Obedient Patience, Chapter 2 · Case 6
CASE VI.
Injuries from malicious Enemies? 1. Personal. 2. Persecuting.
VI. ANother tryal, which requireth Patience, is injuries from Malicious Enemies. Either Personal Enemies, or such as hate and Persecute us for our Duty. As to the former sort consider,
1. We have the greater reason to be patient, when we consider what poor and worthless Worms we are; and that enmity and injury against such low and little Creatures is a smaller fault, than if it were against some nobler or excellenter Wight. We make no great matter of beating a Horse or Dog. Tho this must not diminish their Repentance, it must diminish our impatience.
2. And we are so bad, that we give occasion of hatred and hard thoughts of us to our Enemies; and tho this justifie not their mistakes, who take us to be worse than we are, yet it Commandeth us, who tempt them to it, the more patiently to bear it. They mistake us mostly by thinking that the same sins that are in us are predominant, and in a greater measure than they are: They call us Erroneous, Proud, Hypocrites, Covetous, Unpeaceable, &c. And when we know that there is in some Errour, some Pride, Hypocrisie, and the rest, the Conscience of this must make us the easie bear with, and forgive the false accusers, that charge us with more than we are guilty of.
3. And when we consider we were Enemies to God, and have far more wronged him by sin than any can wrong us, and yet he forgiveth us; it mu… teach us to forgive the wrongs and en… mity of others: Yea God hath made ou… forgiving others, a condition of his full forgiving us; and we cannot pray to him fo… forgiveness, and consequently not expect it, on any lower terms, yea we mus… learn of God to Love our Enemies, and pray for them, and do them good, an… not to seek revenge and satisfaction.
4. Which of us hath done no wrong to others? Have we unjustly censured none? Nor spoken evil of them, or been angry, or reviled them without just cause? Have we never tempted any to sin, nor incouraged them in it; nor omitted any duty which we owed them? If we have we may see Gods Justice permitting injuries against us, as an equal castigation.
5. However Conscience tells us that we have deserved a thousand fold worse from God: And he useth to make the sins of Men, the Instruments of his punishments on Earth: God punished David by the permitted sins of Absalom, and Shimei (tho he caused not the sins.) And David the more patiently endured it, as acknowledging the Providence of a correcting God.
6. Its your own fault if all your Enemies wrongs do you not much more good than hurt. God hath told you how so to improve them: And if you do, you may well be patient with that which is your benefit and advantage; yea and thankful too, which is more than patient. But if you do not so improve them, you have more to be grieved for than their injuries, even your own sin and omission, which loseth so gainful an advantage.
7. If they repent, God will forgive them all their greater wrong against him; (O what a deal doth he forgive at once to a converted sinner) and then sure you will easily forgive your mite: But if they repent not, instead of impatience and revenge, pity them and lament their case: For they will suffer more than you can now desire: Would you have them suffer more than Hell?
8. Your happiness and all your great concerns are out of the power of all your Enemies: It is but matters of little moment that they can touch you in. They cannot take away your God, your Saviour, your Comforter, your Glory; no nor the least of your Grace: They cannot deprive you of your knowledge, or of Love to God, of faith, or hope, or peace of Conscience, or Joy in the Holy Ghost: They cannot bring back the guilt of any pardoned sin, nor cast you into H…ll?
9. And if impatience open the door of your heart, and l…t that in, which your Enemies could bring no nearer you than your Estate, your Ears, or your flesh at most, it is not they b…t your selves that are your chief tormenter. And wil you torment your selves because another wrongeth you?
10. Do you not observe how sin hath set all the World in a State of Enmity to God, and all that is holy, and to the way of their own Salvation: And that all the unsanctified world is in a War against God and Goodness, under the unknown conduct of the Devil: And do you make a great matter then of some petty injury or enmity to you? This is more foolishly selfish, than if you should complain of a Souldier for taking a pin off your sleeve, when an Army is plundring all the Town, and setting all the Country on fire, and murdering your neighbours before your face.
So much for patience, in case of personal enmity and injury.
II. But if it be in the cause of Persecution for your duty to God, impatience then is far more culpable. In this Case I premise this advice.
1. Search diligently least some personal Crimes of your own be in the cause as well as your Religion: Sometime the sinful miscarriages of Christians doth provoke the adversaries to think the worse of their way of Religion for their sakes, and so to persecute them for truth and duty, but provoked to it by former sin. In this Case your first duty is to repent of the sin which first provoked them, and openly confess it and lament it: for while you remain impenitent, and hide or justifie your gross iniquity, you harden them that afflict you, and you provoke God to let them loose: Especially when you can aggravate all the miscarriages of your persecuters, and cannot bear the naming of your own sin, but take it for enmity or injury to be called to repent.
If it be any sin of ours that have made us stink in the nostrils of our persecuters. we cannot comfortably suffer or expect deliverance, till we repent.
2. Let us search with the severest suspicion and impartiality, that it be indeed truth and duty, and not error and sin, for which we suffer. I doubt not but men may be persecuters and injurious, who do but afflict men for sin and error, when it is done for such as are but those tollerable infirmities, which all Christians in one kind or other are liable to: Or when the punishment is greater than the fault deserveth; and when its done in malice against the piety of the persons, or tends to the hinderance of piety, and injury of the Church of God. But yet the guilt of his Persecuters is no justification of any one that suffereth for his sin or Errour, nor should abate, but increase his Repentance, in that he occasions by his scandal the sin and misery of his Persecuters. Peter justly calleth us to make sure, that none of us suffer as evil doors; much less as impenitent persons that cannot endure to hear of it. I am one that have been first in all the storms that have befallen the Ministry these twenty years last, (to look no further back:) And yet my Conscience Commandeth me to say, as I have oft done, that many through mistake, I am perswaded, now suffer as evildoers for a cause that is not good and justifiable. For the great difference among sufferers proveth that some must needs be mistaken.
3. If we be sure that our cause is good, let us also make sure that we use it well: A good cause may be abused: Let us see, 1. That we mixt no errour with it; 2. That we do not manage it partially and uncharitably: That we make not the Contrary worse than it is. 3. That we delight not to represent our adversaries more odiously than there is cause: 4. That we deny no just honour or obedience to our Governours: 5. That we shew not the same Spirit of Persecution which we exclaim against, by differing from them only in the manner of expression: If they unjustly say that Men are so bad as to be unworthy of liberty, Tolleration, or Estate, and you as unjustly say that Men are so bad as to be unworthy of Christian Communion, you agree in unjust Condemning others, and only wrong them several wayes. 6. Let us see that while we are restrained from some part of our work, we neglect not that which none forbiddeth us. Are we not shamefully guilty in this: None forbiddeth Ministers to Catechize those that are under sixteen years of age, or to teach them by Preaching, or to Pray with them, and yet that is commonly neglected. None forbid us to confer daily with our ignorant or vicious Neighbours to try if we can convert them; nor to win them by kindness, as Christ went to Publicans and Sinners: None forbids Religious people to Catechize, and teach their Families, and read good Books to them, and pray with them, and openly sing the praises of God, as Daniel openly prayed in his house, to be examples to ungodly Families about them. And yet how much is this neglected: And a dumb, and negligent Father and Master of a Family will condemn himself by speaking against dumb and negligent Ministers, and against those that restrain him from some publick duties: Some think that if a Law were made (which God prevent) against all Catechising and teaching mens Families, and against praying, and singing the praises of God, it would by opposition stir up some to do it better, that now neglect it, so prone are they to that which is forbidden: And since it is come into the heads of some Clergy-men, to preach openly, that it is unlawful to receive Dissenters to their Communion, and they intend to forhid them and excommunicate them, that they may be uncapable of publick trust or votes, I hear that some intend to communicate, who before condemned it as unlawful, and sharply censured those that did it.
But when you have made sure, that you suffer not as evil-doers, upon mistake, but for your duty and for righteousness, consider these following reasons for your patience.
1. If you believe not that nothing is done against you by Man, but what falls under the over ruling disposing will and providence of God, you deny his government, and are unfit to do or suffer: Though God causeth none of the malice, and sin of the Murderers of Christ, yet as to the effect of their free sinful volitions, there was nothing done, but what Gods counsel fore determin'd for the redemption of the world: And if you believe this, dare you impatiently grudge at the Providence of God.
2. Though you are innocent towards your persecuters, and you suffer for welldoing, you are not innocent towards God, who may use bad men for just Chastisement.
3. It is an unspeakable mercy to have unavoidable deserved sufferings, to be made the sanctified means of your salvation, and to be for ever rewarded, for bearing that which else would have been but the forestate of Hell. Sin brought unavoidable pain and death on all Mankind. No power, or policy, or price can save you from it. If you deny Christ and sell heaven to save you lives, you shall die for all that; and he that so saveth his life shall lose it, and lose his Soul also by such self-saving: It is appointed to all men once to die, and after that judgement. A Martyr doth but die, and so doth his persecuter; and death to the ungodly is the door of Hell. And is it not a marvellous mercy, that suffering but the same death, in faith, and hope, and obedience for Christ, and for your duty, shall procure you a Crown of Glory. Even as the same outward blessings: which to the wicked are but the fuel of Sin and Hell, are by Beleivers improved for Grace and Glory; so is it also with the Case of Suffering: And what a terrour is it to Conscience, when the Sentence of death shall be past upon you, to think. Now that life is at an end, which I sold my soul to save! O that I had rather chosen to die for my duty, than by my sin; this death would then have been the entrance into heaven, which is now the entrance into misery. This made many dying Christians in Cyprians charge to be hardly comforted, because they had not dyed Martyrs, that Death might have been a double gain to them. Is it not better have a glorious reward for dying than die for nothing.
4. It is no small benefit to be called out to the exercise of that, which every one must resolve on, and be prepared for, that will be saved: that we may not be deceived, but know by experience, whether we are sincere or not: What ever worldly Hypocrites think, Christ was in good earnest, when he said, He that forsaketh not all that he hath, even life it self, cannot be his (sincere) Disciple, Luke 14. 26, 30, 33. Holyness here and Heaven hereafter is that which Christ came to procure for his own, and that which all must choose and trust to as their hope and portion, that will be his: Worldlings never make this choice, but being doubtful of the Life to come, prefer the present prosperity of the flesh, and will be religious onelyonly in subordination thereto, and hope for heaven (if there be any life to come) but as a reserve and second good, because they cannot keep the world; which they will not lose for the hope of heaven, as long as they can keep it, but will rather venture their Souls than their bodies: This being the true difference between the faithful and the worldly hypocrite, all that will be saved … be such as would let go life, and all the world, rather than by wilful sin to forfeit their Salvation, if they were called to it; Tho all be not actually put upon the tryal, and seeing it is so easie for a prosperous Man to profess Christianity with a worldly mind, and say that He would rather die than wilfully sin, being in hope that he shall never be put to it, it is a great advantage to our assurance of Salvation, to find that we can suffer in a time of tryal, and so that our resolution was not false; for so far as any Man loveth the world, the love of the Father is not in him: The heat of Persecution withereth the Corn that groweth on the Rocks: They are offended and go sorrowful away, because they cannot make sure both of Earth and Heaven. And as the Faithful have the fullest proof of their sincerity in the greatest sufferings, no wonder if they have the greatest comfort: No reasoning will so fully answer all their fears and doubts; whether they are sincere, and should not forsake Christ in suffering.
5. Believers should much more pity their Persecuters than themselves: If a mad Man in Bedlam should Spit in your face, would you have your action against him, or would you not be sorry for him? They are preparing fuel for themselves in Hell, while they make a Purgatory for you on Earth: O think who it is that ruleth them, and how he will reward them, and how dear they will pay for this for ever without Conversion; and pray God to have mercy on them in time. If the Righteous be scarcely saved, and must suffer before they Reign, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? It is a Righteous thing with God to recompence Tribulation to them that trouble you, and to you that are troubled Rest with Christ, 2 Thes. 1. 6, 7. Do but believe that dreadful reckoning of their day thats coming, when in vain they will wish the Hills to cover them, and shall receive according to their works, and then you will rather weep over their foreseen misery, than make too great a matter of your suffering by them. They know nothing but present things like beasts, but you fore-know the things to come: As God beareth with them, because he knoweth that their day is coming.
6. And remember that if you suffer for Christ and Righteousness, the wrong is much more to him than to you: And he will Judge them that do but neglect his Servants, much more that persecute them, as doing it all against himself: And the cause and interest being much more his than yours, cast it upon him, and trust him with his own cause? Who is to be trusted if he be not? And when is he to be ttusted, if not when we suffer for him? An honest Matter would bear out his Servant who suffereth for obeying him, and will not Christ? Do you think that Christ will be too slow, or deal too gently in his revenge? Sure you would wish no greater punishment to Persecuters than he hath threatened. It were better a Milstone were hanged about their neck, and they cast into the Sea, who offend but his little ones? On whom this stone falls it will grind him to powder.
7. The promises made to them that patiently suffer for well doing, are so many and great that I will not recite them, supposing you cannot be ignorant of them. And do you not believe the word of Christ? He hath bound himself to save you harmless, and to be with you in your sufferings, and never to fail you nor forsake you; and to give you for all that you lose for him an hundred fold (in value) in this world, and in the world to come Eternal life: If we trust these promises undoubtedly our patience and choice will shew it: He that is offer'd a Lordship in a Foreign Land, if he will leave his Native Land and friends where he liveth in Poverty or Prison, if he trust the promiser, will leave all and go with him: But if he dare not venture, he doth not trust him.
8. Do you suffer any thing but what Christ foretold you of? Did he not tell you that you must sit down and count what it will cost you to be a Christian before you undertook it? Did he not tell you that you shall be hated of the world, because you are not of the world; yea hated of all (worldly) Men for his Name sake? And did you not profess to take him and his Salvation on these terms? And to consent to his conditions? If you thought them too hard you might have refused them. What Hypocrites are they that silence Christs Ministers for scrupling to engage them in Covenant to Christ at their Baptism, by the Symbolical transient Image of a Cross, as obliging them to be the Soldiers of a Crucified Christ, and when they have done, abhor all that in Christianity which will bring the Cross, and will rather venture on Hell than bear it? Yea will lay the Cross by Persecution upon others! Its true, that it was in your Infancy that this Covenant was made by others for you: But did you not own it at age, when you called your selves Christians? Alas Hypocrisie undoes the visible Church: Men mean nothing less than what they vow? They think that resolution for suffering, or Martyrdome is proper to some rare extraordinary Saints, and will not believe that none is a true Christian nor can be saved without it; that is, without preferring Heaven before Earth, and the Soul before the Body: Take any of these worldly Hypocrites aside, and seriously ask him, (in France or Flanders) how dare you persecute the Servants of Christ; And they will say, it is not long of us, we cannot help it; the Law and Magistrates command us: We shall suffer our selves if we do not obey them, would you think that these Men did stand to their Baptism? As if, they plainly said, what ever Christ saith, we will do any thing against him and his Servants that Mans Law bids us, rather than we will suffer our selves: How far are these Men from being ready for Martyrdome, yea or being Christians or the Servants of God. If you are Christians you have bound your selves by Covenant to take up the Cross and follow Christ, tho to the death and to chose rather to suffer than wilfully to sin.
9. And did not you as Christians list your selves as Soldiers under Christ, against the Devil, Flesh and World. And is he a Soldier indeed that expecteth to have no Enemies? And that murmureth because he must come in danger, and see any Warr? Did you not know that there is a War throughout all the World, between Christ and Satan, between the Womans and Serpents Seed, and is hurting and killing any wonder in a War? Or that he that is born after the flesh should persecute him that is born after the Spirit.
10. What hath a Christian to do in this life, but to prepare for a safe and happy death? And if you had done this, you had prepared for Persecution and Martyrdome it self. If you are ready to die by sickness, why not by fire, or sword, or halter, if God will have it so? Do you not know that most sicknesses do by their length put the body to more pain than ordinary Martyrdome, before they kill Men? How easie a Death is hanging in comparison of dying by the Stone in the Bladder, or by the Collick, or many other sicknesses? Yea the painful death of burning being soon dispatcht, is little to these. And sure a Fine, or Prison, or Poverty is yet less then any of of these. O floathful Men! unfaithful to your selves that have lived so long unprepared for death, when you had nothing else to do in the World. Your flying from suffering by sin, doth shew that you have neglected the great work of Life, or that that which you lived for is yet undone. You would have been ready to suffer, if you had been ready to die. And doth this seem strange to you, after all your warnings and professions?
11. Have you a due estimate of worldly things? Are you Crucified to the World, and it to you by the Cross of Christ? Do you account them as loss and dung for him? Do you use them as if you used them not, and possess them as if you possest them not? Do you Judge of them as death will teach you to do? If you do, sure you will not count that Persecution, that taketh them from you, an unsufferable thing; nor be impatient to be deprived of them.
12. Had you rather be in the Case of the prosperous Persecuter, or the Persecuted Believer? If the former, you are no true Christians? If the latter, murmur not when you have that which you prefer? Sure a true Martyr at the Stake, or with Daniel in the Lyons Den, would be loth to change states with Nabuchadnezzar or Darius.
13. Do you think Christ loved Stephen the first Martyr, or James the first Martyred Apostle, or Peter and Paul that dyed for the Gospel, less than he loved those that overlived them and suffered no such thing? Is not the Crown of Martyrdome the most glorious? Why are they said to live before the rest a thousand years? Had you not now rather have Stephens place in Heaven than theirs that suffered nothing for Christ? And if it be best at last, is it not most Eligible now.
14. Are you afraid of Men? You have a greater than Man to fear, and greater hurt than Man can do you, Luke 12. 4. Fear not them that can kill the Body, and after that have no more that they can do, but fear him that can destroy Soul and body in Hell? Yea, I say, unto you fear him. Are you afraid of a Prison, or death or fire: Fear more Hell fire, and death, everlasting. When Bilney burnt his finger in the Candle, he remembred that Hell fire was more intollerable.
15. Wherein hath Christ been more an Example to you, than in patient and obedient suffering, even unto death, and to the most accursed shameful death? Do you think that he only suffered to keep us from all suffering? Peter saith, it was to leave us an example; and Paul saith that we must be conformed to him, and pertakers of his sufferings: Why else doth Christ call us to bear the Cross? And is it not joyful to see the footsteps of Christ in the way we go, and to know that we follow him.
16 Sure that is not a state of greatest fear and sorrows, in which Christ hath Commanded us to rejoyce with the greatest joy: But so he hath done in the Case of Persecution, Mat. 5. 10, 12. Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven. 1 Pet. 4. 12, 13. Think it not strange concerning the fiery Trial, but rejoyce, in as much as ye are partakers of Christs Sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed you may be glad also with exceeding joy. Heb. 10, 34. They took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing that in heaven they had a better and enduring substance. So Heb. 11. throughout.
17. God hath promised you that all your sufferings shall work together for your good, Rom. 8. 28. and taught you how to make them your exceeding gain: Practice this art, and you will be more patient; when you find the benefit and feel that you are more than Conquerors. Our Victory is by patient suffering: The worst men may conquer our Bodies by force, but our Souls are unconquered, and we are conquerors of the temptation and real hurt, while we keep obedient patience. When its said of Joh, In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly, Satan was conquered and missed his end, while he seemed to prevail upon his flesh.
By Persecution you may learn. 1. What a nature is in lapsed Men: 2. That there are Devils that keep up a War against Christ. 3. How great their power is in the world, by Gods permission over wicked Men. 4. How wonderful a work of God it is, that the Godly can live in so much peace and safety as they do, among those that are the very Servants of the Devil; even as Daniel was kept in the Den of Lyons, because God shut their mouths. 5. How great need there is of Sanctifying grace? 6. How great a mercy our Conversion, which carrieth such a nature in us. 7. It calleth us to continual Christian watchfulness, to beware of Men, and especially of their Temptations, and to be wise as Serpents, and innocent as Doves. 8. It driveth us to constant Prayer and dependance upon God for help and safety. 9. It teacheth us to keep up faith and hope, as having our eye continually on God and on the Heavenly inheritance, without which we have nothing to support us. 10. And it assureth us that there is a day of Judgment in which Christ will call over again in Righteousness, all the false Judgments and actions of this world: He that maketh all this use of Persecution, will have gain enough to plead for patience.
18. To review this last; if you b… lieve in Christ indeed, you do believe that he will come again to Judge the World in Righteousness, and to set all strait that here was made crooked by the falshood and malignity of Men. And will not the foresight of that day resolve you patiently to suffer? Faith may foresee how poor blinded Persecuters will then have their eyes opened, and see him with terrour whom they Persecuted in his Servants, and how he will silence and condemn them, with, Depart from me ye Cursed into Everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his Angels: Mat. 25. 41. 2 Thes. 1. 6, 10, 11, 12. and 2. 12. If the forethoughts of that day do not quiet or resolve you, alas, you have greater matter of fear and trouble than Persecution, even your own unbelief: Pray more for faith, than for deliverance from Men.
19. Consider comparatively what Man is that hurteth you, and what God is who hath promised to help you and reward you. Man is a worm, blinded and mad by the deceit of Satan; They know not what they are doing, against themselves and God; as well as against you: They are all the while going towards the Grave, and their Souls towards the dreadful bar of God: Their bones and dust are no whit terrible: If God will here have mercy on them, he will make them know, Who it is that they Persecute, and how hard a work it is bare foot to kick against the pricks, and make them, as Paul, themselves undergo such Persecutions for Christ, as they madly used against others: They will say, as Paul, I was mad against them: And his case tells you, that if the very Captain of the Persecuters were but Converted, tho by a voice and Miracle from Heaven, the rest instead of taking it for a Conviction, would presently persecute him themselves. But if God let them go on, alas, where will they shortly be: O pray, pray hard for your Persecuters as Christ did, before they are past Prayers and hope in Hell. But are these poor wormes to be much feared? How oft are we charged; not to fear them, Luk. 12. 4. Mat. 10. 28. Joh. 24. 27. Jer. 46. 27, 28. Ezek. 3. 8, 9. The fearful (that fear Men) are numbered with unbelievers, and are shut out among the Dogs, if fear prevail against their faith, Rev. 22.
And then think what that God is, that hath promised our defence. When infinite Power, Wisdom and Love, is set against a few Waspes and Wormes, shall our fear of them be greater than our trust in him? If it were but an Angel from Heaven that appeared for our defence or encouragement, against a Dog that barked at us, it were a shame to us not to trust him. If God be for us, who shall be against us? Read of Psal. 91. and Rom. 8. and Mat. 6. See Isa. 8. 13, 14. and 41. 10, 13, 14.
2. Can any thing do you greater good, that can outwardly befall you, than that which both assureth you of your right to Heaven, and puts you presently in possession of it? And this will be the fruit of Martyrdom. O what a change will that day make? From to…ment to our Masters joy? From the raging Army of the Devil, to the Heavenly Chore of Saints and Angels? A strong faith would make us long for such a day. As Children of God, and joynt Heirs with Christ▪ if we suff…r with him, we shall be glorified with him: And the present sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the Glory, Rom. 8. 18. 2 Cor. 4. 16. For which cause we faint not; but tho our outward Man perish, our inward Man is renewed day by day: For our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are Eternal. Wherefore let them that suffer according to the Will of God commit t…e keeping of their Souls to him in well doing, as to a faithful Creator, Pet. 4. 19.