Military Duties Recommended, Application 2
USE. II.
The Attenders on Military Discipline should hence be careful to Acknowledge God in what they do.
Let them act according to that Acknowledgement, The Lord is my teacher.
To particularize:
FIRSTLY.
There are some Acknowledgements due to God from you, WHILE you are using of Military Discipline.
All the Trained Souldiers among you have these things incumbent on them, as so many Ackowledgments unto GOD their Teacher.
In the first place, Souldiers should be Gracious men. O get on the Whole Armour of God; Get gracious Principles into your Souls. Never dream That you are in all respects fit to war and to fight with any men▪ till your peace be made with God. You that may some time or other carry your Liv… in your Hands, had need alwaies to carry Grace in your Heárts. A very Heathen handling that Problem, Who is the best Armed Souldier? Solved it so, Integer vitae sceleris que purus: the sincere godly man is the best Armed of any man in the world. You be n't so fit as you should be to handle a Sword; till you come to use a Book as well as a Sword; till you govern your lives by the Words of Command in the Book of God; till you can say with that renowned Souldier in Psal. 119. 14. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. You are poor Souldiers, till you can with all Hilarity say to your own souls as that dying Ancient Hilary did, Egredere▪ Anima, egredere, quid times? or Turn out, O my Soul, turn out; Scorn, Scorn to be afraid of Death; which no uncoverted man can duly say. After all the Bravadoes which many Hectoring Dam-mee's make while no body is like to hurt them, it is the New-born, heaven-born Christian that will stand the most daringly before the mouthes of Cannons vomiting out Fire & Death; Here, here is the man that is best able to look the most …errible of all terribles in the f…ce & to scoff at the hisses of that Rattle-snake▪ DEATH, saying, Where's thy sting? I have heard that not a very long ago, In the Low-Countryes an huffing Captain challenged one reputed a very pious man unto the Fighting of a Duel: the General taking notice of it said, Pray stay till to morrow, such a Town is then to be assaulted, I'll then see which of you two can fight best. The Town was assaulted, and a Breath made in the Wall, Now (said the General to the Challenger) Now do you Enter: To this the couragious Coward reply'd with horrot, I beseech your Excellency excuse me, I be n't fit to dy. But the man whom the Changes of Regeneration have made fit to live, he is likewise fit to dy. He that hath Christ for his Life, will assuredly have Gain by his Death; and may fall into Transports of Ioy, whenever the grim Ferry-man shall call upon him, Come away!
Moreover, Souldiers should be Praying men. The illustrious G…stavus, Adolphus was, for a Souldier, the miracle of this last Age; but scarce any thing more contributed to his being so, than the Army of Prayers which were ever in his Service: Hence he would say to his Counsellors, The greater our Army of Prayers, the more assured will be our victory. It is given as the Character of a man worthy to be a Captain, in Act. 10. 2. He was a devout man and one that pray'd unto God alway. The Emperor Aurelius was blessed with a Legion of such Souldiers in his Host: When the Army was like to perish for Thirst, this Christian-Legion with-drew to Prayer, and immediately God sent a plentiful Rain which relieved them, but sent such fearful flashes of Lightening therewithall as destroyed their Enemies; from whence this was called the Thundering Legion. God grant that every Trained Company among us, may be a Praying Thundering Company! PRAYER, was the great Fieldpeice of Iehoshaphat; 'tis said in 2. Chron. 20. 3. He set himself to seek the Lord. Yea, the most of the Prayers in the Bible were made by a Souldier; The Psalms of David. Our late Indian-War gave us evidence enough of PRAYER's efficacy and importance, in military Executions. Luther was wont to style Prayer, the Gun-shot of the soul. Certainly, a Souldiers Weal is enwrapped in nothing more than in the well-discharging of it.
Furthermore, Souldiers ought to be well-Aiming men. I would say about your Training, as Paul about Eating and Drinking, in 1. Cor. 10. 31.—Do all to the GLORY OF GOD. Let all that you do from the Girding on of your Harness, to the putting of it off, be aimed at the Glory of God, and the Good of His people, to the just Satisfaction of your King and Countrey. Let every one of your Weapons have that Motto which the Lord has provided for the Bells of the Troopers Horses in Ierusalem, Zech 14. 12. HOLINESS TO THE LORD. Let all inferior Ends be placed by you in a due Subordination hereunto, and not be the main Spring of your Artillery Motions. As a religious man once at work in the Woods, being asked, Who are you at work for? very savourily answered, I am cutting of wood for God. So be you able to say of all your Trainings, That you are therein Obeying of God, and the Government, which is the minister of God unto you for good: thus preparing to Fight the Battails of the Lord.
Once more, Souldiers ought to be Sin-having men. There has been a Scandal raised upon Souldiers,
Nulla sides pietas que viris qui Castra sequunt ur.] that Souldiers are seldom Christians. The slander has been most happily confuted-by the vertuous Lives which many men of a Military Profession have been exemplary for. That I may recite one Instance instead of many, give me leave to inform you of what the Learned Voetius relateth in his Ecclesiastical Polity, (part. 1. Lib. 2. Tract. 4.) concerning a young Scoth Gentleman of his acquaintance, then a Captain in the Low-Countryes. This devout Souldier was (as Voetius testifies to the world in his Immortal Writings) a Mirrour of piety, Gravity, Modesty and extraordinary Prudence. He was abundant in Reading the Scriptures, & sundry Treatises both of Divinity and History, and penning down in his private papers the memorable passages which he found pertinent & profitable to himself therein. Yea, it was common with him to spend whole Days in the Austerities of a Fast. He moreover kept a constant Diary wherein (to use his own Phrase) he had on one Side, a page For the Old man, on the other side, a page For the New man; in these he did every day note down on the one side, How far the Interest of Sin decayed in him, on the other side, How far he grew in his Conformity to Iesus Christ. Doing thus until he dyed. Upon which th… …ction of that great man is to this purpose, …t is fit that many Ministers of the Gos…el should read this, to make them sensible how much a Souldier has gone beyond them in the Exercises of Devotion. Now let your Accurate Conversation in like manner promote the Vindication and the Reputation of …he blemished Souldier. Beware of those Sins …hat Souldiers are most addicted unto. Iohn Baptist in his Advice to Souldiers Luc. 3. 14. hath enumerated some of those hateful Immoralities. It was a Proverb of old, Miles Romans, Aegyptum cave; Roman Souldiers must be careful to shun Egyptian vices. Many a man is no less than a Leader unto a Trained Band, and yet so miserable as to be himself mis-led by a Foolish Lust. O be so valiant as to Fly (here Valour it self turns its back) the Fleshly Lusts whereof the Alarms of God have told you, That they war against the Soul. Abstain especially from the ordinary Epidemical Vices of Training Dayes. It is reported of the Carthaginian Souldiers, that they were not to meddle with any Wine all the time of their bearing Arms. Our Trainings are too commonly abused unto the contrary excesse… of Surfeiting and Drunkenness. Let the Vanity, let the Rioting, let the pagan pr… …ane Health. Drinkings which are th… … … …l, be abominable unto you, who have not … …arned Christ.
SECONDLY.
There are some further Acknowledgement… due unto God from you, WHEN you ar… …hriving in Military Discipline.
If you Thrive under your heavenly Teacher you are to pay unto Him such Acknowledgements as these.
Your humble, your hearty Praises are first, to be rendred unto the Most High for an your military Endowments. Among the Ancients, when an old Souldier. came to have an honest honourable …ismission from the Camp, he dedicated his Arms with his Praises unto his Houshold Gods. Truly, there are Praises to be returned unto our God, when we are made Masters in military Practice. O' do a… the Psalmist in the close of his military Psal…, (in 2. Sam. 22. 50.) resolves to do. I will give Thanks to thee, O Lord, I will give Praises to thy Name.
Again, You should now Submit unto any the hardest military Employment that the Most High God shall call you to. Stand like the Israelites in the Desart of old, pitching every man by his Standard about the Tabernacle of the Lord; and when you have the full Warrant of GOD and His Vice-gerents, don't shrugg or shrink back for any Difficulty that you may be put upon. Let me speak unto you in the words which the Lord-General of Israel in his military Oration used, (2. Sam. 10. 12.) Be of good Courage, play the men, for your people, and the Cities of your God. Here you are like the valiant of Israel, all holding of swords, and expert in war,—standing about the Bed of Solomon; and if Solomon say the word, then count that the best way to save your lives will be to lose 'em; and so the holy. Angels may at the first Arrival of your disengaged Souls into the spiritual …orld, welcome them with the Salutation which an Angel gave to Gideon, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of Valour.
Finally, When you cannot possibly, or may not lawfully serve God as Souldiers, be willing to serve God as Sufferers. God knowes whether you may ever be put upon the …earing of any Testimonies to the Truths or Wayes of Jesus Christ, which may incurr the …rown▪ of all Standers-by. Now it will be a greater magnanimity to suffer Disgrace and Poverty and Imprisonment cheerfully, than it is to defend a Feild of Lentiles singly against an whole Army of Philistines, or to slaughter six hundred of 'em with an Ox-goad. Be ready with a passive Obedience, to follow Him whom the Apostle styles in Heb. 2. 10. The Captain of our Salvation, made perfect through Sufferings. Souldiers have sometimes had their: Superstitions about Crosses, but most certainly it is the most real Christianity to take a Cross imposed by the Providence of the Lord Jesus on us, and to lay the ragged Tree upon our shoulders until it do there bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness. The name that our K. Edward I. (the comliest of men.) had, when called Crouch-back, because of the Cross which he wore on his Back, very well befits a Souldier, when Crosses and Tryals are carved out for him by the God of Heaven. Christan Souldiers should be as willing to entertain Crosses, I mean Sorrows, and Troubles, for the sake of the Gospel, as the Primitive Christian Souldiers were to throw by the military Crowns which were profered unto them. The Ancients have with very eloquent Lines celebrated those Forty Souldiers, who for the professing themselves Christians, were conten… to undergo the fiery exquisite Anguish of being Frozen to death. Let every one of us in like sort be content to endure the bleakest, the most nipping and peircing winds that can blow upon us for our Faithfulness unto the Son of God. O be among the Armies in Heaven following the Lamb, and if ever you should (thanks be to God you yet have not) to do with Persecutors, be unto them no otherwise than as Sheep before the Shearers.