Of Quenching the Spirit, Chapter 8
CHAP. VIII.
The fifth effect of quenching the Spirit, It brings into a Consumption. A three-fold consumption that it brings men into, a consumption of Estate, Body, and Soul. Estates gotten and spent in a way of quenching the Spirit come to nothing. Life the most excellent thing in Nature. Because of mens quenching the Spirit God destroies it. Consumptive diseases sent for this cause. Some consumptive diseases come by sin, all come for sin. The consumption of the soul the worst consumption. It is sent as the other two for quenching of the spirit. It consists in two things, the wasting and pining away of gifts, & common grace. Quenching the spirit, procures it as the meritorious cause, provoking God to inflict it, and it works and effects it of it self. Some distinctions concerning this consumption. It is either partial, or total, gradual, or at once. There is a consumption in this life, and in the life to come.
SECT. 1.
5. IT brings into a Consumption. Isa. 1.28. The destruction of the transgressours and sinners, shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord, (i. e. slighting the voice of his Word from without, and the workings and motions of his spirit from within) shall be consumed. So Isa. 5.24. Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be rottenness, and their blossome shall go up as dust, because they have cast away the Law of the Lord, and despised the word of the holy one of Israel, i. e. the outward word spoken to their ears by the Prophets, and the inward word spoken to their hearts by the Spirit. Casting away the Law, and despising the word is one way of quenching the Spirit (as you have heard) for that is a casting away and despising of the fewel of the Spirit, and that must needs bee a cause of quenching it. Therefore when the Apostle saith, Quench not the Spirit, he immediately adds, Despise not Prophesying, thereby plainly shewing that to Despise Prophesying, i. e. the preaching of the word, is to quench the Spirit, 1 Thes. 5.19, 20. Well, but for this it is said here, their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossome shall go up as the dust. So that this sin of quenching the Spirit, brings you see into a consumption.
SECT. 2.
Now there is a three-fold Consumption that it brings men into.
1. A Consumption of estate.
2. A Consumption of Body. And
3. A Consumption of Soul. And it brings into this three-fold Consumption, either as the meritorious and procuring cause, provoking God to inflict it, or as the efficient and working cause, effecting and working it in its own nature. As the meritorious cause, so it is the cause of the two former, it procures a Consumption both of estate and body: as the meritorious and efficient cause too, so it is the cause of the latter; it not onelyonly provokes God to inflict, but effects and works a Consumption of the soul.
SECT. 3.
1. It brings a Consumption of estate, Deut. 28.48. So Hab. 2.9, 10, 11. Thus it shall be with those estates that are gotten by forsaking of God, and quenching of the Spirit, they shall come to nothing; but suppose men have not gotten their estates in such a way, by forsaking of God, and quenching the motions and workings of the Spirit, yet if afterwards they quench the Spirit, their estates shall come to the same end. If men consume their estates upon their lusts, as Jam. ….3. not make fuel of them for the Spirit, but their lusts, God will consume them by his judgements. Consider of this, you that have estates to live comfortably upon, God hath waies to bring you low enough in your estates, though you think your selves never so well provided against an evil day.
SECT. 4.
2. It brings into a Consumption of body. And this is a Consumption a degree worse than the former, as Satans speech implies, Job 2.4. Where he asks leave the second time to afflict Job. Before, he had consumed his Sheep, and his Camels, and his Children, but he sayes, now all this is nothing to Job, so long as his body is not consumed. Life is a most precious treasure, the most excellent thing in Nature, and the body, as Christ sayes, is more worth than Raiment. Yet if men neglect the exercise of Grace, cast the Word and Ordinances behinde their backs, sin against light, and convictions, and so quench the Spirit, he will not onelyonly consume their estates, their Corne, and their Wine, and their Cloathes, but their bodies also, Deut. 28.21, 22. He will make his Pestilence to cleave unto thee until he have consumed thee off the Land, and the Lord shall smite thee with a Consumption, and with a feaver, and with an inflammation, and with an extream burning. There are some consumptions of the body that come by sin, in the acting of which, a man sins directly against his own body, as that of Fornication, that the Apostle instanceth in 1 Cor. 6.18. this brings a Consumption, Prov. 5.11. —and thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body is consumed; but all consumptive diseases come for sin, Isa. 64.6, 7. We fade as a leaf, and our iniquities as winde have taken us away; thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us because of our iniquities. And for this sin of quenching the Spirit especially, as Prov. 5.11. How have I hated instruction, (saith he) and despised the voice of my Teachers? this he confesseth as the cause of his Consumption. And so Isa. 64. No man stirreth up himself (saith he) but lets the fire go out, &c. no wonder then they are consumed.
SECT. 5.
3. It brings a Consumption of the soul, and this is worst of all. Many of those that quench the Spirit, prosper in their estates, and thrive in their bodies, but consume in their souls. Their bodies prosper, but their souls do not prosper; they have fat bodies, but lean souls, as Psal. 106.15. They lusted exceedingly in the Wilderness, and God gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls, i. e. while they inordinately desired meat for their bodies, God with-held the ordinary food of their souls; so that, though they had fat bodies, they had starvling souls. Thus God usually deals with those that quench the Spirit; what health or strength soever he send into their bodies, yet he sends leanness into their souls. And this is a sore evil that is under the Sun, which if persons were as sensible of, as they are of the leanness of their bodies, they would cry out, as Isa. 24.16. My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me. Many Professors are like Pharaohs lean Kine that devoured the fat ones; they feed in fertile Pastures, and devour fat Ordinances, fat Truths, fat Mercies, fat Duties and Priviledges, but yet they remain lean, and ill favoured still. Death is in their very faces, they seem to be but so many spectres, or walking-Ghosts, they eat and drink, but receive no nourishment, nothing doth them good.
SECT. 6.
This Consumption, or leanness of soul is seen in two things.
1. In the wasting and pining away of their Gifts.
2. In the wasting and pining away of their common Graces.
Many Professors there are that have had gifts of Knowledge, gifts of Utterance, so that they have been able to apprehend the deep things and Mysteries of the Gospel, able to speak a word in season, even to the ravishment of the hearers; able to pray with great enlargement, even to the heart-breaking of those that joyned with them; but for some secret Apostacy, and back-sliding, whereby they have quench'd the Spirit, God hath blasted these precious gifts, and now they are become very dull and stupid, are blinde, and not able to discern any thing, and altogether useless, and unprofitable to others, like unsavoury salt, good for nothing, but to bee thrown out to the Dung-hill.
Secondly, As their gifts are consumed, so are their graces. Time was, when they had a taste of the Heavenly gift, abundance of joy, and zeal, and their hearts melted within them for the Commission of sin, but now their hearts are withered and shrivled up. They seemed before to have some life, but now, though they had a name to live, yet they are seemingly dead, it may be really so too. Of these Jude speaks vers. 12. Thus we may observe it in many, who seemed to have much of the good favour of the knowledge and grace of Christ in them, but now are become very unsavory, having lost their former sense and apprehensions of the excellency of Christ, and beauties of Holiness. Thus you see how quenching of the Spirit procures a Consumption, as the meritorious cause, by provoking God to inflict it.
SECT. 7.
Secondly, it works and effects it of it self. As when natural heat is quenched, a bodily consumption follows, as the effect of it; So when Spiritual heat is quenched, when the fire of the Spirit is extinguished, there follows a spiritual Consumption. The life of any thing consists in its spirits, as you have heard; so much as you waste the spirits, so much you impair the life. When Graces are not exercised, they languish and decay, as Rev. 3.2. their graces were not acted and kept in continual exercise, in the works they did, and in the duties they performed, and so were ready to dye. As 'tis with our natural spirits, when a man sits still for the most part, and doth not employ himself, he grows listless and indisposed, lumpish and dull; so 'tis with these supernatural. He that is sloathful is brother to a great waster, Prov. 18.9. there will be a losing of one degree after another, till at length there be nothing almost left, and that, ready to dye too. Rev. 3.3.
SECT. 8.
See then further from hence, what an evil there is in quenching the spirit, that it brings thee into a spiritual Consumption. Oh if thou didst rightly apprehend it, if thou didst consider the danger of it, thou wouldst presently cry out, O my leanness, my leanness! Woe is me. As those that are sensible of their danger, by reason of a bodily consumption, they will go to this Physician, and that Physician, and say, what's good for mee? I am afraid I am in a Consumption, and must dye: So thou wouldst go up and down, crying out: Oh! what shall I do to be saved, to be recovered, to be delivered from this death? I have quenched the Spirit so long, that now I see I am in a Consumption, I fall away a pace, nothing doth mee good. Oh wretched man! who shall deliver me from this body of Death?
SECT. 9.
To conclude, take these distinctions concerning this Consumption.
1. It is either Partial, or Total.
1. Partial, as Nehem. 9.31. Thou didst not utterly consume them; So it may be, God doth not utterly consume thee for this year, nor for this or that sin; but yet there is a partial Consumption upon thee. The Plague is begun, the disease is begun that's like e're long utterly to consume thee, only God spares thee for the present. And this he doth, to shew his patience and long-suffering towards thee, not willing that thou shouldest dye, but rather, that thou shouldest be renewed again unto repentance, and live.
2. Total, As when the Disease is universally and wholly over-spread; when not onelyonly, this or that particular part, but all and every part is consumed. 'Tis sad when there is a Consumption in any one part of the body, or estate, but when 'tis universal, this is miserable. So 'tis in spirituals. As there may sometimes bee a growth in one lust more than in others; so likewise in graces, there's a growth in one grace, when another grace seems to be even consumed and wasted to nothing: And again, there is a Consumption in all the graces; so that a man in respect of spirituals, is wholly dead, and nothing at all left, whereby to judge of any remaining life in him.
2. It is either gradual or at once.
1. Gradual, when a mans gifts and grace wasts by little and little. As Christians that are in a thriving condition are renewed day by day, and go from strength to strength, from a lesser to a greater degree of strength continually; so Hypocrites that are fallen into a consumption, they fall away from one degree to another, from a greater to a lesser.
2. At once, The Lord said unto Moses, and unto Aaron, separate your selves from among this Congregation, that I may consume them in a moment, Numb. 16.20, 21. So God smites a man sometimes with a sudden judgement, and cuts him off at once, As Abishai said, and I will not smite him the second time. A man sometimes is struck dead by, and for one sin. When Christ cursed the barren Fig-tree, it was presently withered up by the roots, so &c. and then, there is no enlivening again, nothing but to the fire.
3. There is a Consumption in this life, and in the life to come. Now of the Consumption in this life we have spoken already; there is another, and that is in the life to come. This the most dreadful of all, because an everlasting, eternal Consumption. They shall be alwaies consuming, yet never consumed. This will bee by the immediate power of God, who is a consuming fire. Oh then labour to be sensible what an evil this quenching of the Spirit is.