Discourse of the Gospel of Peace, Tract 1 · Chapter 2
CHAP. II.
DOct. 1st, The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, is a Gospel of Peace.
Doct. 2d, That there is in the Gospel of Peace, furniture sufficient to preserve our Peace against all Encounters in our Christian course.
Doct. 3d, In order to the securing our Peace, by the Preparations and Furniture of the Gospel, we ought to make a due use and application of it.
I Shall consider these three Doctrines in their order.
1st, That the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, is a Gospel of Peace.
Peace is a quality belongs to it, not only as some lesser Circumstance or small Appendage: but as its principal Subject runs in all its Veins: 'tis the very Spirit and Soul of it. Some Men impose Titles on their Books, that have but little concern in the Books themselves. This is not their Wisdom, but their Vanity, and the Readers utter disappointment. The only wise and faithful God cannot be liable to such an Incongruity: He calls things by their right Names He doth not draw a great shooe upon a little foot. We have abundant testimony of this truth in the Scripture. I shall instance in two only.
When Christ sent forth his Disciples to Preach the Gospel, he orders them to signifie its Errand in their Salutation: Peace be unto this House. ButLuke 10. 5. Acts 10. 36. more expresly in the words of St. Peter, Preaching Peace by Jesus Christ. Peace is its Errand and Argument.
Seven things I shall endeavour in the Explication of this Doctrine.
1st, To give a short, but sufficient account of the Nature of Peace in General.
2dly, Shew you upon what Considerations the Gospel is a Gospel of Peace.
3dly, To whom, or what this Peace concerns, and hath respect unto.
4thly, What is the Nature and excellent Properties of it.
5thly, On what Foundations it is laid.
6thly, In what methods it is derived to us.
7thly, Answer a great Objection against, and Reflection upon this Doctrine, from the sad Expeperience of the unpeaceable Condition of the World, where, and when the Gospel hath set footing, and in the Spirits and deportments of its Professors.
SECT. II.
What the Nature of Peace is in General.
1st, It is Negative, excluding all those evils that are Adversaries to our Tranquility, to our true and real Happiness.
It is as impossible for Fire and Water to be quiet, when mingled together, or the Waters to be calm, when beaten on by fierce and impetuous Storms: as for a Man to be at Peace while under the Power and Impressions of what is contrary to him. And this is none of the least of its Excellencies, that where it is, all things contrary to us are either absent: or we are so fortifi'd, that they cannot hurt or distress us. Motion or Agitation (simply considered) is no Breach of our Peace: but Contrariety and Contradiction, this is War, the true Breach of the Peace, where we have not a Defence sufficient to secure us.
The Apostle Paul had Adversaries and Adversities attended him whereever he came: but tho he could not fly them, he did escape them: None of these Acts. 20. 24.things move me. He was steady as a Rock against the Waves: calm as those Heavens which no Vapour can reach.
2dly, It is Positive, as including all that good that is necessary to our Salvation.
A Negative Peace alone, is a very bare and beggerly thing. Not to be sick, in pain, any way contradicted, afflicted, or unhappy: This is the peace of a Stock, or a Stone: not that of a sensible and rational being: of all created beings, the intelligent, as they are most capable, so they are most craving.
How unhappy a thing is it to hunger and thirst, and have nothing to answer and satisfie those vehement Appetites? Man is a large Vessel, if he be not fill'd with what is Connatural, agreeable to him, somewhat unfriendly, unkind and injurious, must fill up the Room. A Vessel not fill'd with more solid Matter, will entertain mere Air, rather than any Emptiness.
A mere negative peace is a dead peace. The Hebrew salutation, Peace be with you, intended all good things, whatever might contribute to their joys. Life and Peace morally considered, are but the same things: And the Apostle couples them as pares of like import. To be spiritually minded is life and Rom. 8. 6.peace: They are exegetical or interpretative each of other. It is observable what is said of Nabal, in the direction of David's Message to him. Say to him that liveth in prosperity, so our Translation: But in the original 'tis only, Say to him that liveth: for no man liveth that liveth not comfortably: and also no man has true solid peace, but he that injoys himself, by injoying what is necessary to his satisfaction.
3dly, Peace is an aquiescence in the true matter or means of satisfaction which we possess, or may possess.
Heaven it self would not be sufficient to create a Peace for that man who cannot aquiesce in its felicity. The fallen Angels, and our first Parents, had enough in those stations wherein God had placed them, to fill their capacity, to answer the utmost of their affections: and whilest they aquiesced therein, they had perfect peace. But when once their desires shot themselves beyond those bounds, their conditions grew uneasie, their Peace was broken. That expression of the Psalmist, He maketh me to lie Psal. 23. 2▪down in green pastures, is a compleat representation of Peace: A sufficiency, plenty enough to answer necessity, and kindle a delight: and this acquiesced in, the Soul taking up its rest, the heart, and so adequate provision brought together.
What is the cause that all men that hear the Gospel of Peace, are not immediately changed into its image: I mean their Souls blessed with its Peace? It must be either from their disbelief of the real existence of those good things proposed there, or at least their suspicion that they are not attainable by them; or which is the most prevailing, that their hearts cannot, or do not aquiesce in, and embrace them as a sufficiency, an adequate good: And this is the true cause of the impossibility of the peace of that man, whose Principles, or Affections, and Will, are under the prevalency of corrupted nature.
As for me (saith the Wise and Holy David) I Psal. 17. 15.will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. Righteousness is not only a condition of happiness, as answering the terms of the law of Grace, but also a necessary preparation to it. And that likeness of God, which is a congruity of the glorified creature to all the Divine perfections, renders it capable of satisfaction in that God, between whom and such a Soul there is so exact and compleat an agreement.
SECT. III.
Ʋpon what Considerations the Gospel is call'd the Gospel of Peace.
1st. The principal design of God, in and by the Gospel, is Peace: Next and subordinate to his own Glory, Peace is the mark which his Eternal Thoughts and Councels aimed at by the whole frame of the Gospel. Glory to God in the highest, takes the first place, next to that peace on earth, and lastly, good will towards men: of which, this Peace is the highest evidence and expression. In Christ's state or humiliation, The chastisement of our peace was upon him. Isa. 53. …5.In his state of exaltation he is said to be (according to the type) Melchisedech king of Salem: That is,Heb. 7. 1. King of Righteousness, King of Peace. So that, take him at lowest or highest, Suffering, Obeying, Reigning, the design of all is peace.
2dly, The tendency of the Gospel to Peace.
There is the highest and most accomplished tendency to Peace in the Gospel: The means answers the end, suitable to that good will and wisdom that is peculiar to the Divine Being. No natural cause hath a more exact tendency to its proper effects. All its Promises, Provisions, Precepts, Cautions, Convictions, Instructions: yea, its very Chidings, Menaces, and Chastisements, conspire to carry on this blessed end of peace.
3dly, Its Proposals, and Tenders, and Treaties, are Peace.
Peace is the Pearl it offers: The great business its Ministers and Ambassadors are to treat of: And they are unworthy of the name of Ministers of the Gospel, who so far forget its errand and their own, as to neglect the blessed work of Peace-makers: But of all others, they who contradict it so far, as instead of tendering and treating God's Peace, vent their own Passions to serve their own Parties, Factions, and Carnal Interests.
The hypocritical Jews mocked God, and abused his Ordinance of fasting, by fasting for strife and debate: and were severely reproved for their pains, by him they pretended to worship, serve, and reconcile. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, to smite with the fist of wickedness: Ye shall not fast as ye do this day. Is not this the fast that I have chosen: Isa. 58. 4, 5, 6.to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoak? Read but Preaching instead of Fasting: 'tis all as congruous to truth, and as obvious to human reason. Pardon this digression (if it be such) it being to meet with those who are so much out of their way.
See the tenders of the Gospel, and the business of its Ministers. And into whatever house ye enter, Luke 10. 5.say Peace be to this house: But if this tender of peace be rejected, the Ambassadors of Peace are call'd off, and must leave nothing behind them but the witnessesVerse 10. 11. of their ingratitude, and the menaces of the most severe revenge from the God of Peace.
4thly, The Gospel Commands and wooes Peace, and directs us into the way of it. The Lord doth not by his Gospel commend it to us, and leave … there, but he commands it also: Thereby making it our sin as well as our folly to reject or sleight it: An affront to the Divine Majesty, as well as a wrong to our selves and others. Be diligent that ye 2 Pet. 3. 14.may be found of him in peace.
The Gospel passes from Commands to Intreaties. Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ, as tho' God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God. If our hearts be inclined to Peace, but we are ignorant of the way of it, the Gospel becomes our director, To guide our feet into the way of peace.
5thly, Its Effects and Fruits are Peace.
They are actually so with some or other, as froward and perverse as the World is to Peace, to whom the Gospel of Peace makes its addresses. None of God's designs are barren and vain. And if his Will and Design be to promote Peace by the Gospel, and especially Peace with God: it shall have these effects somewhere: God has told us afore-hand it shall be so, tho' he has not told us the persons by name. The unbelief of the body of the Rom. 3. 3.Jews (the Apostle saith) shall not make the faith of God of none effect. God had designed, declared, promised an Efficacy of Peace to the Gospel of Peace; Who, or what can resist his good Will, the purposes of his Grace?
Consider the Promises made to the Son of God, upon his undertaking the gracious work of reconciliation: And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation to the ends of the earth. When thou shalt Isa. 53. 10.make his soul an offering for sin, He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. We may take that Prophesie of Christ, for the Exposition of this concerningJoh. 12. 32. Isa. 55. 10, 11. him: And I, when I am lift up will draw all men to me: i. e. by reconciliation, by my Gospel of Peace. What can we think of those promises of writing God's Law in the mind? giving a heart of flesh? The sense of which is, their being reconciled to God; but that some, and many shall be wrought on, savingly to perform the terms of life in the Covenant of Grace. No one person, or sort of persons, however qualified, can be here pointed out, but are all hid in the Arcana of God's purpose; 'tis effectual calling must speak them particularly to belong to the election of Grace.
This certain infallible efficacy that was certain and future, before it had any actual being, methinks is hard to be reconciled to that opinion, that leaves all reconciling saving successes of the Gospel of Peace, to uncertain Contingencies; which is to say, it might, or was most likely to be savingly effectual: But it was possible it might so come to pass, that not one Soul might be reconciled by it. It was so left to the Liberty and Power of Man, that he had the turning of the Scale.
The last Consideration I offer, upon which it is, or may very congruously be called the Gospel of Peace, is, That it is the only revealed way of Peace.
I am neither so adventurous or uncharitable, as to utter any Sentence against the more honest Heathen, who lived up to their light, which God hath not denounced in the Patent writings of his Word. But, that there is no other name given under Heaven among men, but the name of Jesus Christ, whereby Acts 4. 12.we must be saved, is the express Text. So much for the Considerations upon which it may be said to be the Gospel of Peace. 'Tis not an empty title, but has in it what abundantly answers to this Character.