as are so qualified, none can come in for a part, but such as have those

qualifications. So, God has made a will and covenant that he will be our God, and will settle heaven

upon us by entail, but with this clause or proviso in the will, that we be purified persons, having

the ‘clean water sprinkled, upon us. Now till then, we have nothing to do with God or mercy.

(iv) Purity is the end of our election. ‘He has chosen us that we should be holy’ (Ephesians 1:4).

Not for holiness, but to holiness. ‘Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed

to the image of his Son’ (Romans 8:29). God predestinates us to Christ’s image, which image

consists ‘in righteousness and true holiness’ (Ephesians 4:24). So that till you are holy, you cannot

show any sign of election upon you, but rather the devil’s brand-mark.

(v) Purity is the end of our redemption. If we could have gone to heaven in our sins, Christ needed

not have died. Why did he shed his blood but to redeem us from ‘a vain conversation’? (1 Peter:18,

19); and, ‘who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself

a peculiar people’ (Titus 2:14). Christ shed his blood to wash off our filth. The cross was both an

altar and a laver. Jesus died not only to save us from wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10), but to save us

from sin (Matthew 1:21). Out of his side came water which signifies our cleansing, as well as blood

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which signifies our justifying (1 John 5:6). The truth is, it were to make the body of Christ monstrous,

if the head should be pure and not the members.

2 Why purity must be chiefly in the heart.

(i) Because if the heart be not pure, we differ nothing from a Pharisaic purity. The Pharisees’

holiness consisted chiefly in externals. Theirs was an outside purity. They never minded the inside

of the heart. ‘Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye make clean the outside of

the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion’, and ‘Ye are like unto whited

sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones’

(Matthew 23:25, 27). The Pharisees were good only on the surface. They were whited over, not

white. They were like a rotten post laid in vermilion colour, like a fair chimney-piece gilded without,

but within nothing but soot. Of such hypocrites Salvian complains, who had Christ in their mouths

but to no purpose. We must go further. Be ‘pure in heart’, like the king’s daughter ‘all glorious

within’ (Psalm 45:13); else ours is but a Pharisaic purity; and Christ says, ‘Except your righteousness

shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom

of heaven’ (Matthew 5:20).

(ii) The heart must especially be kept pure, because the heart is the chief seat or place of God’s

residence. God dwells in the heart. He takes up the heart for his own lodging (Isaiah 57:15; Ephesians

3:17), therefore it must be pure and holy. A king’s palace must be kept from defilement, especially

his presence-chamber. How holy ought that to be! If the body be the temple of the Holy Ghost (1

Corinthians 6:19), the heart is the holy of holies! Oh take heed of defiling the room where God is

to come. Let that room be washed with holy tears.

(iii) The heart must especially be pure, because it is the heart that sanctifies all we do. If the heart

be holy, all is holy — our affections holy, our duties holy. ‘The altar sanctifieth the gift’ (Matthew

23:19). The heart is the altar that sanctifies the offering. The Romans kept their springs from being

poisoned. The heart is the spring of all our actions; let us keep this spring from poison. Be ‘pure

in heart’.

See here what is the beauty that sets off a soul in God’s eye, namely, purity of heart. You who are

never so beautiful are but a spiritual leper till you are pure in heart. God is in love with the pure

heart for he sees his own picture drawn there. Holiness is a beam of God; it is the angels’ glory.

They are pure virgin-spirits. Take away purity from an angel and he is no more an angel but a devil.

You who are pure in heart have the angels’ glory shining in you. You have the embroidery and

workmanship of the Holy Ghost upon you. The pure heart is God’s paradise where he delights to

walk. It is his lesser heaven. The dove delights in the purest air. The Holy Ghost who descended

in the likeness of a dove delights in the purest soul. God says of the pure in heart as of Zion, ‘This

is my rest for ever, here will I dwell’ (Psalm 132:14). God loves the fairest complexion. The pure

in heart is Christ’s bride, decked and bespangled with the jewels of holiness. ‘Thou hast ravished

my heart with one of thine eyes’ (Canticles 4:9). Thine eyes, that is, thy graces; these as a chain of

pearl have drawn mine heart to thee. Of all hearts God loves the pure heart best. You who dress

yourself by the glass of the Word and adorn ‘the hidden man of thy heart’ (1 Peter 3:4), are most

precious in God’s eyes, though you may be blear-eyed as Leah, lame as Barzillai,’ yet being ‘pure

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in heart, you are the mirror of beauty and may say ‘Yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord’

(Isaiah 49:5). How may this raise the esteem of purity! This is a beauty that never fades and which

makes God himself fall in love with us.

If we must be pure in heart then we must not rest in outward purity. Civility is not sufficient. A

swine may be washed, yet a swine still. Civility does but wash a man, grace changes him. Civility,

like a star may shine in the eyes of the world, but it differs as much from purity as the crystal from

the diamond. Civility is but strewing flowers on a dead corpse. A man may be wonderfully moralised,

yet but a tame devil. How many have made civility their saviour! Morality may damn as well as

vice. A vessel may be sunk with gold, as well as with dung.

Observe two things:

1 The civil person, though he will not commit gross sins, yet he is not sensible of heart sins. He

does not discern the ‘law in his members’ (Romans 7:23). He is not troubled for unbelief, hardness

of heart, vanity of thoughts. He abhors gaol-sins, not gospel-sins.

2 The civil person has an aching tooth at religion. His heart rises against holiness. The snake is of

a fine colour, but has a deadly sting. The civil man is fair to look to, but has a secret antipathy

against the ways of God. He hates grace as much as vice. Zeal is as odious to him as uncleanness.

So that civility is not to be rested in. The heart must be pure. God would have Aaron wash the

inwards of the sacrifice (Leviticus 9:14). Civility does but wash the outside; the inwards must be

washed. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’.

Let us put ourselves on trial whether we are pure-hearted or no. Here I shall do two things to show

the signs, first, of an impure heart; second, of a pure heart.

1 An ignorant heart is an impure heart. To be ignorant of sin or Christ argues impurity of heart.

Nahash the Ammonite would enter into covenant with the men of Jabesh-Gilead so he might thrust

out their right eyes (1 Samuel 11:2). Satan leaves men their left eye. In worldly knowledge they

are quick-sighted enough but the right eye of spiritual knowledge is quite put out (2 Corinthians

4:4). Ignorance is Satan’s stronghold (Acts 26:18). The devils are bound in chains of darkness (Jude

6). So are all ignorant persons. Impossible it is that an ignorant heart should be good. It is knowledge

makes the heart good. ‘That the soul be without knowledge is not good’ (Proverbs 19:2). For any

to say that, though their mind be ignorant yet their heart is good, they may as well say that, though

they are blind yet their eyes are good. In the law, when the plague of leprosy was in a man’s head

the priest was to pronounce him unclean. This is the case of an ignorant man. The leprosy is in his

head, ‘he is unclean’. That heart cannot be very pure which is a dungeon. Grace cannot reign where

ignorance reigns. An ignorant man can have no love to God. ‘He cannot love that which he does

not know’. He can have no faith. Knowledge must usher in faith (Psalm 9:10). He cannot worship

God aright (John 4:22). Though he may worship the true God, yet in a wrong manner. Ignorance

is the root of sin. Blindness leads to lasciviousness (Ephesians 4:18, 19; Proverbs 7:23). Ignorance

is the mother of pride (Revelation 3:17). It is the cause of error (2 Timothy 3:7), and, which is

worse, an affected ignorance. ‘It is one thing to be ignorant; it is another thing to be unwilling to

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know’. Many are in love with ignorance. They hug their disease (Job 21:14; 2 Peter 3:5). Ignorant

minds are impure. There is no going to heaven in the dark.

2 That heart is impure which sees no need of purity. ‘I am rich and have need of nothing’ (Revelation

3:17). Not to be sensible of a disease is worse than the disease. You shall hear a sick man say, ‘I

am well, I ail nothing’. There are some who ‘need no repentance’ (Luke 15:7). Some sinners are

too well to be cured. Heart purity is as great a wonder to the natural man as the new birth was to

Nicodemus (John 3:4). It is sad to think how many go on confidently and are ready to bless

themselves, never suspecting their condition till it be too late.

3 He has an impure heart who regards iniquity in his heart. ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the

Lord will not hear me’ (Psalm 66:18). In the original it is ‘If I look upon sin’, that is, with a lustful

look. Sin-regarding is inconsistent with heart-purity.

What is it to ‘regard iniquity,?

(i) When we indulge in sin. When sin not only lives in us, but when we live in sin. Some will leave

all their sins but one. Jacob would let all his sons go but Benjamin. Satan can hold a man by one

sin. The fowler holds the bird fast enough by a wing or a claw. Others hide their sins like one that

shuts up his shop-windows but follows his trade within doors. Many deal with their sins as Moses,

mother dealt with her son. She hid him in the ark of bulrushes, as if she had left him quite, but her

eye was still upon him and in conclusion she became his nurse (Exodus 2:9). So, many seem to

leave their sins, but they only hide them from the eye of others. Their heart still goes after them

and at last they nurse and give breast to their sins.

(ii) To regard iniquity is to delight in iniquity. A child of God, though he sins, yet he does not take

a complacency in sin. ‘What I hate, that do I’ (Romans 7:15). But impure souls make a recreation

of sin. ‘They had pleasure in unrighteousness’ (2 Thessalonians 2:12). Never did one feed with

more delight on a dish he loves than a wicked man does upon the forbidden fruit. This delight shows

that the will is in the sin. And ‘the will is the rule and measure of the deed’.

(iii) To regard iniquity is to lay in provision for sin. ‘Make not provision for the flesh’ (Romans

13:14). Sinners are caterers for their lusts. It is a metaphor taken from such as make provision for

a family, or victual a garrison. The Greek word here signifies a projecting and forecasting in the

mind how to bring a thing about. This is to make provision for the flesh when one studies to satisfy

the flesh and lay in fuel for lust. Thus Amnon made provision for the flesh (2 Samuel 13:5). He

fains himself sick, and his sister, Tamar, must be his nurse. She must cook and dress his meat for

him. By which means he defiled the breasts of her virginity. It is sad when men’s care is not to

discharge conscience, but to satisfy lust.

(iv) To regard iniquity is to give it respect and entertainment, as Lot showed respect to the angels.

‘He bowed himself with his face toward the ground and said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray

you . . .’ (Genesis 19:2). When the Spirit of God comes He is repulsed and grieved, but when

temptation comes, the sinner bows to it, sets open the gates, and says ‘Turn in, my lord’. This is to

regard iniquity.

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(v) He is said to regard sin that does not regard the threatenings of God against sin. We read of

’seven thunders uttering their voices’ (Revelation 10:3). How many thunders in Scripture utter their

voice against sin! ‘God shall wound the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses’

(Psalm 68:21). Here is a thundering scripture, but sinners fear not this thunder. Let a minister come

as a Boanerges, clothed with the spirit of Elijah, and denounce all the curses of God against men’s

sins, they regard it not. They can laugh at the shaking of a spear (Job 41:29). This is to regard

iniquity, and argues an impure heart.

4 An unbelieving heart is an impure heart. The Scripture calls it expressly ‘an evil heart of unbelief’

(Hebrews 3:12). An unbelieving heart is evil in the highest degree. It is full of the poison of hell.

Unbelief is the foul medley of all sins, the root and receptacle of sin.

(i) Unbelief is a God-affronting sin. It puts the lie upon God. It calls in question his power (Psalm

78:19), mercy and truth. ‘He that believeth not hath made God a liar’ (1 John 5:10). And can a

greater affront be cast upon the God of glory? It makes us trust to second causes, which is setting

the creature in the room of God. ‘Asa in his disease sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians’

(2 Chronicles 16:12). He relied more on the physician than upon God. Saul seeks to the witch of

Endor. O high affront, to lean upon the reed and neglect the Rock of Ages!

(ii) Unbelief hardens the heart. These two sins are linked together. ‘He upbraided them with their

unbelief and hardness of heart’ (Mark 16:14). Unbelief breeds the stone of the heart. He that believes

not God’s threatenings will never fear him. He that believes not God’s promises will never love

him. What is said of the Leviathan is true of the unbeliever. ‘His heart is as firm as a stone’ (Job

41:24). Unbelief first pollutes the heart and then hardens it.

(iii) Unbelief breeds hypocrisy. Atheists do not believe that God is a jealous God and will call them

to account. Therefore it is they put on a mask of religion and are saints in jest, that they may play

the devil in earnest (2 Timothy 3:4, 5). They pretend God, but Self is the idol they worship. Like

barge-men they look one way and row another. The unbeliever is the greatest hypocrite.

(iv) Unbelief causes the fear of men. ‘Fear is proof of a baseborn soul’. Fear is a debasing thing.

It unmans a man. It makes him afraid to be good. The fearful man studies rather compliance than

conscience. ‘The fear of man bringeth a snare’ (Proverbs 29:25). What made Abraham equivocate,

David feign himself mad, Peter deny Christ? Was it not their fear? And whence does fear spring,

but from unbelief? Therefore the Scripture joins them together. ‘The fearful and unbelieving’

(Revelation 21:8).

(v) Unbelief is the root of apostasy: ‘an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God’

(Hebrews 3:12). What is the reason those who seemed once zealous now despise prophesying and

leave off prayer in their families? Is it not their unbelief? They believed not that God is, and that

he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him (Hebrews 11:6). Infidelity is the cause of apostasy.

In the Greek, ‘apistia’ (unbelief) leads to ‘apostasia’ (apostasy). And if infidelity be the breeder

and fomenter of so much sin, then the unbelieving heart must needs be an impure heart.

5 A covetous heart is an impure heart. The earth is the most impure element. The purity of the heart

lies in the spirituality of it, and what more opposite to spiritualness than earthiness? Covetousness

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is ‘the root of all evil’ (1 Timothy 6:10). ‘To what cost thou not drive mortal hearts, thou accursed

lust for gold?’

(i) Covetousness is the root of discontent. Why do any repine at their condition, but because they

think they do not have enough? The Greek word for covetousness signifies an immoderate desire

of getting. Covetousness is a dry dropsy, and because the thirst is not satisfied, therefore the heart

frets through discontent and impatience.

(ii) Covetousness is the root of theft. Achan’s covetous humour made him steal that wedge of gold

which served to cleave asunder his soul from God (Joshua 7:21).

(iii) Covetousness is the root of treason. It made Judas betray Christ. ‘What will ye give me and I

will deliver him unto you?’ (Matthew 26:15). Absalom’s covetousness made him attempt to pluck

the crown from his father’s head. He that is a Demas will soon prove a Judas. ‘Men shall be covetous’

(2 Timothy 3:2), and it follows in the next verse, ‘traitors’. Where covetousness is in the premises,

treason will be in the conclusion.

(iv) Covetousness is the root of murder. Why did Ahab stone Naboth to death but to possess his

vineyard? (1 Kings 21:13). Covetousness has made many swim to the crown in blood. And can the

heart be pure, when the ‘hands are full of blood’? (Isaiah 1:15).

(v) Covetousness is the root of perjury. ‘Men shall be covetous, and it follows, ‘trucebreakers’ (2

Timothy 3:2, 3). For love of money will take a false oath and break a just oath. He that lives a

Midas, will die a perjurer.

(vi) Covetousness is the root of necromancy. Why do persons indent with the devil, but for money?

They study the black art for yellow gold. Alexander the Sixth pawned his soul to the devil for a

popedom.

(vii) It is the root of fraud and cezenage in dealings. Such as would be over-rich, will overreach. It

is the covetous hand that holds false weights (Amos 8:5).

(viii) Covetousness is the root of bribery and injustice. It makes the courts of judicature, ‘great

places of robbery’, as Augustine speaks. At Athens causes were bought and sold for money.

(ix) It is the cause of uncleanness. The Scripture mentions ‘the hire of a whore’ (Deuteronomy

23:18). For money both conscience and chastity are set to sale.

(x) Covetousness is the root of idolatry: ‘Covetousness which is idolatry’ (Colossians 3:5). The

covetous person bows down to the image of gold. His money is his god, for he puts his trust in it.

Money is his creator. When he has abundance of wealth, then he thinks he is made. It is his redeemer.

If he be in any strait or trouble, he flies to his money and that must redeem him. It is his comforter.

When he is sad he counts over his money and with this golden harp he drives away the evil spirit.

When you see a covetous man, you may say, There goes an idolater.

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(xi) Covetousness is the cause of unprofitableness under the means. In the parable the thorns choked

the seed (Matthew 13:7). This is the reason the Word preached does no more good. The seed often

falls among thorns. Thousands of sermons lie buried in earthly hearts.

(xii) Covetousness is the root of penuriousness and baseness. It hinders hospitality. A covetous

man has a withered hand. He cannot reach it out to clothe or feed such as are in want. The covetous

person is so sordid that if his estate may flourish he is content to let his name lie dead and buried.

What a cursed sin is avarice! And can he be pure in heart that has such a ‘root of bitterness’ growing

in him? We may as well say the wine is pure which runs dregs or the body is pure which is full of

plague-spots.

6 Those hearts are impure which are ‘haters of purity’ (Micah 3:2), which ‘hate knowledge’ (Proverbs

1:29). Some things in nature have an antipathy; the serpent will not come near the boughs of the

wild ash. There is an antipathy in a carnal heart against holiness; and when hatred is boiled up to

malice, it is dangerous. Thus Julian maliciously opposed holiness. Making war against the Persians,

and receiving a mortal wound through his armour, he threw up an handful of his blood into the air

in indignation saying, ‘Thou Galilean, hast thou overcome me?’

7 He that decries purity has an impure heart. ‘There shall come in the last days scoffers’ (Luke

16:14; 2 Peter 3:3). There are some that make a jeer of religion. These are (say they) ‘your holy

brethren!’ It is a sign of an Ishmael spirit to scoff at holiness. Are we not commanded to be perfect

as God is? (Matthew 5:48). One would wonder that those who dare open their mouths in derision

against holiness, the earth does not open her mouth to swallow them up as it did Korah and Dathan.

These are devils covered over with flesh. They have damnation written on their foreheads. Lucian

who in the time of the Emperor Trajan had professed religion, afterwards became so profane as to

make a mock at the Christians and by his jeers and taunts went about to rend religion. At last he

himself was rent asunder and devoured by dogs. When the scab of the leper appeared, he was to

be shut out of the camp (Leviticus 13:8, 46). Those who flout at religion, if God give them not

repentance, are sure to be shut out of the camp of heaven.

I shall next show you the signs of a pure heart.

1 A sincere heart is a pure heart: ‘In whose spirit there is no guile’ (Psalm 32:2). There are four

characters of a sincere-hearted Christian.

(i) A sincere heart serves God with the whole heart.

First, he serves God with the heart. The hypocrite does but make a show of obedience. ‘Thou art

near in their mouth and far from their reins’ (Jeremiah 12:2). There may be a fair complexion when

the lungs and vitals are rotten. The hypocrite is fair to look on. He has a devout eye but a hollow

heart. But he who is sincere, his inside is his best side. In the law God would have ‘the inwards’

offered up (Leviticus 4:11). A good Christian gives God ‘the inwards’. When he prays his heart

prays. ‘Hannah prayed in her heart’ (1 Samuel 1:13). In his thanksgiving the heart is the chief

instrument of praise (Psalm 111:1). Then is the sweetest music when we ‘make melody in our hearts

to the Lord’ (Ephesians 5:19).

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Secondly, the sincere Christian serves God with the ‘whole heart’ (Psalm 119:2). Hypocrites have

a double heart (Psalm 12:2). An heart for God and an heart for sin. ‘Their heart is divided’ (Hosea

10:2). God loves a broken heart, but not a divided heart. An upright heart is a whole heart. The full

stream and torrent of the affections runs out after God. A sincere heart ‘follows God fully’ (Numbers

14:24).

(ii) A sincere heart is willing to come under a trial. ‘Search me, O God, and try me’ (Psalm 139:23).

That metal is to be suspected which men are afraid to bring to the touchstone. A sound heart likes

the touchstone of the Word. It is for a searching ministry. Hypocrites fly from the light of truth;

they fly from that light which would discover sin. They hate that physic of the Word which, meeting

with their ill humours, begins to make them sick and trouble their conscience. A gracious soul loves

that preaching best which makes an heart-anatomy.

Thirdly, a man of sincere heart dares not act in the least against his conscience. He is the most

magnanimous, yet the most pusillanimous. He is bold in suffering (Proverbs 28:1) but fearful of

sin (Genesis 39:9). He dares not get an estate by sinful shifts, or rise upon the ruins of another.

Jacob got his father’s blessing by fraud, but that is not the way to get God’s blessing.

Fourthly, a sincere heart is a suspicious heart. The hypocrite suspects others and has charitable

thoughts of himself. The sincere Christian has charitable thoughts of others and suspects himself.

He calls himself often to account: O my soul, have you any evidences for heaven? Are they not to

seek when they should be to show? Is there no flaw in your evidences? You may mistake common

for saving grace. Weeds in the cornfields look like flowers. The foolish virgins’ lamps looked as

if they had oil in them. O my soul, is it not so with you? The man of sincere soul, being ever jealous,

plays the critic upon himself and so traverses things in the court of conscience as if he were presently

to be cited to God’s bar. This is to be pure in heart.

2 A pure heart breathes after purity. If God should stretch out the golden sceptre and say to him,

‘Ask, and it shall be given thee, to half the kingdom’, he would say, ‘Lord, a pure heart!’ Let my

heart have this inscription, ‘Holiness to the Lord’. Let my heart be thy temple and do thou dwell

in it. Lord, what should I do in heaven with this unholy heart? What converse could I have with

God or angels? A gracious soul is so in love with purity that he prizes a pure heart above all blessings.

(i) Above riches; he knows he may be clothed in purple and fine linen, and yet go to hell. He is

content to be poor, so long as he may be pure. He knows heart-purity is a special certificate of

God’s love. ‘The pure in heart’ shall see God.

(ii) Above gifts: gifts do not at all set us off in God’s eye. A pure heart is the jewel. ‘O woman,

great is thy faith!’ (Matthew 15:28). It was not her rhetorical language Christ was taken with, but

her faith. Hypocrites have had rare gifts. Saul had the spirit of prophecy. Judas no doubt could

make an elegant oration. Hypocrites have come into God’s church loaded with the Egyptian gold

of human learning. There may be illumination without sanctification. A small diamond is better

than a great deal of brass. A little grace excels the most flourishing parts. Now if the out-goings of

your soul are after holiness, you desire rather a pure heart than an eloquent tongue. You have the

oil of the Spirit poured on you and you shall be crowned with a sight of God.

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3 A pure heart abhors all sin. A man may forbear and forsake sin, yet not have a pure heart.

(i) He may forbear sin as one may hold his breath while he dives under water, and then take breath

again. And a man may forbear sin for want of occasion. The gunpowder makes no noise till the

fire be put to it. The clock stands still till the weights are put on. Let a temptation come, which is

like the hanging on of the weights, and the heart goes as fast in sin as ever.

(ii) He may forbear sin for fear of the penalty. A man forbears a dish he loves for fear it should

bring his disease upon him of the stone or gout. There is conflict in a sinner between the passions

of desire and fear. Desire spurs him on to sin, but fear as a curb and bit checks him. Nor is it the

crookedness of the serpent he fears, but the sting of the serpent.

(iii) He may forbear sin out of a design. He has a plot in hand and his sin might spoil his plot. Some

rich heir would fly out in excess, but he carries it fair to prevent a cutting off the entail. How good

was Joash while Jehoiada the priest lived! Prudence as well as conscience may restrain from sin.

Again, a man may forsake sin yet not have a pure heart. It is a great matter, I confess, to forsake

sin. So dear is sin to men that they will part with the fruit of their body for the sin of their souls.

Sin is the Delilah that bewitches, and it is much to see men divorced from it. This is some fruit of

the ministry to civilise, but there may be a forsaking of sin, yet no heart purity. Sin may be forsaken

upon wrong principles.

From morality: moral arguments may suppress sin. I have read of a debauched heathen who, hearing

Socrates ’ read an ethical lecture of virtue and vice (though he came with a purpose to deride

Socrates, yet) he went away changed and no more followed his former exorbitancies. Cato, Seneca,

Aristides, seeing beauty in virtue, led unblameable lives.

From policy: a man may forsake sin, not out of respect to God’s glory, but his own credit. Vice

will waste his estate, eclipse the honour of his family, therefore out of policy he will divorce his

sin.

From necessity. Perhaps he can now follow the trade of sin no longer. The adulterer is grown old,

the drunkard poor. His heart is toward sin, but either his purse fails him or his strength; as a man

that loves hunting, but his prison-fetters will not suffer him to follow the sport. This man, who is

necessitated to put a stop to sin, does not so much forsake sin as sin forsakes him.

But he is pure in God’s eye who abhors sin. ‘I hate every false way’ (Psalm 119:104). This is

excellent indeed, because now the love of sin is crucified. A hypocrite may leave sin, yet love it;

as the serpent casts her coat, yet keeps her sting. But when a man can say he abhors sin, now is sin

killed in the root. A pure heart abstains from sin, as a man does from a dish that he has an antipathy

against. This is a sign of a new nature, when a man hates what he once loved; and because he hates

sin therefore he fights against it with the ’sword of the Spirit’, as a man that hates a serpent seeks

the destruction of it.

4 A pure heart avoids the appearance of evil. ‘Abstain from all show of evil’ (1 Thessalonians

5:22). A pure heart avoids that which may be interpreted as evil. He that is loyal to his prince not

only forbears to have his hand in treason, but he takes heed of that which has a show of treason. A

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gracious heart is shy of that which looks like sin. When Joseph’s mistress took hold of him and

said, ‘Lie with me’, he left his garment in her hand and fled from her (Genesis 39:12). He avoided

the appearance of evil. He would not be seen in her company. Thus a pure heart avoids whatever

may have the suspicion of sin:

(i) In regard of himself, and that two ways. First, because the appearance of evil is oftentimes an

occasion of evil. Effeminate dalliance is an appearance of evil, and many times occasions evil. Had

Joseph been familiar with his mistress in a wanton sporting manner, he might in time have been

drawn to commit folly with her. Some out of novelty and curiosity have gone to hear mass, and

afterwards have lent the idol not only their ear but their knee. In our times are there not many who

have gone with itching ears into sectarian company and have come home with the plague in their

head? When Dinah would be gadding, she lost her chastity (Genesis 34:2). A pure heart foreseeing

the danger avoids the appearance of evil. It is dangerous to go near a hornets’ nest. The men who

went near the furnace were burned (Daniel 3:22). Second, because the appearance of evil may

eclipse his good name. A good name is a precious ointment. It is better than ‘fine gold’ (Proverbs

22:1). It commends us to God and angels, which riches cannot do. Now a godly man avoids the

appearance of evil, lest he wound his good name. What comfort can there be of life, when the name

lies buried?

(ii) A pure heart avoids the suspicion of sin out of reverence and respect to the holiness of God.

God hates the very appearance of evil. God abhors hypocrites because they have no more than the

appearance of good, and he is angry with his children if they have so much as the appearance of

evil. A gracious heart knows God is a jealous God and cannot endure that his people should border

upon sin. Therefore he keeps aloof off and will not come near the smell of infection.

(iii) A pure heart avoids the show of sin in regard of the godly. The appearance of evil may scandalise

a weak brother. A gracious heart is not only fearful lest he should defile his own conscience, but

lest he should offend his brother’s conscience. Were it only a thing indifferent, yet if it be an

appearance of evil and may grieve another, we are to forbear (1 Corinthians 10:25-28). For ‘when

we sin against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, we sin against Christ’ (1 Corinthians

8:12). The weak Christian is a member of Christ. Therefore the sinning against a member is a

sinning against Christ.

(iv) A pure heart avoids the very appearance of evil in regard of the wicked. The apostle would

have us walk wisely ‘towards them that are without’ (1 Thessalonians 4:12). The wicked watch for

our halting. How glad would they be of anything to reproach religion? Professors are placed as

stars in the highest orb of the church, and if there be but the appearance of any eccentric, or irregular

motion, the wicked would presently open their mouths with a fresh cry against religion. Now to a

godly heart the fame and honour of the gospel is so dear that he had rather die than impeach or

eclipse it. By this then let us try ourselves whether we are pure in heart. Do we avoid the least

apparition of sin? Alas, how many run themselves into the occasions of sin! They tempt the devil

to tempt them. Some go to masques and comedies, the very fuel and temptation to lust. Others

frequent erroneous meetings, and truly God often in just judgement leaves them to the acts of sin,

that do not avoid the appearance of sin. ‘They were mingled among the heathen and learned their

works’ (Psalm 106:35). Pure hearts fly the occasion. John would not endure the company of

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Cerinthus in the bath, as Nicephorus notes. Polycarp would have no conference with Marcion the

heretic, but called him ‘the devil’s firstborn’. Basil says that the Christians in his time avoided the

meetings of sectaries as the ‘very schools of error’. Oh, avoid the appearance of evil. The apostle

bids us to follow those things which are ‘of good report’ (Philippians 4:8).

5 A pure heart performs holy duties in an holy manner. This holy manner, or due order, consists

in three things:

(i) Preparing the heart before a duty. An unholy heart does not care how it rushes upon an ordinance.

It comes without preparation and goes away without profit. The pure heart is a prepared heart. It

dresses itself, before it comes to a duty, by examination and ejaculation. When the earth is prepared,

then it is fit to receive the seed. When the instrument is prepared and tuned it is fit for music.

(ii) Watching the heart in a duty. An holy heart labours to be affected and wrought upon. His heart

burns within him. There was no sacrifice without fire. A pure saint labours to have his heart broken

in a duty (Psalm 51:17). The incense, when it was broken, cast the sweetest savour. Impure souls

care not in what a dead or perfunctory manner they serve God (Ezekiel 33:31). They pray more

out of fashion than out of faith. They are no more affected with an ordinance than the tombs of the

church. God complains of offering up the blind (Malachi 1:8). And is it not as bad to offer up the

dead? O Christian, say to yourself, How can this deadness of heart stand with pureness of heart?

Do not dead things putrefy?

(iii) Outward reverence. Purity of heart will express itself by the reverend gesture of the body, the

lifting up of the eye and hand, the uncovering the head, the bending the knee. Constantine the

Emperor bore great reverence to the Word. When God gave the law, ‘the mount was on fire and

trembled’ (Exodus 19:18). The reason was that the people might prostrate themselves more reverently

before the Lord. The ark wherein the law was put was carried upon bars that the Levites might not

touch it (Exodus 25:11, 14). To show what reverence God would have about holy things: sitting in

prayer (unless in case of weakness) and having the hat half on in prayer, is a very indecent, irreverent

practice. Let such as are guilty reform it. We must not only offer up our souls, but our bodies

(Romans 12:1). The Lord takes notice what posture and gesture we use in his worship. If a man

were to deliver a petition to the king, would he deliver it with his hat half on? The careless irreverence

of some would make us think they did not much regard whether God heard them or no. We are run

from one extreme to another, from superstition to unmannerliness. Let Christians think of the

dreadful majesty of God who is present. ‘How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the

house of God and this is the gate of heaven’ (Genesis 28:17). The blessed angels ‘cover their faces

crying, Holy, holy holy’ (Isaiah 6:3). An holy heart will have an holy gesture.

6 A pure heart will have a pure life. ‘Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and

spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God’. (2 Corinthians 7:1). Where there is a good conscience

there will be a good conversation. Some bless God they have good hearts, but their lives are evil.

‘There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness’

(Proverbs 30:12). If the stream be corrupt we may suspect the spring-head to be impure. Aaron was

called the saint of the Lord (Psalm 106:16). He had not only an holy heart, but there was a golden

plate on his forehead on which was written ‘Holiness to the Lord’. Purity must not only be woven

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into the heart but engraver upon the life. Grace is most beautiful when it shines abroad with its

golden beams. The clock has not only its motion within, but the finger moves without upon the

dial. Pureness of heart shows itself upon the dial of the conversation.

(i) A pure soul talks of God (Psalm 37:30). His heart is seen in his tongue. The Latins call the roof

of the mouth Caelum (heaven). He that is pure in heart, his mouth is full of heaven.

(ii) He walks with God (Genesis 6:9). He is still doing angel’s work, praising God, serving God.

He lives as Christ did upon earth. Holy duties are the Jacob’s ladder by which he is still ascending

to heaven. Purity of heart and life are in Scripture made twins. ‘I will put my Spirit within you’

(Ezekiel 36:27); there is purity of heart. ‘And cause you to walk in my statutes’; there is purity of

life. Shall we account them pure whose conversation is not in heaven (Philippians 3:20), but rather

in hell? ‘Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances and with the bag of deceitful weights?’

(Micah 6:11). How justly may others reproach religion when they see it kicked down with our

unholy feet! A pure heart has a golden frontispiece. Grace like new wine will have vent; it can be

no more concealed than lost. The saints are called ‘jewels’ (Malachi 3:17), because of that shining

lustre they cast in the eyes of others.

7 A pure heart is so in love with purity that nothing can draw him off from it.

(i) Let others reproach purity, he loves it. As David, when he danced before the ark, and Michal

scoffed, if (says he) this be to be vile, ‘I will yet be more vile’ (2 Samuel 6:22). So says a pure

heart: If to follow after holiness be to be vile, I will yet be more vile. Let water be sprinkled upon

the fire, it burns the more. The more others deride holiness, the more a gracious soul burns in love

and zeal to it. If a man had an inheritance befallen him, would he be laughed out of it? What is a

Christian the worse for another’s reproach? A blind man’s disparaging a diamond does not make

it sparkle the less.

(ii) Let others persecute holiness, a pure heart will pursue it. Holiness is the queen every gracious

soul is espoused to and he will rather die than be divorced. Paul would be holy, ‘though bonds and

persecutions did abide him’ (Acts 20:23). The way of religion is often thorny and bloody, but a

gracious heart prefers inward purity before outward peace. I have heard of one who, having a jewel

he much prized, the king sent for his jewel. Tell the king (says he) I honour his Majesty, but I will

rather lose my life than part with my jewel. He who is enriched with the jewel of holiness will

rather die than part with this jewel. When his honour and riches will do him no good, his holiness

will stand him instead. ‘Ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life’.

Let me persuade Christians to heart purity. The harlot ‘wipes her mouth’ (Proverbs 30:20). But that

is not enough. ‘Wash thine heart, O Jerusalem’ (Jeremiah 4:14). And here I shall lay down some

arguments or motives to persuade to heart purity.

1 The necessity of heart-purity. It is necessary:

(i) In respect of ourselves. Till the heart be pure, all our holy things are polluted. They are ’splendid

sins’. To the unclean all things are unclean (Titus 1:15). Their offering is unclean. Under the law,

if a man who was unclean by a dead body, carried a piece of holy flesh in his skirt, the holy flesh

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could not cleanse him, but he polluted that. (Haggai 2:12,13). He who had the leprosy, whatever

he touched was unclean. If he had touched the altar or sacrifice, the altar had not cleansed him, but

he had defiled the altar. A foul hand defiles the purest water. An impure heart defiles prayers,

sacraments. He drops poison upon all. A pure stream running through muddy ground is polluted.

The holiest ordinances are stained, running through an impure heart. A sinner’s works are called

‘dead works’ (Hebrews 6:1). And those works which are dead cannot please God. A dead wife

cannot please her husband.

(ii) Heart purity is necessary in respect of God. God is holy. Purity is the chief robe wherewith God

himself is clothed. ‘Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil’ (Habakkuk 1:13). And will this holy

God endure to have an impure heart come near him? Will a man lay a viper in his bosom? The holy

God and the sinner cannot dwell together. None can dwell together but friends, but there is no

friendship between God and the sinner, both of them being of a contrary judgement and disposition.

An impure heart is more odious to God than a serpent. God gave the serpent its venom, but Satan

fills the heart with sin. ‘Why hath Satan filled thine heart?’ (Acts 5:3). The Lord abhors a sinner.

He will not come near him, having his plague-sores running. ‘My soul loathed them’ (Zechariah

11:8).

(iii) Heart purity is necessary in regard of angels. They are pure creatures. The Cherubims, which

typified the angels, were made of fine gold to denote the purity of their essence. No unholy thought

enters into the angels, therefore there must be purity of heart that there may be some resemblance

between us and them. What should unholy hearts do among those pure angelic spirits?

(iv) In regard of the saints glorified. They are pure, being refined from all lees and dregs of sin.

Their title is ’spirits of just men made perfect’ (Hebrews 12:23). Now what should profane spirits

do among ’spirits made perfect’? I tell you, if you who wallow in your sins could come near God

and angels and spirits of men made perfect, and have a sight of their lustre, you would soon wish

yourselves out of their company. As a man that is dirty and in his rags, if he should stand before

the king and his nobles and see them glistering in their cloth of gold and sparkling with their jewels,

he would be ashamed of himself, and wish himself out of their presence.

(v) There must be heart purity in regard of heaven. Heaven is a pure place. It is an ‘inheritance

undefiled’ (1 Peter 1:4). No unclean beasts come into the heavenly ark. There shall not enter into

it ‘anything that defileth’ (Revelation 21:27). The Lord will not put the new wine of glory into a

musty impure heart, all which considered shows the necessity of heart purity.

2 It is the will of God that we should be pure in heart. ‘This is the will of God, your sanctification’

(1 Thessalonians 4:3). Are you low in the world? Perhaps it is not the will of God that you should

be rich, but it is the will of God that you should be holy. ‘This is the will of God, your sanctification’

(1 Thessalonians 4:3). Let God have his will by being holy, and you shall have your will by being

happy. God’s will must either be fulfilled by us or upon us.

3 Purity of heart is the characteristic note of God’s people. ‘God is good to Israel, even to such as

are of a clean heart’ (Psalm 73:1). Heart-purity denominates us the ‘Israel of God’. It is not profession

which makes us the Israel of God. It makes us of Israel indeed, but ‘all are not Israel, which are of

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Israel’ (Romans 9:6). Purity of heart is the jewel which is hung only upon the elect. As chastity

distinguishes a virtuous woman from an harlot, so the true saint is distinguished from the hypocrite

by his heart-purity. This is like the nobleman’s star or garter, which is a peculiar ensign of honour,

differing him from the vulgar. When the bright star of purity shines in a Christian’s heart, it

distinguishes him from a formal professor.

4 Purity of heart makes us like God. It was Adam’s unhappiness once, that he aspired to be like

God in omniscience; but we must endeavour to be like God in sanctity. God’s image consists in

holiness. To those who do not have this image and superscription upon them, he will say ‘I know

you not’. God delights in no heart but where he may see his own face and likeness. You cannot see

your face in a glass when it is dusty. God’s face cannot be seen in a dusty impure soul. A pure heart

(like a clean glass) gives forth some idea and representation of God. There is little comfort in being

like God in other things besides purity. Are we like God in that we have a being? So have stones.

Are we like him in that we have motion? So have stars. Are we like him in that we have life? So

have trees and birds. Are we like him in that we have knowledge? So have devils. There is no

likeness to God will prove comfortable and blissful, but our being like him in purity. God loves

the pure in heart. Love is founded upon likeness.

5 The excellency of the heart lies in the purity of it. Purity was the glory of the soul in innocence.

The purer a thing is, the better. The purer the air is, and the more free from noxious vapours, the

better it is. The spirits of water distilled are most precious. The purer the gold is, the more valuable.

The purer the wine is when it is taken off from the lees and dregs, the more excellent it is. The more

the soul is clarified by grace and taken off from the lees and dregs of sin, the more precious account

God makes of it. The purer the heart is, the more spiritual it is, and the more spiritual the more fit

to entertain him who is a Spirit.

6 God is good to the pure in heart. ‘God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart’

(Psalm 73:1). We all desire that God should be good to us. It is the sick man’s prayer, ‘The Lord

be good to me’. God is good to such as are of a clean heart.

But how is God good to them? Two ways —

(i) To them that are pure, all things are sanctified. ‘To the pure all things are pure’ (Titus 1:15).

Estate is sanctified, relations are sanctified, as the temple sanctified the gold and the altar sanctified

the offering. To the unclean nothing is clean. Their table is a snare; their temple-devotion is sin.

There is a curse entailed upon a wicked man (Deuteronomy 28:15-20), but holiness removes the

curse and cuts off the entail. ‘To the pure all things are pure’.

(ii) The pure-hearted have all things work for their good (Romans 8:28). Mercies and afflictions

shall turn to their good. The most poisonful drug shall be medicinable. The most cross providence

shall carry on the design of their salvation. Who then would not be pure in heart? ‘God is good to

such as are of a clean heart’.

7 Heart purity makes way for heaven. The pure in heart ’shall see God’. Happiness is nothing but

the quintessence of holiness. Purity of heart is heaven begun in a man. Holiness is called in Scripture

‘the anointing of God’ (1 John 2:27). Solomon was first anointed with the holy oil, and then he was

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made king (1 Kings 1:39). The people of God are first anointed with the oil of the Spirit and made

pure in heart, and then the crown of glory is set upon their head. And is not purity to be highly

valued? It lays a train for glory. ‘Purity of heart’ and ’seeing of God’ are linked together.

8 Note the examples of those who have been eminent for heart-purity. The Lord Jesus was a pattern

of purity. ‘Which of you convinceth me of sin?’ (John 8:46). In this we are to imitate Christ. We

are not to imitate him in raising the dead or in working miracles, but in being holy (1 Peter 1:16).

Besides this golden pattern of Christ, we are to write after the fair copy of those saints who have

been of a dove-like purity. David was so pure in heart, that he was a man ‘after God’s heart’.

Abraham was so purified by faith that he was one of God’s cabinet-counsel (Genesis 18:17). Moses

was so holy that God spake with him face to face. What were the rest of the patriarchs but so many

plants of renown flourishing in holiness? The fathers in the primitive church were exemplary for

purity. Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Augustine, they were so inlaid and adorned with purity that envy

itself could not tax them. Therefore, as Caesar wished he had such soldiers as were in the time of

Alexander the Great, so we may wish we had such saints as were in the primitive times, so just

were they in their dealings, so decent in their attire, so true in their promises, so devout in their

religion, so unblameable in their lives that they were living sermons, walking Bibles, real pictures

of Christ, and helped to keep up the credit of godliness in the world.

9 Heart-purity is the only jewel you can carry out of the world. Have you a child you delight in, or

an estate? You can ‘carry nothing out of the world’ (1 Timothy 6:7). Purity of heart is the only

commodity that can be with comfort transported. This is that will stay longest with you. Usually

we love those things which last longest. We prize a diamond or piece of gold above the most

beautiful flower, because fading. Heart-purity has perpetuity. It will go with us beyond the grave.

But how shall we attain to heart-purity?

1 Often look into the Word of God. ‘Now ye are clean through the word’ (John 15:3). ‘Thy word

is very pure’ (Psalm 119:140). God’s Word is pure, not only for the matter of it, but the effect,

because it makes us pure. ‘Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth’ (John 17:17). By

looking into this pure crystal we are changed into the image of it. The Word is both a glass to show

us the spots of our souls and a laver to wash them away. The Word breathes nothing but purity; it

irradiates the mind; it consecrates the heart.

2 Go to the bath. There are two baths Christians should wash in.

(i) The bath of tears. Go into this bath. Peter had sullied and defiled himself with sin and he washed

himself with penitential tears. Mary Magdalene, who was an impure sinner, ’stood at Jesus’ feet

weeping’ (Luke 7:38). Mary’s tears washed her heart as well as Christ’s feet. Oh sinners, let your

eyes be a fountain of tears! Weep for those sins which are so many as have passed all arithmetic.

This water of contrition is healing and purifying.

(ii) The bath of Christ’s blood. This is that ‘fountain opened for sin and uncleanness’ (Zechariah

13:1). A soul steeped in the brinish tears of repentance and bathed in the blood of Christ is made

pure. This is that ’spiritual washing’. All the legal washings and purifications were but types and

emblems representing Christ’s blood. This blood lays the soul a-whitening.

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3 Get faith. It is a soul-cleansing grace. ‘Having purified their hearts by faith’ (Acts 15:9). The

woman in the gospel that but touched the hem of Christ’s garment was healed. A touch of faith

heals. If I believe Christ and all his merits are mine, how can I sin against him? We do not willingly

injure those friends who, we believe, love us. Nothing can have a greater force and efficacy upon

the heart to make it pure than faith. Faith will remove mountains, the mountains of pride, lust, envy.

Faith and the love of sin are inconsistent.

4 Breathe after the Spirit. He is called the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13). It purgeth the heart as

lightning purgeth the air. That we may see what a purifying virtue the Spirit has, it is compared:

(i) To fire (Acts 2:3). Fire is of a purifying nature. It refines and cleans metals. It separates the dross

from the gold. The Spirit of God in the heart refines and sanctifies it. It burns up the dross of sin.

(ii) The Spirit is compared to wind. ‘There came a sound from heaven as of a mighty rushing wind,

and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost’ (Acts 2:24). The wind purifies the air. When the air

by reason of foggy vapours is unwholesome, the wind is a fan to winnow and purify it. Thus when

the vapours of sin arise in the heart, vapours of pride and covetousness, earthly vapours, the Spirit

of God arises and blows upon the soul and so purges away these impure vapours. The spouse in

the Canticles prays for a gale of the Spirit, that she might be made pure (4:16).

(iii) The Spirit is compared to water. ‘He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of

living water; but this spake he of the Spirit’ (John 7:38, 39). The Spirit is like water, not only to

make the soul fruitful, for it causes the desert to blossom as the rose (Isaiah 32:15; 35:1), but the

Spirit is like water to purify. Whereas, before, the heart of a sinner was unclean and whatever he

touched had a tincture of impurity (Numbers 19:22), when once the Spirit comes into the heart, it

does with its continual showers wash off the filthiness of it, making it pure and fit for the God of

spirits to dwell in.

5 Take heed of familiar converse and intercourse with the wicked. One vain mind makes another.

One hard heart makes another. The stone in the body is not infectious, but the stone in the heart is.

One profane spirit poisons another. Beware of the society of the wicked.

Some may object: But what hurt is in this? Did not Jesus converse with sinners? (Luke 5:29).

(i) There was a necessity for that. If Jesus had not come among sinners, how could any have been

saved? He went among sinners, not to join with them in their sins. He was not a companion of

sinners but a physician of sinners.

(ii) Though Christ did converse with sinners, he could not be polluted with their sin. His divine

nature was a sufficient antidote to preserve him from infection. Christ could be no more defiled

with their sin than the sun is defiled by shining on a dunghill. Sin could no more stick on Christ

than a burr on a glass of crystal. The soil of his heart was so pure that no viper of sin could breed

there. But the case is altered with us. We have a stock of corruption within and the least thing will

increase this stock. Therefore it is dangerous mingling ourselves among the wicked. If we would

be pure in heart let us shun their society. He that would preserve his garment clean avoids the dirt.

The wicked are as the mire (Isaiah 57:20). The fresh waters running among the salt taste brackish.

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6 If you would be pure, walk with them that are pure. As the communion of the saints is in our

Creed, so it should be in our company. ‘He that walketh with the wise shall be wise’ (Proverbs

13:20), and he that walketh with the pure shall be pure. The saints are like a bed of spices. By

intermixing ourselves with them we shall partake of their savouriness. Association begets

assimilation. Sometimes God blesses good society to the conversion of others.

7 Wait at the posts of wisdom’s doors. Reverence the word preached. The Word of God sucked in

by faith (Hebrews 4:2) transforms the heart into the likeness of it (Romans 6:17). The word is an

holy seed (James 1:18), which being cast into the heart makes it partake of the divine nature (2

Peter 1:4).

8 Pray for heart purity. Job propounds the question, ‘Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?’

(Job 14:4; 15:14). God can do it. Out of an impure heart he can produce grace. Pray that prayer of

David, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God’ (Psalm 51:10). Most men pray more for full purses than

pure hearts. We should pray for heart-purity fervently. It is a matter we are most nearly concerned

in. ‘Without holiness no man shall see the Lord’ (Hebrews 12:14). Our prayer must be with sighs

and groans (Romans 8:23-26). There must not only be elocution but affection. Jacob wrestled in

prayer (Genesis 32:24). Hannah poured out her soul (1 Samuel 1:15). We often pray so coldly (our

petitions even freezing between our lips), as if we would teach God to deny. We pray as if we cared

not whether God heard us or no. Oh Christian, be earnest with God for a pure heart. Lay your heart

before the Lord and say, Lord, Thou who hast given me a heart, give me a pure heart. My heart is

good for nothing as it is. It defiles everything it touches. Lord, I am not fit to live with this heart,

for I cannot honour thee; nor to die with it, for I cannot see thee. Oh purge me with hyssop. Let

Christ’s blood be sprinkled upon me. Let the Holy Ghost descend upon me. ‘Create in me a clean

heart, O God’. Thou who biddest me give thee my heart, Lord, make my heart pure and thou shalt

have it.

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17. The blessed privilege of seeing God explained

They shall see God.

Matthew 5:8

These words are linked to the former and they are a great incentive to heart-purity. The pure heart

shall see the pure God. There is a double sight which the saints have of God.

1 In this life; that is, spiritually by the eye of faith. Faith sees God’s glorious attributes in the glass

of his Word. Faith beholds him showing forth himself through the lattice of his ordinances. Thus

Moses saw him who was invisible (Hebrews 11:27). Believers see God’s glory as it were veiled

over. They behold his ‘back parts’ (Exodus 33:23).

2 In the life to come; and this glorious sight is meant in the text, ‘They shall see God.’ A pleasant

prospect! This divines call ‘the beatifical vision’. At that day the veil will be pulled off, and God

will show himself in all his glory to the soul, as a king on a day of coronation shows himself in all

his royalty and magnificence. This sight of God will be the heaven of heaven. We shall indeed have

a sight of angels and that will be sweet, but the quintessence of happiness and the diamond in the

ring will be this, ‘We shall see God’. If the sun be absent it is night for all the stars. The angels are

called ’stars’ (Job 38:7). But it would be night in heaven if the Sun of Righteousness did not shine

there. It is the king’s presence makes the court. Absalom counted himself half-alive unless he might

see the king’s face (2 Samuel 14:32). ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God’. This

sight of God in glory is, first, partly mental and intellectual. We shall see him with the eyes of our

mind. If there be not an intellectual sight of God, how do the ’spirits of just men made perfect, see

him? But second, it is partly corporeal; not that we can with bodily eyes behold the bright essence

of God. Indeed the Anthromorphites and Vorstians erroneously held that God had a visible shape

and figure. As man was made in God’s image so they thought that God was made in man’s image;

but God is a Spirit (John 4:24), and being a Spirit is invisible (1 Timothy 1:17). He cannot be beheld

by bodily eyes. ‘Whom no man hath seen nor can see’ (1 Timothy 6:16). A sight of his glory would

overwhelm us. This wine is too strong for our weak heads.

But when I say our seeing of God in heaven is corporeal, my meaning is that we shall with bodily

eyes behold Jesus Christ, through whom the glory of God, his wisdom, holiness, and mercy, shall

shine forth to the soul. Put a back of steel to the glass and you may see a face in it. So the human

nature of Christ is as it were a back of steel through which we may see the glory of God (2

Corinthians 4:6). In this sense that scripture is to be understood, ‘With these eyes shall I see God’

(Job 19:26, 27).

Now concerning this blessed sight of God, it is so sublime and sweet that I can but draw a dark

shadow of it. We shall better understand it when we come to heaven. Only at present I shall lay

down these nine aphorisms or maxims.

1 Our sight of God in heaven shall be a transparent sight. Here we see him ‘through a glass darkly’

(1 Corinthians 13:12). But through Christ we shall behold God in a very illustrious manner. God

will unveil himself and show forth his glory so far as the soul is capable to receive. If Adam had

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not sinned yet it is probable he should never have had such a clear sight of God as the saints in

glory shall have. ‘We shall see him as he is’ (1 John 3:2). Now we see him as he is not. He is not

mutable, not mortal. There we shall see him ‘as he is’ in a very transparent manner. ‘Then shall I

know even as also I am known’ (1 Corinthians 13:12), that is, ‘clearly’. Does not God know us

clearly and fully? Then shall the saints know him (according to their capacity) as they are known.

As their love to God, so their sight of God shall be perfect.

2 This sight of God will be a transcendent sight. It will surpass in glory. Such glittering beams shall

sparkle forth from the Lord Jesus as shall infinitely amaze and delight the eyes of the beholders.

Imagine what a blessed sight it will be to see Christ wearing the robe of our human nature and to

see that nature sitting in glory above the angels. If God be so beautiful here in his ordinances, Word,

prayer, sacraments; if there be such excellency in him when we see him by the eye of faith through

the prospective glass of a promise, O what will it be when we shall see him ‘face to face’! When

Christ was transfigured on the mount he was full of glory (Matthew 17:2). If his transfiguration

were so glorious, what will his inauguration be? What a glorious time will it be when (as it was

said of Mordecai) we shall see him in the presence of his Father, ‘arrayed in royal apparel, and with

a great crown of gold upon his head’ (Esther 8:15). There will be glory beyond hyperbole. If the

sun were ten thousand times brighter than it is, it could not so much as shadow out this glory. In

the heavenly horizon we behold beauty in its first magnitude and highest elevation. There we shall

’see the king in his glory’ (Isaiah 33:17). All lights are but eclipses compared with that glorious

vision. Apelles’ pencil would blot, angels, tongues would but disparage it.

3 This sight of God will be a transforming sight. ‘We shall be like him’ (1 John 3:2). The saints

shall be changed into glory. As when the light springs into a dark room, the room may be said to

be changed from what it was; the saints shall so see God as to be changed into his image (Psalm

17:15). Here God’s people are blackened and sullied with infirmities, but in heaven they shall be

as the dove covered with silver wings. They shall have some rays and beams of God’s glory shining

in them. As a man that rolls himself in the snow is of a snow-like whiteness; as the crystal, by

having the sun shine on it, sparkles and looks like the sun; so the saints by beholding the brightness

of God’s glory shall have a tincture of that glory upon them. Not that they shall partake of God’s

very essence, for as the iron in the fire becomes fire, yet remains iron still, so the saints by beholding

the lustre of God’s majesty shall be glorious creatures but yet creatures still.

4 This sight of God will be a joyful sight: ‘Thou shalt make me glad with the light of thy

countenance’ (Acts 2:28). After a sharp winter, how pleasant will it be to see the Sun of

Righteousness displaying himself in all his glory! Does faith breed joy? ‘In whom, though now ye

see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable’ (1 Peter 1:8). If the joy of faith be such,

what will the joy of vision be? The sight of Christ will amaze the eye with wonder and ravish the

heart with joy. If the face of a friend whom we entirely love so affects us and drives away sorrow,

O how cheering will the sight of God be to the saints in heaven! Then indeed it may be said, ‘Your

heart shall rejoice’ (John 16:22). And there are two things which will make the saints’ vision of

God in heaven joyful.

(i) Through Jesus Christ the dread and terror of the divine essence shall be taken away. Majesty

shall appear in God to preserve reverence, but withal majesty clothed with beauty and tempered

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with sweetness to excite joy in the saints. We shall see God as a friend, not as guilty Adam did,

who was afraid, and hid himself (Genesis 3:10), but as Queen Esther looked upon King Ahasuerus

holding forth the golden sceptre (Esther 5:2). Surely this sight of God will not be formidable but

comfortable!

(ii) The saints shall not only have vision but fruition. They shall so see God as to enjoy him. Aquinas

and Scotus dispute the case whether the ‘formalis ratio’, the very formality and essence of

blessedness, be an act of the understanding or the will. Aquinas says that happiness consists in the

intellectual part, ‘the bare seeing of God’. Scotus says that happiness is an act of the will, the

enjoying of God. But certainly true blessedness comprehends both. It lies partly in the understanding,

by seeing the glory of God richly displayed, and partly in the will, by a sweet delicious taste of it

and acquiescence of the soul in it. We shall so see God as to love him, and so love him as to be

filled with him. The seeing of God implies fruition. ‘Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord’ (Matthew

25:21) not only behold it but enter into it. ‘In thy light we shall see light’ (Psalm 36:9); there is

vision. ‘At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore’ (Psalm 16:11); there is fruition. So great

is the joy which flows from the sight of God as will make the saints break forth into triumphant

praises and hallelujahs.

5 This sight of God will be a satisfying sight. Cast three worlds into the heart and they will not fill

it, but the sight of God satisfies. ‘I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness’ (Psalm 17:15).

Solomon says ‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing’ (Ecclesiastes 1:8). But there the eye will be

satisfied with seeing. God and nothing but God can satisfy. The saints shall have their heads so full

of knowledge and their hearts so full of joy that they shall find no want.

6 It will be an unweariable sight. Let a man see the rarest sight that is, he will soon be cloyed. When

he comes into a garden and sees delicious walks, fair arbours, pleasant flowers, within a little while

he grows weary; but it is not so in heaven. There is no surfeit. We shall never be weary of seeing

God, for the divine essence being infinite, there shall be every moment new and fresh delights

springing forth from God into the glorified soul. The soul shall not so desire God but it shall still

be full. Nor shall it be so full but it shall still desire. So sweet will God be that the more the saints

behold God the more they will be ravished with desire and delight.

7 It will be a beneficial sight. It will tend to the bettering and advantaging of the soul. Some colours,

while they delight the eyes, hurt them. But this intuition and vision of God shall better the soul and

tend to its infinite happiness. Eve’s looking upon the tree of knowledge prejudiced her sight. She

afterwards grew blind upon it, but the saints can receive no detriment from the inspection of glory.

This sight will be beneficial. The soul will never be in its perfection till it comes to see God. This

will be the crowning blessing.

8 This sight of God shall be perpetuated. Here we see objects awhile, and then our eyes grow dim

and we need spectacles, but the saints shall always behold God. As there shall be no cloud upon

God’s face, so the saints shall have no mote in their eye. Their sight shall never grow dim, but they

shall be to all eternity looking on God, that beautiful and beatifical object. O what a soul-ravishing

sight will this be! God must make us able to bear it. We can no more endure a sight of glory than

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a sight of wrath. But the saints after this life shall have their capacities enlarged, and they shall be

qualified and made fit to receive the penetrating beams of glory.

9 It will be a speedy sight. There are some who deny that the soul is immediately after death admitted

to the sight of God, but I shall make good this assertion that the saints shall have an immediate

transition and passage from death to glory. As soon as death has closed their eyes they shall see

God. If the soul be not presently after death translated to the beatifical vision, then what becomes

of the soul in that juncture of time till the resurrection?

Does the soul go into torment? That cannot be, for the soul of a believer is a member of Christ’s

body mystical, and if this soul should go to hell a member of Christ might be for a time damned.

But that is impossible.

Does the soul sleep in the body as some drowsily imagine? How then shall we make good sense

of that scripture ‘We are willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord

(2 Corinthians 5:8)? If the soul at death be absent from the body then it cannot sleep in the body.

Does the soul die? So the Lucianists held that the soul was mortal and died with the body, but as

Scaliger observes, it is impossible that the soul being of a spiritual uncompounded nature should

be subject to corruptibility. Such as say the soul dies, I would demand of them wherein the soul of

a man differs at death from the soul of a brute? By all which it appears that the soul of a believer

after death goes immediately to God. ‘This day shalt thou be with me in paradise’ (Luke 23:43).

That word ‘with me, shows clearly that the thief on the cross was translated to heaven. For there

Christ was (Ephesians 4:10). And the word ‘this day, shows that the thief on the cross had an

immediate passage from the cross to paradise, so that the souls of believers have a speedy vision

of God after death. It is but winking, and they shall see God.

See the misery of an impure sinner. He shall not be admitted to the sight of God. ‘The pure in hearts

only shall see God. Such as live in sin, whose souls are dyed black with the filth of hell, they shall

never come where God is. They shall have an affrighting vision of God, but not a beatifical vision.

They shall see the flaming sword and the burning lake, but not the mercy-seat. God in Scripture is

sometimes called a ‘consuming fire’, sometimes the ‘Father of lights’. The wicked shall feel the

fire but not see the light. Impure souls shall be covered with shame and darkness as with a mantle,

and shall never see the king’s face. They who would not see God in his ordinances shall not see

him in his glory.

Is there such a blessed privilege after this life? Then let me persuade all who hear me this day:

1 To get into Christ. We cannot come to God but by Christ. Moses when he was in the rock saw

God (Exodus 33:32). In this blessed rock, Christ, we shall see God.

2 To be purified persons. It is only the pure in heart who shall see God. It is only a clear eye can

behold a bright transparent object. Those only who have their hearts cleansed from sin can have

this blessed sight of God. Sin is such a cloud as, if it be not removed, will for ever hinder us from

seeing the Sun of Righteousness. Christian, have you upon your heart ‘holiness to the Lord’? Then

you shall see God. There are many, says Augustine, could be content to go to heaven, but they are

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loath to take the way that leads thither. They would have the glorious vision but neglect the gracious

union.

There are several sorts of eyes which shall never see God the ignorant eye, the unchaste eye, the

scornful eye, the malicious eye, the covetous eye. If you would see God when you die, you must

be purified persons while you live; ‘We shall see him as he is; and every man that hath this hope

in him, purifieth himself’ (1 John 3:2, 3).

Let me turn myself to the pure in heart.

1 Stand amazed at this privilege, that you who are worms crept out of the dust should be admitted

to the blessed sight of God to all eternity. It was Moses, prayer, ‘I beseech thee, show me thy glory’

(Exodus 33:18). The saints shall behold God’s glory. The pure in heart shall have the same

blessedness that God himself has. For what is the blessedness of God but the contemplating his

own infinite beauty!

2 Begin your sight of God here. Let the eye of your faith be still upon God. Moses by faith ’saw

him who is invisible’ (Hebrews 11:27). Often look upon him with believing eyes, whom you hope

to see with glorified eyes. ‘Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord’ (Psalm 25:15). While others are

looking towards the earth as if they would fetch all their comforts thence, let us look up to heaven.

There is the best prospect. The sight of God by faith would let in much joy to the soul. ‘Though

now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable’ (1 Peter 1:8).

3 Let this be as cordial-water to revive the pure in heart. Be comforted with this, you shall shortly

see God. The godly have many sights here that they would not see. They see a body of death; they

see the sword unsheathed; they see rebellion wearing the mask of religion; they see the white devil.

These sights occasion sorrow; but there is a blessed sight a-coming, ‘They shall see God.’ And in

him are all sparkling beauties and ravishing joys to be found.

4 Be not discouraged at sufferings. All the hurt that affliction and death can do is to give you a

sight of God. As one said to his fellow-martyr, ‘One half hour in glory will make us forget our

pain’. The sun arising, all the dark shadows of the night fly away. When the pleasant beams of

God’s countenance shall begin to shine upon the soul in heaven, then sorrows and sufferings shall

be no more. ‘The dark shadows of the night, shall fly away. The thoughts of this beatifical vision

should carry a Christian full sail with joy through the waters of affliction. This made Job so willing

to embrace death: ‘I know that my redeemer liveth, and though worms destroy this body, yet in my

flesh shall I see God’ (Job 19:25, 26).

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18. Concerning peaceableness

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Matthew 5:9

This is the seventh step of the golden ladder which leads to blessedness. The name of peace is

sweet, and the work of peace is a blessed work. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’.

Observe the connection. The Scripture links these two together, pureness of heart and peaceableness

of spirit. ‘The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable’ (James 3:17). ‘Follow peace and

holiness’ (Hebrews 12:14). And here Christ joins them together ‘pure in heart, and ‘peacemakers’,

as if there could be no purity where there is not a study of peace. That religion is suspicious which

is full of faction and discord.

In the words there are three parts:

1. A duty implied, viz. Peaceable-mindedness.

2. A duty expressed to be peacemakers.

3. A title of honour bestowed ‘They shall be called the children of God’.

1 The duty implied, ‘peaceable-mindedness’. For before men can make peace among others, they

must be of peaceable spirits themselves. Before they can be promoters of peace, they must be lovers

of peace.

Christians must be peaceable-minded. This peaceableness of spirit is the beauty of a saint. It is a

jewel of great price: ‘The ornament of a quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price’ (1

Peter 3:4). The saints are Christ’s sheep (John 10:27). The sheep is a peaceable creature. They are

Christ’s doves (Canticles 2:14), therefore they must be without gall. It becomes not Christians to

be Ishmaels but Solomons. Though they must be lions for courage, yet lambs for peaceableness.

God was not in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the ’still small voice’ (1 Kings 19:12). God

is not in the rough fiery spirit but in the peaceable spirit.

There is a fourfold peace that we must study and cherish.

(i) An Oeconomical peace, peace in families. It is called ‘the bond of peace’ (Ephesians 4:3).

Without this all drops in pieces. Peace is a girdle that ties together members in a family. It is a

golden clasp that knits them together that they do not fall in pieces. We should endeavour that our

houses should be ‘houses of peace’. It is not fairness of rooms makes a house pleasant, but

peaceableness of dispositions. There can be no comfortableness in our dwellings till peace be

entertained as an inmate into our houses.

(ii) There is a parochial peace, when there is a sweet harmony, a tuning and chiming together of

affections in a parish; when all draw one way and, as the apostle says, are ‘perfectly joined together

in the same mind’ (1 Corinthians 1:10). One jarring string brings all the music out of tune. One bad

member in a parish endangers the whole. ‘Be at peace among yourselves’ (1 Thessalonians 5:13).

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It is little comfort to have our houses joined together if our hearts be asunder. A geometrical union

will do little good without a moral union.

(iii) There is a political peace, peace in city and country. This is the fairest flower of a prince’s

crown. Peace is the best blessing of a nation. It is well with bees when there is a noise; but it is best

with Christians when (as in the building of the Temple) there is no noise of hammer heard. Peace

brings plenty along with it. How many miles would some go on pilgrimage to purchase this peace!

Therefore the Greeks made peace to be the nurse of Pluto, the god of wealth. Political plants thrive

best in the sunshine of peace. ‘He maketh peace in thy borders, and filleth thee with the finest of

the wheat’ (Psalm 147:14). ‘Peace makes all things flourish’.

The ancients made the harp the emblem of peace. How sweet would the sounding of this harp be

after the roaring of the cannon! All should study to promote this political peace. The godly man

when he dies ‘enters into peace’ (Isaiah 57:2). But while he lives peace must enter into him.

(iv) There is an ecclesiastical peace, a church-peace, when there is unity and verity in the church

of God. Never does religion flourish more than when her children spread themselves as olive-plants

round about her table. Unity in faith and discipline is a mercy we cannot prize enough. This is that

which God has promised (Jeremiah 32:39) and which we should pursue (Zechariah 8:18-23). Saint

Ambrose says of Theodosius the Emperor, that when he lay sick he took more care for the Church’s

peace than for his own recovery.

The reasons why we should be peaceable-minded are two:

First, we are called to peace (1 Corinthians 7:15). God never called any man to division. That is a

reason why we should not be given to strife, because we have no call for it. But God has called us

to peace.

Second, it is the nature of grace to change the heart and make it peaceable. By nature we are of a

fierce cruel disposition. When God cursed the ground for man’s sake, the curse was that it should

bring forth ‘thorns and thistles’ (Genesis 3:18). The heart of man naturally lies under this curse. It

brings forth nothing but the thistles of strife and contention. But when grace comes into the heart

it makes it peaceable. It infuses a sweet, loving disposition. It smooths and polishes the most knotty

piece. It files off the ruggedness in men’s spirits. Grace turns the vulture into a dove, the briar into

a myrtle tree (Isaiah 55:13), the lion-like fierceness into a lamb-like gentleness. ‘The wolf also

shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid . . .’ (Isaiah 11:6-9). It is

spoken of the power which the gospel shall have upon men’s hearts; it shall make such a

metamorphosis that those who before were full of rage and antipathy shall now be made peaceable

and gentle ‘The leopard shall lie down with the kid’.

It shows us the character of a true saint. He is given to peace. He is the keeper of the peace. He is

‘a son of peace’.

Caution: Not but that a man may be of a peaceable spirit, yet seek to recover that which is his due.

If peace has been otherwise sought and cannot be attained, a man may go to law and yet be a

peaceable man. It is with going to law as it is with going to war, when the rights of a nation are

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invaded (as 2 Chronicles 20:2, 3), and peace can be purchased by no other means than war; here it

is lawful to beat the ploughshare into a sword. So when there is no other way of recovering one’s

right but by going to law, a man may commence a suit in law yet be of a peaceable spirit. Going

to law (in this case) is not so much striving with another as contending for a man’s own. It is not

to do another wrong, but to do himself right. It is a desire rather of equity than victory. I say as the

apostle, ‘the law is good if a man use it lawfully’ (1 Timothy 1:8).

You may ask, Is all peace to be sought; how far is peace lawful? I answer, Peace with men must

have this double limitation:

1 The peace a godly man seeks is not to have a league of amity with sinners. Though we are to be

at peace with their persons, yet we are to have war with their sins. We are to have peace with their

persons as they are made in God’s image, but to have war with their sins as they have made

themselves in the devil’s image. David was for peace (Psalm 120:7), but he would not sit on the

ale-bench with sinners (Psalm 26:4, 5). Grace teaches good nature. We are to be civil to the worst,

but not twist into a cord of friendship. That were to be ‘brethren in iniquity’. ‘Have no fellowship

with the unfruitful works of darkness’ (Ephesians 5:11). Jehoshaphat (though a good man) was

blamed for this: ‘Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?’ (2 Chronicles

19:2). The fault was not that he entertained civil peace with Ahab, but that he had a league of

friendship and was assistant to Ahab when he went contrary to God. ‘Therefore was wrath upon

Jehoshaphat from before the Lord’ (verse 2). We must not so far have peace with others as to

endanger ourselves. If a man has the plague, we will be helpful to him and send him our best recipes,

but we are careful not to have too much of his company or suck in his infectious breath. So we may

be peaceable towards all, nay helpful. Pray for them, counsel them, relieve them, but let us take

heed of too much familiarity, lest we suck in their infection. In short we must so make peace with

men that we do not break our peace with conscience. ‘Follow peace and holiness’ (Hebrews 12:14).

We must not purchase peace with the loss of holiness.

2 We must not so seek peace with others as to wrong truth. ‘Buy the truth and sell it not’ (Proverbs

23:23). Peace must not be bought with the sale of truth. Truth is the ground of faith, the rule of

manners. Truth is the most orient gem of the churches’ crown. Truth is a deposit, or charge that

God has entrusted us with. We trust God with our souls. He trusts us with his truths. We must not

let any of God’s truths fall to the ground. Luther says, It is better that the heavens fall than that one

crumb of truth perish. The least filings of this gold are precious. We must not so seek the flower

of peace as to lose the pearl of truth.

Some say, let us unite, but we ought not to unite with error. ‘What communion has light with

darkness?’ (2 Corinthians 6:14). There are many would have peace with the destroying of truth;

peace with Arminian, Socinian, Antiscripturist. This is a peace of the devil’s making. Cursed be

that peace which makes war with the Prince of peace. Though we must be peaceable, yet we are

bid to ‘contend for the faith’ (Jude 3). We must not be so in love with the golden crown of peace

as to pluck off the jewels of truth. Rather let peace go than truth. The martyrs would rather lose

their lives than let go the truth.

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If Christians must be peaceable-minded, what shall we say to those who are given to strife and

contention? To those who, like flax or gunpowder, if they be but touched, are all on fire? How far

is this from the spirit of the gospel! It is made the note of the wicked. ‘They are like the troubled

sea’ (Isaiah 57:20). There is no rest or quietness in their spirits, but they are continually casting

forth the foam of passion and fury. We may with Strigelius wish even to die to be freed from the

bitter strifes which are among us. There are too many like the salamander who live in the fire of

broils and contentions. ‘If ye have bitter envying and strife, this wisdom descends not from above,

but is devilish’ (James 3:14, 15). The lustful man is brutish; the wrathful man is devilish. Everyone

is afraid to dwell in an house which is haunted with evil spirits, yet how little afraid are men of

their own hearts, which are haunted with the evil spirit of wrath and implacableness.

And then, which is much to be laid to heart, there are the divisions of God’s people. God’s own

tribes go to war. In Tertullian’s time it was said, See how the Christians love one another. But now

it may be said, See how the Christians snarl one at another, ‘They are comparable to ferocious

bears’. Wicked men agree together, when those who pretend to be led by higher principles are full

of animosities and heart-burnings. Was it not sad to see Herod and Pilate uniting, and to see Paul

and Barnabas falling out? (Acts 15:39). When the disciples called for fire from heaven, ‘Ye know

not (saith Christ) what manner of spirit ye are of’ (Luke 9:55). As if the Lord had said, This fire

you call for is not zeal, but is the wildfire of your own passions. This spirit of yours does not suit

with the Master you serve, the Prince of peace, nor with the work I am sending you about, which

is an embassage of peace. It is Satan who kindles the fire of contention in men’s hearts and then

stands and warms himself at the fire. When boisterous winds are up, we are accustomed to talk of

conjurors. Sure I am, when men’s spirits begin to bluster and storm, the devil has conjured up these

winds. Discords and animosities among Christians bring their godliness much into question, for

‘the wisdom which is from above is peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated’ (James 3:17).

Be of a peaceable disposition. ‘If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all

men’ (Romans 12:18). The curtains of the tabernacle were to be looped together (Exodus 26:3, 4).

So should the hearts of Christians be looped together in peace and unity. That I may persuade to

peaceablemindedness, let me speak both to reason and conscience.

1 A peaceable spirit seems to be agreeable to the natural frame and constitution. Man by nature

seems to be a peaceable creature, fitter to handle the plough than the sword. Other creatures are

naturally armed with some kind of weapon wherewith they are able to revenge themselves. The

lion has his paw, the boar his tusk, the bee his sting. Only man has none of these weapons. He

comes naked and unarmed into the world as if God would have him a peaceable creature.

‘White-robed peace is becoming to men, fierce anger is fitting for wild beasts.’ Man has his reason

given him that he should live amiably and peaceably.

2 A peaceable spirit is honourable. ‘It is an honour for a man to cease from strife’ (Proverbs 20:3).

We think it a brave thing to give way to strife and let loose the reins to our passions. Oh no, ‘it is

an honour to cease from strife’. Noble spirits are such lovers of peace that they need not be bound

to the peace. It is the bramble that rends and tears whatever is near it. The cedar and fig-tree, those

more noble plants, grow pleasantly and peaceably. Peaceableness is the ensign and ornament of a

noble mind.

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3 To be of a peaceable spirit is highly prudential. ‘The wisdom from above is peaceable’ (James

3:17). A wise man will not meddle with strife. It is like putting one’s finger into a hornets, nest; or

to use Solomon’s similitude, ‘The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water’ (Proverbs

17:14). To set out the folly of strife, it is as letting out of water in two respects:

(i) When water begins to be let out there is no end of it. So there is no end of strife when once

begun.

(ii) The letting out of water is dangerous. If a man should break down a bank and let in an arm of

the sea, the water might overflow his fields and drown him in the flood. So is he that intermeddles

with strife. He may mischief himself and open such a sluice as may engulf and swallow him up.

True wisdom espouses peace. A prudent man will keep off from the briars as much as he can.

4 To be of a peaceable spirit brings peace along with it. A contentious person vexes himself and

eclipses his own comfort. He is like the bird that beats itself against the cage. ‘He troubles his own

flesh’ (Proverbs 11:17). He is just like one that pares off the sweet of the apple and eats nothing

but the core. So a quarrelsome man pares off all the comfort of his life and feeds only upon the

bitter core of disquiet. He is a self-tormentor. The wicked are compared to a ‘troubled sea’ (Isaiah

57:20). And it follows ‘there is no peace to the wicked’ (verse 21). The Septuagint renders it ‘There

is no joy to the wicked’. Froward spirits do not enjoy what they possess, but peaceableness of spirit

brings the sweet music of peace along with it. It makes a calm and harmony in the soul. Therefore

the psalmist says, it is not only good, but pleasant, to live together in unity (Psalm 133:1).

5 A peaceable disposition is a Godlike disposition.

God the Father is called ‘the God of peace’ (Hebrews 13:20). Mercy and peace are about his throne.

He signs the articles of peace and sends the ambassadors of peace to publish them (2 Corinthians

5:20).

God the Son is called ‘the Prince of peace’ (Isaiah 9:6). His name is Emmanuel, God with us, a

name of peace. His office is to be a mediator of peace (1 Timothy 2:5). He came into the world

with a song of peace; the angels sang it: ‘Peace on earth’ (Luke 2:14). He went out of the world

with a legacy of peace: ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you’ (John 14:27).

God the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of peace. He is the Comforter. He seals up peace (2 Corinthians

1:22). This blessed dove brings the olive-branch of peace in his mouth. Now a peaceable disposition

evidences something of God in a man. Therefore God loves to dwell there. ‘In Salem is God’s

tabernacle’ (Psalm 76:2). Salem signifies ‘peace’. God dwells in a peaceable spirit.

6 Christ’s earnest prayer was for peace. He prayed that his people might be one (John 17:11, 21,

23), that they might be of one mind and heart. And observe the argument Christ uses in prayer [it

is good to use arguments in prayer. They are as the feathers to the arrow, which

make it fly swifter, and pierce deeper. Affections in prayer are as the fire in the gun; arguments in

prayer are as the bullet]. The argument Christ urges to his Father is ‘that they may be one, even as

we are one’ (verse 22). There was never any discord between the Father and Christ. Though God

parted with Christ out of his bosom, yet not out of his heart. There was ever dearness and oneness

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between them. Now Christ prays that, as he and his Father were one, so his people might be all one

in peace and concord. Did Christ pray so earnestly for peace, and shall not we endeavour what in

us lies to fulfil Christ’s prayer? How do we think Christ will hear our prayer if we cross his?

7 Christ not only prayed for peace, but bled for it. ‘Having made peace through the blood of his

cross’ (Colossians 1:20). Peace of all kinds! He died not only to make peace between God and man,

but between man and man. Christ suffered on the cross that he might cement Christians together

with his blood. As he prayed for peace, so he paid for peace. Christ was himself bound to bring us

into the ‘bond of peace’.

8 Strife and contention hinder the growth of grace. Can good seed grow in a ground where there

is nothing but thorns and briars to be seen? ‘The thorns choked the seed’ (Matthew 13:7). When

the heart is, as it were, stuck with thorns and is ever tearing and rending, can the seed of grace ever

grow there? Historians report of the Isle of Patmos that the natural soil of it is such chat nothing

will grow upon that earth. A froward heart is like the Isle of Patmos. Nothing of grace will grow

there till God changes the soil and makes it peaceable. How can faith grow in an unpeaceable heart?

For ‘faith works by love’. Impossible it is chat he should bring forth the sweet fruits of the Spirit

who is ‘in the gall of bitterness’. If a man has received poison into his body, the most excellent

food will not nourish till he takes some antidote to expel chat poison. Many come to the ordinances

with seeming zeal, but being poisoned with wrath and animosity they receive no spiritual

nourishment. Christ’s body mystical ‘edifieth itself in love’ (Ephesians 4:16). There may be praying

and hearing, but no spiritual concoction, no edifying of the body of Christ without love and peace.

9 Peaceableness among Christians is a powerful loadstone to draw the world to receive Christ. Not

only gifts and miracles and preaching may persuade men to embrace the truth of the gospel, but

peace and unity among the professors of it. When as there is one God and one faith, so there is one

heart among Christians, this is as cummin seed, which makes the doves flock to the windows. The

temple was adorned with ‘goodly stones’ (Luke 21:5). This makes Christ’s spiritual temple look

beautiful, and the stones of it appear goodly, when they are cemented together in peace and unity.

10 Unpeaceableness of spirit is to make Christians turn heathens. It is the sin of the heathens to be

‘implacable’ (Romans 1:31). They cannot be pacified. Their hearts are like adamant. No oil can

supple them; no fire can melt them. It is a heathenish thing to be so fierce and violent, as if with

Romulus men had sucked the milk of wolves.

11 To add yet more weight to the exhortation, it is the mind of Christ that we should live in peace.

‘Have peace one with another’ (Mark 9:50). Shall we not be at peace for Christ’s sake? If we ought

to lay down our life for Christ’s sake, shall we not lay down our strife for his sake?

To conclude: If we will neither be under counsels nor commands, but still feed the peccant humour,

nourishing in ourselves a spirit of dissension and unpeaceableness, Jesus Christ will never come

near us. The people of God are said to be his house: ‘Whose house are we . . .’ (Hebrews 3:6).

When the hearts of Christians are a spiritual house, adorned with the furniture of peace, then they

are fit for the Prince of peace to inhabit. But when this pleasant furniture is wanting and instead of

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it nothing but strife and debate, Christ will not own it for his house, nor will he grace it with his

presence. Who will dwell in an house which is smoky and all on fire?

How shall we attain to peaceableness?

1 Take heed of those things which will hinder it. There are several impediments of peace which

we must beware of, and they are either outward or inward.

(i) Outward: as whisperers (Romans 1:29). There are some who will be buzzing things in our ears

purposely to exasperate and provoke. Among these we may rank talebearers (Leviticus 19:16). The

talebearer carries reports up and down. The devil sends his letters by this post. The talebearer is an

incendiary. He blows the coals of contention. Do you hear (says he) what such an one says of you?

Will you put up with such a wrong? Will you suffer yourself to be so abused? Thus does he, by

throwing in his fireballs, foment differences and set men together by the ears. We are commanded

indeed to provoke one another to love (Hebrews 10:24), but nowhere to provoke to anger. We

should stop our ears to such persons as are known to come on the devil’s errand.

2 Take heed of inward lets to peace; for example:

(i) Self-love: ‘Men shall be lovers of themselves’ (2 Timothy 3:2). And it follows they shall be

‘fierce’ (verse 3). The setting up of this idol of self has caused so many lawsuits, plunders, massacres

in the world. ‘All seek their own’ (Philippians 2:21). Nay, it were well if they would seek but their

own. Self-love angles away the estates of others either by force or fraud. Self-love sets up monopolies

and enclosures. It is a bird of prey which lives upon rapine. Self-love cuts asunder the bond of

peace. Lay aside self. The heathens could say ‘We are not born for ourselves alone’.

(ii) Pride: ‘He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife’ (Proverbs 28:25). Pride and contention, like

Hippocrates’ twins, are both born at once. A proud man thinks himself better than others and will

contend for superiority. ‘Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence’ (3 John 9). A proud

man would have all strike sail to him. Because Mordecai would not give Haman the cap and knee,

he gets a bloody warrant signed for the death of all the Jews (Esther 3:9). What made all the strife

between Pompey and Caesar but pride? Their spirits were too high to yield one to another. When

this wind of pride gets into a man’s heart, it causes sad earthquakes of division. The poets feign

that when Pandora’s box was broken open it filled the world with diseases. When Adam’s pride

had broken the box of original righteousness it has ever since filled the world with debates and

dissensions. Let us shake off this viper of pride. Humility solders Christians together in peace.

(iii) Envy; envy stirreth up strife. The apostle has linked them together. ‘Envy, strife’ (1 Timothy

6:4). Envy cannot endure a superior. This made the plebeian faction so strong among the Romans;

they envied their superiors. An envious man seeing another to have a fuller crop, a better trade, is

ready to pick a quarrel with him. ‘Who can stand before envy?’ (Proverbs 27:4). Envy is a vermin

that lives on blood. Take heed of it. Peace will not dwell with this inmate.

(iv) Credulity. ‘The simple believeth every word’ (Proverbs 14:15). A credulous man is akin to a

fool. He believes all that is told him and this often creates differences. As it is a sin to be a talebearer,

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so it is a folly to be a tale-believer. A wise man will not take a report at the first bound, but will sift

and examine it before he gives credit to it.

2 Let us labour for those things which will maintain and cherish peace.

(i) As faith; faith and peace keep house together. Faith believes the Word of God. The Word says,

‘Live in peace’ (2 Corinthians 13:11). And as soon as faith sees the king of heaven’s warrant, it

obeys. Faith persuades the soul that God is at peace, and it is impossible to believe this and live in

variance. Nourish faith. Faith knits us to God in love and to our brethren in peace.

(ii) Christian communion. There should not be too much strangeness among Christians. The primitive

saints had their ‘agapai’ that is, love-feasts. The apostle exhorting to peace brings this as an

expedient: ‘Be ye kind one to another’ (Ephesians 4:32).

(iii) Do not look upon the failings of others, but upon their graces. There is no perfection here. We

read of the ’spots of God’s children’ (Deuteronomy 32:5). The most golden Christians are some

grains too light. Oh, let us not so quarrel with the infirmities of others as to pass by their virtues.

If in some things they fail, in other things they excel. It is the manner of the world to look more

upon the sun in an eclipse than when it shines in its full lustre.

(iv) Pray to God that he will send down the Spirit of peace into our hearts. We should not as vultures

prey one upon another, but pray one for another. Pray that God will quench the fire of contention

and kindle the fire of compassion in our hearts one to another. So much for the first thing in the

text implied, that Christians should be peaceable-minded. I proceed to the second thing expressed,

that they should be peacemakers.

All good Christians ought to be peacemakers; they should not only be peaceable themselves, but

make others to be at peace. As in the body when a joint is out we set it again, so it should be in the

body politic. When a garment is rent we sew it together again. When others are rent asunder in

their affections we should with a spirit of meekness sew them together again. Had we this excellent

skill we might glue and unite dissenting spirits. I confess it is often a thankless office to go about

to reconcile differences (Acts 7:27). Handle a briar never so gently, it will go near to scratch. He

that goes to interpose between two fencers many times receives the blow. But this duty, though it

may lack success as from men, yet it shall not want a blessing from God. ‘Blessed are the

peacemakers.’ O how happy were England if it had more peacemakers! Abraham was a peacemaker

(Genesis 13:8). Moses was a peacemaker (Exodus 2:13), and that ever-to-be-honoured emperor

Constantine, when he called the bishops together at that first Council of Nicaea to end church

controversies, they having instead of that prepared bitter invectives and accusations one against

another, Constantine took their papers and rent them, gravely exhorting them to peace and unanimity.

It sharply reproves them that are so far from being peacemakers that they are peace-breakers. If

‘blessed are the peacemakers’, then cursed are the peace-breakers. If peacemakers are the children

of God, then peace-breakers are the children of the devil. Heretics destroy the truth of the church

by error, and schismatics destroy the peace of it by division. The apostle sets a brand upon such.

‘Mark those which cause divisions and avoid them’ (Romans 16:17). Have no more to do with

them than with witches or murderers. The devil was the first peace-breaker. He divided man from

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God. He, like Phaeton, set all on fire. There are too many make-bates in England whose sweetest

music is in discord, who never unite but to divide. As it was said of one of the Arian emperors, he

procured unity to prevent peace. How many in our days may be compared to Samson’s foxtails,

which were tied together only to set the Philistines’ corn on fire! (Judges 15:4, 5). Sectaries unite

to set the church’s peace on fire. These are the persons God’s soul hates, ‘Sowers of discord among

brethren’ (Proverbs 6:19). These are the children of a curse: ‘Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbour

secretly’ (Deuteronomy 27:24), that is, who backbites and so sets one friend against another. If

there be a devil in man’s shape, it is the incendiary.

The text exhorts to two things:

1 Let us take up a bitter lamentation for the divisions of England. The wild beast has broken down

the hedge of our peace. We are like a house falling to ruin, if the Lord does not mercifully under-prop

and shore us up. None of the sons of England comfort her, but rather rake in her bowels. Will not

an ingenuous child grieve to see his mother rent and torn in pieces? It is reported of Cato that from

the time the civil wars began in Rome between Caesar and Pompey, he was never seen to laugh or

shave his beard or cut his hair. That our hearts may be sadly affected with these our church and

state divisions let us consider the mischief of divisions.

(i) They are a prognostic of much evil to a nation. Here that rule in philosophy holds true, ‘All

division tends to destruction’. When the veil of the temple was rent in pieces, it was a sad omen

and forerunner of the destruction of the temple. The rending the veil of the church’s peace betokens

the ruin of it. Josephus observes that the city of Jerusalem when it was besieged by Titus Vespasian

had three great factions in it, which destroyed more than the enemy and was the occasion of the

taking it. How fatal intestine divisions have been to this land! Camden and other learned writers

relate how our discerptions and mutinies have been the scaling ladder by which the Romans and

the Normans have formerly gotten into the nation. How is the bond of peace broken! We have so

many schisms in the body and are run into so many particular churches that God may justly un-church

us, as he did Asia.

(ii) It may afflict us to see the garment of the church’s peace rent, because divisions bring an

opprobrium and scandal upon religion. These make the ways of God evil spoken of, as if religion

were the fomenter of strife and sedition. Julian, in his invective against the Christians, said that

they lived together as tigers rending and devouring one an other. And shall we make good Julian’s

words? It is unseemly to see Christ’s doves fighting; to see his lily become a bramble. Alexander

Severus, seeing two Christians contending, commanded them that they should not take the name

of Christians any longer upon them, for (says he) you dishonour your Master Christ. Let men either

lay down their contentions, or lay off the coat of their profession.

(iii) Divisions obstruct the progress of piety. The gospel seldom thrives where the apple of strife

grows. The building of God’s spiritual temple is hindered by the confusion of tongues. Division

eats as a worm and destroys the ‘peaceable fruits of righteousness’ (Hebrews 12:11). In the Church

of Corinth, when they began to divide into parties, one was for Paul, another for Apollos; there

were but few for Christ. Confident I am that England’s divisions have made many turn atheists.

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2 Let us labour to heal differences and be repairers of breaches: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’

Jesus Christ was a great peacemaker. He took a long journey from heaven to earth to make peace.

Peace and unity is a great means for the corroborating and strengthening the church of God. The

saints are compared to living stones, built up for a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5). You know the

stones in an arch or fabric help to preserve and bear up one another. If the stones be loosened and

drop out, all the fabric falls in pieces. When the Christians in the primitive church were of one heart

(Acts 4:32) what a supporting was this! How did they counsel, comfort, build up one another in

their holy faith! We see while the members of the body are united, so long they do administer help

and nourishment one to another; but if they be divided and broken off, they are no way useful, but

the body languishes. Therefore let us endeavour to be peacemakers. The church’s unity tends much

to her stability. Peace makes the church of God on earth in some measure like the church in heaven.

The cherubims (representing the angels) are set out with their faces ‘looking one upon another’ to

show their peace and unity. There are no jarrings or discords among the heavenly spirits. One angel

is not of an opinion differing from another. Though they have different orders, they are not of

different spirits. They are seraphims, therefore burn, not in heat of contention, but love. The angels

serve God not only with pure hearts, but united hearts. By an harmonious peace we might resemble

the church triumphant.

He that sows peace shall reap peace. ‘To the counsellors of peace is joy’ (Proverbs 12:20). The

peacemaker shall have peace with God, peace in his own bosom, and that is the sweetest music

which is made in a man’s own breast. He shall have peace with others. The hearts of all shall be

united to him. All shall honour him. He shall be called ‘the repairer of the breach’ (Isaiah 58:12).

To conclude, the peacemaker shall die in peace. He shall carry a good conscience with him and

leave a good name behind him. So I have done with the first part of the text ‘Blessed are the

peacemakers’. I proceed to the next part.

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19. They shall be called the children of God

They shall be called the children of God.

Matthew 5:9

In these words the glorious privilege of the saints is set down. Those who have made their peace

with God and labour to make peace among brethren, this is the great honour conferred upon them,

‘They shall be called the children of God’.

‘They shall be (called)’, that is, they shall be so reputed and esteemed of God. God never miscalls

anything. He does not call them children which are no children. ‘Thou shalt be called the prophet

of the Highest’ (Luke 1:76), that is, thou shalt be so. They shall be ‘called the children of God’,

that is, they shall be accounted and admitted for children.

The proposition resulting is this: that peacemakers are the children of the most High. God is said

in Scripture to have many children:

By eternal generation. So only Christ is the natural Son of his Father. ‘Thou art my Son: this day

have I begotten thee’ (Psalm 2:7).

By creation. So the angels are the sons of God. ‘When the morning stars sang together and all the

sons of God shouted for joy’ (Job 38:7).

By participation of dignity. So king and rulers are said to be children of the high God. ‘I have said,

ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most High’ (Psalm 82:6).

By visible profession. So God has many children. Hypocrites forge a title of son-ship. ‘The sons

of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair’ (Genesis 6:2).

By real sanctification. So all the faithful are peculiarly and eminently the children of God.

That I may illustrate and amplify this, and that believers may suck much sweetness out of this

gospel-flower, I shall discuss and demonstrate these seven particulars:

1 That naturally we are not the children of God.

2 What it is to be the children of God.

3 How we come to be made children.

4 The signs of God’s children.

5 The love of God in making us children.

6 The honour of God’s children.

7 The privileges of God’s children.

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Naturally we are not the children of God. As Jerome says, we are not born God’s children but made

so. By nature we are strangers to God, swine not sons (2 Peter 2:22). Will a man settle his estate

upon his swine? He will give them his acorns, not his jewels. By nature we have the devil for our

father: ‘Ye are of your father the devil (John 8:44). A wicked man may search the records of hell

for his pedigree.

What it is to be the children of God. This child-ship consists in two things. Adoption; infusion of

grace.

Child-ship consists in adoption: ‘That we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Galatians 4:5).

Wherein does the true nature of adoption consist?

In three things:

(i) A transition or translation from one family to another. He that is adopted is taken out of the old

family of the devil and hell (Ephesians 2:2, 3) to which he was heir apparent, and is made of the

family of heaven, of a noble family (Ephesians 2:19). God is his Father, Christ is his elder-brother,

the saints co-heir, the angels fellow-servants in that family.

(ii) Adoption consists in an immunity and disobligement from all the laws of the former family.

‘Forget also thy father’s house’ (Psalm 45:10). He who is spiritually adopted has now no more to

do with sin. ‘Ephraim shall say, what have I to do any more with idols?’ (Hosea 14:8). A child of

God has indeed to do with sin as with an enemy to which he gives battle, but not as with a lord to

which he yields obedience. He is freed from sin (Romans 6:7). I do not say he is freed from duty.

Was it ever heard that a child should be freed from duty to his parents? This is such a freedom as

rebels take.

(iii) Adoption consists in a legal investitute into the rights and royalties of the family into which

the person is to be adopted. These are chiefly two:

The first royalty is a new name. He who is divinely adopted assumes a new name; before, a slave;

now, a son; of a sinner, a saint. This is a name of honour better than any title of prince or monarch.

‘To him that overcometh I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written’ (Revelation

2:17). The white stone signifies remission. The new name signifies adoption, and the new name is

put in the white stone to show that our adoption is grounded upon our justification; and this new

name is written to show that God has all the names of his children enrolled in the book of life.

The second royalty is a giving the party adopted an interest in the inheritance. The making one an

heir implies a relation to an inheritance. A man does not adopt another to a title but to an estate.

So God in adopting us for his children gives us a glorious inheritance: ‘The inheritance of the saints

in light’ (Colossians 1:12).

It is pleasant; it is an inheritance in light.

It is safe; God keeps the inheritance for his children (1 Peter 1:4), and keeps them for the inheritance

(1 Peter 1:5), so that they cannot be hindered from taking possession.

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There is no disinheriting, for the saints are co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). Nay, they are

members of Christ (Colossians 1:18). The members cannot be disinherited but the head must.

The heirs never die. Eternity is a jewel of their crown. ‘They shall reign for ever and ever’

(Revelation 22:5).

Before I pass to the next, here a question may arise. How do God’s adopting and man’s adopting

differ?

1 Man adopts to supply a defect, because he has no children of his own, but God does not adopt

upon this account. He had a Son of his own, the Lord Jesus. He was his natural Son and the Son

of his love, testified by a voice from heaven, ‘This is my beloved Son’ (Matthew 3:17). Never was

there any Son so like the Father. He was his exact effigy, ‘the express image of his person’ (Hebrews

1:3). He was such a Son as was worth more than all the angels in heaven: ‘Being made so much

better than the angels’ (Hebrews 1:4); so that God adopts not out of necessity, but pity.

2 When a man adopts, he adopts but one heir, but God adopts many: ‘In bringing many sons to

glory’ (Hebrews 2:10). Oh may a poor trembling Christian say, Why should I ever look for this

privilege to be a child of God! It is true, if God did act as a man, if he adopted only one son, then

you might despair. But he adopts millions. He brings ‘many sons to glory’. Indeed this may be the

reason why a man adopts but one, because he does not have enough estate for more. If he should

adopt many his land would not hold out. But God has enough land to give to all his children. ‘In

my Father’s house are many mansions’ (John 14:2).

3 Man when he adopts does it with ease. It is but sealing a deed and the thing is done. But when

God adopts, it puts him to a far greater expense. It sets his wisdom on work to find out a way to

adopt us. It was no easy thing to reconcile hell and heaven, to make the children of wrath the children

of the promise; and when God in his infinite wisdom had found out a way, it was no easy way. It

cost God the death of his natural Son, to make us his adopted sons. When God was about to constitute

us sons and heirs, he could not seal the deed but by the blood of his own Son. It did not cost God

so much to make us creatures as to make us sons. To make us creatures cost but the speaking of a

word. To make us sons cost the effusion of blood.

4 Man, when he adopts, settles but earthly privileges upon his heir, but God settles heavenly

privileges justification, glorification. Men but entail their land upon the persons they adopt. God

does more. He not only entails his land upon his children, but he entails himself upon them. ‘I will

be their God’ (Hebrews 8:10). Not only heaven is their portion, but God is their portion.

God’s filiating or making of children is by infusion of grace. When God makes any his children

he stamps his image upon them. This is more than any man living can do. He may adopt another,

but he cannot alter his disposition. If he be of a morose rugged nature, he cannot alter it; but God

in making of children fits them for son-ship. He prepares and sanctifies them for this privilege. He

changes their disposition. He files off the ruggedness of their nature. He makes them not only sons,

but saints. They are of another spirit (Numbers 14:24). They become meek and humble. They are

‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:4).

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The third thing is how we come to be the children of God.

There is a double cause of our filiation or child-ship.

The impulsive cause is God’s free grace. We were rebels and traitors, and what could move God

to make sinners sons, but free grace? ‘Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children

according to the good pleasure of his will’ (Ephesians 1:5). Free grace gave the casting voice.

Adoption is a mercy spun out of the bowels of free grace. It were much for God to take a clod of

earth and make it a star, but it is more for God to take a piece of clay and sin and instate it into the

glorious privilege of son-ship. How will the saints read over the lectures of free grace in heaven!

The organic or instrumental cause of our son-ship is faith. Baptism does not make us children. That

is indeed a badge and livery and gives us right to many external privileges, but the thing which

makes God take cognisance of us for children is faith. ‘Ye are all the children of God by faith in

Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:26). Before faith be wrought we have nothing to do with God. We are

(as the apostle speaks in another sense) bastards and not sons (Hebrews 12:8). An unbeliever may

call God his Judge, but not his Father. Wicked men may draw near to God in ordinances, and hope

that God will be their Father, but while they are unbelievers they are bastards, and God will not

father them but will lay them at the devil’s door. ‘Ye are the children of God by faith’. Faith

legitimates us. It confers upon us the title of son-ship and gives us right to inherit.

How then should we labour for faith! Without faith we are creatures, not children. Without faith

we are spiritually illegitimate. This word ‘illegitimate, is a term of infamy. Such as are illegitimate

are looked upon with disgrace. We call them baseborn. You who ruffle it in your silks and velvets,

but are in the state of nature, you are illegitimate. God looks upon you with an eye of scorn and

contempt. You are a vile person, a son of the earth, ‘of the seed of the serpent’. The devil can show

as good a coat of arms as you.

This word ‘illegitimate’ also imports infelicity and misery. Persons illegitimate cannot inherit

legally. The land goes only to such as are lawful heirs. Till we are the children of God, we have no

right to heaven, and there is no way to be children but by faith. ‘Ye are the children of God by

faith’.

Here two things are to be discussed:

1 What faith is.

2 Why faith makes us children.

1 What faith is. If faith instates us into son-ship, it concerns us to know what faith is. There is a

twofold faith.

(i) A more lax general faith. When we believe the truth of all that is revealed in the Holy Scriptures,

this is not the faith which privileges us in son-ship. The devils believe all the articles in the creed.

It is not the bare knowledge of a medicine or believing the sovereign virtue of it that will cure one

that is ill. This general faith (so much cried up by some) will not save. This a man may have and

not love God. He may believe that God will come to judge the quick and the dead, and hate him,

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as the prisoner believes the judge’s coming to the assizes, and abhors the thoughts of him. Take

heed of resting in a general faith. You may have this and be no better than devils.

(ii) There is a special faith, when we not only believe the report we hear of Christ, but rest upon

him, embrace him, ‘taking hold of the horns of this altar’, resolving there to abide. In the body there

are sucking veins, which draw the meat into the stomach and concoct it there. So faith is the sucking

vein which draws Christ into the heart and applies him there. This is the filiating faith. By this we

are made the children of God, and wherever this faith is, it is not like physic in a dead man’s mouth,

but is exceedingly operative. It obliges to duty. It works by love (Galatians 5:6).

But why does faith makes us children? Why should not other graces, repentance, love etc., do so?

I answer: Because faith is instituted of God and honoured to this work of making us children. God’s

institution gives faith its value and validity. It is the king’s stamp makes the coin pass current. If

he would put his stamp upon brass or leather, it would go as current as silver. The great God has

authorised and put the stamp of his institution upon faith, and that makes it pass for current and

gives it a privilege above all the graces to make us children.

Again, faith makes us children as it is the vital principle. ‘The just shall live by faith’ (Habakkuk

2:4). All God’s children are living. None of them are stillborn. Now ‘by faith we live’. As the heart

is the fountain of life in the body, so faith is the fountain of life in the soul.

Faith also makes us children as it is the uniting grace. It knits us to Christ. The other graces cannot

do this. By faith we are one with Christ and so we are akin to God. Being united to the natural Son,

we become adopted sons. The kindred comes in by faith. God is the Father of Christ. Faith makes

us Christ’s brethren (Hebrews 2:11), and so God comes to be our Father.

The fourth particular to be discussed is to show the signs of God’s children. It concerns us to know

whose children we are. Augustine says that all mankind are divided into two ranks; either they are

the children of God or the children of the devil.

1 The first sign of our heavenly son-ship is tenderness of heart: ‘Because thy heart was tender’ (2

Chronicles 34:27). A childlike heart is a tender heart. He who before had a flinty, has now a fleshy

heart. A tender heart is like melting wax to God. He may set what seal he will upon it. This tenderness

of heart shows itself three ways.

(i) A tender heart grieves for sin. A child weeps for offending his father. Peter showed a tender

heart when Christ looked upon him and he remembered his sin, he wept as a child. Clement of

Alexandria says, he never heard a cock crow but he wept. And some learned writers tell us that by

much weeping there seemed to be as it were channels made in his blessed face. The least hair makes

the eye weep. The least sin makes the heart smite. David’s heart smote him when he cut off the lap

of King Saul’s garment! What would it have done if he had cut off his head?

(ii) A tender heart melts under mercy. Though when God thunders by affliction, the rain of tears

falls from a gracious eye, yet the heart is never so kindly dissolved as under the sunbeams of God’s

mercy. See how David’s heart was melted with God’s kindness: ‘Who am I, O Lord God, and what

is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?’ (2 Samuel 7:18). There was a gracious thaw upon

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his heart. So says a child of God, ‘Lord, who am I (a piece of dust and sin kneaded together) that

the orient beams of free grace should shine upon me? Who am I, that thou shouldest pity me when

I lay in my blood and spread the golden wings of mercy over me? The soul is overcome with God’s

goodness, the tears drop, the love flames; mercy has a melting influence upon the soul.

(iii) A tender heart trembles under God’s threatenings. ‘My flesh trembleth for fear of thee’ (Psalm

119:120). ‘Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou

heardest his words against this place, and didst rend thy clothes…’ (2 Chronicles 34:27). If the

father be angry, the child trembles. When ministers denounce the menaces and threats of God

against sin, tender souls sit in a trembling posture. This frame of heart God delights in. ‘To this

man will I look, even to him that trembleth at thy word’ (Isaiah 66:2). A wicked man, like the

Leviathan, ‘is made without fear’ (Job 41:33). He neither believes the promises nor dreads the

threatenings. Let judgement be denounced against sin, ‘he laughs at the shaking of a spear’. He

thinks either that God is ignorant and does not see, or impotent and cannot punish. The mountains

quake before the Lord, the hills melt, the rocks are thrown down by him (Nahum 1:5). But the

hearts of sinners are more obdurate than the rocks. An hardened sinner like Nebuchadnezzar has

‘the heart of a beast given to him’ (Daniel 4:16). A childlike heart is a tender heart. The stone is

taken away.

2 The second sign of son-ship is assimilation. ‘Ye have put on the new man which is renewed in

knowledge after the image of him that created him’ (Colossians 3:10). The child resembles the

father. God’s children are like their heavenly Father. They bear his very image and impress. Wicked

men say they are the children of God, but there is too great a dissimilitude and unlikeness. The

Jews bragged they were Abraham’s children, but Christ disproves them by this argument, because

they were not like him. ‘Ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard

of God; this did not Abraham’ (John 8:40). You, Abraham’s children, and go about to kill me!

Abraham would not have murdered an innocent. You are more like Satan than Abraham. ‘Ye are

of your father the devil’ (verse 44). Such as are proud, earthly, malicious may say, ‘Our father

which art in hell’. It is blasphemy to call God our Father and make the devil our pattern. God’s

children resemble him in meekness and holiness. They are his walking pictures. As the seal stamps

its print and likeness upon the wax, so does God stamp the print and effigy of his own beauty upon

his children.

3 The third sign of God’s children is, they have the Spirit of God. It is called the Spirit of adoption;

‘ye have received the Spirit of adoption . . .’ (Romans 8:15).

How shall we know that we have received the Spirit of adoption, and so are in the state of adoption?

The Spirit of God has a threefold work in them who are made children:

(i) A regenerating work. (ii) A supplicating work. (iii) A witnessing work.

(i) A regenerating work. Whomsoever the Spirit adopts, He regenerates. God’s children are said

to be ‘born of the Spirit’. ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the

kingdom of God’ (John 3:5). We must first be born of the Spirit before we are baptised with this

new name of sons and daughters. We are not God’s children by creation, but by renovation; not by

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our first birth, but by our new birth. This new birth produced by the Word as the material cause

(James 1:18), and by the Spirit as the efficient cause, is nothing else but a change of nature (Romans

12:2), which though it be not a perfect change, yet is a thorough change (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

This change of heart is as necessary as salvation.

How shall we know that we have this regenerating work of the Spirit?

Two ways: by the pangs; by the products.

By the pangs: there are spiritual pangs before the new birth, some bruisings of soul, some groanings

and cryings out, some strugglings in the heart between flesh and Spirit. ‘They were pricked at their

heart’ (Acts 2:37). The child has sharp throws before the birth; so it is in the new birth. I grant the

new birth is marked by ‘more and less’. All do not have the same pangs of humiliation, yet all have

pangs; all feel the hammer of the law upon their heart, though some are more bruised with this

hammer than others. God’s Spirit is a Spirit of bondage before He is a Spirit of adoption (Romans

8:15). What then shall we say to those who are as ignorant about the new birth as Nicodemus: ‘How

can a man be born when he is old . . .?’ (John 3:4). The new birth is ‘a derision of the ungodly’,

though it be ‘a great secret’ to the godly. Some thank God they never had any trouble of spirit.

They were always quiet. These bless God for the greatest curse. It is a sign they are not God’s

children. The child of grace is always born with pangs.

The new birth is known by the products, which are three:

Sensibility. The infant that is new-born is sensible of the least touch. If the Spirit has regenerated

you, you are sensible of the ebullitions and first risings of sin which before you did not perceive.

Paul cries out of the ‘law in his members’ (Romans 7:23). The new-born saint sees sin in the root.

Circumspection. He who is born of the Spirit is careful to preserve grace. He plies the breast of

ordinances (1 Peter 2:1). He is fearful of that which may endanger his spiritual life (1 John 5:18).

He lives by faith, yet passes the time of his sojourning in fear (1 Peter 1:17). This is the first work

of the Spirit in them who are made children, a regenerating work.

(ii) The Spirit of God has a supplicating work in the heart. The Spirit of adoption is a Spirit of

supplication. ‘Ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father’ (Romans

8:15). While the child is in the womb it cannot cry. While men lie in the womb of their natural

estate, they cannot pray effectually, but when they are born of the Spirit, then they cry ‘Abba,

Father’. Prayer is nothing else but the soul’s breathing itself into the bosom of its Father. It is a

sweet and familiar intercourse with God. As soon as ever the Spirit of God comes into the heart,

He sets it a-praying. No sooner was Paul converted but the next word is, ‘Behold, he prayeth’ (Acts

9:11). It is reported in the life of Luther that, when he prayed, it was with so much reverence as if

he were praying to God, and with so much boldness, as if he had been speaking to his friend. And

Eusebius reports of Constantine the Emperor that every day he used to shut up himself in some

secret place in his palace, and there on bent knees make his devout prayers and soliloquies to God.

God’s Spirit tunes the strings of the affections, and then we make melody in prayer. For any to say,

in derision, ‘you pray by the Spirit’, is a blasphemy against the Spirit. It is a main work of the Spirit

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of God in the hearts of his children to help them to pray: ‘Because ye are sons, God has sent forth

the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father’ (Galatians 4:6).

But many of the children of God do not have such abilities to express themselves in prayer. How

then does the Spirit help their infirmities?

Though they do not have always the gifts of the Spirit in prayer, yet they have the groans of the

Spirit (Romans 8:26). Gifts are the ornaments of prayer, but not the life of prayer. A carcass may

be hung with jewels. Though the Spirit may deny fluency of speech, yet He gives fervency of desire,

and such prayers are most prevalent. The prayers which the Spirit indites in the hearts of God’s

children have these threefold qualifications.

The prayers of God’s children are believing prayers. Prayer is the key. Faith is the hand that turns

it. Faith feathers the arrow of prayer and makes it pierce the throne of grace. ‘Whatsoever ye shall

ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive’ (Matthew 21:22). Whereupon, says Jerome, I would not

presume to pray unless I bring faith along with me. To pray and not believe is (as one says) a kind

of jeer offered to God, as if we thought either he did not hear or he would not grant.

That faith may be animated in prayer, we must bring Christ in our arms when we appear before

God. ‘And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt-offering; and Samuel cried unto

the Lord for Israel, and the Lord heard him’ (1 Samuel 7:9). This sucking lamb typified Christ.

When we come to God in prayer we must bring the Lamb, Christ along with us. Themistocles

carried the king’s son in his arms and so pacified the king when he was angry. The children of God

present Christ in the arms of their faith.

The prayers of God’s children indited by the Spirit are ardent prayers. ‘Ye have received the Spirit,

whereby we cry Abba, Father’ (Romans 8:15). ‘Father’; that implies faith. We cry; that implies

fervency. The incense was to be laid upon burning coals (Leviticus 16:12). The incense was a type

of prayer; the burning coals, of ardency in prayer. ‘Elias prayed earnestly, James 5:17). In the Greek

it is ‘in praying he prayed’, that is, he did it with vehemence. In prayer the heart must boil over

with heat of affection. Prayer is compared to groans unutterable (Romans 8:26). It alludes to a

woman that is in pangs. We should be in pangs when we are travailing for mercy. Such prayer

‘commands God himself’ (Isaiah 45:11).

The prayers of God’s children are heart-cleansing prayers. They purge out sin. Many pray against

sin and sin against prayer. God’s children not only pray against sin, but pray down sin.

(iii) The Spirit of God has a witnessing work in the heart. God’s children have not only the influence

of the Spirit, but the witness. ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children

of God’ (Romans 8:16). There is a threefold witness a child of God has the witness of the Word,

the witness of conscience, the witness of the Spirit. The Word makes the major proposition. He

who is in such a manner qualified is a child of God. Conscience makes the minor proposition; but

you are so divinely qualified. The Spirit makes the conclusion therefore you are a child of God.

The Spirit joins with the witness of conscience. ‘The Spirit witnesseth with our spirits’ (Romans

8:16). The Spirit teaches conscience to search the records of Scripture and find its evidences for

heaven. It helps conscience to spell out its name in a promise. It bears witness with our spirit.

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But how shall I know the witness of the Spirit from a delusion?

The Spirit of God always witnesses according to the Word, as the echo answers the voice. Enthusiasts

speak much of the Spirit, but they leave the Word. That inspiration which is either without the

Word or against it, is an imposture. The Spirit of God indited the Word (2 Peter 1:21). Now if the

Spirit should witness otherwise than according to the Word, the Spirit would be divided against

Himself. He would be a spirit of contradiction, witnessing one thing for a truth in the Word and

another thing different from it in a man’s conscience.

4 The fourth sign of God’s children is zeal for God. They are zealous for his day, his truth, his

glory. They who are born of God are impatient of his dishonour. Moses was cool in his own cause,

but hot in God’s. When the people of Israel had wrought folly in the golden calf, he breaks the

tables. When St. Paul saw the people of Athens given to idolatry ‘his spirit was stirred in him’ (Acts

17:16). In the Greek it is his spirit was ‘embittered’, or, as the word may signify, he was in a

paroxysm or burning fit of zeal. He could not contain, but with this fire of zeal discharges against

their sin. As we shall answer for idle words, so for sinful silence. It is dangerous in this sense to be

possessed with a ‘dumb devil’. David says, ‘the zeal of God’s house had eaten him up’ (Psalm

69:9). Many Christians whose zeal once had almost eaten them up, now they have eaten up their

zeal. They are grown tepid and neutral. The breath of preferment blowing upon them has cooled

their heat. I can never believe that he has the heart of a child in him that can be patient when God’s

glory suffers. Can an ingenuous child endure to hear his father reproached? Though we should be

silent under God’s displeasure, yet not under his dishonour. When there is an holy fire kindled in

the heart, it will break forth at the lips. Zeal tempered with holiness is the white and sanguine which

gives the soul its best complexion.

Of all others let ministers be impatient when God’s glory is impeached and eclipsed. A minister

without zeal is like ’salt that has lost its savour’. Zeal will make men take injuries done to God as

done to themselves. It is reported of Chrysostom that he reproved any sin against God as if he

himself had received a personal wrong. Let not ministers be either shaken with fear or seduced

with flattery. God never made ministers to be as false glasses, to make bad faces look fair. For want

of this fire of zeal, they are in danger of another fire, even the ‘burning lake’ (Revelation 21:8),

into which the fearful shall be cast.

5 Those who are God’s children and are born of God are of a more noble and celestial spirit than

men of the world. They mind ‘things above’ (Colossians 3:2). ‘Whatsoever is born of God

overcometh the world’ (1 John 5:4). The children of God live in an higher region. They are compared

to eagles (Isaiah 40:31), in regard of their sublimeness and heavenly-mindedness. Their souls are

fled aloft. Christ is in their heart (Colossians 1:27) and the world is under their feet (Revelation

12:1). Men of the world are ever tumbling in thick clay. They are ’sons of earth’; not eagles, but

earthworms. The saints are of another spirit. They are born of God and walk with God as the child

walks with the father. ‘Noah walked with God’ (Genesis 6:9). God’s children show their high

pedigree in their heavenly conversation (Philippians 3:20).

6 Another sign of adoption is love to them that are children. God’s children are knit together with

the bond of love, as all the members of the body are knit together by several nerves and ligaments.

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If we are born of God, then we ‘love the brotherhood’ (1 Peter 2:17); He that loves the person,

loves the picture. The children of God are his walking pictures, and if we are of God, we love those

who have his effigy and portraiture drawn upon their souls. If we are born of God, we love the

saints notwithstanding their infirmities. Children love one another though they have some

imperfections of nature, a squint-eye, or a crooked back. We love gold in the ore, though it has

some drossiness in it. The best saints have their blemishes. We read of the ’spot of God’s children’

(Deuteronomy 32:5). A saint in this life is like a fair face with a scar in it. If we are born of God

we love his children though they are poor. We love to see the image and picture of our Father,

though hung in never so poor a frame. We love to see a rich Christ in a poor man.

And if we are children of the Highest, we show our love to God’s children:

(i) By prizing their persons above others. He who is born of God ‘honoureth them that fear the

Lord’ (Psalm 15:4). The saints are the ‘dearly beloved of God’s soul’ (Jeremiah 12:7). They are

his ‘jewels’ (Malachi 3:17). They are of the true blood-royal, and he who is divinely adopted sets

an higher estimate upon these than upon others.

(ii) We show our love to the children of God by prizing their company above others. Children love

to associate and be together. The communion of saints is precious. Christ’s doves will flock together

in company. ‘Like associates with like’. ‘I am a companion of all them that fear thee’ (Psalm

119:63). We read that ‘Abraham bowed himself to the children of Heth’ (Genesis 23:7) A child of

God has a love of civility to all, but a love of complacency only to such as are fellow-heirs with

him of the same inheritance.

By this persons may try their adoption. It appears plainly that they are not the children of God who

hate those that are born of God. They soil and blacken the silver wings of Christ’s doves by their

aspersive reproaches. They cannot endure the society of the saints. As vultures hate sweet smells

and are killed with them, so the wicked do not love to come near the godly. They cannot abide the

precious perfume of their graces. They hate these sweet smells. It is a sign they are of the serpent’s

brood who hate the seed of the woman.

7 The seventh sign of God’s children is to delight to be much in God’s presence. Children love to

be in the presence of their father. Where the king is, there is the court. Where the presence of God

is, there is heaven. God is in a special manner present in his ordinances. They are the ark of his

presence. Now if we are children, we love to be much in holy duties. In the use of ordinances we

draw near to God. We come into our Father’s presence. In prayer we have secret conference with

God. In the Word we hear God speaking from heaven to us, and how does every child of God

delight to hear his Father’s voice! In the sacraments God kisses his children with the ‘kisses of his

lips’. He gives them a smile of his face and a privy-seal of his love. Oh it is ‘good to draw near to

God’ (Psalm 73:28). It is sweet being in his presence. Every true child of God says, ‘a day in thy

courts is better than a thousand’ (Psalm 84:10). Slighters of ordinances are none of God’s children,

because they care not to be in his presence. They love the tavern better than the temple. ‘Cain went

out from the presence of the Lord’ (Genesis 4:16); not that he could go out of God’s sight (Psalm

139:7), but the meaning is, Cain went from the church of God where the Lord gave the visible signs

of his presence to his people.

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8 The eighth sign is compliance with the will of our heavenly Father. A childlike heart answers to

God’s call as the echo answers to the voice. It is like the flower that opens and shuts with the sun.

So it opens to God and shuts to temptation. This is the motto of a new-born saint, ‘Speak, Lord,

thy servant hears’ (1 Samuel 3:9). When God bids his children pray in their closets, mortify sin,

suffer for his name, they are ambitious to obey. They will lay down their lives at their Father’s call.

Hypocrites court God and speak him fair, but refuse to go on his errand. They are not children but

rebels.

9 The last sign is, He who is a child of God will labour to make others the children of God. The

holy seed of grace propagates (Galatians 4:19; Philemon 10). He who is of the seed royal will be

ambitiously desirous to bring others into the kindred. Are you divinely adopted? You will studiously

endeavour to make your child a child of the most High.

How Christians should bring up their children

There are two reasons why a godly parent will endeavour to bring his child into the heavenly

kindred:

(i) Out of conscience. A good parent sees the injury he has done to his child. He has conveyed the

plague of sin to him, and in conscience he will endeavour to make some recompense. In the old

law, he that had smitten and wounded another was bound to see him healed and pay for his cure.

Parents have given their children a wound in their souls and therefore must do what in them lies

by admonition, prayers, tears, to see the wound healed.

(ii) Out of flaming zeal to the honour of God. He who has tasted God’s love in adoption looks upon

himself as engaged to bring God all the glory he can. If he has a child or acquaintance that are

strangers to God he would gladly promote the work of grace in their hearts. It is a glory to Christ

when multitudes are born to him.

How far are they from being God’s children who have no care to bring others into the family of

God! To blame are those masters who mind more their servants’ work than their souls. To blame

are those parents who are regardless of their children. They do not drop in principles of knowledge

into them, but suffer them to have their head. They will let them lie and swear, but not ask blessing;

read play-books but not Scripture.

But, say some, to catechise and teach our children is to take God’s name in vain.

Is the fulfilling God’s command taking his name in vain? ‘These words which I command thee this

day, thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children’ (Deuteronomy 6:6, 7). ‘Train up a child in the

way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it’ (Proverbs 22:6). ‘Ye fathers,

provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord’

(Ephesians 6:4). This threefold cord of Scripture is not easily broken.

The saints of old were continually grafting principles of holy knowledge in their children. ‘I know

that Abraham will command his children, and they shall keep the way of the Lord’ (Genesis 18:19).

‘And thou Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father and serve him with a perfect heart’

(1 Chronicles 28:9). Sure Abraham and David did not take God’s name in vain! What need is there

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of instilling holy instructions to overtop the poisonful weeds of sin that grow! As husband-men,

when they have planted young trees, they set stays to them to keep them from bending. Children

are young plants. The heavenly precepts of their parents are like stays set about them, to keep them

from bending to error and profaneness. When can there be a fitter season to disseminate and infuse

knowledge into children than in their minority? Now is a time to give them the breast and let them

suck in the ’sincere milk of the word’ (1 Peter 2:2).

But some may object that it is to no purpose to teach our children the knowledge of God. They

have no sense of spiritual things, nor are they the better for our instructions. I answer:

We read in Scripture of children who by virtue of instruction have had their tender years sanctified.

Timothy’s mother and grandmother taught him the Scriptures from his cradle: ‘And that from a

child thou hast known the holy Scriptures’ (2 Timothy 3:15). Timothy sucked in religion as it were

with his milk. We read of young children who cried ‘Hosanna’ to Christ and trumpeted forth his

praises (Matthew 21:15). And sure those children of Tyre had some seeds of good wrought in them

in that they showed their love to Paul and would help him on his way to the seashore. ‘They all

brought us on our way with wives and children’ (Acts 21:5). Saint Paul had a convoy of young

saints to bring him to take ship.

And again, suppose our counsel and instruction does not at present prevail with our children, it

may afterwards take effect. The seed a man sows in his ground does not presently spring up, but

in its season it brings forth a crop. He that plants a wood does not see the full growth till many

years after. If we must not instruct our children because at present they do not reap the benefit, by

the same reason we should not baptise our children, because at present they do not have the sense

of baptism. Nay, by the same reason ministers should not preach the Word, because at present many

of their hearers have no benefit.

Again, if our counsels and admonitions do not prevail with our children, yet ‘we have delivered

our own souls’. There is comfort in the discharge of conscience. We must let alone issues and

events. Duty is our work; success is God’s.

All which considered, should make parents whet holy instructions upon their children. They who

are of the family of God and whom he has adopted for children, will endeavour that their children

may be more God’s children than theirs. They will ‘travail in birth till Christ be formed in them’.

A true saint is a loadstone that will be still drawing others to God. Let this suffice to have spoken

of the signs of adoption. I proceed.

The fifth particular to be discussed is the love of God in making us children. ‘Behold what manner

of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!’ (1 John 3:1).

God showed power in making us creatures, but love in making us sons. Plato gave God thanks that

he had made him a man and not a beast, but what cause have they to adore God’s love, who has

made them children! The apostle puts a ‘Behold’ to it. That we may the better behold God’s love

in making us children, consider three things.

1 We were deformed. ‘When I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, it was the

time of love’ (Ezekiel 16:6, 8). Mordecai adopted Esther because she was fair, but we were in our

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blood, and then God adopted us. He did not adopt us when we were clothed with the robe of

innocence in paradise, when we were hung with the jewels of holiness and were white and ruddy;

but when we were in our blood and had our leprous spots upon us. The time of our loathing was

the time of God’s loving.

2 As we did not deserve to be made children so neither did we desire it. No landed man will force

another to become his heir against his will. If a king should go to adopt a beggar and make him

heir of the crown, if the beggar should refuse the king’s favour and say, ‘I had rather be as I am, I

would be a beggar still’; the king would take it in high contempt of his favour and would not adopt

him against his will. Thus it was with us. We had no willingness to be made children. We would

have been begging still, but God out of his infinite mercy and indulgence, not only offers to make

us children, but makes us willing to embrace the offer (Psalm 110:3). ‘Behold what manner of love,

is this!

3 It is the wonder of love that God should adopt us for his children when we were enemies. If a

man would make another heir of his land, he would adopt one that is near akin to him. No man

would adopt an enemy. But that God should make us children when we were enemies; that he

should make us heirs to the crown when we were traitors to the crown; oh amazing, astonishing

love! ‘Behold what manner of love, is this! We were not akin to God. We had by sin lost and

forfeited our pedigree. We had done God all the injury and spite we could, defaced his image,

violated his law, trampled upon his mercies, and when we had angered him, he adopted us. What

stupendous love was this! Such love was never shown to the angels! When they fell (though they

were of a more noble nature, and in probability might have done God more service than we can,

yet) God never vouchsafed this privilege of adoption to them. He did not make them children, but

prisoners. They were heirs only to ‘the treasures of wrath’ (Romans 2:5).

Let all who are thus nearly related to God, stand admiring his love. When they were like Saul,

breathing forth enmity against God; when their hearts stood out as garrisons against him, the Lord

conquered their stubbornness with kindness, and not only pardoned, but adopted them. It is hard

to say which is greater, the mystery or the mercy. This is such amazing love as we shall be searching

into and adoring to all eternity. The bottom of it cannot be fathomed by any angel in heaven. God’s

love in making us children is a rich love. It is love in God to feed us, but it is rich love to adopt us.

It is love to give us a crumb, but it is rich love to make us heirs to a crown.

It is a distinguishing love that when God has passed by so many millions, he should cast a favourable

aspect upon thee! Most are cut out for fuel, and are made vessels of wrath. And that God should

say to thee, ‘Thou art my son’, here is the mirror of mercy, the meridian of love! Who, O who, can

tread upon these hot coals, and his heart not burn in love to God?

The sixth particular is the honour and renown of God’s children. For the illustration of this, observe

two things:

I. God makes a precious account of them.

2. He looks upon them as persons of honour.

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1 God makes a precious account of them. ‘Since thou wast precious in my sight . . .’ (Isaiah 43:4).

A father prizes his child above his estate. How dearly did Jacob prize Benjamin! His ‘life was

bound up in the life of the lad’ (Genesis 44:30). God makes a precious valuation of his children.

The wicked are of no account with God. They are vile persons. ‘I will make thy grave for thou art

vile’ (Nahum 1:14). Therefore the wicked are compared to chaff (Psalm 1:4), to dross (Psalm

119:119). There is little use of a wicked man while he lives and no loss of him when he dies. There

is only a little chaff blown away, which may well be spared. But God’s children are precious in his

sight. They are his jewels (Malachi 3:17). The wicked are but lumber which serves only to ‘cumber

the ground’. But God’s children are his jewels locked up in the cabinet of his decree from all

eternity. God’s children are ‘the apple of his eye’ (Zechariah 2:8), very dear and very tender to

him, and the eyelid of his special providence covers them. The Lord accounts every thing of his

children precious.

Their name is precious. The wicked leave their name for a curse (Isaiah 65:15). The names of God’s

children are embalmed (Isaiah 60:15). So precious are their names that God enters them in the book

of life and Christ carries them on his breast. How precious must their name needs be, who have

God’s own name written upon them! ‘Him that overcometh, I will write upon him the name of my

God’ (Revelation 3:12).

Their prayers are precious. ‘O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, let me hear thy voice, for sweet

is thy voice’ (Canticles 2:14). Every child of God is this dove. Prayer is the voice of the dove, and

’sweet is this voice’. The prayer of God’s children is as sweet to him as music. A wicked man’s

prayer is as the ‘howling’ of a dog (Hosea 7:14). The prayer of the saints is as the singing of the

bird. The finger of God’s Spirit touching the lute-strings of their hearts, they make melody to the

Lord. ‘Their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar’ (Isaiah 56:7).

Their tears are precious. They drop as pearls from their eyes. ‘I have seen thy tears’ (Isaiah 38:5).

The tears of God’s children drop as precious wine into God’s bottle. ‘Put thou my tears into thy

bottle’ (Psalm 56:8). A tear from a broken heart is a present for the king of heaven.

Their blood is precious. ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints’ (Psalm 116:15).

This is the blood God will chiefly make inquisition for. Athaliah shed the blood of the king’s

children (2 Kings 11:1). The saints are the children of the most High, and such as shed their blood

shall pay dear for it. ‘Thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy’ (Revelation 16:6).

2 God looks upon his children as persons of honour. ‘Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou

hast been honourable . . .’ (Isaiah 43:4).

God esteems them honourable. He calls them a crown and a royal diadem (Isaiah 62:3). He calls

them his glory: ‘Israel my glory (Isaiah 46:13)

God makes them honourable. As a king creates dukes, marquises, earls, barons etc., so God installs

his children into honour. He creates them noble persons, persons of renown. David thought it no

small honour to be the king’s son-in-law. ‘Who am I that I should be son-in-law to the king?’ (1

Samuel 18:18). What an infinite honour is it to be the children of the High God, to be of the

blood-royal of heaven! The saints are of an ancient family. They are sprung from ‘the Ancient of

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days’ (Daniel 7:9). That is the best pedigree which is fetched from heaven. Here the youngest child

is an heir, a co-heir with Christ who is heir of all (Hebrews 1:2; Romans 8:17). Consider the honour

of God’s children positively and comparatively.

Positively: They have titles of honour. They are called ‘kings’ (Revelation 1:6); ‘the excellent of

the earth’ (Psalm 16:3); ‘vessels of honour’ (2 Timothy 2:21).

They have their escutcheon. You may see the saints’ escutcheon or coat-armour. The Scripture has

set forth their heraldry. Sometimes they give the lion in regard of their courage (Proverbs 28:1).

Sometimes they give the eagle in regard of their sublimeness. They are ever flying up to heaven

upon the two wings of faith and love. ‘They shall mount up with wings as eagles’ (Isaiah 40:31).

Sometimes they give the dove in regard of their meekness and innocence (Canticles 2:14). This

shows the children of God to be persons of renown.

Consider the honour of God’s children comparatively; and this comparison is double. Compare the

children of God with Adam; with the angels.

Compare the children of God with Adam in a state of innocence. Adam was a person of honour.

He was the sole monarch of the world. All the creatures veiled to him as their sovereign. He was

placed in the garden of Eden which was a paradise of pleasure. He was crowned with all the

contentments of the earth. Nay more, Adam was God’s lively picture. He was made in the likeness

of God himself. Yet the state of the meanest of God’s children by adoption is far more excellent

and honourable than the state of Adam was, when he wore the robe of innocence, for Adam’s

condition, though it was glorious yet it was mutable, and was soon lost; Adam was a bright star,

yet a falling star. But God’s children by adoption are in a state unalterable. Adam had a ‘posse non

peccare’, a possibility of standing, but believers have a ‘non posse peccare’, an impossibility of

falling; once adopted, and ever adopted. As Isaac said, when he had given the blessing to Jacob, ‘I

have blessed him and he shall be blessed’ (Genesis 27:33). So may we say of all God’s children,

they are adopted, and they shall be adopted; so that God’s children are in a better and more glorious

condition now than Adam was in all his regal honour and majesty.

Let us ascend as high as heaven and compare God’s children with the glorious and blessed angels.

God’s children are equal to the angels, in some sense above them, so that they must be persons of

honour.

God’s children are equal to the angels. This is acknowledged by some of the angels themselves. ‘I

am thy fellow-servant’ (Revelation 19:10). Here is a parallel made between John the Divine and

the angel. The angel says to John, ‘I am thy fellow-servant.’

The children of God by adoption are in some sense above the angels, and that two ways.

The angels are servants to God’s children (Hebrews 1:14). Though they are ‘glorious spirits’, yet

they are ‘ministering spirits’. The angels are the saints’ servitors. We have examples in Scripture

of angels attending the persons of God’s children. We read of angels waiting upon Abraham, Moses,

Daniel, the Virgin Mary etc. Nor do the angels only render service to God’s children while they

live, but at their death too. Lazarus had a convoy of angels to carry him into the paradise of God.

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Thus we see the children of God have a pre-eminence and dignity above the angels. The angels are

their servants both living and dying; and this is more to be observed, because it is never said in

Scripture that the children of God are servants to the angels.

God’s children are above the angels, because Christ by taking their nature has ennobled and honoured

it above the angelic. ‘He in no wise took the nature of angels’ (Hebrews 2:16). God by uniting us

to Christ has made us nearer to himself than the angels. The children of God are members of Christ

(Ephesians 5:30). This was never said of the angels. How can they be members of Christ, who are

of a different nature from him? Indeed metaphorically and improperly Christ may be called the

head of the angels, as they are subject to him (1 Peter 3:22). But that Christ is head of the angels

in that near and sweet conjunction, as he is head of the believers, we nowhere find in Scripture. In

this respect therefore I may clearly assert that the children of God have a superiority and honour

even above the angels. Though by creation they are ‘a little lower than the angels’, yet by adoption

and mystical union they are above the angels.

How may this comfort a child of God in the midst either of calumny or penury! He is a person of

honour. He is above the angels. A gentleman that is fallen to decay will sometimes boast of his

parentage and noble blood; so a Christian who is poor in the world, yet by virtue of his adoption

he is of the family of God. He has the true blood-royal running in his veins. He has a fairer coat of

arms to show than the angels themselves.

The seventh particular to be explained is to show the glorious privileges of God’s children; and

what I shall say now belongs not to the wicked. It is ‘children’s bread’. The fruit of paradise was

to be kept with a flaming sword. So these sweet and heart-ravishing privileges are to be kept with

a flaming sword, that impure sensual persons may not touch them. There are twelve rare privileges

which belong to the children of God.

1 If we are children, then God will be full of tender love and affection towards us. A father

compassionates his child. ‘Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear

him’ (Psalm 103:13). Oh the yearning of God’s bowels to his children! ‘Is Ephraim my dear son?

Is he a pleasant child? My bowels are troubled for him, I will surely have mercy upon him, saith

the Lord’ (Jeremiah 31:20). Towards the wicked God’s wrath is kindled (Psalm 2:12). Towards

them that are children, God’s repentings are kindled (Hosea 11:8). Mercy and pity as naturally flow

from our heavenly Father as light from the sun.

Some may object: But God is angry and writes bitter things. How does this stand with love?

God’s love and his anger towards his children are not in opposition but ’showing a difference’.

They may stand together. He is angry in love. ‘As many as I love I rebuke and chasten’ (Revelation

3:19). We have as much need of afflictions as ordinances. A bitter pill may be as needful for

preserving health as a julep or cordial. God afflicts with the same love as he adopts. God is most

angry when he is not angry. His hand is heaviest when it is lightest (Hosea 14:4). Affliction is an

argument of son-ship. ‘If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons’ (Hebrews 12:7).

Oh, says one, surely God does not love me. I am none of his child, because he does not follow me

with such sore afflictions. Why, it is a sign of child-ship to be sometimes under the rod. God had

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one son without sin, but no son without stripes. God puts his children to the school of the cross,

and there they learn best. God speaks to us in the Word, children, do not be proud, do not love the

world; ‘Walk circumspectly’ (Ephesians 5:15). But, we are ‘dull of hearing’; nay we ’stop the ear’.

‘I spake to thee in thy prosperity, but thou saidst, I will not hear’ (Jeremiah 22:21). Now, says God,

I shall lose my child if I do not correct him. Then God in love smites that he may save. Aristotle’

speaks of a bird that lives among thorns, yet sings sweetly. God’s children make the best melody

in their heart, when God ‘hedgeth their way with thorns’ (Hosea 2:6). Afflictions are refining. ‘The

fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold’ (Proverbs 17:3). Fiery trials make golden Christians.

Afflictions are purifying. ‘Many shall be tried and made white’ (Daniel 12:10). We think God is

going to destroy us, but he only lays us a-whitening. Some birds will not hatch but in time of

thunder. Christians are commonly best in affliction. God will make his children at last bless him

for sufferings. The eyes that sin shuts affliction opens. When Manasseh was in chains, ‘then he

knew the Lord was God’ (2 Chronicles 33:13). Afflictions fit for heaven. First the stones of

Solomon’s temple were hewn and polished and then set up into a building. First the saints (who

are called ‘living stones’) must be hewn and carved by sufferings as the corner stone was, and so

made meet for the celestial building (Colossians 1:12). And is there not love in all God’s Fatherly

castigations?

But there may be another objection, that sometimes God’s children are under the black clouds of

desertion. Is not this far from love?

Concerning desertion, I must needs say that this is the saddest condition that can betide God’s

children. When the sun is gone, the dew falls. When the sunlight of God’s countenance is removed,

then the dew of tears falls from the eyes of the saints. In desertion God rains hell out of heaven (to

use Calvin’s expression). ‘The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh

up my spirit, Job 6:4). This is the poisoned arrow that wounds to the heart. Desertion is a taste of

the torments of the damned. God says, ‘In a little wrath I hid my face from thee’ (Isaiah 54:8). I

may here gloss with Saint Bernard, ‘Lord, dost thou call that a little wrath when thou hidest thy

face? Is it but a little? What can be more bitter to me than the eclipsing of thy face?’ God is in the

Scripture called a light and a fire. The deserted soul feels the fire but does not see the light. But yet

you who are adopted may spell love in all this. They say of Hercules, club that it was made of wood

of olive. The olive is an emblem of peace. So God’s club, whereby he beats down the soul in

desertion, has something of the olive. There is peace and mercy in it. I shall hold forth a spiritual

rainbow wherein the children of God may see the love of their Father in the midst of the clouds of

desertion.

Therefore I answer:

(i) In time of desertion God leaves in his children a seed of comfort. ‘His seed remaineth in him’

(1 John 3:9). This seed of God is a seed of comfort. Though God’s children in desertion lack the

seal of the Spirit, yet they have the unction of the Spirit (1 John 2:27). Though they lack the sun,

yet they have a daystar in their hearts. As the tree in winter, though it has lost its leaves and fruit,

yet there is sap in the root; so in the winter of desertion there is the sap of grace in the root of the

heart. As it is with the sun masking itself with a cloud when it denies light to the earth, yet it gives

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forth its influence; so though God’s dear adopted ones may lose sight of his countenance, yet they

have the influence of his grace.

What grace appears in the time of desertion? I answer:

An high prizing of God’s love. If God should say to the deserted soul, What wilt thou and it shall

be granted to half of the kingdom?, he would reply, Lord that I might see thee ‘as I was wont to

see thee in the sanctuary’; that I may have one golden beam of thy love. The deserted soul slights

all other things in comparison. It is not gardens or orchards, or the most delicious objects that can

give him contentment. They are like music to a sad heart. He desires, as Absalom, ‘to see the king’s

face’.

A lamenting after the Lord. It is the saddest day for him when the sun of righteousness is eclipsed.

A child of God can better bear the world’s stroke than God’s absence. He is even melted into tears;

the clouds of desertion produce spiritual rain, and whence is this weeping but from love?

Willingness to suffer anything so he may have sight of God. A child of God could be content with

Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross if he were sure Christ were upon it. He could willingly die, if

with Simeon he might die with Christ in his arms. Behold here, ‘the seed of God’ in a believer, the

work of sanctification, when he lacks the wine of consolation.

(ii) I answer, God has a design of mercy in hiding his face from his adopted ones.

First, it is for the trial of grace, and there are two graces brought to trial in time of desertion, faith

and love.

Faith: When we can believe against sense and feeling; when we are without experience, yet can

trust to a promise; when we do not have the ‘kisses of God’s mouth’, yet can cleave to ‘the word

of his mouth’; this is faith indeed. Here is the sparkling of the diamond.

Love: When God smiles upon us, it is not much to love him, but when he seems to put us away in

anger (Psalm 27:9), now to love him and be as the lime — the more water is thrown upon it the

hotter it burns — this is love indeed. That love sure is ’strong as death’ (Canticles 8:6) which the

waters of desertion cannot quench.

Secondly, it is for the exercise of grace. We are all for comfort. If it be put to our choice, we would

be ever upon Mount Pisgah, looking into Canaan. We are loath to be in trials, agonies, desertions,

as if God could not love us except he had us in his arms. It is hard to lie long in the lap of spiritual

joy and not fall asleep. Too much sunshine causes a drought in our graces. Oftentimes when God

lets down comfort into the heart, we begin to let down care. As it is with musicians, before they

have money they will play you many a sweet lesson, but as soon as you throw them down money

they are gone. You hear no more of them. Before joy and assurance, O the sweet music of prayer

and repentance! But when God throws down the comforts of his Spirit, we either leave off duty or

at least slacken the strings of our viol and grow remiss in it. You are taken with the money, but

God is taken with the music. Grace is better than comfort. Rachel is more fair, but Leah is more

fruitful. Comfort is fair to look upon, but grace has the fruitful womb. Now the only way to exercise

grace and make it more vigorous and lively is sometimes to ‘walk in darkness and have no light’

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(Isaiah 50:16). Faith is a star that shines brightest in the night of desertion. ‘I said, I am cast out of

thy sight; yet will I look again toward thy holy temple’ (Jonah 2:4). Grace usually puts forth its

most heroic acts at such a time.

(iii) I answer: God may forsake his children in regard of vision, but not in regard of union. Thus it

was with Jesus Christ when he cried out, ‘my God, my God’. There was not a separation of the

union between him and his Father, only a suspension of the vision. God’s love through the

interposition of our sins may be darkened and eclipsed, but still he is a Father. The sun may be hid

in a cloud, but it is not out of the firmament. The promises in time of desertion may be, as it were,

sequestered. We do not have the comfort from them as formerly, but still the believer’s title holds

good in law.

(iv) I answer: when God hides his face from his child, his heart may be towards him. As Joseph,

when he spake roughly to his brethren and made them believe he would take them for spies, still

his heart was towards them and he was as full of love as ever he could hold. He was fain to go aside

and weep. So God is full of love to his children even when he seems to look strange. And as Moses’

mother when she put her child into the ark of bulrushes and went away a little from it, yet still her

eye was toward it. ‘The babe wept’; aye, and the mother wept too. So God, when he goes aside as

if he had forsaken his children, yet he is full of sympathy and love towards them. God may change

his countenance but not break his covenant. It is one thing for God to desert, another thing to

disinherit. ‘How shall I give thee up, Ephraim . . .’ (Hosea 11:8). It is a metaphor taken from a

father going to disinherit his son, and while he is setting his hand to the deed, his bowels begin to

melt and to yearn over him and he thinks thus within himself, Though he be a prodigal child, yet

he is a child; I will not cut off the entail. So says God, ‘How shall I give thee up?’ Though Ephraim

has been a rebellious son, yet he is a son, I will not disinherit him. God’s thoughts may be full of

love when there is a veil upon his face. The Lord may change his dispensation towards his children,

but not his disposition. He may have the look of an enemy, but the heart of a Father. So that the

believer may say, I am adopted; let God do what he will with me; let him take the rod or the staff;

it is all one; He loves me.

2 The second adoptional privilege is this if we are children then God will bear with many infirmities.

A father bears much with a child he loves. ‘I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that

serveth him’ (Malachi 3:17). We often grieve the Spirit, abuse kindness. God will pass by much

in his children. ‘He hath not seen iniquity in Jacob’ (Numbers 23:21). His love does not make him

blind. He sees sin in his people but not with an eye of revenge, but pity. He sees sin in his children

as a physician does a disease in his patient. He has not seen iniquity in Jacob so as to destroy him.

God may use the rod (2 Samuel 7:14), not the scorpion. O how much is God willing to pass by in

his children, because they are children! God takes notice of the good that is in his children, and

passes by the infirmity. God does quite contrary to us. We often take notice of the evil that is in

others and overlook the good. Our eye is upon the flaw in the diamond, but we do not observe its

sparkling. But God takes notice of the good that is in his children. God sees their faith and winks

at their failings (1 Peter 3:6). Even as ‘Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord’; the Holy Ghost

does not mention her unbelief and laughing at the promise, but takes notice of the good in her,

namely, her obedience to her husband. ‘She obeyed Abraham, calling him lord’. God puts his finger

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upon the scars and infirmities of his children. How much did God wink at in Israel his firstborn!

Israel often provoked him with their murmurings (Deuteronomy 1:27), but God answered their

murmurings with mercies. He spared them as a father spares his son.

3 The third privilege is this — if we are children then God will accept of our imperfect services.

A parent takes anything in good part from his child. God accepts of the will for the deed (2

Corinthians 8:12). Often times we come with broken prayers, but if we are children, God spells out

our meaning and will take our prayers as a grateful present. A father loves to hear his child speak,

though he but lisps and stammers. Like a ‘crane, so did I chatter’ (Isaiah 38:14). Good Hezekiah

looked upon his praying as chattering, yet that prayer was heard (verse 5). A sigh and groan from

an humble heart goes up as the smoke of incense. ‘My groaning is not hid from thee’ (Psalm 38:9).

When all the glistering shows of hypocrites evaporate and come to nothing, a little that a child of

God does in sincerity is crowned with acceptance. A father is glad of a letter from his son though

there are blots in the letter, though there are false spellings and broken English. O what blottings

are there in our holy things! What broken English sometimes! Yet coming from broken hearts it is

accepted. Though there be weakness in duty, yet if there be willingness, the Lord is much taken

with it. Says God, it is my child and he would do better. ‘He hath accepted us in the beloved,

(Ephesians 1:6).

4 If we are children then God will provide for us. A father will take care for his children. He gives

them allowance and lays up a portion (2 Corinthians 12:14). So does our heavenly Father.

He gives us our allowance: ‘The God which fed me all my life long unto this day’ (Genesis 48:15).

Whence is our daily bread, but from his daily care? God will not let his children starve, though our

unbelief is ready sometimes to question his goodness and say, ‘Can God prepare a table?’ See what

arguments Christ brings to prove God’s paternal care for his children. ‘Behold the fowls of the air,

they sow not, neither do they reap, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them’ (Matthew 6:26). Does

a man feed his bird, and will he not feed his child? ‘Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil

not, they spin not; if then, God so clothe the grass . . .’ (Luke 12:27). Does God clothe the lilies

and will he not clothe his lambs? ‘The Lord careth for you’ (1 Peter 5:7). As long as his heart is

full of love, so long his head will be full of care. This should be as physic to kill the worm of

unbelief.

As God gives his children a ‘viaticum’ or bait’ by the way, so he lays up a portion for them. ‘It is

your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom’ (Luke 12:32). Our Father keeps the purse

and will give us enough to bear our charges here, and when at death we take shipping and shall be

set upon the shore of eternity, then will our heavenly Father bestow upon us a kingdom immutable

and immarcescible. Lo, here is a portion which can never be summed up.

5 If we are children then God will shield off dangers from us. A father will protect his child from

injuries. God ever lies sentinel to keep off evil from his children temporal evil; spiritual evil.

(i) God screens off temporal evil. There are many casualties and contingencies which are incident

to life. God mercifully prevents them. He keeps watch and ward for his children. ‘My defence is

of God’ (Psalm 7:10). ‘He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep’ (Psalm 121:4). The

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eye of providence is ever awake. God gives his angels charge over his children (Psalm 91:11). A

believer has a guard of angels for his lifeguard. We read of the wings of God in Scripture. As the

breast of his mercy feeds his children, so the wings of his power cover them. How miraculously

did God preserve Israel his firstborn! He with his wings sometimes covered, sometimes carried

them. ‘He bare you as upon eagles, wings’ (Exodus 19:4), an emblem of God’s providential care.

The eagle fears no bird from above to hurt her young, only the arrow from beneath. Therefore she

carries them upon her wings that the arrow must first hit her before it can come at her young ones.

Thus God carries his children upon the wings of providence, and they are such that there is no

clipping these wings, nor can any arrow hurt them.

(ii) God shields off spiritual evils from his children. ‘There shall no evil befall thee’ (Psalm 91:10).

God does not say no afflictions shall befall us, but no evil.

But some may say, that sometimes evil in this sense befalls the godly. They spot themselves with

sin. I answer:

But that evil shall not be mortal. As quicksilver is in itself dangerous, but by ointments it is so

tempered that it is killed, so sin is in itself deadly but being tempered with repentance and mixed

with the sacred ointment of Christ’s blood, the venomous damning nature of it is taken away.

6 If we are children then God will reveal to us the great and wonderful things of his law. ‘I thank

thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and

prudent and hast revealed them unto babes’ (Matthew 11:25). A father will teach his children. The

child goes to his father, saying, ‘Father, teach me my lesson’. So David goes to God: ‘Teach me

to do thy will, for thou art my God’ (Psalm 143:10). The Lord glories in this title, ‘I am the Lord

thy God which teacheth thee to profit’ (Isaiah 48:17). God’s children have that anointing which

teaches them all things necessary to salvation. They see those mysteries which are veiled over to

carnal eyes, as Elisha saw those horses and chariots of fire which his servant did not see (2 Kings

6:17). The adopted see their own sins, Satan’s snares, and Christ’s beauty which they whom the

god of the world has blinded cannot discern. Whence was it that David understood more than the

ancients (Psalm 119:100)? He had a Father to teach him. God was his instructor. ‘O God, thou hast

taught me from my youth’ (Psalm 71:17). Many a child of God complains of ignorance and dullness.

Remember this — your Father will be your tutor. He has promised to give ‘his Spirit to lead thee

into all truth’ (John 16:13). And God not only informs the understanding, but inclines the will. He

not only teaches us what we should do but enables us to do it. ‘I will cause you to walk in my

statutes’ (Ezekiel 36:27). What a glorious privilege is this, to have the star of the Word pointing

us to Christ, and the loadstone of the Spirit drawing!

7 If we are children this gives us boldness in prayer. The child goes with confidence to his father,

and he cannot find in his heart to deny him: ‘How much more shall your heavenly Father give his

Holy Spirit to them that ask him!’ (Luke 11:13). All the father has is for his child. If he comes for

money, who is it for but his child? If you come to God for pardon, for brokenness of heart, God

cannot deny his child. Whom does he keep his mercies in store for, but his children?

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And that which may give God’s children holy boldness in prayer is this; when they consider God

not only in the relation of a father, but as having the disposition of a father. Some parents are of a

morose, rugged nature, but God is the ‘Father of mercies’ (2 Corinthians 1:3). He begets all the

bowels in the world. In prayer we should look upon God under this notion, ‘a Father of mercy’,

sitting upon a ‘throne of grace’. We should run to this heavenly Father in all conditions.

In our sins, as that sick child who ’said unto his father, my head, my head!’ (2 Kings 4:19). As soon

as he found himself not well, he ran to his father to succour him. So in case of sin, run to God: ‘My

heart, my heart! O this dead heart, Father, quicken it; this hard heart, Father, soften it; Father, my

heart, my heart!’

In our temptations: A child, when another strikes him, runs to his father and complains. So when

the devil strikes us by his temptations, let us run to our Father: ‘Father, Satan assaults and hurls in

his fiery darts. He would not only wound my peace, but thy glory. Father, take off the tempter. It

is your child that is worried by this “red dragon”. Father, will you not “bruise Satan” under my

feet?’ What a sweet privilege is this! When any burden lies upon our spirits, we may go to our

Father and unload all our cares and griefs into his bosom!

8 If we are children, then we are in a state of freedom. Claudius Lysias valued his freedom of Rome

at an high rate (Acts 22:20). A state of son-ship is a state of freedom. This is not to be understood

in an Antinomian sense, that the children of God are freed from the rule of the moral law. This is

such a freedom as rebels take. Was it ever heard that a child should be freed from duty to his parents?

But the freedom which God’s children have is an holy freedom. They are freed from ‘the law of

sin’ (Romans 8:2).

It is the sad misery of an unregenerate person that he is in a state of vassalage. He is under the

tyranny of sin. Justin Martyr used to say, It is the greatest slavery in the world for a man to be

subject to his own passions. A wicked man is as very a slave as he that works in the galley. Look

into his heart and there are legions of lusts ruling him. He must do what sin will have him. A slave

is at the service of an usurping tyrant. If he bid him dig in the mine, hew in the quarries, tug at the

oar, he must do it. Thus every wicked man must do what corrupt nature inspired by the devil bids

him. If sin bids him be drunk, be unchaste, he is at the command of sin, as the ass is at the command

of the driver. Sin first enslaves and then damns.

But the children of God, though they are not free from the in-being of sin, yet they are freed from

the law of sin. All sin’s commands are like laws repealed which are not in force. Though sin live

in a child of God it does not reign. ‘Sin shall not have dominion over you’ (Romans 6:14). Sin does

not have a coercive power over a child of God. There is a principle of grace in his heart which gives

check to corruption. This is a believer’s comfort though sin be not removed, yet it is subdued; and

though he cannot keep sin out, yet he keeps sin under. The saints of God are said to ‘crucify the

flesh’ (Galatians 5:24). Crucifying was a lingering death. First one member died, then another.

Every child of God crucifies sin. Some limb of the old man is ever and anon dropping off. Though

sin does not die perfectly, it dies daily. This is the blessed freedom of God’s children, they are freed

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from the law of sin. They are led by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:14). This Spirit makes them free

and cheerful in obedience. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’ (2 Corinthians 3:17).

9 If we are children then we are heirs apparent to all the promises. The promises are called precious

(2 Peter 2:4). The promises are a cabinet of jewels. They are breasts full of the milk of the gospel.

The promises are enriched with variety and are suited to a Christian’s present condition. Does he

want pardoning grace? There is a promise carries forgiveness in it (Jeremiah 31:34). Does he want

sanctifying grace? There is a promise of healing (Hosea 14:4). Does he want corroborating grace?

There is a promise of strength (Isaiah 41:10). And these promises are the children’s bread. The

saints are called ‘heirs of the promise’ (Hebrews 6:17). There is Christ and heaven in a promise;

and there is never a promise in the Bible but an adopted person may lay a legal claim to it and say,

‘This is mine.’ The natural man who remains still in the old family has nothing to do with these

promises. He may read over the promises (as one may read over another man’s will or inventory)

but has no right to them. The promises are like a garden of flowers, paled in and enclosed, which

no stranger may gather, only the children of the family. Ishmael was the son of the bond-woman.

He had no right to the family. ‘Cast out the bond-woman and her son,’ as Sarah once said to Abraham

(Genesis 21:10). So the unbeliever is not adopted, he is none of the household, and God will say

at the day of judgement, ‘Cast out this son of the bond-woman into utter darkness’, where is weeping

and gnashing of teeth.

10 If we are children, then we shall have our Father’s blessing. ‘They are the seed which the Lord

has blessed’ (Isaiah 61:9). We read that Isaac blessed his son Jacob: ‘God give thee of the dew of

heaven’ (Genesis 27:28), which was not only a prayer for Jacob, but (as Luther says) a prophecy

of that happiness and blessing which should come upon him and his posterity. Thus every adopted

child has his heavenly Father’s benediction. There is a special blessing distilled into all that he

possesses. ‘The Lord will bless his people with peace’ (Exodus 23:25; Psalm 29:11). He will not

only give them peace, but they shall have it with a blessing. The wicked have the things they enjoy

with God’s leave, but the adopted have them with God’s love. The wicked have them by providence;

the saints by promise. Isaac had but one blessing to bestow. ‘Hast thou but one blessing, my father?’

(Genesis 27:38). But God has more blessings than one for his children. He blesses them in their

souls, bodies, names, estate, posterity. He blesses them with the upper springs and the nether springs.

He multiplies to bless them and his blessing cannot be reversed. As Isaac said concerning Jacob,

‘I have blessed him, yea and he shall be blessed’ (Genesis 27:33), so God blesses his children and

they shall be blessed.

11 If we are children, then all things that fall out shall turn to our good. ‘All things work together

for good to them that love God’ (Romans 8:28): good things; evil things.

(i) Good things work for good to God’s children. Mercies shall do them good. The mercies of God

shall soften them. David’s heart was overcome with God’s mercy. ‘Who am I, and what is my

house . . .?’ (2 Samuel 7:18). I who was of a mean family, I who held the shepherd’s staff, that now

I should hold the royal sceptre! Nay, thou hast spoken of thy servant’s house for a great while to

come. Thou hast made a promise that my children shall sit upon the throne; yea, that the blessed

Messiah shall come of my line and race. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God! As if he had

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said, ‘Do men show such kindness undeserved? See how this good man’s heart was dissolved and

softened by mercy! The flint is soonest broken upon a soft pillow.

Mercies make the children of God more fruitful. The ground bears the better crop for the cost that

is laid upon it. God gives his children health and they spend and are spent for Christ. He gives them

estates and they honour the Lord with their substance. The backs and bellies of the poor are the

field where they sow the precious seed of their charity. A child of God makes his estate a golden

clasp to bind his heart faster to God, a footstool to raise him up higher towards heaven.

Ordinances shall work for good to God’s children. The word preached shall do them good; it is a

savour of life; it is a lamp to the feet and a laver to their hearts. The word preached is a means of

health, a chariot of salvation. It is an engrafting and a transforming word; it is a word with unction,

anointing their eyes to see that light. The preaching of the Word is that lattice where Christ looks

forth and shows himself to his saints. This golden pipe of the sanctuary conveys the water of life.

To the wicked the word preached works for evil; even the word of life becomes a savour of death.

The same cause may have divers, nay, contrary effects. The sun dissolves the ice but hardens the

clay. To the unregenerate and profane, the Word is not humbling but hardening. Jesus Christ, the

best of preachers, was to some a rock of offence. The Jews sucked death from his sweet lips. It is

sad that the breast should kill any. The wicked suck poison from that breast of ordinances where

the children of God suck milk and are nourished unto salvation.

The sacrament works for good to the children of God. In the Word preached the saints hear Christ’s

voice; in the sacrament they have his kiss. The Lord’s Supper is to the saints ‘a feast of fat things’.

It is an healing and a sealing ordinance. In this charger, or rather chalice, a bleeding Saviour is

brought in to revive drooping spirits. The sacrament has glorious effects in the hearts of God’s

children. It quickens their affections, strengthens their faith, mortifies their sin, revives their hopes,

increases their joy. It gives a prelibation and foretaste of heaven.

(ii) Evil things work for good to God’s children. ‘Unto the upright ariseth light in the darkness’

(Psalm 112:4).

Poverty works for good to God’s children. It starves their lusts. It increases their graces. ‘Poor in

the world, rich in faith’ (James 2:5). Poverty tends to prayer. When God has clipped his children’s

wings by poverty, they fly swiftest to the throne of grace.

Sickness works for their good. It shall bring the body of death into a consumption. ‘Though our

outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day’ (2 Corinthians 4:16). Like those

two laurels at Rome, when the one withered the other flourished.’ When the body withers the soul

of a Christian flourishes. How often have we seen a lively faith in a languishing body! Hezekiah

was better on his sick bed than upon his throne. When he was upon his sickbed he humbles himself

and weeps. When he was on his throne he grew proud (Isaiah 39:2). God’s children recover by

sickness. In this sense, ‘out of weakness they are made strong’ (Hebrews 11:34).

Reproach works for good to God’s children; it increases their grace and their glory.

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Disgrace increases their grace. The husband-man by dunging his ground makes the soil more rich

and fertile. God lets the wicked dung his people with reproaches and calumnies, that their hearts

may be a richer soil for grace to grow in.

Reproach increases their glory. He that unjustly takes from a saint’s credit shall add to his crown.

The sun shines brighter after an eclipse. The more a child of God is eclipsed by reproaches the

brighter he shall shine in the kingdom of heaven.

Persecution to God’s children works for good. The godly may be compared to that plant which

Gregory Nazianzen speaks of. It lives by dying and grows by cutting. The zeal and love of the

saints is blown up by sufferings. Their joy flourishes. Tertullian says the primitive Christians

rejoiced more in their persecutions than in their deliverances.

Death works for good to the children of God. It is like the whirlwind to the prophet Elijah, which

blew off his mantle, but carried him up to heaven. So death to a child of God is like a boisterous

whirlwind which blows off the mantle of his flesh (for the body is but the mantle the soul is wrapped

in), but it carries up the soul to God. This is the glorious privilege of the sons of God. Everything

that falls out shall do them good. The children of God, when they come to heaven (as Chrysostom

speaks), shall bless God for all cross providences.

12 And lastly, if we are children we shall never finally perish (John 5:24; 10:28). Those who are

adopted are out of the power of damnation. ‘There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ’

(Romans 8:1). Will a father condemn his own son? God will never disinherit any of his children.

Fathers may disinherit for some fault. Reuben for incest lost the prerogative of his birthright (Genesis

49:4). What is the reason parents disinherit their children? Surely this, because they can make them

no better. They cannot make them fit for the inheritance. But when we are bad our heavenly Father

knows how to make us better. He can make us fit to inherit. ‘Giving thanks to the Father who hath

made us meet for the inheritance’ (Colossians 1:12). Therefore it being in his power to make us

better and to work in us an idoneity and meetness for the inheritance, certainly he will never finally

disinherit.

Because this is so sweet a privilege, and the life of a Christian’s comfort lies in it, therefore I shall

clear it by arguments that the children of God cannot finally perish. The entail of hell and damnation

is cut off. Not but that the best of God’s children have that guilt which deserves hell, but Christ is

the friend at court which has begged their pardon. Therefore the damning power of sin is taken

away, which I prove thus:

The children of God cannot finally perish, because God’s justice is satisfied for their sins. The

blood of Christ is the price paid not only meritoriously, but efficaciously for all them that believe.

This being the ‘blood of God’ (Acts 20:28), justice is fully satisfied and does not meddle to condemn

those for whom this blood was shed and to whom it is applied. Jesus Christ was a sponsor. He stood

bound for every child of God as a surety. He said to justice, ‘Have patience with them and I will

pay thee all’, so that the believer cannot be liable to wrath. God will not require the debt twice,

both of the surety and the debtor (Romans 3:24, 26). God is not only merciful in pardoning his

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children, but ‘righteous, ‘He is just to forgive’ (1 John 1:9). It is an act of God’s equity and justice

to spare the sinner when he has been satisfied in the surety.

A damnatory sentence cannot pass upon the children of God, because they are so God’s children,

as withal they are Christ’s spouse (Canticles 4:11). There is a marriage union between Christ and

the saints. Every child of God is a part of Christ. He is ‘Christ mystical’. Now, shall a member of

Christ perish? A child of God cannot perish but Christ must perish. Jesus Christ who is the Husband,

is the Judge, and will he condemn his own spouse?

Every child of God is transformed into the likeness of Christ. He has the same Spirit, the same

judgement, the same will. He is a lively picture of Christ. As Christ bears the saints’ names upon

his breast, so they bear his image upon their hearts (Galatians 4:19). Will Christ suffer his own

image to be destroyed? Theodosius counted them traitors who defaced his image. Christ will not

let his image in believers be defaced and rent. He will not endure to see his own picture take fire.

The sea has not only stinking carrion, but jewels thrown into it, but none of God’s jewels shall ever

be thrown into the dread sea of hell.

If God’s children could be capable of final perishing then pardon of sin were no privilege. The

Scripture says, ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven’ (Psalm 32:1). But what blessedness

were there in having sin forgiven, if afterwards a final and damnatory sentence should pass upon

the heirs of promise? What were a man the better for the king’s pardon if he were condemned after

he were pardoned?

If the children of God should be finally disinherited then the Scripture could not be fulfilled which

tells us of glorious rewards. ‘Verily there is a reward for the righteous’ (Psalm 58:11). God sweetens

his commands with promises. He ties duty and reward together. As in the body the veins carry the

blood and the arteries carry the spirits, so one part of the Word carries duty in it, and another part

of the Word carries reward. Now if the adopted of God should eternally miscarry, what reward

were there for the righteous? And Moses did indiscreetly in looking to the ‘recompense of the

reward’ (Hebrews 11:26). And so by consequence there would be a door opened to despair.

By all which it appears that the children of God cannot be disinherited or reprobated. If they should

lose happiness Christ should lose his purchase and should die in vain.

Thus we have seen the glorious privileges of the children of God. What an encouragement is here

to religion! How may this tempt men to turn godly! Can the world vie with a child of God? Can

the world give such privileges as these? As Saul said, ‘Will the son of Jesse give everyone of you

fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands?’ (1 Samuel 22:7). Can the world do

that for you which God does for his children? Can it give you pardon of sin or eternal life? ‘Are

not the gleanings of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?’ (Judges 8:2). Is not godliness

gain? What is there in sin that men should love it? The work of sin is drudgery and the wages death.

They who see more in sin than in the privileges of adoption, let them go on and have their ears

bored to the devil’s service

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20. Exhortations to Christians as they are children of God

1 There is a bill of indictment against those who declare to the world they are not the children of

God: all profane persons. These have damnation written upon their forehead.

Scoffers at religion. It were blasphemy to call these the children of God. Will a true child jeer at

his Father’s picture?

Drunkards, who drown reason and stupefy conscience. These declare their sin as Sodom. They are

children indeed, but ‘cursed children’ (2 Peter 2:14).

2 Exhortation, which consists of two branches.

(i) Let us prove ourselves to be the children of God.

(ii) Let us carry ourselves as the children of God.

(i) Let us prove ourselves to be the children of God. There are many false and unscriptural evidences.

Says one, The gravest divines in the country think me to be godly, and can they be mistaken? Are

the seers blind?

Others can but see the outward carriage and deportment. If that be fair, they may by the rule of

charity judge well of thee. But what say God and conscience? Are these your compurgators? Are

you a saint in God’s calendar? It is a poor thing to have an applauding world and an accusing

conscience.

Oh but, says another, I hope I am a child of God; I love my heavenly Father.

Why do you love God? Perhaps because God gives you corn and wine. This is a mercenary love,

a love to yourself more than to God. You may lead a sheep all the field over with a bottle of hay

in your hand, but throw away the hay, now the sheep will follow you no longer. So the squint-eyed

hypocrite loves God only for the provender. When this fails, his affection fails too.

But leaving these vain and false evidences of adoption, let us enquire for a sound evidence. The

main evidence of adoption is sanctification. Search, O Christian, whether the work of sanctification

has passed upon your soul! Is your understanding sanctified to discern the things which are excellent?

Is your will sanctified to embrace heavenly objects? Do you love where God loves and hate where

God hates? Are you a consecrated person? This argues the heart of a child. God will never reject

those who have his image and superscription upon them.

(ii) Let us carry ourselves as becomes the children of God, and let us deport ourselves as the children

of the High God.

In obedience: ‘As obedient children’ (1 Peter 1:14). If a stranger bid a child to do a thing, he regards

him not. But if his father command, he presently obeys. Obey God out of love, obey him readily,

obey every command. If he bid you part with your bosom-sin, leave and loathe it. ‘I set before the

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sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink ye

wine; but they said, we will drink no wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab our father, commanded

us saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons for ever’ (Jeremiah 35:5, 6). Thus when

Satan and your own heart would be tempting you to a sin and set cups of wine before you, refuse

to drink. Say, ‘My heavenly Father has commanded me not to drink’. Hypocrites will obey God in

some things which are consistent either with their credit or profit, but in other things they desire to

be excused. Like Esau who obeyed his father in bringing him venison, because probably he liked

the sport of hunting, but refused to obey him in a business of greater importance, namely, in the

choice of his wife.

Let us carry ourselves as God’s children in humility. ‘Be ye clothed with humility’ (1 Peter 5:5).

It is a becoming garment. Let a child of God look at his face every morning in the glass of God’s

Word and see his sinful spots. This will make him walk humbly all the day after. God cannot endure

to see his children grow proud. He suffers them to fall into sin, as he did Peter, that their plumes

may fall, and that they may learn to go on lower ground.

Let us walk as the children of God in sobriety. ‘But let us who are of the day be sober’ (1

Thessalonians 5:8). God’s children must not do as others. They must be sober.

In their speeches; not rash, not unseemly. ‘Let your speech be seasoned with salt’ (Colossians 4:6).

Grace must be the salt which seasons our words and makes them savoury. Our words must be solid

and weighty, not feathery. God’s children must speak the language of Canaan. Many pretend to be

God’s children, but their speech betrays them. Their lips do not drop as an honeycomb, but are like

the sink, where all the filth of the house is carried out.

The children of God must be sober in their opinions; hold nothing but what a sober man would

hold. Error, as Saint Basil says, is a spiritual intoxication, a kind of frenzy. If Christ were upon the

earth again, he might have patients enough. There are abundance of spiritual lunatics among us

which need healing.

The children of God must be sober in their attire. ‘Whose adorning, let it not be that outward

adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold . . . but let it be the hidden man of the heart’

(1 Peter 3:3). God’s children must not be conformed to the world (Romans 12:2). It is not for God’s

children to do as others, taking up every fashion. What is a naked breast but a glass in which you

may see a vain heart? What is spotting of faces, but learning the black art? God may turn these

black spots into blue. Walk soberly.

Let us carry ourselves as the children of God in sedulity. We must be diligent in our calling. Religion

does not seal warrants to idleness. It was Jerome’s advice to his friend to be always well employed.

‘Six days shalt thou labour’. God sets all his children to work. They must not be like the ‘lilies

which toil not, neither do they spin’. Heaven indeed is a place of rest. ‘They rest from their labours’

(Revelation 14:13). There the saints shall lay aside all their working tools, and take the harp and

viol, but while we are here, we must labour in a calling. God will bless our diligence, not our

laziness.

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Let us carry ourselves as the children of God in magnanimity and heroicalness. The saints are

highborn. They are of the true blood-royal, born of God. They must do nothing sneakingly or

sordidly. They must not fear the faces of men. As said that brave-spirited Nehemiah, ‘Shall such

a man as I flee?’ (Nehemiah 6:11) so should a child of God say, Shall I be afraid to do my duty?

Shall I unworthily comply and prostitute myself to the lusts and humours of men? The children of

the most High should do nothing to stain or dishonour their noble birth. A king’s son scorns to do

anything that is below him.

Let us carry ourselves as the children of God in sanctity (1 Peter 1:16). Holiness is the diadem of

beauty. In this let us imitate our heavenly Father. A debauched child is a disgrace to his father.

There is nothing more casts a reflection on our heavenly Father than the irregular actings of such

as profess themselves his children. What will others say? Are these the children of the Most High?

Is God their Father? ‘The Name of God is blasphemed through you Gentiles’ (Romans 2:24). Oh

let us do nothing unworthy of our heavenly Father.

Let us carry ourselves as the children of God in cheerfulness. It was the speech of Jonadab to

Amnon, ‘Why art thou, being the king’s son, lean?’ (2 Samuel 13:4). Why do the children of God

walk so pensively? Are they not ‘heirs of heaven’? Perhaps they may meet with hard usage in the

world, but let them remember they are the seed-royal, and are of the family of God. Suppose a man

were in a strange land, and should meet there with unkind usage, yet he rejoices that he is son and

heir, and has a great estate in his own country; so should the children of God comfort themselves

with this, though they are now in a strange country, yet they have a title to the Jerusalem above,

and though sin at present hangs about them (for they still have some relics of their disease) yet

shortly they shall get rid of it. At death they shall shake off this viper.

And lastly, let us carry ourselves as the children of God in holy longings and expectations. Children

are always longing to be at home. ‘We groan earnestly . . .’ (2 Corinthians 5:2). There is bread

enough in our Father’s house. How should we long for home! Death carries a child of God to his

Father’s house. Saint Paul therefore desired to be dissolved. It is comfortable dying when by faith

we can resign up our souls into our Father’s hands. ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit’

(Luke 23:46).

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21. Concerning persecution

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’

sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:10

We are now come to the last beatitude: ‘Blessed are they which are persecuted . . ’. Our Lord Christ

would have us reckon the cost. ‘Which of you intending to build a tower sitteth not down first and

counteth the cost, whether he have enough to finish it?’ (Luke 14:28). Religion will cost us the

tears of repentance and the blood of persecution. But we see here a great encouragement that may

keep us from fainting in the day of adversity. For the present, blessed; for the future, crowned.

The words fall into two general parts.

1 The condition of the godly in this life: ‘They are persecuted’.

2 Their reward after this life: ‘Theirs is the kingdom of heaven’.

I shall speak chiefly of the first, and wind in the other in the applicatory. The observation is that

true godliness is usually attended with persecution. ‘We must through much tribulation enter into

the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22). ‘The Jews stirred up the chief men of the city and raised

persecution against Paul . . .’ (Acts 13:50). Luther makes it the very definition of a Christian,

‘Christianus quasi crucianus.’ Though Christ died to take away the curse from us, yet not to take

away the cross from us. Those stones which are cut out for a building are first under the saw and

hammer to be hewed and squared. The godly are called ‘living stones’ (1 Peter 2:5). And they must

be hewn and polished by the persecutor’s hand that they may be fit for the heavenly building. The

saints have no charter of exemption from trials. Though they be never so meek, merciful, pure in

heart, their piety will not shield them from sufferings. They must hang their harp on the willows

and take the cross. The way to heaven is by way of thorns and blood. Though it be full of roses in

regard of the comforts of the Holy Ghost, yet it is full of thorns in regard of persecutions. Before

Israel got to Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey, they must go through a wilderness of

serpents and a Red Sea. So the children of God in their passage to the holy land must meet with

fiery serpents and a red sea of persecution. It is a saying of Ambrose, ‘There is no Abel but has his

Cain.’ St Paul fought with beasts at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 15:32). Set it down as a maxim, if you

will follow Christ, you must see the swords and staves. Put the cross in your creed. For the

amplification of this, there are several things we are to take cognisance of.

1 What is meant by persecution. 2 The several kinds of persecution. 3 Why there must be persecution.

4 The chief persecutions are raised against the ministers of Christ. 5 What that persecution is which

makes a man blessed.

What is meant by persecution? The Greek word ‘to persecute’, signifies ‘to vex and molest’,

sometimes ‘to prosecute another’, to ‘arraign him at the bar’, and ‘to pursue him to the death’. A

persecutor is a ‘pricking briar’ (Ezekiel 28:24); therefore the church is described to be a ‘lily among

thorns’ (Canticles 2:2).

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What are the several kinds of persecution? There is a twofold persecution; a persecution of the

hand; a persecution of the tongue.

1 A persecution of the hand. ‘Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?’ (Acts 7:52).

‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long’ (Romans 8:36; Galatians 4:29). This I call a bloody

persecution, when the people of God are persecuted with fire and sword. So we read of the ten

persecutions in the time of Nero, Domitian, Trajan etc.; and of the Marian persecution. England

for five years drank a cup of blood and lately Piedmont and the confines of Bohemia have been

scourged to death with the rod of the persecutor. God’s Church has always, like Abraham’s ram,

been tied in a bush of thorns.

2 The persecution of the tongue, which is twofold.

(i) Reviling. This few think of or lay to heart, but it is called in the text, persecution. ‘When men

shall revile you and persecute you’. This is tongue persecution. ‘His words were drawn swords’

(Psalm 55:21). You may kill a man as well in his name as in his person. A good name is as ‘precious

ointment’ (Ecclesiastes 7:1). A good conscience and a good name is like a gold ring set with a rich

diamond. Now to smite another by his name is by our Saviour called persecution. Thus the primitive

Christians endured the persecution of the tongue. ‘They had trial of cruel mockings’ (Hebrews

2:36). David was ‘the song of the drunkards’ (Psalm 69:12). They would sit on their ale-bench and

jeer at him. How frequently do the wicked cast out the squibs of reproach at God’s children: ‘These

are the holy ones!’ Little do they think what they do. They are now doing Cain’s work and Julian’s.

They are persecuting.

(ii) Slandering. So it is in the text: ‘When they shall persecute you and say all manner of evil against

you falsely’. Slandering is tongue persecution. Thus Saint Paul was slandered in his doctrine. Report

had it that he preached, ‘Men might do evil that good might come of it’ (Romans 3:8). Thus Christ

who cast out devils was charged to have a devil (John 8:48). The primitive Christians were falsely

accused for killing their children and for incest. ‘They laid to my charge things that I knew not’

(Psalm 35:11)

Let us take heed of becoming persecutors. Some think there is no persecution but fire and sword.

Yes, there is persecution of the tongue. There are many of these persecutors nowadays who by a

devilish chemistry can turn gold into dung, the precious names of God’s saints into reproach and

disgrace. There have been many punished for clipping of coin. Of how much sorer punishment

shall they be thought worthy, who clip the names of God’s people to make them weigh lighter!

Why there must be persecution. I answer for two reasons.

1 In regard of God: his decree and his design.

God’s Decree: ‘We are appointed “hereunto’ (1 Thessalonians 3:3). Whoever brings the suffering,

God sends it. God bade Shimei curse. Shimei’s tongue was the arrow, but it was God that shot it.

God’s Design. God has a twofold design in the persecutions of his children.

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(i) Trials. ‘Many shall be tried’ (Daniel 12:10). Persecution is the touchstone of sincerity. It discovers

true saints from hypocrites. Unsound hearts pretend fair in prosperity, but in time of persecution

fall away (Matthew 13:20, 21). Hypocrites cannot sail in stormy weather. They will follow Christ

to Mount Olivet, but not to Mount Calvary. Like green timber they shrink in the scorching sun of

persecution. If trouble arises, hypocrites will rather make Demas their choice than Moses their

choice. They will prefer thirty pieces of silver before Christ. God will have persecutions in the

world to make a discovery of men. Suffering times are sifting times. ‘When I am tried I shall come

forth as gold’ (Job 23:10). Job had a furnace-faith. A Christian of right breed (who is born of God),

whatever he loses, will ‘hold fast his integrity’ (Job 2:3). Christ’s true disciples will follow him

upon the water.

(ii) Purity. God lets his children be in the furnace that they may be ‘partakers of his holiness’

(Hebrews 12:10). The cross is physic. It purges out pride, impatience, love of the world. God washes

his people in bloody waters to get out their spots and make them look white (Daniel 12:10). ‘I am

black, but comely’ (Canticles 1:5). The torrid zone of persecution made the spouse’s skin black,

but her soul fair. See how differently afflictions work upon the wicked and godly. They make the

one worse, the other better. Take a cloth that is rotten. If you scour and rub it, it frets and tears; but

if you scour a piece of plate, it looks brighter. When afflictions are upon the wicked, they fret

against God and tear themselves in impatience, but when the godly are scoured by these, they look

brighter.

There will be persecutions in regard of the enemies of the church. These vultures prey upon God’s

turtles. The church has two sorts of enemies.

Open enemies. The wicked hate the godly. There is ‘enmity between the seed of the woman and

the seed of the serpent’ (Genesis 3:15). As in nature there is an antipathy between the vine and the

bay-tree, the elephant and the dragon; and as vultures have an antipathy against sweet smells; so

in the wicked there is an antipathy against the people of God. They hate the sweet perfumes of their

graces. It is true the saints have their infirmities, but the wicked do not hate them for these, but for

their holiness, and from this hatred arises open violence. The thief hates the light, therefore would

blow it out.

Secret enemies, who pretend friendship but secretly raise persecutions against the godly. Such are

hypocrites and heretics. Saint Paul calls them ‘false brethren’ (2 Corinthians 11:26). The church

complains that her own sons had vexed her (Canticles 1:6). That is, those who had been bred up in

her bosom and pretended religion and sympathy, these false friends vexed her. The church’s enemies

are them ‘of her own house’. Such as are open pretenders but secret opposers of the faith are ever

worst. A wen seems to be a part of the body, but is indeed an enemy to it. It disfigures and endangers

it. They are the vilest and basest of men who hang forth Christ’s colours, yet fight against him.

The fourth particular is that the chief persecutions are raised against the ministers. Our Lord Christ

turns himself directly to the apostles whom he was ready to commission and send abroad to preach:

‘Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you’ (verse 11). ‘So persecuted they the prophets before

you’ (verse 12). ‘Take, my brethren, the prophets for an example of suffering affliction’ (James

5:10). No sooner is any man a minister, but he is a piece of a martyr. The ministers of Christ are

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his chosen vessels. Now as the best vessel of gold and silver passes through the fire, so God’s

chosen vessels pass often through the fire of persecution. All times are not like the silver age wherein

Constantine lived. He was an honourer of the ministry. He would not sit down in the Council of

Nicaea till the bishops who were convened there came and besought him. He would say, if he saw

an infirmity in the clergy, that his royal purple would cover it. Ministers must not always look for

such shines of the prince’s favour. They must expect an alarum. Peter, a famous preacher, knew

how ‘to cast the net on the right side of the ship’, and at one sermon he converted three thousand

souls. Yet neither the divinity of his doctrine nor the sanctity of his life could exempt him from

persecution. ‘When thou shalt be old, another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest

not’. It alludes to his suffering death for Christ. He was (says Eusebius) bound with chains and

afterwards crucified at Jerusalem with his head downwards. Saint Paul, a holy man, who is steeled

with courage, and fired with zeal, as soon as he entered into the ministry ‘bonds and persecutions

did abide him’ (Acts 9:16; 20:23). He was made up of sufferings. ‘I am ready to be offered up’ (2

Timothy 4:6). He alludes to the drink offerings wherein the wine or blood used in sacrifice was

poured out, thereby intimating by what manner of death he should glorify God; not by being

sacrificed in the fire, but by pouring out his blood, which was when he was beheaded. And that it

might seem no strange thing for God’s ministers to be under the heat and rage of persecution,

Stephen puts the question, ‘Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?’ (Acts 7:52).

Ignatius was torn with wild beasts. Cyprian, Polycarp martyred. Maximus, the emperor (as Eusebius

relates), gave charge to his officers to put none to death but the governors and pastors of the Church.

The reasons why the storm of persecution has chiefly fallen upon the ministers are:

1 They have their corruptions as well as others, and lest they should be lifted up ‘through the

abundance of revelation’, God lets loose some ‘messenger of Satan’ to vex and persecute them.

God sees they have need of the flail to thresh off their husks. The fire God puts them into is not to

consume but to refine them.

2 The ministers are Christ’s ensign-bearers to carry his colours. They are the captains of the Lord’s

host, therefore they are the most shot at. ‘I am set for the defence of the gospel’ (Philippians 1:17).

The Greek word here used alludes to a soldier that is set in the forefront of the battle and has all

the missiles flying about his ears. The minister’s work is to preach against men’s sins which are as

dear to them as their right eye, and they cannot endure this. Every man’s sin is his king to which

he yields love and subjection. Now as Pilate said, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ Men will not endure

to have their king-sin crucified. This then being the work of the ministry, to divide between men

and their lusts, to part these two old friends, no wonder it meets with so much opposition. When

Paul preached against Diana, all the city was in an uproar. We preach against men’s Dianas, those

sins which bring them in pleasure and profit. This causes an uproar.

3 From the malice of Satan. The ministers of Christ come to destroy his kingdom, therefore the old

serpent will spit all his venom at them. If we tread upon the devil’s head, he will bite us by the heel.

The devil sets up several forts and garrisons in men’s hearts — pride, ignorance, unbelief. Now

the weapons of the ministry beat down these strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). Therefore Satan

raises his militia, all the force and power of hell against the ministry. The kingdom of Satan is a

‘kingdom of darkness’ (Acts 26:18; Revelation 16:10), and God’s ministers are called the ‘light of

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the world’ (Matthew 5:14). They come to enlighten those that sit in darkness. This enrages Satan.

Therefore he labours to eclipse the lights, to pull down the stars, that his kingdom of darkness may

prevail. The devil is called a lion (1 Peter 5:8). The souls of people are the lion’s prey. The ministers’

work is to take away this prey from this lion. Therefore how will he roar upon them, and seek to

destroy them!

(i) It shows us what a work the ministry is; though full of dignity, yet full of danger. The persecution

of the tongue is the most gentle persecution can be expected. It is not possible (says Luther) to be

a faithful preacher and not to meet with trials and oppositions.

(ii) It shows the corruption of men’s nature since the fall. They are their own enemies. They persecute

those who come to do them most good. What is the work of the ministry but to save men’s souls?

to pull them as ‘brands out of the fire’. Yet they are angry at this. We do not hate the physician

who brings such physic as makes us sick, because it is to make us well; nor the surgeon who lances

the flesh, because it is in order to a cure. Why then should we quarrel with the minister? What is

our work but to bring men to heaven? ‘We are ambassadors for Christ . . .’ (2 Corinthians 5:20).

We would have a peace made up between you and God; yet this is the folly of depraved nature, to

requite evil for good. Aristoxenus used to moisten his flowers with wine, honey, and perfumes that

they might not only smell more fragrantly but put forth more vigorously. So should we do with our

ministers. Give them wine and honey. Encourage them in their work that they might act more

vigorously. But instead of this we give them gall and vinegar to drink. We hate and persecute them.

Most deal with their ministers as Israel did with Moses. He prayed for them and wrought miracles

for them, yet they were continually quarrelling with him and sometimes ready to take away his life.

(iii) If the fury of the world be against the ministers, then you that fear God had need pray much

for them. ‘Pray for us, that the Word of the Lord may have free course, and that we may be delivered

from unreasonable and wicked men.’ (2 Thessalonians 3:1, 2). People should pray for their ministers

that God would give them the ‘wisdom of the serpent’, that they may not betray themselves to

danger by indiscretion; and the boldness of the lion, that they may not betray the truth by fear.

The next thing to be explained is what that suffering persecution is which makes a man blessed.

1 I shall show what that suffering is which will not make us blessed.

(i) That suffering is not reckoned for martyrdom, when we pull a cross upon ourselves. There is

little comfort in such suffering. Augustine speaks of some in his time who were called

Circumcellions, who out of an itch rather than zeal of martyrdom, would run themselves into

sufferings. These were accessory to their own death, like King Saul who fell upon his own sword.

We are bound by all lawful means to preserve our own lives. Jesus Christ did not suffer till he was

called to it. Suspect that to be a temptation which bids us cast ourselves down into sufferings. When

men through precipitance and rashness run themselves into trouble, it is a cross of their own making

and not of God’s laying upon them.

(ii) That is not to be accounted martyrdom when we suffer for our offences. ‘Let none of you suffer

as an evildoer’ (1 Peter 4:15). ‘We indeed suffer justly’ (Luke 23:41). I am not of Cyprian’s mind

that the thief on the cross suffered as a martyr. No, he suffered as an evildoer! Christ indeed took

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pity on him and saved him. He died a saint, but not a martyr. When men suffer by the hand of the

magistrate for their uncleanness, blasphemies etc., these do not suffer persecution, but execution.

They die not as martyrs, but as malefactors. They suffer evil for being evil.

(iii) That suffering will not make men blessed, when they suffer, out of sinister respects, to be cried

up as head of a party, or to keep up a faction. The apostle implies that a man may give his body to

be burned, yet go to hell (1 Corinthians 13:3). Ambitious men may sacrifice their lives to purchase

fame. These are the devil’s martyrs.

2 What that suffering persecution is which will make us blessed, and shall wear the crown of

martyrdom.

(i) When we suffer in a good cause. So it is in the text. ‘Blessed are they which suffer for

righteousness’ sake’. It is the cause that makes a martyr. When we suffer for the truth and espouse

the quarrel of religion, this is to suffer for righteousness’ sake. ‘For the hope of Israel I am bound

with this chain’ (Acts 28:20).

(ii) When we suffer with a good conscience. A man may have a good cause and a bad conscience.

He may suffer for ‘righteousness’ sake’, yet he himself be unrighteous. Saint Paul, as he had a just

cause, so he had a pure conscience. ‘I have lived in all good conscience to this day’ (Acts 23:1).

Paul kept a good conscience to his dying day. It has made the saints go as cheerfully to the stake

as if they had been going to a crown. Look to it that there be no flaw in conscience. A ship that is

to sail upon the waters must be preserved from leaking. When Christians are to sail on the waters

of persecution, let them take heed there be no leak of guilt in their conscience. He who suffers

(though it be in God’s own cause) with a bad conscience, suffers two hells; a hell of persecution,

and an hell of damnation.

(iii) When we have a good call. ‘Ye shall be brought before kings . . .’ (Matthew 10:18). There is

no question but a man may so far consult for his safety that if God by his providence open a door,

he may fly in time of persecution (Matthew 10:23). But when he is brought before kings, and the

case is such that either he must suffer or the truth must suffer, here is a clear call to suffering, and

this is reckoned for martyrdom.

(iv) When we have good ends in our suffering, namely, that we may glorify God, set a seal to the

truth, and show our love to Christ. ‘Ye shall be brought before kings for my sake’ (Matthew 10:18).

The primitive Christians burned more in love than in fire. When we look at God in our sufferings

and are willing to make his crown flourish, though it be in our ashes, this is that suffering which

carries away the garland of glory.

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Part Three