Obedient Patience, Chapter 2 · Case 5
CASE V.
Ʋnkindness and injury of friends, and Relatives.
V. ANother Case that calls for Patience is the unkindness of freinds, and their injurious dealing with us: Husband and Wife often prove burdens and continual griefs to one another. Parents and Children prove worse than strangers: Those that we have obliged by our benefits are ungrateful, and those untrusty whom we have trusted.
1. It must be so: Man will be Man, uncertain and untrusty: David and Pau… say that all Men are liars; that is, such as will deceive those that too much tru… them. They are all sinfully ignorant erroneous, mutable, and selfish: If interest, change, or Temptations com… there is no hold of them, if God do no… hold them up. Did you not know Ma… till now?
2. It is Gods just rebuke for your too much trust in Man, and for your erroneous overvaluing Man: And it is his merciful remedy to drive you home from Man to God: This deceit and failing o… your friends is part of the curse pronounced, Jer. 17. 5, 6. Cursed be th… Man that trusteth in Man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. For he shall be like the heat… in the desert, &c. But blessed is the Ma… that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope th… Lord is, for he shall be as a Tree planted b… the waters, &c.
3. The falling of Man doth but tell us what we are our selves, even untrusty and mutable as other Men: It should help to humble us for the badness of our nature, and drive us, to seek to Christ for his confirming grace, and not to trust our selves too far.
4. And it should call us to examine whether we never wronged and deceived others? Have we not put the best side outward, and seemed better to our friends than we are? Have we not been less helpful, friendly and comfortable to them, than we promised, or then we should have been? And deceived their expectations? Have we not by our failings, or provoking harshness been their grief? Or worse, have we not pleased them in their sin, and been Temptations and snares to their Souls?
5. Is there any friend that is nearer to you than your selves? And is there any that hath hurt you half so much as you have done your selves? Alas how little suffer we by friends or foes, in comparison of what we suffer by our selves.
6. Christ went before us in this kind of suffering, to teach us what to expect from Men, Peter denyed him with Cursing and Swearing, and that after warning and contrary protestations: And all his Disciples forsook him and fled. And yet he forsook not them, but dyed for them, and as soon as he was Risen, kindly comforteth them, Go tell my Bretheren, and tell Peter, saith he, I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
7. Were your friends so much obliged to you, as you were to God and to your Saviour; or did they ever promise and vow more to you, than you did in your Baptism to Christ? And have you faithfully performed all your vows, and answered all your obligations. Did you ever oblige any by such benefits as God hath bestowed upon you? No not by the thousandth, thousandth part. And have not you more unthankfully injured God, than ever any friend did injure you? Let this then provoke you to repentance.
8. If it be an unkind Husband or Wife; first see that you be innocent and give no provocation: If you have deceived them by seeming better than you are, or if you be a burden to them, no wonder if they deceive you, and be a burden to you. And next remember that you had your choice, and that after time of deliberation: If you have by blind love, or passion, or Covetousness, or careless haste, deceived your selves, repent, and make the best of it for the future that you can. Sin will not be without its sting.
9. If you Love God and them, why are you not more grieved that they wrong God, and that they hurt themselves, than that they wrong you and deal unkindly by you. They do a thousand fold more wrong to Christ, and more hurt to their own Souls, than they can do to you.
10. I fear most of us too little consider that friends over kind and so overloved are oft more dangerous than the unkind, yea than Enemies? To be crossed by them may many waies do us good, but to overlove them hath more danger and hurt, than I will now digress to mention: Corrupted Love is the sinfulest and worst affection.
11. And why do you not consider the benefit and comfort, which you have had by your friends, as well as the injuries? What if they now deal unkindly by you? Have they not many years been kind and useful to you? And should that be forgotten? And if you compare them, was not the kindness longer and greater than the unkindness: If Job say, shall we receive good at the hands of God and not evil, we may much more say so of Men.
12. Perhaps God permitteth it, that you may be the less grieved to part with them at death? I have noted it in some of my nearest acquaintance that have lived in the greatest endearedness, that a little before death some unkindness hath fallen out between them, perhaps else death would have torn their hearts more grievously than that unkindness did. When God would separate Paul and Barnabas for his work, a little dissension became the Cause. And when Paul was to be offered up, almost all his old Companions forsook him, 2 Tim. 4. 16. Who would have thought that David should ever have dealt so unkindly by Mephibosheth: But his prosperity was less sweet and less ensnaring by it.
13. It is purposely to keep us from heart Idolatry and drive us to God our surest friend, that he permitteth friends to fail us. It is not them but God that we live upon, and that we must trust to, if we would not be deceived: It is not they but Christ that are our Treasure: God never dealt unkindly with us: He hath promised that he will never fail us, nor forsake us: 2 Tim. 4. 16. When Paul had said, At my first answer no Man stood with me, but all Men forsook me, (he addeth) yet the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, &c. Davids Lovers and Friends stood aloof from him, when God was his hope, Psal. 38. 11, 15. and Psal. 14. 4, 5. I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no Man that would know me: Refuge failed me; no Man cared for my Soul. I cryed unto thee O Lord, I said, thou art my refuge and my Portion, &c.
14. I confess that the case of a bad or unsuitable and unkind Husband or Wife, is a very sharp Tryal: They are near you, even in your bosome, bed and heart: They are still with you, and a contentious Woman is as a continual dropping, saith Solomon. To have a discontented, displeased, angry, provoking person alwaies with one to the death, is a greater affliction than any that ordinarily cometh from Enemies. But yet let such consider, 1. That it is ajust chastisement for their sin, and may help to a more deep repentance: 2. As it is a great and constant tryal, so it calleth for great and constant patience, and exercise of Grace: And what is liker to increase grace, than great and constant exercise? 3. It is a great and constant preservative against the flatteries of this world, or building a Pallace or Fools-Paradice on Earth; it is a daily voice to such, saying, this is no… your rest; Look up and long for better Company and friends. 4. And as near as Wife or Husband is, God is much nearer to us, and his Grace is nearer us, even within us; and should make us rejoycingly forget all other joyes or sorrows, in comparison of him.
15. The same I say of wicked Children: The affliction is grievous; but 1. It calleth Men to examine how they have done their duty towards them; have you lovingly, familiarly, and unweariedly instructed, exhorted and admonished them? Have you not thrust them into Company, Callings or Places of Temptations, for a little Worldly wealth or Learning or Reputation? Yea have you kept them from Temptations by prudent watchfulness and convincing disswasions? Have you taught them as is required, Deut. 6. 11. Or have you not slubbered over so great a duty; and lookt God should save them meerly for being yours. 2. But remember that all the Children of God in Glory will be dear and comfortable to you, as if they had been all your own.