The Divine Life, Treatise 3 · Part 1
Use. CHristians, expect to be conformed to your Lord in this part of his Humiliation also: Are your friends yet fast and friendly to you? For all that expect that many of them at least should prove less friendly: and promise not your selves an unchanged constancy in them: Are they yet useful to you? expect the time when they cannot help you: Are they your comforters and delight, and is their company much of your solace upon earth? Be ready for the time when they may become your sharpest scourges, and most heart-peircing griefs, or at least when you shall say, We have no pleasure in them. Have any of them, or all, already failed you? what wonder? Are they not men, and sinners? To whom were they ever so constant as not to fail them? Rebuke your selves for your unwarrantable expectations from them: And learn hereafter to know what man is, and expect that friends should use you as followeth.
1. Some of them that you thought sincere, shall prove perhaps unfaithful and dissemblers, and upon fallings out, or matters of self-interest may seek yout ruine. Are you better than David that had an Achitophel? or than Paul that had a Demas? or than Christ that had a Judas? Some will forsake God: what wonder then if they forsake you? Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold, Mat. 24. 12. Where pride and vain-glory, and sensuality and worldliness are unmortified at the heart, there is no trustiness in such persons: For their wealth, or honour, or fleshly interest, they will part with God and their salvation; much more with their best deserving friends. Why may not you as well as Job have occasion to complain, [He hath put my Brethren far from me, and my acquaintance are very estranged from me: My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me: They that dwell in my house, and my Maidens count me for a stranger: I am an alien in their sight: I called my servant, and he gave me no answer: I intreated him with my mouth: My breath is strange to my wife; though I intreated for the childrens sake of my own body: Yea young children despised me: I arose, and they spake against me: All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me, Job 19. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Why may not you as well as David be put to say Yea mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread hath lift up his heel against me!] Psal. 41. 9. Those that have been most acquainted with the secrets of your soul, and privy to your very thoughts, may be the persons that shall betray you, or grow strange to you. Those that you have most obliged by benefits, may prove your greatest enemies. You may find some of your friends like birds of prey, that hover about you for what they can get, and when they have catcht it, fly away▪ If you have given them all that you have, they will forsake you, and perhaps reproach you, because you have no more to give them. They are your friends more for what they yet expect from you, than for what they have already received. If you cannot still be helpful to them, or feed their covetous desires, or supply their wants, you are to them but as one that they had never known. Many a faithful Minister of Christ hath studied, and preacht, and prayed, and wept for their peoples souls, and after all have been taken for their enemies, and used as such; yea even because they have done so much for them. Like the Patient, that being cured of a mortal sickness, sued his Physician at Law for making him sick with the Physick (But it is indeed our uncured patients only that are offended with us.) Paul was accounted an enemy to the Galathians, because he told them the truth. Ungrateful truth maketh the faithfullest Preachers most ungrateful. Is must seem no wonder to a Preacher of the Gospel, when he hath entreated, prayed and wept night and day for miserable souls, and laid his hands as it▪ were under their seet in hopes of their conversion and salvation, to find them after all, his bitter enemies, and seeking his destruction, that could have laid down his life for their salvation. Jeremy seemed too impatient under this affliction, when he said [Give heed to me O Lord, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me: Shall evil be recompenced for good? Remember that I stood before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them: Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and pour out their blood by the force of the sword, &c. Jer. 18. 19, 20.
Thus may ingratitude afflict you, and kindness be requited with unkindness, and the greatest benefits be forgotten, and requited with the greatest wrongs: your old familiars may be your foes: and you may be put to say as Jeremy [For I heard the defaming of many: fear on every side: Report, say they, and we will report it: All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.] Jer. 20. 10. Thus must the servants of Christ be used, in conformity to their suffering Head.
2. And some that are sincere, and whose hearts are with you, may yet be drawn by temptation to disown you: when malice is slandering you, timerous friendship may perhaps be silent, and afraid to justifie you, or take your part: when a Peter in such imbecillity and fear can disown and deny his suffering Lord, what wonder if saint-hearted friends disown you, or me, that may give them too much occasion or pretence? why may not you and I be put to say as David did, Psal. 38. 11, 12. [My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore, and my kisnmen stand afar off: They that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long!] They that in fearfulness will fail their Maker and Redeemer, and hazard their salvation, may by a smaller temptation be drawn to fail such friends as we.
3, Moreover, a hundred things may occasion fallings out, even amongst unfeigned friends: Passions may cause inconvenient actions or expressions, and these may cause passions in their friends; and these may grow so high till friends do seem to one another to be like enemies: Paul and Barnabas may grow so hot, as to fall out to a parture. How easily can Satan set fire on the tinder which he findeth in the best and gentlest natures, if God permit him? No friends so near and dear, that passionate weaknesses may not either alienate or make a grief to one another, How apt are we to take unkindnesses at one another, and to be suspicious of our friends, or offended with them? And how apt to give occasion of such offence? How apt are we to censure one another, and to misinterpret the words and actions of our friends? And how apt to give occasion of such mistakes and cutting censures? And the more kindness we have found in, or expected from our friends, the more their real or supposed injuries will affect us. We are apt to say, [Had it been a stranger, I could have born it: But to be used thus by my bosome or familiar friend, goes near my heart.] And indeed the unkindnesses of friends is no small affliction; the suffering going usually as near the heart, as the person that caused it was near it: especially when our own weakness causeth us to forget the frailty and infirmities of man, and with what allowances and expectations we must choose and use our friends; and when we forget the Love that remaineth in the midst of passions.
4. Also cross-interests and unsuitableness may exceedingly interrupt the fastest friendship. Friendship is very much founded in suitableness, and maintained by it: And among mortals, there is no perfect suitableness to be found; but much unsuitableness still remaineth. That which pleaseth one, is displeasing to another: One liketh this place, and the other that: One liketh this habit, and the other that: One is for mirth, and the other for sadness: One for talk, and the other for silence: One for a publick, and the other for a private life. And their personality or individuation having self-love as inseparable, will unavoidably cause a contrariety of interests. The Creature is insufficient for us: If one have it, perhaps the other must want it: Like a covering too narrow for the bed. Sometimes our Reputations seem to stand cross, so that one mans is diminished by anothers: and then how apt is envy to create a grudge, and raise unfriendly jealousies and distastes! Sometimes the commodity of one is the discommodity of the other: And then [Mine and Thine] (which are contrary to the community of friendship) may divide, and alienate, and make Two of those that seemed One. The instances of Abraham and Lot (upon the difference among their servants) and of Isaac and Ishmael, and of Jacob and Esau, and of Laban and Jacob, and of Leah and Rachel, and of Joseph and his Brethren, and of Saul and David, and of Ziba, Mephibosheth and David, with many others tell us this. It is rare to meet with a Jonathan, that will endearedly love that man to the death, who is appointed to deprive him of a Kingdome. If one can but say [I suffer by him, or I am a looser by him] it seemeth enough to excuse unfriendly thoughts and actions. When you can gratifie the desires of all the covetous, ambitious, self-seeking persons in the world, or else cure their diseases, and possess their minds with perfect Charity, then all the world will be your friends.
5. Cross opinions also are like to alienate many of your friends. This age hath over and over again given the world as full and sad demonstrations of the power of Cross opinions, to alienate friends, and make divisions, as most ages of the world have ever had. If your friend be proud, it's wonderful how he will slight you, and withdraw his Love, if you be not of his mind. If he he zealous, he is easily tempted, to think it a part of his duty to God, to disown you if you differ from him, as taking you for one that disowneth the truth of God, and therefore one that God himself disowneth; or at least to grow cold in his affection toward you, and to decline from you, as he that thinks you do from God. As agreement in opinions doth strangely reconcile affections; so disagreement doth secretly and strangely alienate them; even before you are well aware, your friend hath lost possession of your hearts, because of an unavoidable diversity of apprehensions: When all your friends have the same intellectual complexion and temperature, and measure of understanding with your selves, then you may have hope to escape the ruptures which unlikeliness and differences of apprehensions might else cause.
6. Moreover, some of your friends may so far overgrow you in wisdome, or wealth, or honour, or worth in their own conceits, that they may begin to take you to be unsuitable for them, and unmeet for their further special friendship. Alas poor man, they will pitty thee that thou art no wiser, and that thou hast no greater light to change thy mind as fast as they, or that thou art so weak and ignorant as not to see what seems to them so clear a truth; or that thou art so simple to cast away thy self by crossing them that might prefer thee, or to fall under the displeasure of those that have power to raise or ruine thee: But if thou be so simple, thou mayest be the object of their lamentation, but art no familiar friend for them. They think it fittest to close and converse with those of their own rank and stature, and not with such shrubs and children, that may prove their trouble and dishonour.
7. And some of your friends will think that by a more through acquaintance with you, they have found out more of your infirmities or faults; and therefore have found that you are less amiable and valuable than at first they judged you: They will think that by distance, unacquaintedness, and an overhasty love and judgement, they were mistaken in you; and that now they see reason to repent of the love which they think was guilty of some errours and excess: when they come nearer you, and have had more tryal of you, they will think they are fitter to judge of you than before: And indeed our defects are so many, and all our infirmities so great, that the more men know us, the more they may see in us that deserveth pitty or reproof; and as pictures, we appear less beautiful at the nearest view: Though this will not warrant the withdrawing of that Love which is due to friends, and to vertue even in the imperfect: nor will excuse that alienation and decay of friendship that is caused by the pride of such as overlook perhaps much greater failings and weaknesses in themselves, which need forgiveness.
8. And perhaps some of your friends will grow weary of their friendship, having that infirmity of humane nature, not to be much pleased with one thing long. Their Love is a flower that quickly withereth: It is a short-lived thing that soon groweth old. It must be novelty that must feed their love and their delight.
9. And perhaps they may have got some better friends in their apprehensions, that may have so much interest as to take them up, and leave no room for antient friends. It may be they have met with those that are more suitable, or can be more useful to them: that have more learning, or wit, or wealth, or power, than you have, and therefore seem more worthy of their friendship.
10. And some of them may think when you are in a low and suffering state, and in danger of worse, that it is part of their duty of self-preservation to be strange to you (though in heart they wish you well.) They will think they are not bound to hazard themselves upon the displeasure of superiours, to own or befriend you or any other: Though they must not desert Christ, they think they may desert a man for their own preservation.
To avoid both extreams in such a case, men must both study to understand which way is most serviceable to Christ, and to his Church, and withall to be able to deny themselves, and also must study to understand what Christ meaneth in his final sentence [In as much as you did it (or did it not) to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it (or did it not) to me.] As if it were to visit the contagious, we must neither cast away our lives to do no good, or for that which in value holdeth no proportion with them; nor yet must we deny to run any hazard when it is indeed our duty: So is it in our visiting those that suffer for the cause of Christ: (but that here the owning them being the confessing of him, we need more seldome to fear being too forward.)
11. And some of your friends may cover their unfaithfulness with the pretence of some fault that you have been guilty of, some errour that you hold, or some unhansome or culpable act that you have done, or some duty that you have left undone or failed in. For they think there is not a better shelter for their unfaithfulness, then to pretend for it the Name and Cause of God, and so to make a duty of their sin. Who would not justifie them, if they can but prove, that God requireth them, and Religion obligeth them to forsake you for your faults? There are few crimes in the world that by some are not fathered on God (that most hateth them) as thinking no name can so much honour them. False friends therefore use this means as well as other Hypocrites: And though God is Love, and condemneth nothing more then uncharitableness and malice, yet these are commonly by falshearted Hypocrites, called by some pious vertuous names, and God himself is entitled to them: so that few worldlings, ambitious persons or timeservers; but will confidently pretend Religion for all their falshood to their friends, or bloody cruelty to the servants of Christ, that comply not with their carnal interest.
12. Perhaps some of your friends may really mistake your case, and think that you suffer as evil doers, and instead of comforting you may be your sharpest censurers: This is one of the most notable things set out to our observation in the book of Job: It was not the smallest part of his affliction, that when the hand of God was heavy upon him, and then if ever was the time for his friends to have been his comforters, and friends indeed, on the contrary they became his scourge, and by unjust accusations, and misinterpretations of the providence of God, did greatly add to his affliction! when God had taken away his children, wealth and health, his friends would take away the reputation and comfort of his integrity; and under pretence of bringing him to repentance, did charge him with that which he was never guilty of; They wounded his good-name, and would have wounded his conscience, and deprived him of his inward peace: Censorious false accusing friends do cut deeper then malicious slandering enemies: It is no wonder if strangers or enemies do misjudge and misreport our actions: But when your bosome friends, that should most intimately know you, and be the chief witness of your innocency against all others, shall in their jealousie, or envy, or peevishness, or falling out, be your chief reproachers and unjust accusers, as it makes it serve more credible to others, so it will come nearest to your selves. And yet this is a thing that must be expected: yea even your most self-denying acts of obedience to God, may be so misunderstood by godly men, and real friends, as by them to be taken for your great miscarriage, and turned to your rebuke: As Davids dancing before the Ark was by his wife; which yet did but make him resolve to be yet more vile. If you be cast into poverty, or disgrace, or prison, or banishment, for your necessary obedience to Christ, perhaps your friend or wife may become your accuser for this your greatest service, and say, This is your own doing: your rashness, or indiscretion, or self-conceitedness, or willfulness hath brought it upon you: what need had you to say such words, or to do this or that? why could not you have yeilded in so small a matter?] Perhaps your costliest and most excellent obedience shall by your nearest friends be called the fruits of pride, or humour, or passion, or some corrupt affection, or at least of folly and inconsiderateness. When flesh and blood hath long been striving in you against your duty, and saying, [Do not cast away thy self: O serve not God at so dear a rate: God doth not require thee to undo thy self: why shouldest thou not avoid so great inconveniences?] When with much ado you have conquered all your carnal reasonings, and denyed your selves and your carnal interest, you must expect even from some religious friends, to be accused for these very actions, and perhaps their accusations may fasten such a blot upon your names, as shall never be washed out till the day of judgement. By difference of interests, or apprehensions, and by unacquaintedness with your hearts, and actions, the righteousness of the righteous may be thus taken from him, and friends may do the work of enemies, yea of Satan himself the accuser of the brethren; and may prove as thorns in your bed, and gravel in your shoes, yea in your eyes, and wrong you much more then open adversaries could have done. How it is like to go with that mans reputation, you may easily judge, whose friends are like Jobs, and his enemies like Davids that lay snares before him, and diligently watch for matter of reproach: yet this may befall the best of men.
13. You may be permitted by God to fall into some real crime, and then your friends may possibly think it is their duty to disown you, so far as you have wronged God: When you provoke God to frown upon you, he may cause your friends to frown upon you: If you will fall out with him, and grow strange to him, no marvel if your truest friends fall out with you, and grow strange to you. They love you for your godliness, and for the sake of Christ; and therefore must abate their love if you abate your godliness; and must for the sake of Christ be displeased with you for your sins. And if in such a case of real guilt, you should be displeased at their displeasure, and should expect that your friend should befriend your sin, or carry himself towards you in your guilt as if you were innocent, you will but shew that you understand not the nature of true friendship, nor the use of a true friend; and are yet your selves too friendly to your sins.
14. Moreover, those few friends that are truest to you, may be utterly unable to relieve you in your distress, or to give you ease, or do you any good. The case may be such that they can but pitty you and lament your sorrows, and weep over you: you may see in them that man is not as God, whose friendship can accomplish all the good that he desireth to his friends. The wisest and greatest and best of men are silly comforters, and uneffectual helps: you may be sick, and pained, and grieved, and distressed, notwithstanding any thing that they can do for you: Nay perhaps in their ignorance, they may increase your misery, while they desire your relief▪ and by striving indirectly to help and ease you, may tye the knot faster and make you worse. They may provoke those more against you that oppress you, while they think they speak that which should tend to set you free: They may think to ease your troubled minds by such words as shall increase the trouble: or to deliver you as Peter would have delivered Christ, and saved his Saviour, first by carnal counsel, Matth. 16. 22. [Be it far from thee Lord; this shall not be unto thee] And then by carnal unjust force, (by drawing his sword against the officers.) Love and good meaning will not prevent the mischiefs of ignorance and mistake. If your friend …ut your throat while he thought to cut but a vein to cure your disease, it is not his friendly meaning that will save your lives. Many a thousand sick people are killed by their friends, that attend them with an earnest desire of their life; while they ignorantly give them that which is contrary to their disease, and will not be the less pernicious for the good meaning of the giver. Who have more tender affections then Mothers to their children? And yet a great part of the calamity of the world of sickness, and the misery of mans life, proceedeth from the ignorant and erroneous indulgence of Mothers to their children, who to please them, let them eat and drink what they will, and use them to excess and gluttony in their childhood, till nature be abused and mastered and clogged with those superfluities and crudities, which are the dunghill matter of most of the following diseases of their lives.
I might here also remember you how your friends may themselves be overcome with a temptation, and then become the more dangerous tempters of you, by how much the greater their interest is in your affections. If they be infected with errour, they are the likest persons to ensnare you: If they be tainted with Covetousness or Pride, there is none so likely to draw you to the same sin: And so your friends may be in effect your most deadly enemies, deceivers and destroyers.
15. And if you have friends that are never so firm and constant, they may prove (not only unable to relieve you, but) very additions to your grief. If they are afflicted in the participation of your sufferings, as your troubles are become theirs (without your case) so their trouble for you will become yours, and so your stock of sorrow will be encreased. And they are mortals, and lyable to distress as well you. And therefore they are like to bear their share in several sorts of sufferings: And so friendship will make their sufferings to be yours: Their sicknesses and pains, their fears and griefs, their wants and dangers, will all be yours. And the more they are your hearty friends, the more they will be yours. And so you will have as many additions to the proper burden of your griefs, as you have suffering friends: When you do but hear that they are dead, you say as Thomas, Joh. 11. 16. [Let us also go that we may die with him.] And having many such friends you will almost alwaies have one or other of them in distress; and so be seldome free from sorrow; besides all that which is properly your own.
16. Lastly, if you have a friend that is both true and useful, yet you may be sure he must stay with you but a little while. The godly men will cease, and the faithful fail from among the children of men; while men of lying flattering lips, and double hearts survive, and the wicked walk on every side while the vilest men are exalted, Psal. 12. 1, 2, 8. while swarms of false malicious men, are left round about you, perhaps God will take away your dearest friends: If among a multitude of unfaithful ones, you have but one that is your friend indeed, perhaps God will take away that one. He may be separated from you into another Country; or taken away to God by death. Not that God doth grudge you the mercy of a faithful friend; but that he would be your All, and would not have you hurt your selves with too much affection to any Creature, and for other reasons to be named anon.
And to be forsaken of your friends, is not all your affliction: but to be so forsaken is a great aggravation of it. 1. For they use to forsake us in our greatest sufferings and streights, when we have the greatest need of them.
2. They fail us most at a dying hour, when all other worldly comfort faileth: As we must leave our houses, lands and wealth, so must we for the present leave our friends: And as all the rest are silly comforters, when we have once received our citation to appear before the Lord, so also are our friends but silly comforters: They can weep over us, but they cannot with all their care, delay the separating stroak of death, one day or hour.
Only by their prayers, and holy advice, remembring us of everlasting things, and provoking us in the work of preparation, they may prove to us friends indeed. And therefore we must value a holy, heavenly, faithful friend, as one of the greatest treasures upon earth. And while we take notice how as men they may forsake us, we must not deny but that as Saints they are precious, and of singular use to us; and Christ useth by them to communicate his mercies; and if any creatures in the world may be blessings to us, it is holy persons, that have most of God in their hearts and lives.
3. And it is an aggravation of the cross, that they often fail us, when we are most faithful in our duty, and stumble most upon the most excellent acts of our obedience.
4. And those are the persons that ofttimes fail us, of whom we have deserved best, and from whom we might have expected most.
Review the experiences of the choicest servants that Christ hath had in the world, and you shall find enough to confirm you of the vanity of man, and the instability of the dearest friends. How highly was Athanasius esteemed? and yet at last deserted and banished even by the famous Constantine himself! How excellent a man was Gregory Nazianzene, and highly valued in the Church? and yet by reproach and discouragements driven away from his Church at Constantinople whither he was chosen: and envied by the Bishops round about him. How worthy a man was the eloquent Chrysostome, and highly valued in the Church! And yet how bitterly was he prosecuted by Hierome and Epiphanius; and banished, and dyed in a second banishment, by the provocation of factious contentious Bishops, and an Empress impatient of his plain reproofs? What person more generally esteemed and honoured for learning, piety and peaceableness then Melanchthon? and yet by the contentions of Illyricus and his party, he was made aweary of his life. As highly as Calvin was (deservedly) valued at Geneva, yet once in a popular lunacy and displeasure, they drove him out of their City, and in contempt of him some called their dogs by the name of Calvin; (though after they were glad to intreat him to return.) How much our Grindal and Abbot were esteemed, it appeareth by their advancement to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury: and yet who knoweth not that their eminent piety sufficed not to keep them from dejecting frowns! And if you say, that it is no wonder if with Princes through interest, and with people through levity, it be thus; I might heap up instances of the like untrustiness of particular friends: But all History and the experiences of the most, do so much abound with them, that I think it needless. Which of us must not say with David that [all men are lyars] Psal. 116. that is, deceitful and untrusty, either through unfaithfulness, weakness or insufficiency that either will forsake us, or cannot help us in the time of need?
Was Christ forsaken in his extremity by his own Disciples, to teach us what to expect, or bear? Think it not strange then to be conformed to your Lord, in this, as well as in other parts of his humiliation. Expect that men should prove deceitful: Not that you should entertain censorious suspicions of your particular friends: but remember in general that man is frail, and the best too selfish and uncertain; and that it is no wonder if those should prove your greatest grief, from whom you had the highest expectations. Are you better then Job, or David, or Christ? and are your friends more firm and unchangeable then theirs?
Consider, 1▪ That Creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator. Allsufficiency, Immutability and indefectible fidelity, are proper to Jehovah. As it is no wonder for the Sun to set or be ecclipsed, as glorious a body as it is; so it is no wonder for a friend, a pious friend, to fail us, for a time, in the hour of our distress. There are some that will not: but there is none but may, if God should leave them to their weakness. Man is not your Rock: He hath no stability but what is derived, dependant, and uncertain, and defectible. Learn therefore to rest on God alone, and lean not too hard or confidently upon any mortal might.
2. And God will have the common infirmity of man to be known, that so the weakest may not be utterly discouraged, nor take their weakness to be gracelesness, whilest they see that the strongest also have their infirmities, though not so great as theirs. If any of Gods servants lives in constant holiness and fidelity, without any shakings or stumbling in their way, it would tempt some self▪accusing troubled souls, to think that they were altogether graceless, because they are so far short of others. But when we read of a Peters denying his Master in so horrid a manner, with swearing and cursing that he knew not the man, Matth. 26. 74. and of his dissimulation and not walking uprightly, Gal. 2. and of a Davids unfriendly and unrighteous dealing with Mephihosheth, the seed of Jonathan; and of his most vile and treacherous dealing with Uriah, a faithful and deserving subject; it may both abate our wonder and offence at the unfaithfulness of our friends, and teach us to compassionate their frailty, when they desert us; and also somewhat abate our immoderate dejectedness and trouble, when we have failed God or man our selves.
3. Moreover, consider, how the odiousness of that sin, which is the root and cause of such unfaithfulness, is greatly manifested by the failing of our friends. God will have the odiousness of the remnants of our self-love and carnalmindedness, and cowardize appear: we should not discern it in the seed and root, if we did not see, and tast it in the fruits. Seeing without tasting will not sufficiently convince us: A crab looks as beautiful as an apple; but when you tast it, you better know the difference. When you must your selves be unkindly used by your friends, and forsaken by them in your distress, and you have tasted the fruits of the remnants of their worldliness, selfishness and carnal fears, you will better know the odiousness of these vices, which thus break forth against all obligations to God and you, and notwithstanding the light, the conscience, and perhaps the grace, that doth resist them.
4. Are you not prone to overvalue and overlove your friends? If so, is not this the meetest remedy for your disease? In the loving of God, we are in no danger of excess; and therefore have no need of any thing to quench it. And in the loving of the godly purely upon the account of Christ, and in loving Saints as Saints, we are not apt to go too far. But yet our understandings may mistake, and we may think that Saints have more of sanctity then indeed they have; and we are exceeding apt to mix a selfish common love with that which is spiritual and holy; and at the same time, when we Love a Christian as a Christian, we are apt not only to Love him (as we ought) but to overlove him because he is our friend, and Loveth us. Those Christians that have no special Love to us, we are apt to undervalue and neglect, and Love them below their holiness and worth: But those that we think entirely Love us, we Love above their proper worth, as they stand in the esteem of God: Not but that we may Love those that Love us, and add this Love to that which is purely for the sake of Christ; but we should not let our own interest prevail and overtop the interest of Christ, nor Love any so much for Loving us, as for Loving Christ: And if we do so, no wonder if God shall use such remedies as he seeth meet, to abate our excuse of selfish love.
O how highly are we apt to think of all that Good which is found in those who are the highest esteemers of us, and most dearly love us; when perhaps in it self it is but some ordinary good, or ordinary degree of goodness which is in them! Their Love to us unresistibly procureth our Love to them: And when we Love them, it is wonderful to observe, how easily we are brought to think well of almost all they do, and highly to value their judgements, graces, parts and works: when greater excellencies in another perhaps are scarce observed, or regarded but as a common thing: And therefrre the destruction or want of Love, is apparent in the vilifying thoughts and speeches, that most men have of one another; and in the low esteem of the judgements, and performances and lives of other men: (much more in their contempt, reproaches and cruel persecutions.) Now though God will have us encrease in our Love of Christ in his members, and in our pure Love of Christians as such, and in our common charity to all, yea and in our just fidelity to our friend; yet would he have us suspect and moderate our selfish and excessive Love, and inordinate partial esteem of one above another, when it is but for our selves, and on our own account. And therefore as he will make us know, that we our selves are no such excellent persons, as that it should make another so laudable, or advance his worth, because he Loveth us; so he will make us know, that our friends whom we overvalue, are but like other men: If we exalt them too highly in our esteem, it is a sign that God must cast them down. And as their Love to us was it that made us so exalt them; so their unkindness or unfaithfulness to us, is the fittest means to bring them lower in our estimation and affection. God is very jealous of our hearts, as to our overvaluing and overloving any of his Creatures: what we give inordinately and excessively to them, is some way or other taken from him, and given them to his injury, and therefore to his offence. Though I know that to be void of natural, friendly or social affections, is an odious extream on the other side; yet God will rebuke us if we are guilty of excess. And it's the greater and more inexcusable fault to over-love the Creature, because our Love to God is so cold, and hardly kindled and kept alive: He cannot take it well to see us dote upon dust and frailty like our selves, at the same time when all his wondrous kindness, and attractive goodness, do cause but such a faint and languid Love to him, which we our selves can scarcely feel. If therefore he cure us by permitting our friends to shew us truly what they are, and how little they deserve such excessive Love (when God hath so little) it is no more wonder, than it is that he is tender of his glory, and merciful to his servants souls.
5. By the failing and unfaithfulness of our friends, the wonderful Patience of God will be observed and honoured, as it is shewed both to them and us. When they forsake us in our distress (especially when we suffer for the cause of Christ) it is God that they injure more than us: And therefore if he bear with them, and forgive their weakness upon repentance, why should not we do so that are much less injured? The worlds persidiousness should make us think, How great and wonderful is the patience of God, that beareth with, and beareth up so vile, ungrateful, treacherous men that abuse him to whom they are infinitely obliged? And it should make us consider, when men deal treacherously with us, How great is that mercy that hath born with, and pardoned greater wrongs which I my self have done to God, than these can be which men have done to me! It was the remembran…e of David's sin, that had provoked God to raise up his own Son against him (of whom he had been too fond) which made him so easily bear the curses and reproach of Shimei. It will make us bear abuse from others, to remember how ill we have dealt with God, and how ill we have deserved at his hands our selves.
6. And I have observed another of the Reasons of Gods permitting the failing of our friends, in the season and success. It is, that the Love of our friends may not hinder us when we are called to suffer or dye. When we over-love them, it teareth our very hearts to leave them: And therefore it is a strong temptation to draw us from our duty, and to be unfaithful to the cause of Christ, lest we should be taken from our too-dear friends, or lest our suffering cause their too-much grief. It is so hard a thing to dye with willingness and peace, that it must needs be a mercy to be saved from the impediments which make us backward: And the excessive Love of friends and relations, is not the least of these impediments: O how loth is many a one to dye, when they think of parting with wife, or husband, or children, or dear and faithful friends! Now I have oft observed, that a little before their death or sickness, it is ordinary with God to permit some unkindness between such too-dear friends to arise, by which he moderated and abated their affections, and made them a great deal the willinger to dye. Then we are ready to say, It is time for me to leave the world, when not only the rest of the world, but my dearest friends have first forsaken me! This helpeth us to remember our dearest everlasting friend, and to be grieved at the heart that we have been no truer our selves to him, who would not have forsaken us in our extremity. And sometime it maketh us even aweary of the world, and to say as Elias, Lord take away my life, &c. 1 King. 19. 4, 10, 14. when we must say, I thought I had one friend left, and behold even he forsaketh me in my distress.] As the Love of friends intangleth our affections to this world, so to be weaned by their unkindnesses from our friends, is a great help to loosen us from the world, and proveth oft a very great mercy to a soul that is ready to depart.
And as the friends that Love us most, and have most interest in our esteem and Love, may do more than others, in tempting us to be unfaithful to our Lord, to entertain any errour, to commit any sin, or to flinch in suffering; so when God hath permitted them to forsake us, and to lose their too great interest in us, we are fortified against all such temptations from them. I have known where a former intimate friend hath grown strange, and broken former friendship, and quickly after turned to such dangerous wayes and errours, as convinced the other of the mercifulness of God, in weakning his temptation by his friends desertion; who might else have drawn him along with him into sin. And I have often observed, that when the husbands have turned from Religion to Infidelity, Familism, or some dangerous heresie, that God hath permitted them to hate and abuse their wives so inhumanely, as that it preserved the poor women from the temptation of following them in their Apostasie or sin: When as some other women with whom their husbands have dealt more kindly, have been drawn away with them into pernicious paths.
Therefore still I must say, we were undone if we had the disposing of our own conditions. If would be long before we should have been willing our selves to be thus unkindly dealt with by our friends: And yet God hath made it to many a soul, a notable means of preserving them from being undone for ever. Yea the unfaithfulness of all our friends, and the malice and cruelty of all our enemies, doth us not usually so much harm, as the Love and Temptation of some one deluded erring friend, whom we are ready to follow into the gulf.
7. Lastly, consider that it is not desirable or suitable to our state, to have too much of our comfort by any creature: Not only because it is most pure and sweet which is most immediately from God; but also because we are very prone to overlove the Creature; and if it should but seem to be very commodious to us, by serving our necessities or desires, it would seem the more amiable, and therefore be the stronger snare: The work of mortification doth much consist in the annihilation or deadness of all the Creatures as to any power to draw away our hearts from God, or to entangle us and detain us from our duty. And the more excellent and lovely the creature appeareth to us, the less it is dead to us, or we to it; and the more will it be able to hinder or ensnare us.
When you have well considered all these things, I suppose you will admire the wisdome of God in leaving you under this kind of tryal, and weaning you from every creature, and teaching you by his providence as well as by his word, to Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?] And you will see that it's no great wonder that corrupted souls, that live in other sins, should be guilty of this unfaithfulness to their friends: and that he that dare unthankfully trample upon the unspeakable kindness of the Lord, should deal unkindly with the best of men. You make no great wonder at other kind of sins, when you see the world continually commit them; why then should you make a greater or a stranger matter of this than of the rest? Are you better than God? Must unfaithfulness to you be made more hainous, than that unfaithfulness to him, which yet you daily see and sleight? The least wrong to God is a thousandfold more than the greatest that can be done to you, as such. Have you done that for your nearest friend, which God hath done for him and you, and all men? Their obligations to you are nothing in comparison of their great and manifold obligations to God.
And you know that you have more wronged God, your selves, than any man ever wronged you: And if yet for all that he bear with you, have you not great reason to bear with others?
Yea, you have not been innocent towards men your selves: Did you never wrong or fail another? Or rather, are you not apter to see and aggravate the wrong that others do to you, than that which you have done to others? May you not call to mind your own neglects, and say, as Adonizebeck, Judg. 1. 7. [Threescore and ten Kings having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: As I have done, so God hath requited me.] Many a one have I failed or wronged: and no wonder if others fail and wrong me.]
Nay you have been much more unfaithful and injurious to your selves, than ever any other hath been to you. No friend was so near you, as your selves: None had such a charge of of you: None had such helps and advantages to do you good or hurt: And yet all the enemies you have in the world, even in Earth or Hell, have not wronged and hurt you half so much as you have done your selves. O, methinks the man or woman that knoweth themselves, and knoweth what it is to Repent; that ever saw the greatness of their own sin and folly, should have no great mind or leisure to aggravate the failings of their friends, or the injuries of their enemies, considering what they have proved to themselves! Have I forfeited my own salvation, and deserved everlasting wrath, and sold my Saviour and my soul for so base a thing as sinful pleasure, and shall I ever make a wonder of it, that another man doth me some temporal hurt? Was any friend so near to me as my self? Or more obliged to me? O sinful soul, let thy own, rather than thy friends deceit and treachery, and neglects, be the matter of thy displeasure, wonder and complaints!
And let thy Conformity herein to Jesus Christ, be thy holy ambition and delight: Not as it is thy suffering, nor as it is caused by mens sin: but as it is thy Conformity and fellowship in the sufferings of thy Lord, and caused by his Love.
I have already shewed you that sufferers for Christ, are in in the highest form among his Disciples. The order of his followers usually is this; 1. At our entrance, and in the lowest form, we are exercised with the fears of Hell, and Gods displeasure, and in the works of Repentance for the sin that we have done. 2. In the second form, we come to think more seriously of the remedy, and to enquire what we shall do to be saved, and to understand better what Christ hath done and suffered, and what he is and will be to us; and to value him and his love and grace: And here we are much enquiring how we may know our own sincerity, and our interest in Christ, and are labouring for some assurance, and looking after signs of grace. 3. In the next form or order we are searching after further knowledge, and labouring better to understand the mysteries of Religion, and to get above the rudiments and first principles: And here if we scape turning bare Opinionists or Hereticks by the snare of controversie or curiosity, it's well. 4. In the next form we set our selves to the fuller improvement of all our further degrees of knowledge; and to digest it all, and turn it into stronger Faith, and Love, and Hope, and greater Humility, Patience, Self-denial, Mortification, and contempt of earthly vanities, and hatred of sin; and to walk more watchfully and holily, and to be more in holy duty. 5. In the next form we grow to be more publick-spirited: to set our hearts on the Churches welfare, and long more for the progress of the Gospel, and for the good of others; and to do all the good in the world that we are able, for mens souls or bodies, but especially to long and lay out our selves for the conversion and salvation of ignorant, secure, unconverted souls. The counterfeit of this, is, An eager desire to proselyte others to our opinions or that Religion which we have chosen, by the direction of flesh and blood, or which is not of God, nor according unto Godliness, but doth subserve our carnal ends. 6. In the next form we grow to study more the pure and wonderful Love of God in Christ, and to rellish and admire that Love, and to be taken up with the Goodness and tender mercies of the Lord, and to be kindling the flames of holy Love to him that hath thus Loved us; and to keep our souls in the exercise of that Love: And withall to live in Joy, and Thanks, and Praise to him that hath redeemed us and Loved us. And also by Faith to converse in Heaven, and to live in holy contemplation, beholding the Glory of the Father and the Redeemer in the Glass which is fitted to our present use, till we come to see him face to face. Those that are the highest in this form, do so walk with God, and burn in Love, and are so much above inferiour vanities, and are so conversant by Faith in Heaven, that their hearts even dwell there, and there they long to be for ever. 7. And in the highest form in the School of Christ, we are exercising this confirmed Faith and Love, in sufferings, especially for Christ: In following him with our Cross, and being conformed to him, and glorifying God in the fullest exercise and discovery of his Graces in us, and in an actual trampling upon all that standeth up against him, for our hearts: and in bearing the fullest witness to his Truth and Cause, by constant enduring, though to the death. Not but that the weakest that are sincere, must suffer for Christ if he call them to it: Martyrdome it self is not proper to the strong Believers: Whoever forsaketh not all that he hath for Christ, cannot be his Disciple, Luke 14. 33. But to suffer with that Faith and Love forementioned, and in that manner, is proper to the strong: And usually God doth not try and exercise his young and weak ones with the tryals of the strong; nor set his Infants on so hard a service, nor put them in the front or hottest of the battel, as he doth the ripe confirmed Christians. The sufferings of their inward doubts and fears doth take up such: It is the strong that ordinarily are called to sufferings for Christ, at least in any high degree; I have digrest thus far to make it plain to you, that our Conformity to Christ, and fellowship with him in his sufferings, in any notable degree, is the lot of his best confirmed servants, and the highest forme in his School among his Disciples: and therefore not to be inordinately feared or abhorred, nor to be the matter of impatiency, but of holy joy: and in such infirmities we may glory. And if it be so of sufferings in the general, (for Christ) then is it so of this particular sort of suffering, even to be forsaken of all our best and nearest, dearest friends, when we come to be most abused by the enemies.
For my own part, I must confess that as I am much wanting in other parts of my conformity to Christ, so I take my self to be yet much short, of what I expect he should advance me to, as long as my friends no more forsake me. It is not long since I found my self in a low (if not a doubting) case, because I had so few enemies and so little sufferings for the cause of Christ (though I had much of other sorts:) And now that doubt is removed by the multitude of furies which God hath let, loose against me. But yet, methinks, while my friends themselves are so friendly to me, I am much short of what I think I must at last attain to.