OCT J 01988
BX 9315 .G66 1861 v. 3
Goodwin, Thomas, 1600-1680.
The works of Thomas Goodwin
NICHOL'S SEEIES OF STANDARD DIVINES,
PURITAN PERIOD.
THE
WORKS OF THOMAS GOODWIN, D.I).
VOL III.
COUNCIL OF PUBLICATION,
W. LINDSAY ALEXANDER, DD., Professor of Theology, Congregational Union,
Edinburgh.
THOilAS J. CRAWFOED, DD., S.T.P., Professor of Divinity, University,
Edinburgh.
WTLLTAM CUNNTN'GHAM, D.D., Principal of the New College, Edinburgh.
D. T. K. DEUMilOND, M.A., Minister of St Thomas' Episcopal Church, Edin-
burgh.
WTT.T JAM H. GOOLD, DD., Professor of Biblical Literature and Church His-
tory, Reformed Presbyterian Church, Edinburgh.
AJiDREW THOMSON", D.D., Minister of Broughton Place United Presbyteriaii
Church, Edinburgh
THE WORKS
THOMAS "GOODWIN, D.D.,
SOMETDEE PRESIDENT OF lIAGDiXEXE COLLEGE, OXFORD.
(Ifllitl) (General preface
By JOHN C. MILLER, D.D.,
LINCOLN college; HONORARY CANON OF WORCESTER; RECTOR OP ST MART1^■'3, BIRMINGHAJS.
^nti 20emoir
By EOBEET HALLEY, 1\D.,
KKISCIPAL 0>' THE INIiEPtNDliNT NEW COLLZGIC, LONDOS.
VOL. IIL,
CONTAINIilG
AN EXPOSITION OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION:
CERTAIN SELECT CASES RESOLVED;
THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS DISCOVERED.
EDINBURGH: JAMES FICHOL.
LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO. DUBLIN : W. EOBEETSON.
M.DCCC.LXL
PHIITGJSTOIT
HBOLOGICiili
I
CONTENTS.
IP
PAon
A Preface to the Reader, ..... xxvii
AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEYELATION.
PART I.
Chapter I.
The design of the Book of the Revelation — That it is a prophecy,
wherein, as in a vision, the story of all times is represented — The
prophetical part of it begins at the 4th chapter — An exposition of
the 4th chapter — The vision of the throne, beasts, and elders — A
representation of the church in all ages, , . , 1
Chapter II.
The exposition of the 5th chapter, .... 7
Chapter III.
The scheme and division of the whole prophecy, from the beginning
of the 6th chapter, . . . . . ,17
Chapter IV.
Of the first six seals in the 6th chapter, .... 30
Chapter V.
The six first trumpets, . . . . . .53
Sect. I. — The exposition of the 8th chapter — The four first trum-
pets, signifying the ruin of the western empire, . . 54
Sect. II. — The exposition of the 9th chapter — The fifth and
sixth trumpets betoken the ruin of the eastern empire, v/uich
was first broken by the Saracens, and at last utterly destroyed
by the Turks, a.d. 1453, . . . . . Oij
Sect. III. — The exposition of the 7th chapter — Why reserved tiU
after that of the 8th and 9 th — "Who are intended by the hundred
and forty-four thousand persons that were sealed in their
foreheads, . . . . . .57
Sect. IV. — A short view of the 10th and 11th chapters — The
ends for which the mighty angel {i.e. Christ) descended from
heaven — The seal-prophecy being closed, a new prophecy is
given, which begins at the 12th chapter, . . . 63
Tl CONTENTS.
Chapter VL
Of the book-propliecy, that begins at the 12th chapter — An account
of the general design of it, . . . . . 65
Chapter VIL
The exposition of the 13 th chapter, in which is set forth the state of
the false cliurch under Antichrist — What his name, and the number
of his name, denotes to us — A short account of the time which
some fix for his fall, ...... 67
Chapter VIII.
The exposition of the 14th chapter, wherein the state of the true
church under Antichrist is described, . . - .76
PART II.
Being the story of the church from the times of the first separation
from the beast, the Pope, until the glorious Jdngdom of Christ; as
it is laid down chap, xi., aiid from chap. xiv. 6 unto the beginning
of cha]). XX.
The Preface, ... . 78
Chapter I.
The 13th chapter explained, from the 6th verse to the end, . 86
Chapter II.
The exposition of the 15th chapter, ... .92
Chapter III.
The exposition of the 16th chapter — A division of the vials — The two
last briefly touched, . . . . . .97
Sect. I. — Seven things premised for the understanding the five
first \ials, which are upon the beast and his company, . 97
Sect. II. — A particular and more large explication of the five
first vials on the beast and his company, . .101
Chapter IV.
The exposition of the 11th chapter, which was but briefly touched
upon in the First Part, the larger explication being reserved here,
as its proper place, . . . . . .110
Sect. I. — Prolegomena — Five generals premised for the under-
standing of it, . . . . . .110
Sect. II. — The measuring the temple, and casting out the out-
ward court, chap. xi. 1 , 2, . . . . . 119
§ 1. — An explication of this double computation of 12G0
days, or iorty-two months ; and why they are together here
mentioned, . . . . . . IID
§ 2. — The occurrences that fall out towards the expiring of
these times here computed : and, first, a general view and
division of them, . . . . . 122
§ 3. — The occurrences, ver. 1, 2, (tlie measuring tlie temple,
AN EXPOSITION OF THE IlKVKLATION. Vll
PAUK
altar, &c., and the leaving out the outward court, and
treading down the holy city,) more particularly and fully
explained, . . . . , .123
§ 4. — An appendix to the 1st and 2d verses of the 11th
chapter, refuting other interpretations given of the measur-
ing of the temple and outward court, (which you may
read, or not read, as you please.) . . 133
Chapter V.
The exposition of the 11th chapter continued — The description of the
witnesses, ver. 3-6, . . . .142
Sect. I. — Some things in general premised — The division of the
particular acts ascribed to them: with the order and time of
each, ....... 142
Sect. II. — The acts of the witnesses : first, in the darkest times
of Popery, withholding the rain, what 1 — next, in the times of
separation from Poperj^, in the three first vials, ver. G, . 145
Sect. III. — The acts of the witnesses in this their last age of
prophecy — And, first, tneir devouring with fire, ver. 5, what 1 — •
The allusion thereof unto Moses's destroying Nadab and Korah's
company with fire, applied, . . . 146
Sect. IV. — Secondly, their temple-work in their last days, in
being two olive-trees, explained; from the allusion to Joshua's
and Zerubbabel's finishing the temple, _ . . 140
Chaptee VI.
The killing of the witnesses, ver. 7-10 of the 11th chapter, . 153
Sect. I. — The time of their three years and a half not yet come —
A reconciliation of this and Mr Brightman's opinion, in a
double fulfilling of it, . . . . 153
Sect. II. — The allusion unto Christ's last passion, in this last
slaughter of the witnesses, explained, . . . 158
Sect. III. — That this killing of the witnesses is to be executed
by and under the power of the beast of Kome; and so could
not be meant of any of the former persecutions in the re-
formed churches, which were from among themselves. . 160
Sect. IV. — The time of the beast's enjoying this full victory
but three years and a half — The time of obtaining it, and of
killing the witnesses, may be longer, . . .162
Sect. V. — The sharpness and the extent of this victory, how great ;
whether unto death natural or martyrdom discussed, . 164
Sect. VI. — Of that concomitant of the witnesses' kiUing : the
nations seeing their dead bodies, and not suffering them to
be put in graves — Several senses given of it : whether taken
as an office of favour or an injury; and whether to be un-
derstood of friends or enemies, discussed, . . 170
Sect. VII. — Of the universality of this slaughter — Whether reach-
ing to all churches reformed, and in them to all professors, or
only to eminent witnesses — That some one may be more emi-
nently designed — What is meant by the street of the city, ifcc, 175
TIU CONTENTS.
Chapter VII. paok
The rising of the witnesses, from ver. 11 to ver, 15 of the 11th chapter, 180
Sect. I. — Three things in general observed — Christ's resurrection
the pattern of this — The proportions between their killing and
rising — This resurrection a shadow of that to come, . 1 80
Sect II. — The several steps and degrees of their resurrection
and ascension, . . . , . .181
Sect. III. — The events that accompany their resurrection, . 183
Sect. IV. — The fall of the tenth part of the city, what 1 — Whether
thereby be meant the ruin of Rome, the fifth vial 1 .184
Sect. V. — More particularly, that by a tenth part of the city is
meant one of the ten kingdoms of Europe — How it is said to
fall — The earthquake in it, what 1 — The names of men, what 1
and their killing, . . . . . .185
Sect. VI. — What tenth part of Europe, or which of the ten
kingdoms, it is most probable that this earthquake and re-
surrection of the witnesses shall fall out in, . . 188
Sect. VII. — How this their resurrection and ascension is a fore-
running shadow of the restitution of all things at the coming
of Christ's kingdom, . . . . .192
Sect. VIII. — An interpretation of that clause, ver. 14, ' The second
woe is past' — A reconciling some difficulties about it, . 193
Sect. IX. — The conclusion of this discourse — The conjectures of
some about the time when this killing and rising of the witnesses
shaUbe, ....... 195
A Brief History op the Kingdom of Christ, extracted out of
THE Book of the Revelation, .... 207
A Discourse of Christ's Reward ; or, of the Glory ■which he
receives in Heaven (Rev. V. 12), . . . . 219
CERTAIN SELECT CASES RESOLYED.
I.-A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAEKNESS.
Dedication, ....... 231
Translation op Dedication, ..... 232
To the Reader, ...... 233
PART I.
A Paraphrase upon the words (Isa. L. 10, 11), . . 235
Chapter I.
The first and main observation : That a child of God may walk in
darkness, ....... 237
What it is to walk in darkness, ..... 237
A CHILD OF IJGHT WALKINO IN DARKNESS.
That thereby here is not meant —
First, In sin ;
Secondly, In ignorance ; but —
Thirdly, In sorrow and discomfort, .... 237
Fourthly, Of what kind of sorrow, and for what ? —
First, not of outward afflictions only ; but —
Secondly, chiefly inward, from the want of the sense of God's
favour, ....... 238
Proved by three reasons, ..... 238
Chapter II.
The particulars of that distress, as contamed in those two phrases,
' walking in darkness,' ' having no light,' . . . 239
What the condition of such a one is ; as expressed —
1. By ' having no light,' ..... 239
Sight distinct from faith, . . . . .239
A threefold light added to faith to cause assurance —
(1.) The immediate light of God's countenance, . . 239
Which a believer may want, . . . 239
Proved, . . ... 240
And how the want of it may stand with God's love stUl
continued, and with the real influence of his grace, 240
(2.) The light of present graces, . . . 240
Which he also may want, .... 240
(3.) Or, light may be taken for the remembrance of former
graces and evidences, . . . .241
Which he may Avant, .... 241
The reason of both, . . , .241
How grace may be exercised and not discerned, . 241
The reason, ..... 241
2. What his condition is, as expressed by ' walking in darkness ' —
(1.) To be in doubt what will become of him, . 242
(2.) Stumbling at all comforts, .... 242
(3.) Filled with terrors, ..... 242
Chapter III.
I. The eflScient causes of this distress — three, . . . 243
1. The Spirit; whether he hath any hand therein, and how far, 243
The Spirit not the cause of doubting and despairing thoughts, 243
Yet the Spirit hath some hand in the distress —
(1.) Privative, by withdraAving his testimony, . . 244
(2.) Positive, in two things —
[1.] By representing God angry through immediate im-
pressions of wrath on the conscience, . . 244
[2.] By shaking over us the threatenings of eternal
wrath, ..... 24^5
Chapter IV.
How Satan and our hearts increase this darkness and distress, by false
conclusions from the Spirit's work, illustrated by the like in the
illumination of temporaries ; the Spirit's work in both compared, 246
CONTENTS.
Chapter V. pauk
The second eflBcient cause of this darkness —
2. Our own hearts ; the principles therein which are the causes
thereof, ....... 249
(1.) By reason of our weakness as we are creatures, . 249
(2.) Of an innate darkness as we are sinful creatures, . 249
(3.) Of carnal reason, ..... 250
Which as in men unregenerate doth reason for their bad
estate, so in the regenerate against the goodness of their
estates, ..... 250
[1.] How potent and prevalent carnal reason is with
us, ..... 251
[2.] And how desperate an enemy unto faith; and the
reason of it, . . . .251
[3.] The great advantage carnal reason hath in time of
desertion, . ... 252
(4.) Of corrupt affections wJiich join with carnal reason in
this, as jealousy, suspicion, &c., . . .253
The rise of them, and of their working in the heart, . 253
(5.) The guilt in our own consciences remaining in part
defiled, . . . . . .254
Chapter VI.
The third efiBcient cause —
3. Satan : his special malice in this temptation, commission ; access
to, and advantage over us in this temptation, by reason of the
darkness in us, . . . . . .256
Five things in general premised to explain Satan's working
herein —
(1.) Satan hath a special inclination to this kind of temp-
tation, . . . . . .256
The reasons, ..... 257
(2.) God may and doth give up his child into Satan's hands,
and permit him thus to tempt him, . . 257
Which permission is granted him either —
[1.1 At Satan's own motion and request, . . 258
[2.1 Upon the ordinance of excommunication, . 258
[3.J Or when that ordinance is neglected, in case of
some gross sin, . . . .259
Yet this permission is with difference from that
giving up of wicked men to Satan, . . 259
(3.) How able Satan is to tempt, . . . 259
(4.) That the exercise of this his power is much from the
darkness in us, .... 260
(5.) A double advantage that Satan hath over us in the
exercise of his power in tempting us —
[1.] Of more near and intimate access to suggest in-
wardly to our spirits, . . . 260
[2.] Of lit mattpr and fuel in our spirits to work upon, 261
A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. XI
Chapter VII. pagu
!More particularly how Satan works upon those three principles in us :
first, on carnal reason, . . . . . . 2G2
1. Satan's abilities to invent false reasonings, . . 262
Increased by so long a time of experience, . . 262
And his continual exercise in this great controversy in all ages, 262
Which of all controversies is the most subtle and intricate, 262
2. Satan knows how to suit his false reasonings to all sorts of
believers, ...... 263
The conditions of men are exceeding various, and so are capable
of the several sorts of temptations, . . . 263
Satan fitly knows how to apply his temptations unto those
various conditions, . . . . ,264
3. Satan is able undiscernibly to communicate the most spiritual
false reasonings, and in such a manner as to make them take
with us, ...... 264
(1.) To suggest even the most subtle and abstracted rea-
sonings about things spiritual, . . 264
(2.) To suggest them in such a manner as to deceive us, 265
4. Satan is able to continue the dispute, and often to make replies
to answers made to his false reasonings, . . . 266
Chapter VIII.
That Satan is able to work upon that other corrupt principle in us, guilt
of conscience : both how far he is able to know matter by us, in ob-
jecting against us ; as also, to set on, and work upon the guilt and
erroneousness of the conscience, . . . .268
A difference between Satan's sifting us in temptation, and the
Holy Ghost's searching us, . . . .269
How Satan is an accuser by charging the guilt of sin upon the
conscience, . . . . . .270
And works upon the injudiciousness of the conscience, . 271
This quaere discussed. How Satan may know matter against us to
accuse us of ? . . . . . .271
A caution premised. That it is God's sole prerogative to know the
heart, . . . . . . .271
1. In general, Satan might lay to our charge, though in particular
he know little by us —
(1.) In that he knows what corruptions are in all men's
hearts, he might by guess object them to every one, 274
(2.) By casting in a jealous thought from some one par-
ticular, he knows he might set the heart a-work
to examine all the rest, . . . 275
2. More particularly, he may know all that another man can
know of us —
(1.) As all corporal acts done by bodily substances, . 275
(2.) He sets himself to know what he can of us by study
and diligence, . . . .275
(3.) He is or can be privy to all our vocal confessions of
our sins to God, .... 275
(4.) He is or can be present at all times and places, and
so can accuse us —
CONTENTS.
1.1 Of all gross sins outwardly committed, . 276
2. Of ueglect and deadness in duties, . . 276
3. Of a man's bosom-sin, . . .276
(5.) From what he sees outwardly, he can guess at inward
corruptions, . . . . .276
(6.) He may further view the images in the fancy and the
passions, and perturbations of our affections in the
body, ..... 277
How, notwithstanding, his knowledge falls short of
knowing the heart, . . . .277
Chapter IX.
How able Satan is to work upon that third principle, the passions and
corrupt affections, and bring home his false conclusions with terrors, 279
1. That Satan can raise terrors, . . . .279
A caution, ...... 280
2. That though he cannot immediately wound the conscience, yet —
(1.^ He can rake in those wounds the Spirit hath made, 282
(2.) From the renewing the remembrance of those terrors
impressed by the Spirit, he can amaze the soul
afresh with fears of worse, . . . 282
(3.) He can bring home all the threatenings made against
hypocrites, &c., .... 282
(4.) When he goes about to do this, he can excite the pas-
sions of fear and trembling of spirit, . . 283
Which, when stirred, all suggestions strike deeper into
us, '. . . . . . 284
Chapter X.
Tlie conclusion : seven advantages, in common, which Satan hath over
us in all these his dealings —
1. That he can suggest frequently and familiarly, . . 285
2. That he can present his suggestions and false reasonings together
at once, ...... 285
3. That he holds and keeps the thoughts and intentions of the
mind fixed to them, ..... 285
4. That he sets on all with an imperious affirmation, . 286
5. That he backs them also with terrors, which is an argument to
sense, ....... 286
6. That he suggests undisceraed, .... 287
7. That we cannot avoid his suggesting to us, . . 287
Chapter XI.
II. The second general head: The cases wherein God leaves liis unto
darkness, ....... 288
The cases of two sorts, extraordinary and ordmary —
1, Extraordinary —
(\.) Out of God's sole prerogative, . . . 288
(2.) "When God intends to make a man wise, and able to
comfort others, .... 289
(3.) In case of abundance of revelations and comforts ;
either —
A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNEsiS. XUl
M
M
PAOB
After a man hath partook of them, . . 290
Before God doth dispense them, . . 290
Chapter XIL
The cases ordinary wherein God dotli leave his in darkness, . 292
A general rule premised : That God is exceeding various in
these dispensations, . . . . .292
2. Ordinary —
(1.) In case of carnal confidence ; which is either —
In trusting to false signs, together with true, 293
Putting too much confidence upon signs, with
neglect of Christ, , . . 293
[3.] Neglect of going to Christ for upholding of graces, 293
(2.) For neglecting opportunities of spiritual comforts, 294
(3.) For not exercising our graces, . . . 294
(4.) In case of some gross sin ; either —
'1.1 Against light, .... 294
2. Not thoroughly humbled for, . . 295
3. Though long since committed, . . 297
The reason of all, . . . .297
(5.) In case of a stubborn spirit under outward aflSictions, 297
(6.) For deserting the truth when called to profess it, 298
(7.) In case of unthankfulness for former spiritual comforts
enjoyed, ..... 298
Chapter XIII.
III. The third general head : The ends for which God leaveth to dark-
ness — First, such as are drawn from God, and his faithfulness, &c., 300
1. To shew God's power and faithfulness in upholding, and raising
up a man's spirit again, .... 300
2. The second end, to know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, 301
3. To shew the different estate of God's children here and hereafter, 301
4. To shew the spring of all spiritual comforts, and our dependence
for them, ...... 302
Chapter XIV.
A second sort of ends for the trial and discovery of graces, especially
of faith —
5. Especially for the trial of faith, .... 303
(1.) Of all graces God tries faith the most, . . 304
(2.) Of all trials this of darkness is the greatest, for three
reasons, ..... 304
(3.) In these conflicts consisteth the height of our Christian
warfare, ..... 304
Chaptek XV.
Six ends more —
6. For the increasing of several graces, and destroying of corrup-
tions —
(1.) To destroy corruption, . . . .306
(2.) To humble, ..... 306
^3.) To increase assurance in the event, . . 306
(4.) The fear and obedience of God, . , .306
CONTENTS.
PAOK
(5.) To pray more and more earnestly, . . 306
(6.) To prize the light of God's countenance, . , 307
PART II.
Section I.
Use I. — ^To those that fear not God nor obey him; what darkness
reserved for such !.,.... 308
Use II. — To those that are translated from darkness into light, and
yet never thus walked in darkness, .... 309
To take notice of such a condition there is, which is useful —
1. To prepare them against it, if it should afterwards befall them, 309
2. To be kept more in dependence upon God, . . 310
3. To learn not to censure others, . . . .310
4r. To fear God the more, . . . . 310
5. To be thankful that God hath spared them, . . 311
Use III. — To those that have been in darkness, and are now recovered
out of it, . . . . . . .311
1. To be thankful to God and Christ, . . . 311
2. To pity others in that condition, . . . .311
3. To declare what God hath done for them, and to give warning
unto others, ...... 311
4. To take heed of such sins as may bring them into such a condi-
tion again, ...... 312
Use IV. — To such as fear God, and walk in darkness, . . 312
Two sorts of such : some more lightly troubled, some more deeply, 312
Ten Directions for those who are more deeply troubled ; and means
to be used how to recover light and comfort —
Direct. I. — To take heed of rash, impatient, and unbelieving
speeches and wishes, . . . . .315
Direct. II. — To make a diligent search and examination, . 316
Two things to be searched into —
First, What is the true cause which provokes God to leave
them to this distress ? . . . .317
Secondly/, What is the main reasoning in the heart that causeth
this questioning of their estate ? . . . 317
Direct. III. — To consider as indifferently what may make for
them as against them, . . . . .319
Direct. IV. — To call to remembrance former evidences and pas-
sages betwixt God and us, . . . .320
Direct. V. — To renew a man's faith and repentance, . 322
Direct. VI. — To be resolute and peremptory in believing and
turning to God, whatever may be the issue, . . 324
Direct. VII. — Let him trust in the name of the Lord : That the
name of the Lord is an all-sufficient prop and stay for a man's
faith to rest upon, when he sees nothing in himself, . 325
By the name of the Lord two things are meant —
1. Those attributes of grace and mercy, . . 325
2. Christ's righteousness, .... 325
Instances of those that have trusted in his name alone, . 326
Tliree reasons, . . . . .327
THK UKTUKN (iF PRAYERS.
XV
How tlie name of the Lord answers all objections,
Direct. VIII. — To wait upon God in the use of all means, .
Direct. IX. — To seek to God by prayer most earnestly ; together
with pleas and arguments to be used to God in prayer fur reco-
very out of this condition, ....
Direct. X. — Not to rest in ease, but alone in healing,
Section II.
Other observations out of the 10th verse —
Doct. 2. — That though it may befiill one that fears God to walk
in darkness, yet but to a few, ....
Three reasons, ......
Three uses, ......
Doci. 3. — That those few that walk in darkness Christ hath an
especial eye unto and care of, .
Two reasons, ......
Two uses, ......
Doct. 4. — That when the children of God are under terrors, the
most eminent grace that doth appear in them is fearfulness to
offend God, and willingness to obey him, .
Explication of it,
Reason, ......
Two uses, ......
PAQK
330
330
A Child op Darkness Walki]S(5 in Light.
By fire and the light of it two things meant —
I. Their own righteousness, .
By sparks, what is meant,
What by walking in the light of their fire, ,
Use 1. — Examine what fire we offer to God,
Use 2. — Take heed of walking in the light of such fire,
II. Outward comforts, . . • .
Why fire is put for comfort,
Why outward comfort compared to fire of their own kindlin;
earthly fire, ....
The comparison holds in six things,
to
332
337
341
341
342
342
342
343
343
343
344
344
345
346
346
347
348
348
348
349
349
IL-THE EETURN OF PRAYEES.
The Epistle Dedicatory, ..... 353
The Coherence of the words (Psalm LXXXV. 8), . . 359
Chapter I.
The main observation : That God's people are diligently to observe the
answers of their prayers, . . . . .360
The sinfulness of the neglect hereof demonstrated by seven reasons — •
Reason 1. — An ordinance of God taken in vain, . 360
Reason 2. — God's attributes taken in vain, . , . 361
Reason 3. — God in answering made to speak in vain, 361
XVI CONTENTS.
PAGB
Eeason 4. — God provoked not to answer, . . . 362
Reason 5. — We shall not return thanks, . . . 3G2
Reason 6. — We shall lose much experience —
(1.) Of God's faithfulness, . . . .362
(2.) Of our own ways towards him, . . . 363
Reason 7. — We shall lose much comfort, . . . 363
Chapter II.
Three cases propounded —
1. The first, concerning prayers for such promises as may bo accom-
plished in ages to come, . . . . .365
(1.) Such prayers the church to come doth reap, . . 365
(2.) Yet we at present may have an answer about them, . 366
(3.) In heaven, and at the last day, we shall rejoice for their ac-
complishment, . . . . .366
Chapter III.
The second case —
2. Concerning prayers made for others, of our friends, &c. ; how an-
swered, ....... 367
First consideration — Such prayers oft granted, . . 367
Second consideration — Yet not always in the very thing
prayed for, . . . . . . 367
Such promises but indefinite, as all temporal promises
are, ...... 368
Our faith towards them not required to be assurance,
unless God give a special faith, . . . 369
Third consideration — Such prayers returned into our own
bosoms, ...... 370
Fourth consideration — God in the end casts some out of our
prayers, ...... 370
Fifth consideration — Those prayers answered in some others, 371
Chapter IV.
The third case —
3. How the influence of our own prayers, when others pray also
for the same thing with us, may be discerned, . . 372
(1.) If our hearts are affected with the same holy affection, 372
Unbeknown each to other, . . . .372
(2.) By some special evidence ; as —
"1.] Some notable circumstance, . . 372
2." By joy in the accomplishment, . . 373
3. J By thankfulness for the accomplishment, . 373
(3.) This less to be doubted when the thing prayed for by us
doth concern our own particular, . . . 373
Chapter V.
Common directions helpful in all cases and prayers ; taken first from
observations from before and in praying, . . . 375
First, Before; when God prepares the heart, . . 375
Difference between Satan's motions to prayer and God's, 375
Secondly, In prayer ; God's speakings in prayer are evidences of
hearing, and discerned bv four thir-'^s —
THE BETUEN OF PRATEEb. XTU
PAOI
1. Giving a quietness by prayer about the thing prayed for, 376
2. By revealing his love, in and upon such petitions, . 377
A caution herein, . . . . .377
Reasons why God draws nigh when he grants not the
thing, ...... 378
3. God sometimes gives a particular assurance, . . 378
A caution herein. . . . . .379
4. By giving a restless importunity to pray for a particular
mercy, ...... 379
Chapter VL
Observations made upon the disposition of the heart after prayer, until
the issue of the thmg prayed for, .... 381
Fir&t, When God gives an obedient dependent heart, . 381
Secondly y When God gives a heart waiting for and expecting it, 381
Chaptee VIL
Observations made after prayer upon the issue —
L K accomplished, whether as the fruit of prayer or of common provi-
dence, ....... 383
God sometimes answers the prayer in the very thing and manner
desired, ....... 383
Directions to discern that things thus obtained are in answer to prayers —
Direct. 1. — From the manner of God's performance, . . 384
A more than ordinary hand discovered in things accomplished
by prayer, instanced in five particulars —
{\.) By bringing it to pass through difficulties, . . 384
(2.) By facilitating all means, .... 385
(3.) Effecting it suddenly, .... 385
^4.) With addition of other mercies above what was desired, 385
(5.) By some special circumstance as a token of his hand
init, . . . . . . 385
Direct. 2. — From the time wherein it is accomplished; as —
First, When we were most instant in prayer, . . 386
Secondly, In the fittest time for us. Then —
First, When we have most need, , . . 387
Secondly, When the heart was best prepared to receive it, 387
Direct. 3. — From the proportion which may be observed betwixt
God's dealings in the accomplishment and our prayers, . 388
Chaptee VIIL
Seven observations more, ..... 389
Direct. 4. — From the effects which the accomplishment of the
mercy hath upon the heart —
(1.) If it draw the heart nearer to God, . . 389
(2.) Enlargeth the heart with thanifulness, . . 389
(3.) And encourageth the heart the more to pray for other
things, ...... 390
(4.) If it makes more careful to perform the vows made to
obtain it, .... . 390
(5.) If by faith a man sees and acknowledgeth God's sole
hand in the accomplishment, . , . 390
VOL. m. h
XVm CONTJiNTS.
Page
(6.) By an assurance which conies sometimes with the mercy, 391
(7.) By the event : things obtained by prayer prove stable
mercies, . . . . . .391
Chapter IX.
Considerations to quiet us, and to help to discern an acceptation of the
prayer, when —
II. The thing is not accomplished, .... 393
The thing not always granted when yet prayer is heard, . 393
An objection answered, ..... 393
1. Some blessings not absolutely promised, nor absolutely to be
prayed for ; in which a denial is to be interpreted as best for
us in God's judgment, . . . . ,394
2. There may be a reservation in the denial, for some greater
mercy; thus —
(1.) Some great cross is prevented, . . . 394
(2.) The denial breaks a man's heart, and brings him
nearer to God, . . . .394
3. There may be a transmutation into some other blessing of the
same kind, ...... 394
4. God, when he denies, yet answereth to the ground of our
prayers, ...... 395
5. And yields far in it, to give satisfaction to his child, . 396
6. We may know that the prayer notwithstanding is accepted, by
the effects upon the heart; which are four —
(1.) If we acknowledge God righteous in the denial, . 396
(2.) If God fills the heart with contentment in the denial, 397
(3.) If the heart be thankful out of faith, . . 397
(4.) If not discouraged, but prays still, . . 397
Chapter X.
Application : A reproof of those that pray, but look not after the re-
turns of their prayers. The causes of this neglect are —
Temptations —
1. From want of assurance that our persons are accepted, . 398
2. From the weakness of our prayers; four answers to it, . 399
3. From not obtaining what we formerly prayed for; answere^i by
four things, ...... 400
More sinful discouragements; as —
1. From slothfuluess in praying, .... 401
2. Looking at prayer as a duty only, and not as a means to ob-
tain, ....... 401
3. Falling into sin after prayers, .... 402
Tidings of Peace.
Six observations more out of the text —
1. That God doth sometimes not speak peace to his own people, 405
2. The cause thereof some folly, .... 406
Reason, ...... 406
Three uses, . . . . . .406
3. God only can speak peace, .... 407
THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. J3Z
FAGB
Four reasons, .....
407
Two uses, .....
408
4. God easily can give peace, . . . .
408
Two reasons, ......
408
Two uses, .....
409
5. God will certainly speak peace to his people,
410
Three reasons, .....
410
Use,
411
The Folly op Rfxapsing.
The sixth observation —
6. After peace spoken, his people should return no more to folly, 413
The sin and folly of relapsing shewn by two reasons, . 413
Two uses, .... .416
Temptations from relapse into the same sin, after peace spoken
answered —
By Scriptures, . . . . . .418
By three examples, . . . . .419
By four reasons, ..... 421
Six cautions, . . . . . .423
III.-THE TRIAL OF A CHEISTIAN'S GEOWTH.
To THE Header, ...... 433
INTRODUCTION.
The sum and division of the words, and the subject of this discourse, 435
Some observations premised of this parable of the "vine —
First observation — How Christ is a vine, and the only true vine, 436
Second observation — How God the Father is the husbandman;
declared in five things, ..... 438
Third observation — Two sorts of branches in the vine, fruitful and
unfruitful, ...... 439
An interpretation of these words, ' branches in me that bring
not forth fruit,' by three things, . . . 439
Three several sorts of branches that prove unfruitful, . 440
Some differences between true branches and temporary
branches, grounded on the text —
Difference 1. — Temporary believers bring not forth true
fruit ; and what it is that makes a good work to be
true fruit, ..... 442
Difference 2. — Temporary branches bring not forth fruit
in Christ ; what it is to bring forth fruit in Christ
explained, ..... 443
The question, Whether in every act a Christian doth all in
Christ, by his fetching virtue distinctly from him? re-
solved by three things, .... 445
That every believer doth five things, which are truly and in-
terpretatively to bring forth fruit in Christ, . . 446
IX CONTKJSTS.
PAGB
Fourth observation — In the most fruitful "branches there remain
corruptions to be purged out ; the reasons of it, . . 448
Fifth observation — That yet for their corruptions God takes not
such away, . . . . . .451
Sixth observation — Unfruitful branches God in the end cuts off, 454
Four desjrees of God's cutting them off, founded on the tezt, 455
PART I.
OF GROWTH IN BRINGING FORTH MORE FRUIT.
Chapter I.
That all true branches in Christ do grow, proved by Scriptures and
reasons, ....... 457
Eeason 1. — From Christ's relations to us as a head, and we his
members ; and herein —
(1.) From our conformity to him, . . . 458
(2.) From his having received all fulness to fill us, . 458
(3.) From our growth making up his fulness, as he is mysti-
cally considered one with us, ... 459
Eeason 2. — From God the Father ; who —
^1.^ Hath ai)poiuted every one their measure, . . 459
(2.) Hath promised it, . . . . . 459
(3.) Hath appointed means for it, . . . 459
Eeason 3. — From the saints themselves, who cannot be saved un-
less they grow, ...... 460
Chapter II.
An explication how the saints do grow, . . . .461
Many considerations to satisfy the tentations of those that discern not
their growth, . . . . . . .461
I. More general, shewmg what sort of Christians this tentation doth
usually befall, . . . , . .461
II. More particular ; as —
1. That growing in grace is a mystery rather to be apprehended by
faith than by sense, ..... 462
2. The eager desire which many have to grow and attain to more
grace hinders them from discerning their growth, . 462
3. The progress is not in many so discernible as the change at
their first conversion is, or as thek first growth, . . 462
The reasons of it, . . . . , . 462
4. To discern of growth there must be time allowed, . . 463
6. There are several ways by which men are brought to that mea-
sure appointed them, in which some have the advantage of
others —
(1.) Some have a greater stock of grace given them at first;
which is done in two cases —
[1.] When there is a present use of them, . 463
2.] When a man is converted late, . . 463
(2.) In the manner of growing, God puts much difierence —
Some grow without intermission, . . 463
Some God sooner ripens for heaven, . . 463
[1.1 Sc
[2.] Sc
THE TRIAL OK A CHRISTIANS GKOWTH. XXl
Chapter III. paob
What it is to bring forth more fruit explicated —
I. Negatively, by removing many mistakes, . . . 464
1. It is not to grow only or chiefly in gifts, as abilities to pray and
preach, or in knowledge, but in graces, . . . 464
Three cautions herein, , . . . .464
2. Our bringing forth more fruit is not to be measured by the
success of our gifts, the fruits of our doings, but by the doings
themselves, ...... 465
3. It is not simply to be estimated by the largeness or smallness
of our opportunities of doing good, (which may vary,) but by a
heart to do good, . . . . . .466
4. It is not always to be measured by accessory graces, as joy,
spiritual ravislmients, &c., . . . ,466
5. It is not to be measured by increasing in profession, and
seeming forwardness, but by inward and substantial godliness, 466
6. How in the largeness of the affections to do good there may
be a decrease ; and how young Christians may have more large
affections, which yet are not so genuine and spiritual, . 467
7. We must not measure our growth by our growing in some
kind or sort of duties, but in the universal extent of godliness,
and in duties both of our general and particular callings, . 467
How young Christians abound more often in holy duties for
a time, and the necessity of this for their condition, . 468
Chapter IV.
II. What it is to bring forth more fruit explained positively ; wherein
many direct trials of such a growth are given —
1. If we go on to the exercise of new graces, . . . 470
2. If we find new degrees of the same grace added, . . 471
3. If fruits and duties grow more ripe and spiritual, though not
more in bulk : what it is that gives a spiritual relish to this fruit, 471
4. If the heart grows more rooted into Christ, . . 472
5. If we learn more to bring forth fruit in season, , . 472
6. If we grow more constant and even in a holy course, . 472
7. If, though our difficulties and oppositions be more, and means
less, yet we continue to bring forth as well as when our means
were more, and difficulties less, . . . .473
8. If, though we do less, yet we grow more wise, and faithful to
lay out our abilities, and improve our opportunities to the greater
advantages for God's glory and the good of others, . , 473
PAKT II.
OF GROWTH Il^r PURGING OUT CORRUPTION.
Chapter I.
The observation out of the text propounded, That God goes on to
purge out our corruptions, . . . . .474
I. Bounds set to the discourse about it, . , . . 474
II. The reasons of the point, . . . . .475
ZZU CONTENTS.
Chapter II. paqe
III. The ways God useth to purge out corruption out of his cliildren,
with the means by which he causeth them to grow to a further
measure therein —
1. Occasional —
(1.) By falling into sins, .... 477
(2.) By casting them into aflSictions, . . . 477
2. Instrumental, ...... 477
3. Examples —
(1.) Of those that have been professors and have fallen away, 478
(2.) Of holy men, ..... 478
4. Inward workings ; which consist of five things —
(1.) A further discovering of corruption unto us, . 478
(2.) Setting the heart on work to get one's lusts mortified
more and more, .• . . . . 478
(3.) Drawing the heart more and more into holy duties, . 479
(4.) Bringing the heart more and more acquainted with
Christ, . . . . . .479
(5.) Assuring the soul of his love, . . . 480
Chapter III.
IV. The trial of growth in mortification by —
1. Negative signs, or such as argue much corruption remain-
ing unpurged out ; as —
(1.) If a man doth magnify and set a high price upon worldly
and carnal excellencies and pleasures, . . .481
(2.) If our minds be carried out to superfluities, and more
than needs, and are discontented with our own condition, 482
(3.) If our minds be so glued to anything, that we know
not how to part with it, , . . .482
(4.) If our hearts be distempered under variety of conditions,
and are very inordinate in them all, whether they be
prosperous or adverse, . . . .482
(5.) The more carnal confidence we have in the creature, and
our spirits being upheld by them, . . . 483
(6.) The more full of envy^ings and heart-burnings against
others, as to get the credit from them, &c., . . 483
(7.) The less able we are to bear reproofs for the breaking
forth of our lusts, . . . . .484
(8.) The more quick and speedy the temptation is in pre-
vailing upon the heart, . . . .484
(9.) The more power our lusts have to disturb us in holy
duties, ...... 484
(10.) If the bare recalling former sins committed prove a new
snare to entice the heart, . . . .485
Chapter TV.
The trial of mortification by —
2. Positive signs, which argue a good degree of that work in the
heart ; as —
(1.) The more insight a man hath into spiritual corruptions,
joined with a conflict against them, . . . 486
THE TRIAL OF A CHUISTIAN S GROWTH. XXIU
PAGE
(2.) The more we grow up to a readiness, willingness, froe-
ness, and cheerfulness of heart to deny ourselves, . 48G
(3.) The more stable, even, and constant we are in well-doing,
and the more durable a holy frame of heart in us is, . 487
(4.) The more spiritual taste and relish of the spiritual part
of the word we have, .... 488
(5.) The more ashamed we grow of former carriages, and
sensible of former weaknesses, . . . 488
(6.) The weaker we find our lusts to be in the time of temp-
tation, . . ■ . . . .488
(7.) The more ability we have to abstain from occasions and
opportunities of satisfying our lusts, . . . 489
(8.) If we linger not after the objects of our lusts, when
they are absent, but are weaned from them, . . 489
Chapter V.
Some cautions to prevent misjudging by false rules : as also this case
resolved, Whether growth in grace may be judged by the ordinary
prevailings of corruption, or the ordinary actings of a man's grace ? 490
Caution 1. — That men are not to estimate their progress in grace
by having overcome such lusts as their natures are not so prone
unto, but that a judgment hereof is to be made from the decay
of the bosom-sin, . . . . . .490
Caution 2. — We are not to judge by extraordinary assistances
nor extraordinary temptations, .... 490
This caution explicated by three things, . . . 491
This question resolved. Whether we may certainly judge of
the degrees of our mortification to lusts by the ordinary
risings and prevaUings of them, or by the ordinary acting
and exercise of our graces 1 . . . . 492
Answered afiirmatively, . . . . .492
An objection, That the Spirit is a voluntary agent, who may act a less
degree of grace more than a greater, answered —
1. That yet the Holy Ghost ordinarily assists according to the
proportion of grace given, . . . .493
2. That the acting of grace increaseth the habits more, and so it
comes all to one : two limitations herein —
(1.) That God for some time of a man's life, may leave a
strong Christian to greater corruption than a weak,
and act a weak Christian's graces more, . 494
God may have four ends in such a dispensation, 494
(2.) If a weak Christian be more watchful over his lusts
for a time than a stronger Christian, yet his weak-
ness is discovered by two things, . . 495
Chapter VI.
Five cautions more added to the former two, to prevent such mis-
judging—
Caution 3. — To take into consideration our several occasions to
draw out corruptions, and means to draw forth graces, . 497
Caution 4. — To consider the natural temper of a man's own spirit,
whether it be quick and active or slow, . . . 497
XXIV CONTENTS.
Caution 5. — To consider what force restraining grace hath in us,
which often makes mortification seem greater than it is, . 497
Caution 6. — Not to judge from our present listlessness to sin,
which may arise from other causes besides true mortification,
and so may make that seem to be much more at some times
than in truth it is, . . . . .499
The difference between listlessness to sin and true mortifica-
tion, in two things, . . . .500
Caution 7. — Not to judge of the measure of mortification simply
by the sharpness and edge of our affections against sin, but by
our inward strength againsu it, . . . .501
A discovery how that edge of affection against sin may deceive
us, and how a young Christian may have a quicker stirring
against sin when he hath less strength, , . 501
PART III.
EESOLYINQ SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT GROWTH IN MORTIFICATION
AND VIVIFICATION.
Chapter I,
About growth in mortification ; two questions —
Quest. 1. — Whether every new degree of mortification be always
universal, extending itself to every sin ? . . . 502
Answer afiirmative, and that for three reasons, , . 502
An objection answered, .... 503
Quest. 2. — Whether in the endeavours of a believer to mortify
some one particular lust, that lust becomes not more mortified
than others ?...... 503
Answered, ...... 603
Chapter II.
About growth in vivification ; three questions —
Quest. 1. — Whether every new degree of grace runs through aU the
faculties? ...... 505
Answered affirmatively, . . . . .505
Quest. 2. — Whether one grace may not grow more than another 1 505
Answered by three propositions, . . . 505
Quest. 3. — Concerning the manner of this growth, whether it
be a deeper radicating the same grace in the heart, or by a new
addition? ....... 506
Answered, . . . . . . 506
THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS.
The heart compared to a house of common resort, . . 509
The heart must be washed, not swept only, . . . 509
We must not lie down with unclean thoughts, . . .500
The vanity of your thoughts, . . . . .510
THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS,
1. What is meant by thoughts —
(1.) All the internal acts of the mind of man, . , 510
(2.) Their frame, or how conceived, . . . 511
When ours, and not the devil's, . . . 511
How evil thoughts oft-times are punishments of the ne-
glect of our thoughts, . . . .511
2. Vanity what, and how diversely taken —
(1.) For unprofitableness, . . . .512
(2.) For lightness, . . . . .512
(3. J For folly, . . . . . .512
(4.) For inconstancy and frailty, . . . . 612
(5.) For wickedness and sinfulness, . . .512
3. Thoughts are sins ; seven reasons for it —
Q.) The law judgeth them so, . . . .512
(2.) They are capable of pardon, . . . 512
3.) They are to be repented of, . . . . 513
4.) They defile the man, . . . .513
5.) They are abominable to the Lord, . . . 513
6.) They hinder all good, . . . .513
(7.) They are the first motioners of all evil, . . 513
4. Particulars wherein this vanity of the thinking power consists —
First, In regard of thinking what is good —
(1.) In a want of ability to raise holy considerations, 513
(2.) In a loathness to entertain holy thoughts, . 514
(3.) The mind wUl not be long intent on them, . 515
(4.) In thinking of them unseasonably, , . 516
The difference of Christ's, and Adam's, and our thoughts, 516
Secondly, Of the positive vanity of our thoughts, and whereby
it discovereth itself ; and this is seen in five things —
(1.) In its foolishness, . . . .516
(2.) In its independency, . . . .517
(?>.) In its curiosity, . . . .518
(4.) In its taking thought to fulfil the lusts of the flesh, 5Vj
(5.) In its representing and acting over sins in our thoughts, 520
This representation of our sins to our thoughts doth three
things —
First, It makes the heart of man vain and empty, 520
Secondly, It maketh our desires impatient, . 520
Thirdly, It makes them sinful and corrupt, . 520
The seeming comforts which men have in speculative
enjoying of pleasure appear in four things —
First, In things present, . . . 520
Secondly, In things future, . . .521
Thirdly, In things past, . . . 522
Fourthly, In acting sins on imaginary suppositions, 523
A sure way whereby to know our natural inclinations, 524
The uses of the discovery of the vanity of our thoughts —
Use I. — To be humbled for them.
The reasons why we should be humbled for them.
Use II. — To make conscience of them.
The reasons why,
524
524
525
XXVl CONTENTS.
Remedies against vain thoughts — ^^°^
First, Get the heart furnished with a stock of sanctified knowledge
in spiritual truths, , . . . .526
Secondly, Endeavour to keep up holy affections in the heart, . 526
Thirdly, Get thy heart possessed with deep apprehensions of God's
holiness, ....... 527
Fourthly, Especially do this when thou awakest, . . 527
Fifthly, Observe thy heart all day, . . . .527
Sixthly, Please not thy fancy too much with vanities, . 528
Seventhly, Be diligent in thy calling, . . . , 528
Eighthly, Commit thy ways to God, .... 628
A PEEFACE TO THE EEADEEJ
How unfit I am to perform even this common and usual office of introducing
thee to the entertainment which the following discourses will afford, the
knowledge which I ought to have of myself is sufficient to convince me ;
for it cannot be expected that I should give a due character of the author,
which hath been already drawn by a more excellent hand,t and which for
me to attempt, as it would not be comely, so it is above my undertaking.
It would as ill suit with my disability, who am inconsiderable and so little
known, to offer my mean judgment needlessly to recommend any of his
writings to the world. All that is proper and agreeable for me to do is to
assure thee that these which I have had the care of publishing are the genu-
ine issue of his thoughts, — most of them the mature fruits of the later years
of his life, — and to give some short account of their order and general design.
I have here offered to public view, in a second volume of his works,
several discourses upon great and important truths ; that what were his own
retired and profitable meditations may, by the divine blessing, become a
common benefit.
The first which presents itself is An Exposition on the Revelation ; a por-
tion of Scripture so abstruse, that though it has exercised the thoughts and
studies of many worthy divines, may yet, in some respects, be called ' a sealed
book;' which will be more perfectly explained when he who alone is found
worthy to open it, the holy Lamb of God, shall come to unfold all its diffi-
cult passages in their glorious accomplishment. As the author lived and
rejoiced in this hope, he has here in this his comment pointed to the founda-
tion upon which he grounded it, even ' a sure word of prophecy.' But as
he was fuUy ascertained that God would in his own time make good his
word, he was not over-curious in dating the day of his performance. You
will find him modest in this point ; he himself determines nothing, but ex-
* This preface, by Goodwin's son, prefixed to the second volume of the folio works,
is inserted here, although but a small part of it refers to the treatises contained ir thia
volume. — Ed.
+ Mr Thankful Owen, in his Preface to the ' Exposition upon the Epistle to the Ephe-
sians.' [Given in this Edition, voL i., p. xxxix. — Ed.]
XXVlll A PREFACE TO THE READER.
presses the opinions of others rather than his own, though he indeed illus-
trates them with reasons which might make them look probable ; and though
they have proved to be mistaken in their calculations, yet many things occur
in drawing them up which are not altogether unworthy of being remarked.
Their account indeed is now superannuated, yet it was proper enough for the
author to mention it at the time of his writing this discourse, which was in
the year 1639. It seems to be the divine prerogative to know the times and
the seasons; and as he always chooseth the fittest, he reserves to himself
the exact knowledge of his own appointed day.
That which comes next in order of these treatises is, A Discourse of the
Knowledge of God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ; which I have
placed the first of these theological tracts, (and of others that are to follow,
if Providence permits me an opportunity of publishing them, which insist
upon other the chiefest heads of divine knowledge,) because it is the design
of the first rudiments of religion to instruct us what due apprehensions we
ought to have of the Deity. As our Saviour tells us, ' that this is life eter-
nal, to know God the Father, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent,' so it is
the firm foundation whereon the beautiful and uuifurm structure of all other
truths is built ; and sad experience in all ages hath made us understand into
what wild imaginations, as to the other parts of our Christian religion, those
unhappy men have wandered, (as the Arians in the primitive times, and the
Socinians in our own,) who have stumbled, and so made a false step in their
entrance at this first and principal truth. The author, who considered the
irremediable mischiefs of the least error in these first articles of faith, and
saw the proneness in men to mistake, has made it his chief design, in aU the
parts of this discourse, to direct our thoughts to due conceptions of the
divine nature, of the Trinity, and the person of Christ. And as his asser-
tions herein are no other than according to those measures the word of God
has prescribed, he has fetched his proofs from the same magazine ; and the
evidence of his arguments is the more convincing, since it proceeds from that
light which he beats out by comparing places of Scripture together. If
any should judge some of his notions to be too fine, and condemn his
thoughts for taking too high a flight, and leaping over the common bounds
of knowledge ; this may be pleaded in defence, that he has at least asserted
nothing that contradicts a received truth, or which by any consequence
may weaken the foundations of religion. Nay, he asserts nothing but what
divine authority in Scripture does countenance ; he proves all by plain texts,
and by an easy, unforced explication, without racking or torturing them to
make them speak his own mind. He is the vender of no new opinions,
since what he delivers he clearly evinces to be the sense of the eternal oracles
of truth. Nor is he too boldly curious, since he is not wise beyond what is
written ; and the inquisitiveness of his mind should not be prejudged, when
his inquiries have proceeded according to the conduct of an infallible guide.
And if they have gone further than others, it is only because, having seen
the glimpse of a truth, he could not leave it till he had pursued it down
through the most intimate recesses of Scripture. It is certainly allowable to
A PUliFACK TO TUE READER. XXIX
Jig deeper in those mines which are inexhaustible, and where those who
come after the diligence of others may still find new and far richer treasures.
Our spiritual knowledge surely is capable of increase, and further degrees
may be yet added to it ; for even after those glorious times wherein God
has promised to bless his people with larger effusions of his Spirit, who shall
lead them into all truth, they yet will then know but in part : and indeed all
the successive ages of the world put together afford too short a time for us
perfectly to search into the deep things of God, since eternity itself will give
us but space enough to know and admire them.
The discourse which follows is. Of the Creahires, and the Condition of
their State hij Creation; which I have placed before that of Election, because
though indeed the electing decree externally preceded the framing of this
world, yet God made his choice out of the creatures which he determined to
make, and considered them in the state wherein they were placed by crea-
tion. And the author, when he evinces the necessity of an election-grace
to save certainly and infallibly any of either angels or men, draws his most
cogent proof from the mutability of the creature, which absolutely required
a supernatural grace to secure its establishment. And he therein refers the
reader to this discourse, wherein he proves that the creature, as such, was
changeable and uncertain in the best circumstances of its condition, and had
a very unfixed station when it stood, and flourished in all the glory of its in-
nocence. It is therefore requisite for the intelligent reader, if he would un-
derstand the force of the argument, to peruse what is discoursed in this
treatise concerning the weak and unstable condition of the creatures, which
renders the grace of election indispensably necessary unto their salvation.
And as the author had it in his eye and heart, not only to prove the absolute
need we have of this grace, but also to celebrate unto the height its glory and
praise, in prosecution of this design he compares all the advantages which
Adam, as an innocent creature, by nature possessed, with all those signal
mercies which belong to that condition whereunto grace advances the elect
since the fall, and endeavours to convince us how vastly those blessings we
receive from Christ, the second Adam, excel all the benefits which the Crea-
tor's bounty bestowed upon the first ; how grace instates us in a higher
happiness than we should have enjoyed, though we had lived with our first
father in innocence ; how grace makes us gainers by the loss of all paradise's
pleasures, though we are apt to envy and regret that we have lost them ;
and how the state of the meanest soul that belongs to Christ, who is blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in him, is infinitely preferable
to Adam's primitive condition, with aU its enjoyments. Thus in this dis-
course he prepares the mind of the reader to admire and adore the riches of
that grace, which further to evince and illustrate is the whole design of that
which follows in the last place of this volume.
The last discourse, then, is Of Election, which to so many is a hard saying,
a stumbling-block, and a stone of offence. He discourses this high truth
with such a wary exactness, that its greatest opposers will not find anything
in what he asserts whereon to fasten those invidious reflections, those harsh
XXX A PREFACE TO THE READEK.
and horrid consequences with which they use to deform this doctrine, to
make it look affrighting. He is very tender in the point of reprobation, and
expresses himself no otherwise concerning it than the Scriptures themselves
do : \iz., that there are some of mankind whom God has left out of the com-
pass of his gracious decrees, as indeed he was not obliged to share equal
favour to all ; that these are the rest, or remainder, Rom. xi. 7, when God
has chosen out the others; that these he resigns to the conduct of their
free-will, and leaves them to go on in their own waj^s. Acts xiv. 16, and to
reap at last the bitter fruits of their evil actions. After he has proved the
necessity of such a grace as is derived from the decree of election to assure
the salvation of both angels and men, and that all whom God hath rescued
from the misery and ruin of the fall were really saved by this grace, he
proceeds to illustrate the infinite greatness of it by many considerations : as,
that it appoints, and certainly brings us to a higher glory and blessedness
than was the de sign of creation to confer on the creature, though they had
continued in innocence ; and that it commends itself by a discriminating
love, which makes a difference between the elect and the other of mankind.
He then discourses how infallibly God's decrees of election obtained their
designed issue, and proves largely how an eliectual invincible grace does cer-
tainly accomplish what the decree and counsel of God's will had determined.
These were the truths which exercised the thoughts and heart of the author,
the element in which he lived, the air in which his soul breathed, and by
which a spiritual life was constantly maintained in it. And as he experi-
enced that they afforded him comfort and support against all his temptations
and trials, he committed them to writing, that others might receive from
them the same solace and refreshing help as he did.
It renders his loss the more supportable, that he has left behind him, now
that he is retired out of sight, what may perpetuate a grateful remembrance
of him among men ; that though God hath withdrawn him to heaven, he
may yet be useful to His church here on earth; that his service is not ended
with his life, nor buried with him in the dust ; and ' though he rests from
all his labours, yet the fruits of them may follow him,' even after he is gone
hence to receive their reward. He lives again in this offspring of his better
part, his mind ; and ' being dead, he yet speaks ' in them the same truths,
which when living were the most delightful entertainment of his thoughts.
But I forget that I assume too much to myself, in delivering my own
thus freely, in things which are indeed so much above me ; and I know not
how a zealous affection for the memory of a father's name, whom I cannot
but love and honour in the grave, hath carried me beyond the bounds
of that reservedness and modesty which would perhaps have far better
become
THO. GOODWIN.
AX
EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION.
AN
EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION.
PAET I.
CHAPTER L
2%« design of the Booh of the Revelation. — That it is a prophecy, wherein,
as in a vision, the story of all times is represented. — The j^rophetical
part of it begins at the ^th chapter. — An exposition of the Ath chapter.
— The vision of the throne, beasts, and elders. — A representation of the
church in all ages.
The three first chapters contain seven epistles to seven particular churches ;
but from this 4th chapter to the end of the book, is laid down a more general
prophecy, from John's time to the world's end. There is therefore this char-
acter of difference put between that part of this book in those three first
chapters, and this that begins here: that that concerned things that then
were past, things that then were, and things to come hereafter, as chap. i. 1 9 ;
whereas this delivers those things only which 'must be hereafter,' chap. iv. 1.
In this prophecy, as in a vision, is the story of aU times acted and repre-
sented. A comedy is the representing of a story past, by men ; this a pro-
phetical vision of things to come, acted by angels answerably. As in such
interludes and shows there is first a stage built, a scene or place supposed
where the things were done, and a chorus or company of spectators sitting
on the stage continually, and giving their judgment and approbation, which
was the custom in comedies of old ; so in this chapter the Apostle hath the
vision of the scene, theatre, or stage, namely the church of Christ, in a
general view throughout all ages, presented; the members whereof are the
chorus, who upon any great or solemn occasion give their plaudite or acclam-
ation of glory unto God. So the four beasts, and four-and-twenty elders,
you may in this book often observe to do. And then, as in such shows and
representations there used to be a prologue, so, chap, v., you have as artificial
a prologue acted as in any poem; from whence, chap, vi., the representation
of the story of things begins.
Chap. iv. 1. — John is called up from the earth into the air, (by which
heaven is here meant, as often elsewhere it is,) the place of John's vision ;
VOL. III. ▲
2 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
and in the air a door seemed to open, in at whicli he entering, sees the sights
following.
Ver. 2, And immediately I was in the Spirit. — The phrase, in the Spirit,
is like to that when we say a man is in love, or a mill is said to be in the
wind; as noting out such a repletion or filling with the Spirit, as possessed
and took up all the powers of his soul to attend this vision. It filled all, it
carried aU in him unto the thing in hand, and wholly acted his faculties by
a supernatural motion of the Spirit, so that his understanding and senses
acted not in their natural way, but as moved by the Spirit. Now this his
being in the Spirit was extraordinary, and to an extraordinary purpose ; even
to see these visions, and by the Holy Ghost to write them : yet to us it
should be ordinary, so far as, in our ordinary course, to walk in the Spirit,
and be in the Spirit; that is, to give up ourselves, our powers and faculties,
to the Spirit's rule and guidance, so that he should move all wheels in us.
Obs. — Now from this immediately/ observe. That a believing soul may pre-
sently be in the Spirit ; he soon and suddenly comes upon a man.
The vision that follows is of the church, which is made the scene of all
things prophesied of in this book; for all things done are either for it or
concerning it. And though passages of judgments on the world are recorded,
yet for the church's sake they are recorded, and are done as by God out of
the church. Now this vision of the throne, beasts, and elders is a represent-
ation of the church (wherein God hath his throne) of men on earth, universal
in all ages; set forth according to the form or pattern of institution of a
church, into which all saints on earth should be moulded. To prove this in
the several parts of it : —
I. It is a representation of the church; for —
1. In the church only is God worshipped; as here, ver. 8-10. In the
church only is God known ; and there ' they speak of his glory,' Ps. xxix. 9.
2. The throne here is evidently God's seat in his temple the church; so
chap. xvi. 17, ' A voice came from the temple, from the throne,' &c.
3. Accordingly, the allusion in this vision is to Solomon's temple, and to
the tabernacle, which were the types of the church to come under the new
testament. Therefore God here sits on a throne, as he did then in the holy
of holies; and there are seven golden lamps here, as there the candlestick;
and a sea of glass here to wash in, as there was there one of brass : aU orna-
ments and utensils of that temple typifying forth ours.
II. It is the representation of a church of men, not angels ; for —
1. These elders and beasts sing that they ' are redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb ;' which the angels were not, chap. v. 9. And —
2. Ver. 11, the angels are reckoned distinct from these elders and beasts,
and are said to be 'about them;' as also chap. vii. 11.
III. It is of the church of men on earth; for —
1. The allusion is to the marshalling of the church of the Jews about the
tabernacle; as shall be shewn.
2. Here are seven spirits; that is, variety of the gifts of the Spirit, which
in heaven do cease.
3. Here is a sea of glass, for the priests and worshippers to wash in ; which
supposeth a remainder of defilement, at least of the feet; as John xiiL 10.
4. The distinction of beasts and elders in this company, — namely, oflacers
and brethren, — which iii heaven ceaseth, argueth it also,
IV. Of the church universal.
1. In all ages; therefore placed at the beginning here, and often brought
in in this prophecy as spectators.
CUAP. I.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. 3
2. In all places; so chap. v. 9, * redeemed out of every kindred, tongue,
and nation.*
V. This church universal, represented whilst on earth as cast into the
pattern of a church, instituted according to the rules of the word, the mea-
sure to square churches on earth by ; and though in all ages they kept not
that pattern, — therefore, chap, xl 1, John is bidden to measure the temple of
that age, as having swerved from the origmal form too far in Antichrist's
apostasy, — yet such a pattern is given forth here as the only true pattern,
into which all should be cast ; and God sets forth his church as it should be
in all ages, and as it was in John's time. All saints, in all ages, should be
cast into such companies. So that here is the church with her appurten-
ances.
The church consisting of three states — 1. Christ the head; 2. The four
beasts, the officers ; 3. The twenty-four elders, who are the brethren —
There are the appurtenances also : as the seven lamps, which are the gifts
of the Holy Ghost; and the laver, which is Christ's blood, to wash in, &,c.
First, Ver. 2, 3, / saw a throne — which is an allusion to the holy of holies
in the temple, where God did sit. Therefore, Isa. vi. 1, when the Lord was
presented sitting upon his throne, it is said, ' the residue of his train filled
the temple ;' that is, those other parts of the temple, the throne being the
holy of holies. Therefore, Ezek. xliii., when the glory of God returned to
the temple, ver. 4, 5, God calls it, ver. 7, ' the place of my throne, and the
place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children
of Israel for ever.' The like you have, Jer. xvii. 12, which throne is here in
the midst of the four-and-twenty elders and the beasts ; signifying, as himself
interprets it, Ezek. xliii., his dwelling in the midst of his church, according
to that saying of Christ, ' I will be in the midst among you.'
Obs. — To set up a church is to set up God and Christ a throne. A church
is his only visible throne on earth, till the kingdoms of the world become his
visibly.
Now, secondly, for him who sitteth on the throne : Mr Brightman would
have God in the Trinity, or the three Persons, set forth in those three colours
mentioned. But to make the rainbow which encompasseth the throne to be
the Holy Ghost, whenas that rainbow is presented as divided and distinct
from him who sitteth on the throne, is nimis durum, it is too much. I take
it, it is God in Christ, in whom he is reconciled unto his church, and by whom
he rules it; chap. iii. 15, and chap, xii., it is called the throne of God. And
Ezek. i. 26, in which chapter the same kind of vision is represented, he who
sits on the throne there is the 'Son of man;' as also in Isa. vi. 1, which
place Christ in John xii. interprets of himself. So that God, considered as
in Christ, is he that sitteth on the throne. And, chap. vii. 10, he that sit-
teth on the throne, and the Lamb, are made distinct, yet mentioned together.
Ver. 3. — For ' the rainbow that was round about the throne,' it notes out
the memorial of his covenant of grace ; that as the rainbow was the sign of
the covenant of nature, to put God and us in mind he would not destroy the
world any more by water, so this rainbow is to God a memorial of his cove-
nant of grace to his church : 'This is to me as the waters of Noah; for as I
have sworn that the waters should no more go over the earth, so have I
sworn not to be wroth with thee,' saith God, in Isa. liv. 9. Which covenant
is round about his throne, so to put him in mind, in aU his dispensations
towards his church, to ' remember his covenant ;' that let him go forth any
way in his dispensations towards his church, he may still be minded of
mercy ; and his church again, in all their intercourses with God, and aU dis-
4 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
pensations from God, and occasions coming to him, may be put in mind of
mercy also, and his covenant of grace, to trust in it ; and that the prayers
of the church may still pass from them tlirough the rainbow, as all God's
dispensations to the church do come through the said rainbow also.
Now for the situation of the church. Both elders and beasts are about
the throne, ver. 4, 6, 7. It is formed after the enquartering of the people of
Israel about the tabernacle in the wilderness, Num. ii The Levites were
next to the tabernacle, and the tribes about the Levites. So here, the beasts
(the officers) were, as in ver. 6, in the midst of the throne, and round about
the throne ; that is, as Beza interprets it, their station is between the throne
and these elders, who did surround the throne about the four beasts. The
phrase, in the midst, in Scripture being put for between, or among; so Gen.
xxiii. 6. The beasts, though nearest the throne, yet are mentioned after the
elders; for though their place be nearer, yet they are but the church's ser-
vants, and the radical power is in the church, here signified by the twenty-
four elders.
Ver. 4. — To begin with the elders, who, as was said, do signify the
church : —
First, Tliey are called elders, (1.) because the church under the new testa-
ment is grown up to an elderly age, in opposition to the church under the
old testament, who are termed ' children under age,' Gal. iv. 1-3, &c. As
also, (2.) for that gravity that should be in all church assemblies, and in their
proceedings and administrations.
Secondly, For their number. They are twenty-four, in allusion to the
twenty-four heads of those orders of Levites who were porters and singers,
established by David in the temple, 1 Chron. xxiv., xxv., and xxxi. 25,
1%. And this, to shew the increase of the church under the new testament,
in comparison of that under the old, whereof that proportion made by
David was a type. The heads of the twelve tribes then were multiplied
to twenty-four. Now in like manner Solomon's temple had a double pro-
portion to that of the tabernacle of Moses; that also being an after-type of
the church's increase under the gospel
Thirdly, They are 'clothed in white raiment,' signifying that they are
priests, Exod. xxviii. 40.
Fourthly, They had ' on their heads crowns of gold,' to shew their kingly
power, and that it belongs to them to judge matters in the church; as, 1 Cor.
V, 12, ' Do not you judge them that are within ?'
Fifthly, They were ' round about the throne.' The meanest saint is as
near and dear to God as the greatest. Therefore the word in Cant. i. 12 is
*a round table,' which the saints sit at with Christ; it shews also their
equality. And Christ is in the midst here, and will be so in heaven.
We shall eat of ' the tree which is in the midst of the paradise of God.'
Ver. 5, And out of the throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and
voices. — By thunderings and lightnings are meant the judgments of God.
Ps. xviii. 13, 14, ' The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest
gave his voice, hailstones and coals of fire. Yea, he sent out his arrows,
and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.' And,
Ps. xxix. 3, ' The voice of the Lord is upon the waters : the God of glory
thundereth : the Lord is upon many waters.' They are said to come * out
of the throne,' because aU judgments do come from God, as sitting in his
church, and for his church's sake doth God use them. Ps. Ixviii. 35, ' O
God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places : the God of Israel is he that
giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God !' Amos i. 2,
Chap. I.] an exposition of the revelation. 5
' And he said, The Lord will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jeru-
salem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mouni, and the top of
Carmel shall wither.' Voices also proceed out of the throne ; which is more
general, and extends unto promises, and answers to prayers.
Seven lamps, which are the seven spirits of God. — By these are noted out
the Holy Ghost, and the variety of his gifts and operations, or manifestations
of himself in the church. That the Holy Ghost is meant is evident by
chap. i. 4, where John wishes * grace and peace from the seven spirits which
are before God's throne ;' which he ought not to have wished from any, but
from the Holy Ghost, who is the third Person. And these manifestations
are counted seven, because of the variety of gifts. For otherwise, that Per-
son is but 'one Spirit,' 1 Cor. xii. 11. They are compared to fire, because
they give light and heatj and the allusion here is to the candlesticks in the
temple.
Ver. 6. — There was a ' sea of glass like unto crystal,' in allusion to Solomon's
sea ; but this was purer than that, which was only of brass, Exod. xxx. 17-20,
and typified out Christ's blood to wash in, both for justification of person
and sanctification of life : so Heb. x. 22, ' Let us draw near with a true heart,
in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water ;' 1 Cor. vi. 11,' And such were some
of you ; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God ;' Tit. iii. 5, * Not by
works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he
saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.'
And this blood of Christ stands in the church, as the sea in which we must
wash, chiefly when we come to worship. Therefore wash -before you worship.
And there were ' four beasts full of eyes before and behind ;' by which are
meant church oflficers : —
1. Because of the situation of them, between the throne and the elders
who are round about.
2. Because they are the leaders of the praise, and so the mouths of the
congregation, ver. 9, 10. They are not beasts properly, as we understand
and speak ; not brutes, but living wights : the Greek word, which wants a
fiill and proper expression in one English word, signifies so. They are called
living, to shew that they have, or should have, life in them to quicken others.
They are four, and the throne is four-square, and so they are said to be in
the midst between every angle ; to shew that they are complete for number,
and should look every way to all the necessities of the church, both for soul
and body.
They are 'fuU of eyes,' because they are to be overseers. Acts xx. 28.
And they have eyes within as well as without, to see to their own hearts, as
well as to others.
Ver. 7, And the first beast was like a lion — who is the ruling elder,
who needs the courage of a lion, to deal with men's spirits in case of sins,
that deserve to be brought to the church, or to have admonition to prevent
that course.
The second was like a calf, or ox, — for so the Septuagint translates the
Hebrew word forty times, — the pastor, who is like an ox for laboriousness, and
taking pains in treading out the com.
The third beast had a face like a man — the deacons and widows,* which,
are all one ofiBce in a kind, who have a face of a man; a man's heart being
* Apparently referring to 1 Tim. v., where widows seem to be spoken of as specially
eligible as deaconesses. — Ed.
6 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
disposed and inclined for mercifulness and pitifulness, which is proper to a
man, not beasts.
And the fourth least was like a flying eagle — the teacher, who hath eyes
like an eagle, quickly to spy out all errors; and then they soar aloft into
high mysteries.
Ver. 8. — They had ' each of them six wings,' to shew their aptness and readi-
ness to fly and act all manner of ways. So in Ezekiel * the cherubim had,
who were types of these. ' They rest not day nor night ;' to shew they labour
continually; crying Holy, holy, holy. These worshipped God in Trinity. And
they are the mouths of the congregation ; for when they begin, the four-and-
twenty elders fall down: ver. 9-11, 'And when those beasts give glory and
honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and
ever, the four-aud-twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne,
and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before
the throne, saying. Thou art worthy, Lord, to receive glory and honour
and power : for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are
and were created.' And then they altogether, both one and the other, praise
him for his works of creation ; acknowledging him both the efficient and the
end for which they were created : and not only for whom they were created
at first, but for whom they are so stUl; their being and motion servmg to
that end, and working for his glory materially.
* The cherubim in Ezekiel are represented with /our wings ; the seraphim in Isaiah
with «cc. — Ed.
Chap. II. J ah iiXPOsiTioN of tue revelation.
# PHI Be
.-■/
'\
\THSOL('
CHAPTER n.
The exposition of the 5th chapter.
The stage being built in tlie 4th chapter, the chorias, which is the church,
being set, here begins the prologue ; and that so elegant and stately a one
as was never heretofore invented, or put before any poem.
First, Here is a ' book sealed,' presented in his hand who sits on the
throne. Which book contains God's decrees to be executed until the day
of judgment.
Secondly, Here is a proclamation made to all creatures, to find oiit one
who should be found worthy to open it.
Thirdly, There were none such found in heaven, nor in earth.
Fourthly, John weeps, thinking there would be an end of his visions, and
that he must put up his pen.
Fifthly, In this strait comes Christ, and takes upon him the opening and
fulfilling of this book, and all the decrees therein contained.
Sixthly, At this the chorus fall down and worship.
Ver. 1. — First, What is this book 1 Many make it to be the Scriptures.
But it is plain, by what all along does follow, that it is a book containing
the affairs of the world and the church, and God's decrees about them botL
For upon the opening every seal, John sees a vision containing the matter
of the ensuing chapters, namely, the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th. And when the
seals were all taken ofi", chap. x. 8, then John is bidden to ' eat the book,'
that he might prophesy again the other part of this prophecy. So that it is
this very book of the Revelation, and the government of the world and his
church that is set forth therein, which Christ, by taking the book, under-
takes to manage, perform, and execute, and gives it to John. Which agrees
with what is said at the beginning of this book, chap. i. 1, ' The Revelation
of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things
which must shortly come to pass ; and he sent and signified it by his angej
unto his servant John.'
Ver. 2. — A strong angel thereupon proclaims, 'Who is worthy to loose the
seals of this book?' &c. The use of the seals is not simply to shew that it
cannot be known, as Daniel's sealed book did shew that the things in it
could not be known till the end : Dan. xii 4, ' But thou, Daniel, shut up
the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end : many shall run
to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.' This signified not only so,
but it is for the setting out the glory of Christ, and how he was only able to
take the book, and loose the seals, &c.
1. God causeth a general proclamation to be made to all creatures ; as
some kings have done for some noble service, promising a great reward, as
Saul did, 1 Sam. xvii. 26, 27.
2, An angel makes this proclamation, to shew that none among men
8 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION, [PaKT I.
could ; and it was a strong angel, that so his voice may reach all creatures.
The end of which was —
(1.) To stir up strong desires in John, and all else that read, to search
into the meaning of this prophecy. What he did exhort to, chap. L 3, and
by promise provoke unto, here he does the same again by this proclamation.
(2.) To set out the weakness of the creature, still to the end that so the
honour of Christ might the more appear, in that he only can do this. It is
God's manner thus to endear mercies to us, as he did a wife unto Adam.
He first brought all creatures unto him, that so he might see that there was
not a meet help for him among them. So in the work of salvation, he lets
the soul try all means first, as to run to duties, and all other helps, and then
he brings it to Christ, 1 Cor. i., that his power may appear. First, he lets
the world try their ' wisdom,' what that could do ; and then sends ' the fool-
ishness of preaching to save them that believe,' ver. 21, 25. It is a question
among the school-men, whether any mere creature could satisfy for sin?
Some say it might ; and some say it is a needless question. But it is a
necessary thing to know that a creature cannot ; for it glorifies Christ the
more, as that all creatures here were first challenged : which is an argument
against that also ; for if they could not open the book, they could much less
have redeemed us, that being made a greater thing, ver. 9, where they sing
that ' Christ was therefore worthy to open the book, because he had re-
deemed us.'
Use. — Hence learn we to renounce all kings, priests, and prophets, except
Christ, who is a priest to redeem, a prophet to teach and reveal the mysteries
of God, and a king to execute all God's decrees. It is good to go over all
the creatures, and to renounce them, and say, I will be saved by none of you.
Suppose the work of redemption were yet to be done, and God should make
this proclamation, as here : ' Find me out a party able to redeem ; call a
council, and seek one fit for the purpose.' Surely none would be found ;
and then how would we howl and weep, as John did here, and count our-
selves undone ! And then, suppose God should set out Christ at last, as
one able to save to the uttermost, but this not tLU he had tried what you
could do for yourselves ; surely this would nonplus you. But God would
not thus put you to it ; and therefore took another course, and the more to
commend his love unto us, he himself found out Christ, and spake to him
to die for us, and do the work of redemption to our hands.
WJio is worthy ? — It is not simply an act of power to break open the
seals ; but there must be an authority by worth. So that which puts the
value on Christ's satisfaction was the worth of his person. And thus in
this act of opening the book, a mere creature might have had as much
habitual grace, and performed as much duty ; but who is worthy ? It was
a personal worth which carried it : ' Such an high priest became us, who is
higher than the heavens,' — that is, than the angels, — Heb. vii. 26.
Ver. 3, None was found worthy. — Observe the word no7ie ; it is not re-
strained to man, {iio man,) but never a reasonable creature, either in the
heavens, as the angels ; nor on earth, as men ; nor under the earth, as
devils ; nor holy men departed, who are said to go down to the grave : all
these, nor any of these, were ' able to open the book, neither to look there-
on,' — that is, so as to understand it, for else John could, and did look on
it, ver. 1.
Now to loose the seals, and open the book, is not simply to know God's
mind in his decrees, but to make the vision of them to John, and to execute
and fulfil them in their times. It is an allusion to those who take a com-
Chap. II.] an exposition of tue kevelation. 9
mission, who do it, not only to look on it, but to fulfil it. It is a commission
sealed, so that this proclamation is in effect thus : — ' Who is able to be God's
commissioner, to take this book, and make the visions to John, and in their
times to produce and execute them?' And this appears from chap. vi. 1,
' And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it
were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.'
Still as the seals are opened by the Lamb, there is a vision made to John of
what shall be done. Therefore the Lamb is presented, not simply as one
that should take the book, but as one that hath eyes and horns — eyes of
providence, and horns of power to execute. And this agrees with Gen.
xlix. 9, 10, where Judah is made a type of Christ, and called a lion's whelp,
and a sceptre, and a lawgiver, to take God's laws from him, and execute
them ; for in that respect it is that Judah is called a lawgiver in the place
above cited, not in respect of making or giving laws, but in respect of exe-
cutive power to see God's laws kept. So Christ here takes this book as to
deliver it to us, to execute the decrees of it.
Ver. 4c, And I wept inuch. — His despairing put him upon weeping; he
■was called up to heaven to see visions, but meets with a stop. This was to
set off the mercy, to try his heart, and to render his joy greater.
Obs. — God in greatest mercies may make greatest stops; he may so bring
to despair that no hope shall be seen, yet at length shew himself in mercy.
So to John here. So likewise in the first work of conversion many times ;
and so in other great works. John was called to see visions, yet a stop and
pause was in his view made.
Use. — Here John is comforted, first, by a stander-by, endeavouring to
uphold his heart ; and, secondly, by the sight of the Lamb, ver. 6.
Observe here the degrees God useth to comfort his people by ; first, let-
ting fall something giving hopes of Christ, so to draw the soul patiently to
wait ; then, secondly, shewing it Christ himself God might have at first
shewed John the Lamb, but he first comforts him by a stander-by, (as Job
first heard by the hearing of the ear,) and then his eye saw the Lamb.
Christ, the only opener of this book and giver of this prophecy, is diversely
expressed : —
1. He is called * the root of David,' out of Isa. xi. 10. Christ put this
riddle to the Pharisees, How David could call him Lord, if he were his son ?
So here it may be asked, How could he be called the root of David, if he
were the son of David, and so a branch of that root 1 The truth is, he is the
root of David, and of all the saints. He was the root of his ancestors, and
the father of his mother. The root of any family is in Scripture put for the
eldest son in it, who is as the root of the rest. So, Isa. xiv. 30, ' I will kill
thy root with famine ;' that is, thy first-born, the root of thy house ; for in
opposition he says, ' and the first-born of the poor shall be fed.' So Mai.
iv. 1. Therefore, in that Christ is called the root of David, is meant, that he
is the first-born among aU his brethren, as he is called in Kom. viii. 29. And
Ps. Lxxxix. 27, so God calls David in the type, but intends Christ thereby,
when he says, ' I will make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the
earth ;' and, ver. 29, ' His seed shall endure for ever.' In this is Christ the
root of David, that he is the first-born of every creature ; of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named.
2. He is called the ' Hon of the tribe of Judah ;' and this in a manifest
allusion to the prophecy in Gen. xlix. 10, wherein Judah, as this place
shews, is made a type of Christ. And it warrants the application of all
there unto Christ. Now Judah was called a lion —
10 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PauT I.
(1.) Because out of Judah came all the worthies and Uon-like men, as
Joshua,* Othniel, and David, who were all shadows of Christ ; therefore, Gen.
xlix. 9, he is called an old lion, as the word is, a courageous, hearty Lion.
So, 2 Sam. xviL 10, valiant men are said to have hearts like Uons. Such
was Christ, who durst ' engage his heart to draw near to God,' Jer. xxx. 21.
(2.) Judah had the kingdom, whereof a lion is the emblem ; therefore
sceptre and lawgiver are attributed to him, ver. 10. So that it is as much
as to say, Christ, the king by inheritance, as Judah was, shall overcome.
(3.) Judah did take the prey, the land ; it was done by Judah's worthies,
Joshua, Caleb, &c. And when, as a lion, they had taken that prey, they
couched and had rest, as in Solomon's days, 1 Kings iv. 21 ; which was also
prophesied of. Num. xxiii 24, ' Behold, the people shaU rise up as a great
lion, and shall not lie down tiU they have eaten the prey.' And, Gen. xlix.
9, ' He couched as an old Hon; who shall raise him up ?' So Christ, when
he had led captivity captive, sits down quietly in heaven, as it were, couch-
ing and lying in wait, especially till the day of judgment, and till before, when
he shall see an opportunity to avenge the enemies to his church, when he
will appear as an old lion, who, being roused, suddenly leaps on the prey ;
especially in the latter days, when ' the gatherings of the people shall be unto
him,' as the context is, then shall his kingdom be as of a * lion among beasts,'
;Mic. v. 8, where the prophet speaks of Christ's kingdom and conquest in
the calling of the Jews, as he had done of Christ's birth, ver. 2. Now that
kingdom is the scope of this book.
Ver. 6, And in the raidst of the elders stood a Lamb as it had been slain,
<fec. — John had heard of Christ as a lion, but he sees him as a lamb. So
many a poor soul is afraid of him, till it comes to see him, and be acquainted
with him. But he in the end will be found to be a lamb, and a lamb that
hath seven eyes to run to and fro through the earth for the good of his
saints ; and seven horns, not to hurt them, but to defend them, and to butt
his and their enemies. Therefore let not your thoughts of Christ be aU as
of a lion ; for though he hath the courage and-strength of a lion, yet he hath
the meekness of a lamb too unto you; who, therefore, have cause to won-
der at and praise this mixture in him. Christ is called a lamb in allusion
to the sacrifices of the old law, which were most commonly of lambs ; two
lambs a day. Num. xxviii. 3. Here he was to be represented as a priest ; as
before, in being called a lion, he was presented as a king. And therefore it
follows, * as it had been slain.'
This Lamb ' stood in the midst of the throne,' nearer than the four beasts
who stood between the throne and the elders ; and this, for that he is the
Mediator between his church and God.
As it had been slain. — That is —
1. As if he were newly slain, his blood perpetually remaining fresh, as if
he had been slain but yesterday, Heb. ix.
2. But as slain, to shew that he doth not remain slain and dead, but is
alive. So, chap. i. 18, ' I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I
am alive for evermore.'
Stood a Lamb. — Standing imports a readiness to afford help. When Ste-
phen died, he saw Christ standing at God's right hand, as ready to receive
Mm. It also shews his readiness to intercede.
Having seven horns. — Horns are put for power, ■ndth which to push. So,
chap. xvii. 12, ' and the ten horns are ten longs.' So by seven horns here is
* It is strange that Joshua should be repeatedly mentioned as of the tribe of Judah,
whereas he was of the tribe of Ephraim. — Ed.
ClIAP. II.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVELATION. 1 1
meant all kingly power. Seven is a number of perfection ; and it shews
that Christ hath power to open the seven seals. And as there are seven
trumpets and seven vials, so Christ hath seven horns ; that is, power to fulfil
all these. Antichrist riseth like Christ, and comes with power, Ilev. xiiL 12.
But what discovers him 1 He hath but two horns ; the church needs not
fear him. The Lamb hath seven horns to vindicate himself of his enemies.
Fear not kings neither, though they be ten ; Christ is King of kings. And
fear not the devil, who is as a roaring lion ; for Christ, the lion of the tribe
of Judah, is stronger than he, and wiU bind him sure enough for hurting of
thee.
And seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all tlie
earth. — The Spirit, not in his personal subsistence, is here meant, but in his
instrumental working by gifts and providence, and so is called seven spirits
before, in chap. iv. 5 ; which seven spirits before the throne are gifts in the
church which are from Christ, for he is the fountain of spiritual gifts, and
hath the Spirit without measure. But here, by the seven spirits in Christ
are not meant gifts poured out, but eyes of providence sent into the earth,
by which he knows and sees all things; which alludes to that in Zech. iv. 10,
' For who hath despised the day of small things 1 for they shall rejoice, and
shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven ; they are
the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth ;' and
implies the perfection of the knowledge and providence of Christ, to order all
affairs on earth for his church's good, as in 2 Chron, xvi. 9 ; and in Zecha-
riah, before quoted, he ordered the affairs of the Persian monarchy for the
building of his church. Christ, as man, hath eyes as well as horns, to dis-
cern and guide all things here below. His human nature is the instrument
of all God's power ; all goes through his hands ; and all the works of God's
providence go through his view : he knows whatsoever is done in the whole
■world. But why should Christ be presented here in this chapter under these
notions of a Hon of Judah's tribe, and a lamb, and the root of David, rather
than any other 1
1. In that he speaks in the language of the Old Testament, and of John
the Baptist, who was under the Old Testament ; for Christ is everywhere
spoken of throughout the volume of that book, as appears by Luke xxiv. 27
where it is said that Christ, ' beginning at Moses, and aU the prophets, did
expound unto them the things concerning himself.' Now Moses called hini
' a Hon,' Gen. xhx. 9 ; Isaiah called him ' a lamb,' chap. liiL 7, and ' the
root of David,' chap. xi. 10; and then John Baptist called him 'the Lamb
of God, which bears the sins of the world.' Wherefore, as all other things
in this book are set forth in allusions to the Old Testament, so these de-
scriptions of Christ also.
2. He gives Christ these titles in relation to the work of redemption, of
which mention is made, ver. 9.
Now to that two things are required : —
(1.) A price to be paid to God; and so as a lamb he hath * redeemed us
to God by his blood,' ver. 9.
(2.) Power to deliver us out of the hands of our enemies ; and so he is a
Hon that overcomes.
3. It hath relation especially to the opening of this book, and executing
the affairs contained in it, and so those titles are most proper; for —
(1.) He needed to die for it, and so is presented as ' a lamb slain.' For
that very price that salvation did cost, the same must each revelation to us
cost also. And his being ^simply the Son of God, and so knowing the
12 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT L
counsels of God written in his decrees, was not enough for him to make
them known to us ; but to reveal this counsel, as in a book to be opened to
us, he must needs die, our sins otherwise hindering it. Hence it is said,
ver. 9, ' Thou art worthy to open the book, for thou wast slain,' &c. So
therefore, as a lamb, he is said to take sin away, that hindered the revelation
of it to us.
(2.) As a lion he needed courage to encounter God's wrath ; and by
breaking through a consuming fire, to approach his throne, and take the
book. ' Who is this that hath engaged his heart to draw near unto me ? '
Jer. XXX. 31. No angel durst have presumed to come so near God.
(3.) As a lion he needed to overcome death, and rise to execute the con-
tents of this book. They say that a lion sleeps the first three days after he
is brought forth, but then being roused by the roaring of the old lion, he,
after that, sleeps the least of any creature. So did Christ rise by the power
of his Father, to sleep no more.
4. Being risen, he is set forth —
(1.) As a lion of Judah ; for that in that prophecy, Gen. xlix. 49, as also,
Ps. Ix. 7, Judah, in respect of his kingly office, is called God's lawgiver ; not
simply in respect of giving the laws, — that Moses, of the tribe of Levi, did,
— but because Judah executed them. Now, in that Christ did here take
the book of God's decrees, and undertook to execute and fulfil them as God's
commissioner, therefore he is in this respect most properly here called the
' lion of the tribe of Judah.'
(2.) He is here set forth as ' a lamb having seven horns, and as many
eyes;' and this, in as fit and proper a respect as might be, to signify his being
one not only fit to give this prophecy, but to effect the things contained in
it by his horns and eyes. And he is said to have seven horns and seven
eyes, to shew his full power to open the seven seals, and to blow the seven
trumpets, and to pour out the seven vials. He is such a prophet as never
was, in that he not only makes a bare revelation of things, but brings them
to pass, and makes them good. God gave him the platform of occurrences •
to come, and power and wisdom to order the accomplishment of them. He
is also set forth both as a lamb and a lion to shew his priestly and kingly
office j and how, by virtue of both, he makes us kings and priests, as they
sing, ver. 10 ; and having his kingdom in their eye, they are confirmed in the
promise of it by a remembrance of him as a lamb and a lion, thus strong
and powerful. As a lamb, he purchaseth the revelation of what concerns his
church ; and as a lamb with horns and eyes, he effects the accomplishment of
it. And the scope and sum of this book being to shew how Christ rules the
world and his church, till he hath put down all rule, and how he then takes
the kingdom himself; therefore he is described as a lamb, in respect of his
quiet governing the affairs of the world and the church, until that his king-
dom, which then, as a lion, by open force he assumes, and rescues the
church, as a prey, out of the enemies' jaws, and that by the right of a pro-
mised succession from Judah and David ; for which cause those titles of the
' root of David' and ' lion of Judah' do here come in.
1. In a word, this title of his being the root of David shews his right to
that kingdom which he is to receive, of which David and his kingdom was
but the type,
2. His being called a lamb slain is to shew both a right and title to that
kingdom, and also the price by which he purchased it, even his own blood.
3. His being a lion is to shew the power by which he conquers, obtains,
and pjJMesses it; therefore this heavenly chorus, or company, here, when
CUAP. II.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVELATION. 13
they once see Christ, by taking the book, to undertake the accomplishment
of this prophecy, (the conclusion of which is his instalment into his king-
dom,) they, in the joy and faith of it, shout out beforehand, saying, ' We
shall reign on the earth ; ' as looking on all that was to forego his kingdom,
and to come between this vision and his kingdom to come, all as already
done, and having this kingdom chiefly in their eye which should come.
Now from the 8th verse to the end of the chapter is a doxology, or a giv-
ing praise for the Lamb's taking the book ; which song consists of four parts,
or was sung by four companies : as —
1. Four-ancl-twenty elders and four beasts — the church of men upon
earth. They begin and raise the song : ver, 8, ' And when he had taken the
book, the four beasts and four-and-twenty elders fell down before the Lamb,
having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are
the prayers of saints.'
2. The angels join their voices : ver. 11, 'And I beheld, and I heard the
voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders ;
and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands
of thousands.'
3. The creatures come in also : ver. 13, ' And every creature which is in
heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea,
and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, honour, glory, and power,
be unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.'
4. The beasts close all, saying Amen : ver. 14, 'And the four beasts said,
Amen. And the four-and-twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that
liveth for ever and ever,'
Obs. — Observe in the general, That the sons of men are the eminentest
praisers of God; they are the leaders in this heavenly choir, and they con-
clude the song. The reason of which is, in that the highest work that God
ever did is the work of redemption, which concerns us, not the angels ; for
which, notwithstanding, the angels praise him, in Luke ii, as also here : yea,
aU the creatures rejoice in our redemption, ver. 13. But still we are the
first-fruits, we are the leaders in the song, whom the angels follow. It is
not said by them, ' Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood ; ' that con-
cerns us, though they sing praise too.
Use 1. — Learn we from hence to bless God for his mercy and goodness to
others. We see the angels do so for us, who yet cannot sing as we, with an
interest, and yet they praise God for our redemption; and this is their
highest grace.
Use 2. — Learn we to bless God in a sense of our interest. That will
raise our hearts a degree higher, as it was with the church of men in their
song here, ver. 9, 10.
Ver. 8. — The praisers, who were of the sons of men, are described, (1.) as
having harps ; (2.) golden vials : in allusion to the Levitical service in the
temple, where tliey had musical instruments, and incense in bowls or vials,
which, Zech. xiv. 20, are caUed ' the bowls of the altar.' Not that musical
instruments are to be in the worship of God now, neither incense : which, as
it was the type of prayer and praises, Ps. cxli. 2, ' Let my prayer come up
before thee as incense ; ' so those harps were of that ' spiritual melody,' as
the Apostle calls it, which we make in our hearts to God, even of ' spiritual
songs,' Eph. V. 19. Therefore John himself interprets the odours or incense
here to be the prayers of the saints. And their hearts are the golden vials,
ha\dng faith purer than gold, as Peter speaks, which is the spring of all their
prayers, and their harps also are their hearts; corda and choi^dcB are near akin.
14 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
And every one is said to have harps ; for in public worship all should
join. The little strings go to make up a concert, as well as the great.
Though thou hast but little grace, yet God's worship would not be com-
plete without thee. And whereas John calls these odours the prayers of
the saints, it makes nothing for what the Papists would hence collect, —
namely, that the saints in heaven offer up the prayers of the saints on earth.
For—
1. This company are, as we said before, the church of men on earth.
2. These here offer not the prayers of others, but their own ; for both
themselves make the song, and that a new one ; and also the benefit they
praise God for in it is their own, ' Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy
blood.' Those words, therefore, ' the prayers of the saints,' are but the in-
terpretation which John adds ; and do imply only this, that these were saints,
and their odours were their prayers.
Ver. 9, And they sung a new song. — 1. You shall find, in the Psalms, that
when David had a new occasion, in a further degree, to praise God, he says,
'I will sing a new song;' now here there was a 'new occasion given.
2. It is called new in opposition to the old song under the old testa-
ment ; as, John xiii. 34, 'I give you a new commandment;' that is, of the
gospel, called new, in opposition to the commandments of the old law. In
the 4th chapter of this book, these elders had sung a song for the work of
creation, ver. 1 1 ; but here they sing for the work of redemption, as ver. 9,
which is the eminent work of the new testament, as creation was of the
old ; and therefore it is called a new song.
3. There is a more special reason why they should sing a new song, for
that the New Jerusalem was in their eye : Christ's kingdom and their king-
dom (we shall reign on earth) ; there ' all things shall be made new.' And
therefore their song is now a new song for the instalment of their new king.
Thus, Ps. xcvi. 1, which is a psalm of this kingdom of Christ, as appears
by ver. 10-13, doth therefore begin with these words, 'O sing unto the
Lord a new song.'
Use 1. — Learn we from hence to frame new matter of praise, and to have
fresh affections upon every new occasion.
Use 2. — We are to bless God, both for our creation and our redemption,
and to take in the mention of old blessings when we give thanks for new.
As a good scribe is said to bring forth of his treasure new things and old,
so in thanksgiving we are to smg the old song and the new.
The matter of the song is praise to the Lamb ; where we have —
First, The person praised, the Lamb, ' Thou art worthy,' spoken in answer
to the proclamation before made : ' Who is worthy 1 ' Thou, and thou alone ;
for ' by him, and for him, are all things,' Col. i. 1 6.
Secondly, The things for which they praise him ; as —
1. For his death, that he died to redeem them.
2. For his resurrection, intimated in this, ' Thou wast slain,' the one mak-
ing us priests, the other kings; as follows. Rev. v. 10. ' And to this end
Christ died and rose, that he might be Lord and King,' Rom. xiv. 9,
The word here which is translated redeemed is Tijooccsac, bouglit, in the
original. ' For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood,
out of every kindred, and people, and tongue, and nation,' Rev. v. 9. From
hence observe —
Obs. 1. — That the blood of Christ was paid as a price to God for the pur-
chasing of our redemption. So, 1 Cor. vi 20, * bought with a price.' And
in 1 Tim. ii. 6, it is called a ransom.
Chap. II.] an exposition of the revelation. 15
Ohs. 2. — Yet Christ hath not redeemed all men ; for it is not eveiy nation
and people, but out of every nation, the elect only.
Obs. 3. — In that they say, Christ is * worthy to receive the book,' because
' he was slain,' it argues, this book of tlie Kevelation is a special fruit of
his death, and so should be the more prized by us. Before Christ's death,
we have his own word for it that he knew not when the day of judgment
should be ; but now, since he was slain he doth, for he is pronounced worthy
to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, ver. 9.
Ver. 10, And hast made us unto our God kings and pHests, and we shall
reign on the earth. — Christ was before set forth as a Hon, for a king ; so as
a lamb, for a priest. And both were mentioned, to shew the ground of our
being both kings and priests : ' We shall reign on earth.'
From hence observe —
1. That this comforted the saints of old, even the consideration of Christ's
kingdom on earth. And how peremptory are they ! ' We shall reign.' They
mention that, because that is the end and scope of the Eevelation, and the
conclusion of this book, when the seals are off, and the contents of the book
accompUshed ; and therefore they have that in their eye. And seeing Christ
undertakes the accomplishment of aU, whereof this is the issue, they are
confirmed in the faith of it.
2. That this kingdom of Christ on earth to come is a far more glorious
condition for the saints than what their souls have now in heaven ; for these
here overlook that condition which yet they were to run through, and their
thoughts fly to this for comfort, ' We shall reign on earth.'
Ver. 11. — In the 11th verse comes in the other company of angels, and
their song; who —
1 . For their number, are ' ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands
of thousands.' So likewise, Dan. vii. 10, where the same throne and king-
dom of Christ is prophesied of, there is the same number of his guard of
angels mentioned : ' A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him :
thousand thousands ministered unto hiin, and ten thousand times ten thou-
sand stood before him : the judgment was set, and the books were opened.'
Observe from hence, that God hath another world of rational creatures
which we see not. And what a story then will the latter day produce !
And what need we fear when there are so many for us, as EHsha said to his
servant, 2 Kings vi. 16, for they are aU our guardians too 1
2. For their station; they are behind the elders, yet 'round about the
throne,' having all in a ring as it were. These are the guard of the * queen
of heaven,' ' the Lamb's wife,' the church. So, Ps. xxxiv. 7, * The angels of
the Lord encompass round about them that fear him.' And, Heb. i. 14, it is
said, ' They are sent out to minister ' for the good of the saints.
Ver. 1 2. — The song follows in the next verse : ' Worthy is the Lamb that
was slain, to receive power,' &c. Here observe —
1. That Christ, though he were worthy by inheritance, yet he was worthy
oy purchase also ; so the words ' that was slain ' do imply.
2. As he hath seven horns and seven eyes, so he hath a seven-fold praise.
3. To express their strong desires to give him sufficient praises, and such
as were due unto him, they heap up many good things, of which they pro-
nounce him worthy.
4. None is worthy to be the king of all the world but only Jesus Christ.
And indeed it were too much for any creature. The angels themselves were
top-heavy of their glory, which made them reel out of heaven ; but Christ
hath the Godhead to poise him. No beast is naturally a king of beasts but
16 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaET I.
the lion, says the philosopher; neither is any worthy to be king of all crea-
tures but this lion of the tribe of Judah.
The things they attribute to him are —
1. Power; that is, authority over alL So says Christ, John xvii 2, *To
me all power is given.'
2. Riches; that is, possession of all creatures. 'All things are Christ's,
and so ours,' 1 Cor. iii. 21. Riches of glory, knowledge, aU are his.
3. Strength, joined to his authority. He is able to work anything ; not
as other kings, who though they have authority, have yet no more personal
strength than other men ; but Christ hath seven horns too.
4. Wisdom; and this as large as his power and dominions. He knows
all that God means to do ; and sees all with his own eyes, not with other
men's, as other kings do.
5. Honour; that respects what aU creatures bring in to him. They all
adore, and bow the knee to him, Phil. ii. 10.
6. Glory ; both in his personal excellencies, and also what his Father
gives him. He sits at God's right hand, and governs with him ; and in his
person is the brightness of his Father's glory ; and especially shall be made
manifest when he shall come to judge the world.
7. Blessing ; which respects that glory which, for his special goodness to
them, his saints do give him. Others, yea, even the devils, do give honour
to Christ, but not blessing. That the saints only give ; for that respects in
God the communication of goodness. They only bless him whom he bless-
eth first. Take notice therefore, that Christ hath all desirable excellencies
in him ; power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory, and blessing.
Ver. 13, And every creature. — Every creature in its kind shall worship
Christ, PhU. ii. 10, 11. Every creature comes in here, because when Christ's
kingdom is set up, they shall be renewed, Ptom. viii. 21, and be delivered
* into a glorious liberty.'
The church of men began the song, and these continue it; for it is the
mercy to them is the matter of their song, and the instauration of their
king. And therefore we are the more to be stirred up to do it, in that we
see even aU the creatures do it, whom it doth not so much concern.
Ver. 14, And the four beasts said, Amen. — And with them the elders
join. Observe that the officers do both begin and end.
Amen. — It seems to be an ordinance that this word should be used in
the close ; and that first by the officers, and then by the people. A prece-
dent for the practice of this you have Hkewise in 1 Cor. xiv. 1 6, * Else when
thou shalt bless with the Spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of
the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth
not what thou say est 1 *
Chap. IIL] an exposition of the eevelation. 17
CHAPTER m.
The scheme and division of the whole prophecy, from the beginning of the
6ih chapter.
The stage being set, chap, iv., and the prologue acted, chap, v., the prophecy
itself begins, in several scenes and visions, chap. vi. But ere I can proceed
to tell you what the six first seals of the 6th chapter, or any vision else, doth
concern, I must necessarily give you the argument and the division of the
whole book ; which will afford a better prospect, and a more delectable view,
than that of the glory of all the kingdoms of this world, although that was
made once in the twinkling of an eye ; for what can be more pleasant than
to have an insight, though but a general one, into what is God's design and
project upon the world, in which the church is seated, and the condition of
the church itself, in the world, since Christ's ascension? Now this you
have as artificially, and in as many scenes in this book presented, as ever
was story in any poem.
Now for a general insight into this prophecy, which may serve both as a
compass and a chart to us, in sailing over this sea, that we may know still
where we are, I premise these general propositions or assertions concerning
the whole prophecy : —
Prop. I. — That this ensuing prophecy, from the beginning of chap. vi. to
the end of the book, contains two prophecies, distinct each from other. That
book mentioned chap. v. is brought in to represent this prophecy of the
Revelation, as was shewed, to be given to the church, and executed by Christ,
the Lamb and Lion of Judah.
Now in that book two things are distinctly to be considered, as given
with that book : —
L The seals on the back-side of the book.
2. The contents of the book itself. Now —
\. As the book contains matter of prophecy, so do the very seals
also. And accordingly the visions of those seals do take up the 6th, 7 th,
8th, and 9th chapters. Both books and seals are mysterious, and do con-
tain matter of prophecy. The very back-side and cover of this book of
God is prophetical. This book is all composed of prophecies; and the use
of the seals is not simply to shew that the matter of this book was difficult
to be known, as in Scripture phrase a sealed book imports ; but, besides,
they serve to contain a matter of vision to be delivered.
2. Add to this, that answerably, ver. 2. of chap, v., in revealing and de«
livering this prophecy, two difficulties are distinctly mentioned : —
(1.) The loosing of the seals. (2.) The opening of the book.
Now if the seals only did import the difficulty of this book, it would not
have been made a new difficulty to open the book. But it is expressly made
a distinct difficulty to open the book after the seals are loosened. This
VOL. IIL B
18 AN KXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT L
therefore was, because to loosen the seals, was to deliver one prophecy; and
to open the book when these seals were loosened, was to deliver another.
3. Accordingly, in the Gth chapter, when the Lamb opens the first seal,
a vision is seen, and therein a prophecy delivered ; so when the second is
opened, there is mentioned another; and when the third, a third vision; and
so on in that chapter. And the seventh seal produceth seven angels with
seven trumpets ; six of which are recounted from chap. viiL to chap, x., and
the seventh trumpet is in the end of the 11th chapter.
In the second place, when these seals are, the one of them after the other,
taken off, and the prophecy and \isions of those seals seen and ended, then an
angel comes with a ' little book ' — alone, without seals — ' open,' chaj). x. 2,
as containing a new prophecy for John. Now when that this first of the
seals was past, then accordingly John was bidden to eat it, ver. 9, 10, to be
enabled for a new prophecy. So, ver. 1 1 , it is expressly said, * Thou must
prophesy again before many tongues and kings.' And because a new
prophecy was upon the eating of that book to begin, hence, ver. 8, it is said,
' The same voice which he had heard before did speak from heaven again.'
Xow that voice, or speech, he had heard but twice before, and it was both
times whenas a new prophecy was given ; once when the Revelation first
began, and the epistles to the seven churches, chap. i. 10. And then
another time, when this general prophecy begins, chap. iv. 1, which is dis-
tinct from that prophecy of the seven epistles in the thiee first chapters,
which is peculiar to the seven churches. And now again, chap. x. 8, as
beginning a new and third prophecy.
Ohs. — In that the seals themselves do thus contain a prophecy, observe,
That in God's book nothing is without a meaning. Christ said, * Not a tittle
of it shall pass ; ' let it not therefore pass us. The very cover here is pro-
phetical ; much more does every word written in it contain matter of
instruction. Search the Scriptures narrowly, and slight not a tittle of them,
though you understand them not. There is enough in what you understand,
to admire ; and in what jo\x understand not, to adore ; as judging it the
word of the great God, every syllable of which has its weight and value.
Prop. II. — That both these prophecies, both seal and book-prophecy, do
run over the same whole course of times, from Christ's ascension unto his
kingdom ; containing in them several events and occurrences successively,
from that time to this of his kingdom, with which this book ends : namely,
the seal- prophecy, from chap. vi. to chap, xii., doth act over one story of all
times, to the end of time ; and then the book-firophecy, from chap, xii.,
beginning at the same time again, doth act over another story of aU the
same times, unto the end. So that the same whole race of time is run
over in both, but with several and distinct occm'reuces ; even as the two
books of the Kings and Chronicles do contain the stories of the same course
of time from David unto the captivity. But the book of the Kings handles
most the affairs of the kings of Israel; and that of the Chronicles more
eminently holds forth the story of the kuigs of JudaL
Now to demonstrate this apart ; first of the seal-prophecy, and then of
the book-prophecy : —
1. For the seal-prophecy ; lay but these three things together, (whereof
the two first were never denied by any,) and the point in hand wiU neces-
sarily follow : —
(1.) That in the Gth chapter the six seals do begin; with a prophecy,
either from John's time or from Christ's. To prove this, besides those
evidences which, when we come to interpret them, will more evidently
Chap. III.] an exposition of the revelation. 19
appear, as that the first seal begins with Christ's going forth in preaching
the gospel, so to lay the first foundation of his kingdom ; wliich going forth
refers to those primitive times. As also that in the fifth seal, you have the
first mention of the bloody persecution of the saints, professing the gospel,
in the same primitive times ; which appears by tliis, that they are told that
when the rest of their brethren, by the succeeding persecutions, should be
killed, they then should have vengeance upon their enemies for their blood
spilt ; which argues these in the 6th chapter to be those first persecutions.
Besides these evidences, I say, it appears more generally, because the pro-
phecy itself docs but here begin, all in the former chapters being but a pro-
logue and a preparation. And it begins with John's time at least ; for,
chap. i. 1, he says, he was to shew to Christ's servants things which should
shortly come to pass : the things contained in this prophecy entering into
an accomplishment presently upon John's writing them, and divulging them
to the churches.
(2.) The second thing, which also none ever denied, is, that these seals
and trumpets, which do in order succeed one another, do contain a continued
prophecy of events following one another in a succession of ages downward.
To this purpose you may observe the phrase used, chap. x. 7, ' In the days
of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound,' which im*
ports that these several trumpets do, as scenes in a comedy, share among
them the several ages and times succeeding one another. And m like man-
ner the seals have their days, even as the rest of the trumpets have their
days proper, and peculiarly given to them. And look how in order they are
placed, one before the other, as first, second, and third, &c., so do the seve-
ral times or ages precede or succeed one the other : so as the days of the
first seal are the first age, and things done in that age after John, and so on
the second seal, &c.
(3.) Add to the two former this consideration, that the seventh trumpet,
in the 1 1th chapter, doth end aU time, and so becomes a period to one dis-
tinct prophecy of all time. This appears from chap. x. After the seals were
passed over and seen with their efi'ects, and the six trumpets had sounded in
the 8th and 9th chapters foregoing, the angel swears, ver. 6, 7 of that 10th
chapter, that ' time should be no longer ; ' but ' in the days of the seventh
trumpet,' all should be finished. And therefore, chap, xi., from ver. 15, —
where the seventh trumpet is brought in sounding in its order, when his day
and turn comes to sound, — must needs be esteemed the end of that pro-
phecy : for it brings you to the end of aU times ; that is, of the times which
God thought fit to allot this world, and his enemies in the world, to rule
and reign. First, the monarch s and great men of the world are to have
their time here, and then Christ's time, and the time of his saints, is to be-
gin ; as, ver. 15, 'The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of
our Lord, and of his Christ,' &c. ; and, ver. 18, 'The time of the dead ia
come, that they should be judged.' When this world's hour-glass is run out,
then that of another world is to be turned up to run, when there shall be a
new heaven and a new earth. So that, from the first seal to the seventh
trumpet, is run over all the time that the monarchies and kingdoms of this
world, whilst they should be in the hands of Christ's enemies, should con-
tinue and last. For that is the time which, towards the end, under the
sixth trumpet, the angel that came down under that sixth trumpet sware
'should be no longer.' I shall set down the words of his oath : in the 6th
and 7th verses of that 10th chapter, he 'sweareth by him that liveth for
ever and ever,' — that is, by God, — 'who created the heaven, the earth, and
20 AN EXPOSITION OP THE REVELATION. [PaRT T.
the sea,' and the things that are in all these his three dominions, * that
there should be time no longer : but in the days of the seventh angel,
when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he
hath declared to his servants the prophets.'
Which whole voice, or words, of the sixth angel do import, (1.) That much
of that whole time had now been passed and run out already in the former
visions of the seals and trumpets, from the first until now. And, (2.) That
now the time allotted by God was brought well-nigh to the very last sands of
it. And that the church might have some warning, and be able to make some
guess, and compute when this time of the world's monarchy, or kingdoms of
the world, should have an end ; and so, when the time of the Gentiles should
be fulfilled and be no longer ; this angel doth, towards the expiration of that
whole time, give us, in the 11th chapter, the true computation of that time,
during which the last monarchy — you know there are four — on earth should
endure, as that which might serve us to compute the period of the whole, and
the beginning of Christ's visible kingdom, even the days of the beast, or Pope,
who is the last part, with his ten kingdoms of Europe, treading down the
church, or holy city ; which beast, and his kingdoms supporting him as their
head, and whose time, from his first beginning to the near approach of that
seventh trumpet, which shall begin to sound not long after, or but a little
before his very end, is forty and two months, or, which is all one, one thou-
sand two hundred and threescore days ; that is, so many years. And with
him all other rule and dominion on earth shall end ; and Christ shall take
the kingdom, when he shall have destroyed Antichrist through the bright-
ness of his coming, which will grow brighter as his coming is nearer. And
withal, this angel gives a signal of occurrences which should immediately
forerun the period of this time of his ruin, whereby the church might with
some nearness discern his approaching ruin; which he does, in that 11th
chapter, by presenting the face of that church, which shall be before the
downfall of that kingdom, and the last persecution of the church by the
beast, foregoing his ruin, that so the church might have both warning, and
not think it strange at the fiery trial which at last was to come upon them ;
as also to be comforted, for it should be the last ; and soon after it, the end-
ing of all time, together with that of the world's kingdoms.
2. The second part of the foresaid general proposition, viz.. That there is a
new prophecy that runs over the same whole race of time, from the begin-
ning to the end of the world's monarchies, unto Christ's kingdom, beginning
at chap, xii., and so on to the end of the book.
Now then, the prophecy of the seals, which runs over the whole time of
the world's monarchies, being thus ended, chap, xi., there begins another
prophecy at chap, xii., which runs over the same whole race and period of
times, though with other occurrences. And this is the other part of this
general proposition, which I demonstrate thus, as I did the former : —
First, The 12th chapter begins a new prophecy, not only because that the
other having ended all time, this must needs begin again anew ; but further,
the vision of the woman and the dragon in the 1 2th chapter must needs be of
things foregoing the rise of Antichrist, — the beast in chap, xiii., — and there-
fore concerneth the primitive times, which were the times before Antichrist.
This is proved thus. The dragon mentioned chap, xii., endeavouring to de-
vour the woman, is cast down from heaven ; after which, striving to drown
her with a flood, he is prevented ; and then John, standing, as the best copies
read it, upon the sand of the sea, spies this new beast arising, and the dragon
gives his throne and power unto him, chap. xiiL All this, therefore, wMch
Chap. III.] an exposition op the revelation. 21
is in the 12th chapter, must necessarily contain a story of things done before
the rising of Antichrist, and so by consequence must belong to the primitive
times, as the particular interpretation will make more clear.
Secondly, Add to this, that unto this beast, from his first rising in the 1 3th
chapter, there is allowed him to continue forty-two months, or 12G0 years,
which is the very same period of time upon the expiring of which the seventh
trumpet begins, which, as you heard, had ended all time before, chap. xi. 15 ;
and then the 14th chapter, which follows, contains the state of the church
during the times of the beast, in their separation from him and opposition of
him. And then, chap. xv. and chap. xvi. contain seven vials to ruin this beast ;
whereof the last doth end all time again, even as the seventh trumpet had
done. And this is proved —
1. In that, as when the seventh trumpet should sound, the angel sware
* time should be no longer : ' so when the seventh vial is poured out, chap,
xvi. 17, a voice says, ' It is done ;' that is, time is at an end, all is finished.
2. It is said, chap. xv. 1, that these vials contain the last plagues, in which
the wrath of God is fulfilled, and therefore must necessarily make an end of
all Christ's enemies, and so of their rule ; and together with them, of all their
time. And —
3. The same things are said to be done in the pouring out the seventh
vial, which is the last of plagues, that are presented to be done at the sound-
ing of the seventh trumpet, which is the last of woes. Thus at the sounding
of the seventh trumpet, chap. xi. 10, there are said to be 'lightnings, voices,
thunderings, earthquakes, and a great hail ;' and so likewise upon the pour-
ing forth of the last vial, chap. xvi. 18, there were 'voices, and thunderings,
and lightnings, and an earthquake, such as never were on earth before ; and
80 great an hail, that every stone weighed a talent.'
Ohj. — But you will say, If there be an end of all when Christ's kingdom
comes, then what do the 17th, 18th, and 19th chapters contain, and to what
time wiU you refer them, seeing the description of the kingdom of Christ
begins but at the 20th chapter, an|^ so on ?
Ans. — The answer, in general, is, that they contain a larger explication or
vision of some eminent things that faU out under the time of some of these
vials. And therefore the 17 th chapter begins thus : ' One of the seven angels
which had the seven vials talked with me, and shewed me,' &c., as implying
that what follows belonged to their times.
But more particularly —
1. The 17 th chapter contains an interpretation of what was spoken con-
cerning the beast in chap, xui., and shews who that beast is. And as in the
prophecy of Daniel the manner of the Holy Ghost was to interpret the
visions there made, so here. And of the whore carried by the beast, he says
plainly, by way of explication, ver. 1 8, it is ' that great city that reigneth
over the kings of the earth,' namely, Eome. And it was necessary that the
Holy Ghost should give an interpretation of some things in this book ; and
of this especially, as being that which gives light to aU the rest, which
therefore fitly comes in after all.
2. The 18th chapter, and the 19th, to the 11th verse, doth contain a more
poetical description of the ruining of that city, the seat of this last monarchy ;
and therefore is but a more copious exphcation of the fifth vial, which,
chap. xvi. 10, is said to be poured out upon the seat of the beast ; together
with a triumphing song of the church's concerning those times, sung at the
whore's funeral, and for the approaching marriage of the Lamb. And this,
chap. xix. to ver. 11.
22 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaKT L
3. From thence to the 20tli chapter, is a more full description of that last
war of the beast, and all the kings of the earth, and their overthrow by
Christ : which is therefore all one with the last vial, and the preparation
thereunto, as none that shall read from the 13th verse of the IGth chapter
unto the end, and compare it with chap. xix. from ver. 1 1 to the end, will
be able to deny. For so it pleased the Holy Ghost, towards the latter end
of this prophecy, to give a more full explanation of the two more eminent
vials, and the times of them, after he had first, for method's sake, briefly
set them together, with the rest, in their order : as in like manner, after he
had compendiously set together in one chapter, chap, xx., the reign of Christ
during a thousand years, and the universal judgment that follows, he yet
spends the 21st chapter in a more copious and magnificent description of
the state of the new Jerusalem, and that kingdom of Chi'ist during those
thousand years.
Obj. — But then you will say. Unto what will you refer the 11th chapter,
from ver. 1 to ver. 15, which is placed, as it were, between both prophecies?
Ans. — I answer, as before, all that discourse delivered byword of Christ's
mouth, between the seal and the book-prophecy, doth belong unto both ; as
containing an exact chronology of that last period of the time of the world's
monarchies. By means of which we may easily compute how much that
whole time is that both the prophecies do run over, as shall be shewed in
the interpretation of that chapter. And withal, there is a signal given of
such eminent occurrences befalling the church, as should be most proper
and smtable signs of the dawning of Christ's kingdom shortly after to follow;
and so of the ending of the time of both proj^hecies. That as the old
Jerusalem, before it was destroyed, had signs given of its destruction immi-
nent; so hath the new Jerusalem also, before it is reared.
Now that these passages in the 11th chapter do belong thus unto both
prophecies, appears —
1. In that he speaks of matters contained, and afterwards mentioned in
the book-prophecy, chap, xiii., xvi : as likewise of matters mentioned in
the seal-prophecy ; namely, of the ending of the sound of the sixth trumpet;
which is declared in chap. xi. 14, and called ' the passing away of the second
woe.' And —
2. The angel therein mentions how and when the expirations of the
times of both prophecies do meet in the sixth trumpet of the seal-prophecy,
ending about the time of the date of the beast in the book-prophecy. And
thus to insert a chronological table, as it were, between both prophecies,
serving them both, and knitting together the times of both in one period;
how agreeable is it to the way of historians, who when they run over much
time and several matters, use to affix a table of times unto that their history ;
and so doth our historical prophet John in that 11th chapter.
Prop. III. — The third general proposition, or head, shall be an inquiry
into what is the matter or argument prophesied of in this whole book ; as
also, more particularly, what are the differing subjects of these two several
prophecies, the Seal and Boole- Prophecy.
I shall unfold and clear this by several steps and degrees in these proposi-
tions following : —
1. It is certain that the subject of both prophecies is the fates and
destinies of the kingdoms of the world which should be after Christ's
ascension, untU he take the kingdom to himself Therefore at the end or
conclusion of the seal and trumpet-prophecy, there is an acclamation that
the kingdoms of the world were then become Jesus Christ's, chap. xL 15, aa
Chap. III.] an exposition op the eevelation. 23
ha-ving all that while before been under other monarchs' hands, and of which
the former part of the prophecy had S2)okcn all along. And therefore he
says, * Time shall be no longer ; ' that is, for the kingdoms of the world,
(that is, not for their worldly kingdoms,) unto which he opposeth that of
Christ's. And therefore the book-prophecy also, wliich begins chap, xii,,
when it came to be first given, chap. x. 11, hath this prologue or preface
unto it, * Thou must prophesy again before kings and nations,' &c. : before
kings, that is, about kings, as the style of the prophet is; and that word
acfain implies his having prophesied about them before, in the seal-prophecy,
although other occurrences in them, and also his being to do it again in tlua
other prophecy following, in new occurrences that concerned the church.
2. The second proposition is, That the whole prophecy concerns only
such kingdoms or monarchies of the GentUes as had to do with the church
of Christ. For —
(1.) At the beginning of both prophecies, the church is made the stage or
scene upon which all is acted; and so the prophecies extend to no other
kingdoms than where the church hath been. And this you may observe
throughout both of them; as in the fifth seal, chap, vi., you have blessed
martyrs then calling for vengeance for their blood ; and under the trumpets,
which are miseries upon kingdoms, there are men sealed, as being servants
of God, scattered and mingled amongst those nations upon whom those
trumpets blow. And the like may be observed in the following chapter.
So that they extend but to such kingdoms or monarchies in the world
where the church in all ages still was ; therefore, not to the West Indians, nol
Tartarians, nor Chinese, nor East Indians, &c., where the church hath not
been, or not to any considerable purpose; not any of these kingdoms doth
this prophecy concern. This hkewise agrees with God's manner in the pro-
phets, who prophesied of such kingdoms only as had to deal with his church,
thereby to shew Christ's power in ruling kingdoms for his church's good.
(2.) This book being written for the comfort of his church, and all the
judgments therein mentioned coming out of the throne of the temple, which
is the church, and likewise upon the prayers of the church ; it containa
therefore the fates of such kingdoms as the church should have to do withaL
Now, if so, then —
3. The third step, or proposition, is this. That the Roman monarchy,
or empire, with the territories both in the east and west sea, which were
under its jurisdiction, (which empire when John wrote was in its height and
flourish, and with which the church had most to do, and in the jurisdiction
of which the church had always been chiefly, and in a manner only seated,)
must needs be, in the several revolutions and changes of it, the main subject
of this book of the Revelations, together with the state of the church under
it. Now this empire, and the dominions of it, was extended weU-nigh as
far for circuit as the dominions under the Turk in the east, and the teu
European kingdoms in the west. All which, in John's time, were whoUy
and solely under the emperor of Rome, And in this empire, and through-
out all the territories of it, did God place his church and gospel ; and
throughout aU which the Christian profession doth remain unto this day,
even in the east as well as in the west, though darkly and corruptly, and
in a manner here only. This empire therefore, with its dominions, is in the
New Testament called the world, even all the world, for the greatness of it ;
and because indeed this was the w^orld which God had set up to act his
great works upon. Thus, Luke ii. 1, 2, the whole world is said to have
been taxed by Augustus ; and, Acts xi. 28, there is foretold a famine that
24 AN KXPOSlTIOfJ OF THE REVELATION. [PaUT L
should rage throughout all the world, in the time of Claudius Caesar. And
this world was the line, as the Apostle's phrase is, beyond whose reach the
apostles' preachmg never stretched to any considerable purpose. This was
their chief auditory, as appears by Matt. xxiv. 14, where, before the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, foretold ver. 15, IG, as a sign forerunning it, it is said
the 'gospel should be preached to all the world;' that is, over all the domin-
ions of the Roman empire, as it was by the apostles before the ruming of it.
Now th.at this empire, and the territories under it, together with the church
in it, should be the main subject of this book, there are these reasons for it : —
(1.) Because, as hath been said, it is the chief, and in a manner only seat
of the church ; which was, and still is, extended so far, and no further.
And by the power of this empire, and the several successions of it, hath the
church been mainly oppressed in all ages. K therefore this book-prophecy
be of the church, then surely of the church under this empire ; and if of the
judgments upon any kingdoms for their oppression of the church, then
surely upon this, for the church's sake. And if the judgments which are in
this book, set out under seals, and trumpets, and vials, do come for the
church's sake, and be made to fall upon her chief enemies, then they must
eminently light upon this grand enemy, for such it hath been ; and so, this
prophecy must note out the judgments and wars that ruined the empire for
its persecuting the saints, who, chap, vi 10, do cry out for vengeance; and
the trumpets are the hearing of their prayers, chap. vui. 3.
(2.) The Eoman empire, and the successions of it east and west, was that
fourth and great monarchy that should oppress the earth, now only left,
when Christ ascended. ISTow, in the prophecies of the Old Testament, their
main subject was the great monarchy then in bemg, or presently to come.
So in Daniel, two or three chapters are chiefly taken up with the successions
of the Grecian monarchy, and then of the Roman. And Daniel foretold
that this Roman should be the most terrible of aU the rest. And therefore
surely God, in this prophecy of the New Testament, doth, according to his
manner in the Old, lay out the fates of that fourth monarchy now only left ;
as he had done of those others that were gone and past ere Christ ascended.
(3.) This must needs be so, especially seeing the scope of this book is the
instalment of Christ into his kingdom, and so to shew how, in the meantime,
he puts down all rule that keeps it from him, and takes it to himself; so
erecting a fifth monarchy, succeeding the other four. Now then, this Roman
monarchy, in the several successions of it in the east and west, being the
chiefest rule and power that was left on earth for Christ to put down, and
which his own kingdom was immediately to succeed, it is therefore fitly
made the subject of this book, to shew how he puts down the rule of it, and
preserves his church under it. And so it answers yet more fuUy unto the
like scope of Daniel's prophecy ; who being to proj^hesy of the kingdom
of Christ, chap. vii. 9, God doth first, on purpose, give him a vision of the
four monarchies that were to precede that of Christ ; and especially insist
on the fourth, namely this of Rome, ver. 7, as being that which Christ, after
his ascension, was to encounter with and put dowoi, ere himself take the
kingdom. And then he shews Daniel how Christ will ruin it, ver. 11, and
then take the kingdom to himself. So that this Revelation, which is the
prophecy of the New Testament, doth more largely and particularly set forth
that which Daniel in the Old Testament, according to the dispensation then,
saw more generally; even the ruin of the fourth monarchy, which Christ's
monarchy succeeds.
(4.) That this should be the subject of this prophecy, suits also with the
Chap. III.] an exposition of xue revelation. 25
chief prophecies delivered by other of the apostles in the New Testament,
which were reduced to three heads : —
[1.] Foretelling the ruin of the Roman empire, which, 2 Thess. ii, Paul
calls a taking out of the way him that lets.
[2.] The discovery of the Pope, (who is the last head of that last fourth
monarchy,) and his ruin.
[3.] The Idngdom of Christ to succeed.
These three things were ordinarily preached by the apostles, as appears
l)lainly by 2 Thess. ii. 2-9, where Paul, having spoken of these three
things, says, ver. 5, ' Remember you not, that, when I was with you, I told
you these things 1 ' So that the apostles did certainly tell the churches of
these three things, which surely, therefore, are the main subject of this
prophecy also, but they are more largely delivered unto John. Wherefore
this Revelation may answerably be divided into these three parts : —
First, The story of the Roman empire, and the taking of it out of the way,
which is the subject of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th chapters of this book.
Secondly, The discovery of the man of sin, and his ruin, chap. xiii. 14-19.
Thirdly, Christ's coming and kingdom, chap, xx., xxi.
4. Now then, the fourth and last consideration shall be spent in an in-
quiry after the difference of the subjects of these two prophecies, the seal
and book-prophecy. For in this Roman empire, and the several successions
and revolutions of it, there are these two things to be considered in the
story thereof : —
(1.) The empire, or political body, and the state thereof.
(2.) The church under it, and the state and condition thereof.
And therefore some writers have written the ecclesiastical story, or story
of the church in aU ages, apart by itself. Others have writ the story of the
empire, and its several revolutions. As among us here in England, (to give
you this instance only for an illustration,) the Book of Martyrs is chiefly a
story of church affairs, and the conflicts of it with Antichrist, in England ;
but Speed's Chronicle is chiefly a story of the affairs civil falling out in that
kingdom, in the several invasions, wars, conquests, and intestine broils of it.
Now the like method hath the Holy Ghost been pleased to observe in this
prophetical story of this empire, and the church spread through the territories
and dominions of it. These two prophecies before mentioned, namely the
seal and book-prophecy, do share these two between them. The one does
apart contain, more particularly, the several wars, events, and revolutions of
the empire itself ; and that is the seal-prophecy. And the other, whif h is
the book-prophecy, contains the several conditions and states of the church
of Christ in all ages. Now this difference of the subjects of those two pro-
phecies doth appear in the several characters, and in the very place and
situation of the visions themselves.
First, The differing shows or faces of the visions in these representations
do argue this difference : for in the first prophecy, you read of seven seals,
and four horses, chap, vi., and then of trumpets, chap. viii. and ix., noting
sometimes sealed judgments and devastations by plagues, famines, and wars ;
of which latter, trumpets are in all nations the signal and symbols, and in
Scriptures used to signify wars ; and so do note out the several judgments
by conquests, and devastations by war, brought upon the civil state of the
empire. But in the book-prophecy, the chief actors are women ; fit em-
blems of the church. Thus, chap, xii., it speaks of a woman with child, ready
to be delivered ; and, chap, xiv., of virgins, free from her fornications ; then
of a whore, representing the false church, chap. xvii. and xviii. j and then, chap.
26 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION, [PaUT L
xix., of a bride, preparing and prepared, personating tlie state of tlie church,
when Christ shall come to fetch her, and bed her everlastingly in his Father's
house and kingdom. Thus artificial is the Holy Ghost in handling things of
differing nature apart.
Secondly, answerably, the dififering situation and place which these two
prophecies had do shew this. The seals which contain the prophecies of the
empire were on the oacJc-side, as containing matters exttu ecdesiam, without
the church ; but the book itself contains things within, even as the church
is said to be within, 1 Cor. v. 12, ' For what have I to do to judge them also
that are without 1 do not ye judge them that are within 1 ' Whereas those
that are not of the church are said to be without, Kev. xxii. 15, 'For with-
out are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idola-
ters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.' And so the prophecy thereof
is cast to be, as it were, without the book, even upon the seals of it ; as de-
noting that the seal-prophecy treats of things outward, and of the temporal
state of the church : whereas the book-prophecy treats of spiritual things
within the church. And as in the general division tliis appears, so it will
appear in the interpretation of all particulars throughout this book ; for
John jjuts things of a sort together, as the best historians use to do. Only
take this caution along with you : that neither in the one nor the other of
these prophecies, the things of the empire or the church are so handled
apart as that nothing at all of the church affairs were handled in the seal-
prophecy, or that nothing of the affairs of the empire were mentioned in the
book-prophecy. But it is so to be understood as that eminently the ecclesi-
astical story is contained in the one, and the imperial story in the other. For
as in the books of Kings and Chronicles, though the first does more eminently
and setly contain the story of the kings of Israel, yet so as matters of
Judah are withal intermingled ; and again, in the story of Judah, Israel's
affairs are interwoven ; even so is it here. Some things appertaining to the
church are scatteredly mentioned in the prophecy concerning the empire ;
and some things touching the empire are diffused through the prophecy of
the church, or the book-prophecy.
Now briefly then to sum up all this book : —
It is a tragi-comical vision of the occurrences of the world, and of the
church in the world, through all times and ages ; whereof this may truly be
the title, ' The story of Christ's kingdom, and the removal of the several diffi-
culties of his coming to it.'
Chap. iv. — The stage for this is set up in chap, iv., where there is a repre-
sentation of the universal church in all ages, set forth according to the
exact pattern of a church visible and instituted ; into which aU saints on
earth should be cast.
Chap. V. — Then enters the prologue, chap, v., in which is set forth Christ's
taking upon him the kingdom and government, by taking the sealed book ;
as thereby shewing he undertaketh to be God's commissioner, to execute the
decrees contained in this book, and to give the vision of it unto John. At
which instalment of him into his kingdom, there is a song of praise sung to
the Lamb, by the four-and-twenty elders and four beasts, who are the
chorus in this show, with a triumphmg assurance and expectation of what
wUl be the happy conclusion of all ; even our reigning on earth with him,
say they there.
Now the scene or place where all was to be acted, which these visions
here hold forth, is the Roman empire, and the several dominions of it in the
east and west, called oixou/isvri, the whole world.
Chap. III.] an exi'osition of tuk liEVJiLATioN. 27
Tlien begins the story itself at chap. vi. ; the general argument of which
is : That whereas Christ's government was to be executed, and seen, Jlrst, in
putting down all opposite rule and poAver that stand in his way, as St Paul
speaks, 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25, ' Then cometh the end, when he shall have
delivered uj) the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he shall have put
down all rule, and all authority and power : for he must reign, till he hath
put all enemies under his feet ;' and, secondly/, in a visible taking the king-
dom to himself and his saints, which makes the fifth monarchy: accord-
ingly here the story of this book —
1. Shews how Christ doth put down all the opposite rule, and power, and
dominion, whatsoever, in the fourth and last foregoing monarchy of the
Eomans, in the several successions and revolutions of it, one after another,
till that he hath worn them all out that were ordained to stand up in it.
And these many difficulties of his coming to and obtaining his kingdom do
exceedingly serve to make the story of it appear the more glorious. Then —
2. It closeth and endeth in a glorious visible kingdom which Christ sets
up on earth, and peaceably possesseth together with his saints, as the catas-
trophe of all.
More particularly the story is this, according to the several contents of each
chapter : —
Christ when he ascended up to heaven, found the Roman monarchy, whose
room he was to possess, stretched both over east and west, even over all those
parts of the world where he was to seat his church and kingdom ; and all
this wholly in the hands, and under the dominion and power of one monarch
or emperor ; under whose government all that were subjected were altogether
heathenish and idolatrous, and wholly brought under the power of Satan, who
was set up therein as the ' god of this world.'
Hereupon, Christ, the designed king, first sets upon the conquest of Satan's
dominion and worship in it ; and by the preaching of the gospel, overturns
that vast empire as heathenish, throws down Satan from his throne and height
of glory in it, and brings it into subjection and acknowledgment of himself
as king ; and turns both it and its emperors to Christianity, within the space
of three hundred years. This is the sum and mind of the 6th chapter of the
seal-prophecy, and likewise of the 12th chapter of the book-prophecy.
But this empire, though wholly turned Christian in outward profession, yet
having persecuted his church whilst idolatrous, and also after it was Christian,
when Arian, therefore at the prayers of the martyrs slain, mentioned chap.
vi. 9, and in vengeance of their blood, he further proceeds to ruin the civil
imperial power of the empire itself, by the trumpets in the 8th and 9th
chapters. And the empire then becoming divided into two parts, the eastern
and western empire, as they were commonly called, first he ruins the imperial
western state and power in Europe, by the four first trumpets, the wars of
the Goths, by four several steps, in the 8th chapter ; and then the imperial
eastern state, which stood after the other, and this by two degrees — first, by
the Saracens, then by the Turh, (and these two are the fifth and sixth trum-
pets,) which two possess all that eastern part unto this day. And this is the
contents of the 9th chapter only. Before these trumpets bring these evils
upon the empire, he seals up a company of a hundred and forty-four thousand
Christians in the eastern part, as chap. vii. 2, to be preserved and continued in
the true profession of his name, under these two sorest and longest (and there
called the woe, woe) trumpets, which were to fall upon the eastern part of the
empire, in which these servants of his there sealed were to be ; as appears by
chap. vii. 4. And this their sealing is the sum of the seventh chapter.
28 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
Now then, that old Roman empire, as under those emperors, being thus in
both parts of it removed ; yet still, as that eastern part of it is left possessed
by the Turks, chap, ix., so this western part of it, in Europe, being by the
Goths broken into ten kingdoms, they all consented to give their power to
the beast, the Pope, chap, xiii., who so becomes a successor to the western
emperors, and possesseth their seat and power, though under another title,
and so heals that wound given to the Roman monarchy, and restores it.
And this beast the 1 3th chapter describes, and gives the vision of his rise,
power, and time of his reign, which the 17th chapter doth expound and
interpret.
Under whose antichristian tjTanny, as great as that of the Turks them-
selves towards Christians, Christ yet preserveth another like company, of ' one
hundred forty and four thousand virgins,' who are in like manner sealed,
Christians, in the west, (as, under the tjrranny of the Turks and Saracens,
he had done the like in the east, chap, vii.,) himself so keeping possession
still, by preserving his church under both these parts of the empire, as being
his inheritance. And this company of a hundred and forty-four thousand
Christians, opposite to the whore, are there called virgins ; and their separa-
tion from her, and opposition to her, is recorded in chap. xiv.
But now these two, the Pope and Turk, both enemies to Christ, thus suc-
ceeding in the empire and sharing the two parts of it between them, we see
that Jesus Christ is still as far off from his kingdom designed him, which is
to be set up in these territories, as he was before; for Mohammedanism,
under the Turk, tyranniseth in the one, and idolatry, under the Pope, over-
spreads the other, even as heathenism had done over the whole empire at
first. And so Christ hath a new business of it yet, to come unto his king-
dom, and as difTicult as ever.
Therefore he hath seven vials, which contain the last plagues, (for ha
means to make this the last act of this long tragi-comedy,) to despatch the
Pope and the Turk, and wholly root them out, even as the seals had done
heathenism, and the trumpets had done the civil power of the empire ; and
the plagues of these vials are the contents of the 15th and 16th chapters.
The first five vials do dissolve, and by degrees ruin the Pope's power in
the west ; then the sixth vial breaks the power of the Turk in the east, so
making way for the Jews, (whom he means to bring into the fellowship ol
his kingdom in their own land,) there called ' the kings of the east.'
But by these six vials their power and kingdom being not wholly ruined,
both the Turkish and Popish party do together join, using their utmost
forces (and together with them all opposite kings of the whole world) against
the Christians, both of the east and west, who, when the Jews are come in
and converted, do make up a mighty party in the world; unto the help of
whom, against those and all opposite power whatsoever, Christ himself comes
and makes but one work of it, with his own hand from heaven destroying
them. And so it is done, as the voice of the last vial is, in the 16 th
chapter.
The 17 th chapter is an interpretation concerning the beast, shewing who
he is, and where his seat is.
The 18th chapter sings a faneral song of triumph for the whore's ruin,
which is the fifth vial ; after which comes in Christ's kingdom, the New
Jerusalem, and the preparations to it; which new kingdom of his shall be
made up —
1. Of eastern Christians, who endured the bondage of the two woe-trum-
pets, the Saracens and the Turks, yet continuing to profess his name. And
Chap. Ill] an exposition of the kevelation. 29
therefore unto those hundred and forty-four thousand in the 7th chapter
is said to succeed an innumerable company, with ' palms in their hands,'
who have the very same promises of the New Jerusalem made to them that are
mentioned in the 21st chapter, which shews their interest therein. And —
2. It is made up of western Christians, whose hundred and forty-four
thousand, in chap, xiv., do arise to an innumerable company also ; who there-
fore, after the rejection of the whore, chap. xix. 1-9, are brought in singing
in like triumphant manner, decking themselves for the marriage in fine linen.
But—
3. And especially, it is also to be made up of Jews dispersed both east and
west, and over all the world ; and from them hath this kingdom the name of
the New Jerusalem. "With whom —
4. Come in, as attendants of their joy, other Gentiles too, who never had
received Christ before. The ' glory of the Gentiles ' is said to be brought
into it.
And so both east and west, Jew and Gentile, and the fulness of both, do
come in, and become one fold under one shepherd for a thousand years, and
one kingdom under this ' Root of David,' their king, Eling Jesus the con-
queror, even as it first was under one heathen idolatrous emperor, when
Christ had first set to conquer it. And so that prophecy of this his king-
dom, in Isa. lix. 19, is fulfilled, where, after the final destruction of all
Christ's enemies, foretold ver. 18, he says, 'They shall fear his name, from
the east unto the west, and the Redeemer shall come unto Sion ;' which
words Paul interprets of the Jews' final call, and this restauration of the
world with them, Rom. xi. 26.
Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly I
30 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaKT L
CHAPTER IV.
Of the first six seals in the 6ih chapter.
Having thus given a scheme and division of the whole prophecy, and a
general argument of the story of it, briefly set together in one view, I will
now run over each chapter apart ; yet I shall largely insist only on the 6th
chapter, as being taken off by other occasions from commenting so copiously,
with observations, upon the rest, which I shall pass over with a more slight
glance of interpretation, as hastening to the Second Part, which I more espe-
cially aim at ; which, although it arise not to a fuU and copious commentary,
shall, notwithstanding, serve to hold forth that to be the true portrait of the
Holy Ghost's mind in this story, which in the general argument foregoing
I have given it out to be.
The seal-prophecy concerns the state of the empire from John's time down-
ward. Which state, as all story will represent unto you, is to be considered,
either —
1. Whilst heathenish, when false gods were worshipped, as Jupiter, Mara,
(kc, and the professors of Christian religion were persecuted and massacred ;
during all which time the empire stood whole, undivided, and entire, under
the government of one emperor, under whom both east and west were sub-
jected, and this for the space of three hundred years after Christ. Or else —
2. When turned Christian, as by Constantine it was ; from whose time
the whole empire more generally was subjected to the outward jjrofession of
Christ ; but withal, it began to be divided and broken into two parts : which
rent was afterwards established by Theodosius, the eastern part of Europe
(whereof Constantine made Bj'zantium, from him called Constantinople, the
seat) being allotted to one emperor, which eastern part the Turk now po^es-
seth ; and the western part, which had Piome for the seat of it, unto another,
which western part the Pope for many hundred years hath entirely had under
him; so that the one was called the eastern, and the other the western
empire. And according to this division, the seal-prophecy divides itself into
two parts : —
First, The first six seals, chap. vi.
Secondly, The first six trumpets, which the seventh seal brings forth in the
8th and 9th chapters ; from the woe of which trumpets the servants of God
are sealed, chap. viL
Here, in the 6th chapter, the first prophecy begins, and that with the
primitive times ; of which these two things are evidences : —
1. That in the first seal is the 'going forth' — the preaching of the gospel
— 'conquering, and to conquer ;' for as then, and in that manner, it had begun.
This was the foundation of aU God's after-proceedings, the first corner-stone
of Christ's obtaining and setting up his kingdom.
2. That the fifth seal mentions the martyrdom of saints, crying out for
vengeance ; which being the first mention of any such martyrdom in this
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the i^velation. 31
book, must needs refer to those fiimous first persecutions under heathenish
Rome, which was followed by the Arian a little after ; as ver. 1 1 .
These six seals are several stops and degrees, setting forth the moving
causes and means of God's plaguing and ruining the empire of Rome as
heathenish. Christ being to put down all adverse power, he finds not only
this em])ire to stand in his way, but Gentdism, the worship of false gods,
and of Satan, under those idols of Jupiter, Saturn, ilars, &c. First there-
fore he encounters Satan's worship, heathenism, which had all the power of
that empire to back it ; and then in the trumpets he encounters the empire
itself : he ' went forth conquering, and to conquer,' and that but by degrees.
The first judgments on that empire left the empire standing. Therefore,
the martyrs, after those punishments foregone, in the second, third, and
fourth seal, do yet (seal fifth) cry for vengeance on the empire itself.
They are called seals —
1, In a general relation to this whole prophecy ; it being —
(1.) A book of decrees to be executed by Christ, and these are the seals of
them.
(2.) This book being not to be opened till the time of the end, as Daniel
foretold, is sealed up till just before the end of aU; as there it is prophesied,
Dan. xii. 4, ' But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even
to the time of the end : many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be
increased.' Towards this end of all you have (mark this) the same angel in
Dan. xii. coming in the 10th chapter of this Revelation, with a book in his
hand open ; which as it was to give a new prophecy, so to shew that when
all the seals were ofi", (that is, when these judgments were all executed on
the world,) then the book should be understood ; and accordingly, not till all
these seals were passed, was the Revelation understood.
2. More particularly they are called seals, because —
(1.) They are judgments decreed by God, that should certainly come upon
that empire. Now what is decreed inevitably is said to be sealed. So the
salvation of the elect is said to be, 2 Tim. ii. 19, 'The foundation of God
standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth who are his.' So also
judgments decreed are said to be sealed, Deut. xxxii. 34, 'Is not this laid up
in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures'?' even to punish them;
for so it follows, ' to me belongeth vengeance,' &c. Thus, Job xiv. 1 7, ' My
transgression,' says he, ' is sealed up in a bag;' that is, God had before ap-
pointed surely to punish it.
(2.) They are said to be sealed, in that they are judgments hidden, stealing
in upon the world ere they were aware of them, and which they knew not
the meaning of. And accordingly we find, by the Apologies of Tertullian,
Cyprian, Arnobius, and others, that the heathenish Romans, observing such
strange, unheard-of famines, civil wars, and plagues of pestilence, t37jified out
here by the red, black, and pale horses, did exceedingly wonder at the reason
of them, and laid it on the new sect of the Christians, as with whom their
gods were angry for contemning their worship ; for it was never so with
them before, and therefore they attributed it to that cause. These judgments
were sealed, and Christ here opens the cause of them, the contempt of the
gospel.
(3.) They are sealed judgments, for pledges and assurance of all that fol-
low. That is the use of seals, to give assurance ; for that end is the seal of
the Spirit. And so here, there being other things in this prophecy foretold,
as the ruin of the empire itself, the rising of Antichrist and of the Turk, the
ruin of them both by the seven vials, and then Christ's kingdom ; that all
32 AN EXPOSITIOX OF THE REVELATION. [PaET I.
these things should certainly come to pass in their time, God first sent these
judgments as seals : that as we read in story the truth of these to be evidently
fulfilled, so we may assure ourselves of the accomplishing all the other.
Obs. — Observe from this general, a ground of confirming your faith about
all these things prophesied of by God ; in that the fulfilling of one is a seal,
assuring that the other shall be fulfilled. That heathenism is ruined, and
no adorers of those pagan gods left, as this chapter shews, which was more
firmly rooted, beiag of four thousand years' continuance, than ever Popery
was, is a seal to us that Popery shall be ruined. You see many things past
and fulfilled ; the beast of Ptome (the Pope), then, when John wrote this,
not risen, is now up in your days; which may confirm your faith that he
shall as certainly be ruined : for the same prophecy foretells his fall, chap.
xviiL, as his rise, chap, xiii., and that after this there is a glorious king-
dom to come, of which all these are seals. You find in the 11th chapter,
before the end, the temple measured anew, and the outward court of
carnal worshippers and worship cast out ; and you see it now in your days
fulfilled ; yea, yourselves fulfil it. You may therefore as certainly expect
that which follows in the same chapter, and prepare for it. Thus Zechariah
begins his prophecy, so to assure them of the truth of it : Did you ever know
prophecy fail ? ' My words,' says he, Zech. i. 6, ' did they not take hold of,'
or arrest, 'your fathers?' by the judgments threatened; and 'like as the
Lord thought to do unto us, so hath he dealt with us ;' therefore believe
the rest.
Now the four first seals are represented unto us under the vision of four
horses, iu allusion to the visions in Zechariah, chap. i. and vi. Christ in the
1st chapter of that book, ver. 8, is presented riding on a red horse ; and
behind him stood other horses, red, speckled, and white ; and, ver. 1 0, they
are interpreted to be angels, who walk to and fro through the earth ; and,
chap. vi. 5, to be four winds, or spirits, that go forth from standing before
the Lord of the earth. So the good angels, Heb. i. 14, are called minister-
ing spirits, sent forth, &c. Thus, Ps. civ. 3, 4, compared with. Heb. i. 7, 14,
and Ezek. i., where they are called vrinds, as in that of Zech. vi 5. So in
like manner are the evil angels sent forth to do mischief, as 1 Kings xxii. 21,
and Job L 7. The angels are the executioners of all God's great designs ;
and therefore whatsoever is done in this book by men is still said to be
done by angels. So, chap. viii. 2, seven angels with seven trumpets, &c.
Here the vision is of horses going forth in like manner with commission
from God. And this allusion to those horses, who there were angels, shews
either that these executions, under these seals, by whomsoever visibly
executed, were yet performed under the conduct of Christ the first horse,
presented here, as also in that of Zech. i., as an angel, accompanied with
other angels his followers, who are those other horses; or else, however, to
shew, that as those angels upon horses in Zechariah went their circuit over
the earth, so that here were commissions sealed to these executioners, to
traverse and compass the earth, as angels use to do. God begins here to
war with the world, and sends out four horsemen to give the first onset.
That this vision is presented under horses is but for variety's sake.
The Revelation takes all the eminent visions of the Old Testament, and
makes use of them. The elegancies of all the types in the prophets serve
but to set forth and adorn the visions of this book ; as if you should make
up one beautiful picture out of all beauties, by taking whatever is elegant
and excellent in any one. The vision of the throne, chap, iv., is borrowed
from Isaiah and Ezekiel; that of the book sealed, from Daniel; this of horses
Chap. IV.J an exposition of the revelation. 33
here, from Zechariah ; and so that of the olive-trees, and candlesticks, chap,
xi., from Zoch. iv., <fec.
Observe from hence —
06s. 1. — The perfection of this book It is a posy of all flowers, a vision
composed out of all visions ; as Solomon's Song was a song of songs. All
the types in Moses' law, and all the stories and visions of the prophets, are
borrowed to adorn it.
Obs. 2. — That the occurrences under the new testament, and the story of
the church under it, have all the perfections of all kinds that were under the
old. For in the new testament the old is more eminently acted over, in all
passages of providence. Was there a temple ? Here is one more glorious ;
this second exceeds the first. Was there an Egypt, a Sodom, a Babylon ?
Here also is one far worse than all those were. So Rome is called in this
book, chap. xi. and xviii. Was there a restoring of the temple, decayed in
the captivity of Babylon ? Here is the like, and that at twice, and by de-
grees, as then. Had they a Jerusalem? The Revelation hath a better, a
New Jerusalem. Did the bondman of old persecute the free? Even so it
is now : Gal. iv. 24, 29, ' Which things are an allegory : for these are the
two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage,
which is Agar. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him
that was born after the Spirit; even so it is now.' We have all the same
things befall us that befell them, and that more eminently; as Paul said,
' Are they apostles ? I much more.' Had they persecutors ? We much
more, and those worse. Had they Pharisees, that sinned against the Holy
Ghost and crucified Christ ? So hath the new testament, such as shall,
after this great conviction wrought by the gospel, prove like a generation of
Pharisees, scorched with the heat of hell-fire, as in the fourth vial, and that
shall kill the 'witnesses,' chap. xi. The allusion is to these times. Tha
apostle hath said it in one word, and given the reason of it, 1 Cor. x. 1 1,
' All these things happened unto them for types :' so also did all their vision.%
being written for ' our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are
come ; ' you may read it, ' perfection of the world is come : ' we have the
perfection of everything under the old testament, both good and bad.
This may serve to give a general light into the stories and visions of this
prophecy. As for the several visions themselves : —
The first horse is a white one, and his rider crowned, (fee. This rider is
Christ himself, ' going forth,' in the preaching of the gospel, ' conquering, and
to conquer;' alluding unto Ps. xlv. 4—6, where Christ, having a kingdom
to possess, — as ver. 6, ' Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,' speaking
of Christ, as appears by Heb. i. 8, ' But unto the Son he saith. Thy throne,
O God, is for ever and ever : a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy
kingdom,' — he is set out in his going forth to conquer it ; for he must win
and wear it. And he is described as here, ' In thy majesty prosper thou, ride
thou,' or ride thou prosperously, that is, go forth conquering ; and that being
accoutred with bow and arrows, as ver. 5, ' Thy arrows are sharp in the
hearts of the king's enemies,' that is, his own enemies, who is king.
Now answerably this book also tells us that Christ was to have a king-
dom; and here you have his first setting out to conquer it. The first foun-
dation of his kingdom laid was the preaching of the gospel in the Roman
empire by the apostles, which was now begun; therefore he is said to go
forth conquering already. And he goes first forth ; for all the other horse-
men do but attend him ; he is the general of these horses. Thus likewise,
in Zech. i., he is described with other horses with him. And he goes forth
VOT^ III. o
34 AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVELAUON. [PaKT L
first on a white horse ; which, as it was a sign of triumph, that he was to con-
quer, — for so in triumph their chariots were drawn with white horses, — so
especially of meekness and candour, offering at first conditions of peace in
the gospel, unto the empire of Rome, and to all nations, if they would sub-
mit to him as their king. God had given him the nations for his inheri-
tance, and he goes forth peaceably to challenge it ; with conditions also, that
the world should yet hold their crowns of him, only turn Christians they
must, and do homage to him as their king. This the colour of white denotes ;
for here it is opposed to the colour of the red horse that followed, which colour
betokened blood. Thus Tamerlane, before he denounced war, first hung out
a white flag, in token of peace offered. Therefore, in Ps. xlv. 4, Christ is
bidden to ' ride on, because of the word of meekness ; ' and the progress of
the gospel is compared to that of a horse and his rider, for it had its pro-
gress over the earth, from one country to another, by commission : ' Their
sound went out to all the earth,' Ptom. x. 18 j 'Come to Macedcnia, and
help us,' Acts xvi. 9. His weapons to conquer, if men yield not, are here
but arrows: but, chap, xix., when his conquest is to be fiiiished, you have
him with a sword. In Ps. xlv., he is described with both. The threatenings
of the gospel are arrows, striking secretly and dartingly into men's hearts,
and wounding them mortally ; hceret lethalis arundo.
He is crowned ; for God, when Christ first ascended, made him a king.
* We see Jesus, crowned with glory and honour ; though yet we see not all
things put under him,' Heb. iL 8, 9 : yet we see him crowned, for all
must be subject to him.
He goes forth conquering ; for whether men obey or not, Christ still
conquers. Paul speaks like a conqueror, 2 Cor. ii. 14,' God always causeth
us to triumph in Christ.' For if men turn, there is a triumph of grace par-
doning, and so subduing traitors ; and if not, it is a savour of death. Like a
box of venomous ointment, which poisons by the smell.
Now if you ask, how the preaching of the gospel can be a step of ruin,
and a sealed judgment, it being in itself so great a blessing 1 — the answer is,
that it was truly a step unto the ruin of heathenism in the empire, which
was the first opposite that Christ encountered. When Christ first sent hia
disciples forth, speaking of the event of it, he says, ' I saw Satan fall from
heaven like lightning.' The devil was struck dumb in his oracles when
Christ began to publish his. And so Chiist already conquered, in part ; but
ere he had done, he threw Satan out of heaven, as the sixth and last seal
shews. So that though the gospel was a blessmg to the world, yet it was
a curse to GentUism ; as the first \dal, by converting many people's hearts
from Popery, is called a vial on the earth.
Observe from hence —
Qls^ 1. — The mercifulness and meekness of Christ. He goes not forth
first on a red horse, but on a white, and makes offer of peace ; but if men
turn not, he hath other horses to do that work of destroying them. He
loves unbloody conquests. Who therefore would stand out against such a
Saviour ?
Obs. 2. — The strangeness of Christ's course to get his kingdom ; even by
no other means at first but preaching the word. He takes no weapons but
a bow, the tongues of men, to dart arrows into the hearts of them that resist.
It was a strange, unlikely course to set twelve men scattered, and fishermen,
to conquer the world, the Roman empire ; as if twelve men should be sent
into Turkey to conquer the Great Turk, and throw down Mohammedanism :
*Not by power, nor by might, but by my Spirit,' Zech. iv. 6.
Chap. IY.] an exposition of the revelation. 35
Obs. 3. — Observe, That where Christ begins to conquer, he will go on to
perfect hia conquest. Fear not the cause of God in England ; there is a
battle to be fought : Christ in his angels growing more and more holy, and
fuller of light ; and Satan in his growing Avorse and worse, deceiving, and
being deceived. Christ comes up with fresh sui)plics of new light, with his
bow and arrows bears up as hard as they. iVnd it is certain that Christ
will not be foiled. The primitive Christians, although their light grew
dimmer and dimmer, yet they conquered heathenism. These now must
needs conquer much more.
After the going forth of this white horse, there follow three others, as
light horsemen, attending this their general. So, Zech. i. 8, he saw ' a man
upon a red horse, and behind him were other horses, red, speckled, and
white.' Now that man was Christ, ver. 8, who hath always other horsemen
his attendants to fulfil his will, as here he hath. Christ there was upon a
red horse, for so he appeared, as being to revenge himself on the enemies of
his church ; but here he is on a white horse, as being to send forth the
gospel. But those other horses that do here follow after him are indeed
judgments that follow for the contempt of that gospel, and which plagued the
empire successively. Their colour is suitable to the plague they brought;
therefore the second horse is red, a colour betokening blood, Isa. Ixiii. 2.
And answerably, this horse is war, for his commission is ' to take peace from
the earth,' — that is, the Roman empire, the subject of this seal-prophecy.
And civil war it is, as those words note out, that ' men should kill one
another ;' not persecution of the saints, as some take it, but mutual blood-
shed, as that phrase imports. All which was for their contempt of the
gospel. For —
1. If they take peace from the saints, it is a suitable plague that God
should take peace from the earth.
2. If they will not embrace the gospel of peace, it is suitable that God
should take away their peace. And —
3. If they will kill the saints, is it not a proportioned judgment that God
should turn their swords into their own bowels 1
And this power is said to be ' given him.' It proceeded from a commis-
sion from God ; and so was a ' sword given him.' God puts the sword into
an enemy's hand, and gives it its commission. As magistrates do bear God's
sword, so soldiers ; who therefore, in the prophets, are often called God's
sword. Now, how after the preaching of the gospel in the apostles' time,
such wars feU upon the empire in the west is most evident in story ; nor
are tbere greater civil wars mentioned than in the Roman stories. John
wrote his Revelation just before Trajan's time, in the reign of Domitian,
about the year of Christ 94, and died in 104, ten years after. Now in
Trajan's time, in whose sixth year John died, these wars began. And so
then, when the apostles were all dead, and had preached the gospel to the
world, the Jews rise, and with armies raged through all the parts of the
empire ; and so devastated and depopulated Lybia of her inhabitants, that
Hadrian was afterwards forced to send thither new colonies. About Cyrene
they destroyed 22,000 ; in Egypt also, and in Cyprus, 24,000 ; and in Meso-
potamia likewise a great number. And Hadrian afterwards succeeding in
the empire, destroyed 58,000 of them. Then after Trajan's time, the Par-
thians revolt, and the empire was lessened, having in his time had the largest
extent. And in Antoninus's time, anno 140, all the northern nations came
down upon the east, and upon all Illyricum ; yet they, as a land-flood, were
dried up ; so that the empire stood entire. And that these wars might
36 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
be the more eminently taken notice of, as following upon the apostles'
deaths, as they had none before, so for forty-four years after this there was
a universal peace, and wars ceased through the empire.
The third horse is famine; his c()lour, answerably, Mack, for famine
makes men's countenances such. So, Lam. iv. 6, 7, ' Her Nazarites, that were
purer than snow, and more ruddy than rubies, their visage is blacker than a
coal ;' and this by reason of famine, as appears by ver. 9. His rider hath
scales in his hand, to shew that he sells corn by weight, not by measure ; — as,
Lev. xxvi. 'iQ, ' When I have broken the staff of your bread, women shall
deliver you your bread by weight ; ' and a small quantity of corn, even so
much as serves a man in bread for a day, for so the chsenix was, was sold
for a penny, which amounts to 7|d. ; — yet with commission not to hurt the
oil and the wine. Now because historians are silent concerning any notable
famine and universal, that fell out in the next age after these wars in the
Roman empire, therefore Mr Mede carries it to the justness of those em-
perors, signified by the balances, which in Severus and others was eminent;
especially in laws against thieves, and in public provision for corn. But
this was heterogeneal to the rest, which are all steps to the ruining or plagu-
ing of the heathenish empire. And for the Holy Ghost to take notice of a
moral virtue, and to insert it thus among the midst of his judgments, I can-
not be induced to believe it. But this scarcity being not of oil and wine,
but of corn only, might well be slipt over by historians; when yet the
Christians of that age, as TertuUian and others, do mention a famine of corn
as a judgment on the empire for their contempt of Christ, and their perse-
cuting of the saints. I have searched diligently for such footsteps in them
of that age, 200 years after Christ and upwards, as might confirm the truth
of this.
And, first, I find, that in Commodus's time, anno 190, there was a
commotion made for bread, within the city of Rome, by the poorer sort.
Thus says Herodian, fames Romanos afflixit, the Romans were afflicted by
reason of famine and scarcity : when Cleander, Commodus's great favourite,
detained the com from the common people, he being keeper of the store-
house of it ; upon which they mutiny, requiring him to be put to death ;
and proceeding further in their rage, they throw down houses, oppose the
soldiers, stone the captains, &c., so that Commodus was enforced to cut off
his favourite's head, and set it upon a pole, and to destroy his children also,
so to pacify the people. Yea, in those very words which Mr Mede quotes
for Severus's justice, and care about oil, &c., there is an intimation of the
exhausture of the corn of the public storehouse through that famine. The
words are these, Eei frumentariae quam minimam reperiehat; ita consuluit,
&c. So likewise there is such an intimation in that other place which he
quotes for Alexander Severus's care, anno 118, which only was occasioned
by Heliogabalus's having overthrown the public stock of corn ; frumenta
evertisset.
Then, secondly, for the Christian writers of these times : TertuUian, who
lived in anno 203, doth more confirm this; for in his Apology for the Chris-
tians, he brings in this calumny as usual among the heathens, that they laid
the cause of all their miseries upon the Christians. His words are these :
Si caelum stetit, <fec., — if it rained not, if Nilus overflowed not Egypt,
(which was the granary of the empire,) from whence arose a famine, or if
the pestilence devoured them, &c., — statim, says he, they cried, Christi-
anos ad leones: Away with these Christians to the lions ! I observe, he in-
fitanceth most in famine, and the causes of it, as being that which then they
Chap, I"\ .] am exposition of the revelation. 37
were most punished with. And he, in his Apology, pleading for Christians,
how they fasted in times of judgments, he instanceth in that of famine only,
saying, ' If famine be threatened by want of rain, so that their annona,' or
provision of corn, as De la Cerda reads it, ' were in danger to be spent, that
then they Christians fast, whilst other llomans pour themselves out to all
licentiousness.' It is observable that he still instanceth in the judgment of
famine. And in his Apology to Scapula, the African president, he, shewing
that no city that persecuted the Christians did go unpunished, instanceth
how lately, under Hilarian's presidentship, his predecessor, the Christians
begging a floor of corn, a voice was heard from under-ground, saying, Arece
non sunt. And indeed they were not, for they had no harvest nor corn the
next year to thresh in them, it being spoiled through a great wet in the time
of harvest, as he there says. And you, says he, condemning a Christian to
the beasts, statim hcec vexatio suhsecuta eat; which Baronius understands
of that wet year before spoken of, which brought ruin to the corn.
But Origen speaks more clearly to this, who, presently after, (about 226
years after Christ,) writing upon Matt, xxiv., and taking occasion to answer
the same calumny objected so generally against the Christians by the hea-
thens, — namely, that because of the multitude of Christians among them, they
had been vexed with wars, famine, and pestilence, — although he reckons up
all those three plagues as objected, yet to make it good that the heathens
did so object, he especially instanceth in famine : Frequenter enim, says
he, /amis causa Christianos cultores cidparunt Gentiles; — 'For the heathens
oftentimes laid the fault of their being afflicted by famine upon those of the
Christian religion.' Though they did so because of other plagues also, yet
they often laid their famines in the dish of the Christians ; which evidently
argues this punishment to have been very frequent in those times, as being
taken notice of by the heathens themselves, and also by Origen, to have
been the eminent punishment of that age, which made up the third seal.
Now then, the fourth seal produceth a fourth horse, and that a pale one,
for his rider is death ; mors pallida, pale death, as they use to call it. And
this horse brings death upon the fourth part of the empire, called the earth,
and his work was to kill with all sorts of death, both plague, and famine,
and wars, and wild beasts ; all God's plagues let loose at once. Before, civil
wars came alone, and famine came alone ; but now, for their impenitency, he
lets loose all four judgments mentioned in Ezek. xiv. 21. God now brings
forth all his ' treasures of wrath.' Pestilence is here, ver. 8, called death, as
it is likewise by the Chaldee paraphrase and the Greek ; and by the fathers
it is called mortality, as by us the sickness. Now, from the year 240 after
Christ, it is wonderful to read what a stage of misery and blood the empire
was made, by reason of all these plagues raging at once. Civil wars so raged,
that, in the space of thirty-three years, there were ten emperors killed.
Under Gallus and Volusianus, anno 250, the barbarous nations came down
upon the empire and harrowed it ; and among them the Scythians, from
whose rage no place under the Roman jurisdiction was exempt, but almost
all towns were by them depopulated. And this was followed by an extreme
famine. When we had a breathing time from them, then came the greatest
plague of pestilence, worse than all the former, says Dionysius Alexan-
drinus, who lived in those times ; the greatest plague, says L)^sius, that
ever was read of in any age, a plague of fifteen years' continuance. And to
add the last hand for the making the misery of those times complete, God
let loose thirty tyrants at once, who, as so many wild beasts, preyed upon
and made havoc of the empire.
38 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT 1.
Now to come to some observations : —
06s. 1. — Take notice, that after the going forth of the white horse, then
go forth these other three. The gospel is always followed by terrible judg-
ments upon the world for the contempt of it. You know what Peter says,
'The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God;' but it
will not rest there, as he says. The time of the gospel's preaching was a
time of judgment, which began with the church, but after that fell most heavj'
upon the empire, and upon the heathens in it. So that as you look for
storms in autumn and frosts in winter, so expect judgments where the gospel
has been preached ; for the quarrel of the covenant must be avenged and
vindicated. If men despise it, God cannot hold his hands.
Use. — Wonder not, therefore, if God go over all the churches in judg-
ments, as he hath done by Germany, Bohemia, &c. They had the gospel
first, and so the cup of tribulation first ; but God will visit the rest in their
order, and, it may be, that of Holland last, because they have had the gospel
but a little whUe.
Obs. 2. — Observe, That God useth to rise higher and higher in his judg-
ments. He began with civil wars ; and they not working, he sent famine,
which is worse ; and then war, as Lam. iv. 9 ; and then he came upon them
with the pestilence and all the other three at once : which agrees with that
in Lev. xxvi. 24, ' If you repent not, I will punish you seven times worse.'
So in the trumpets, the three last are the woe-trumpets. And so in the vials
too, God will rise higher and higher, as here he does.
Obs. 3. — Observe, That all plagues have their commission from God; they
go forth only when Christ openeth a seal. Of the second it is said, ' Power
was given him, and a sword.' And so to the third a commission of restraint
was given, not to hurt the od and wine. And to the fourth, only to kill the
fourth part. They are therefore compared to horses sent forth, that are
guided by riders ; God's providence to direct them, and have their way
chalked out, as the Egyptian plagues had. Ps. Ixxviii. 50, it is called ' a
path made for his anger,' chalked out where it should go, and into what
houses. So, Jer. xv. 2, ' Those that are for the sword, to the sword ; and
those that are for the famine, to the famine,' &c. Now in all these circuits
of God's judgments, let us wait for his turning towards us in mercy. ' In
the way of thy judgments have we waited for thee.'
Obj. — And whereas it may be objected, that these are plagues that were ever
common in the world, and in all times as well as these, — for answer, these
considerations made these plagues then more eminently to be set down : —
1. They were as eminent in the Roman empire in those first ages as in any
other afterwards.
2. Though the empire had such plagues in after-times also, yet these were
all the plagues which it had whilst heathenish, and so were proper punish-
ments of their Gentilism, and contempt of the message of the white horse,
and so intended by God, and therefore brought in here as such. Neither
did these at aU ruin the empire, which stood unbroken, but simply punished
it for its idolatry. But such plagues as fell out after these had other effects
accompanying them, even the ruin of the impeiial government, by dividing
it, lessening it, and the bke; which these did not. But —
3. And more especially, the Holy Ghost doth mention these plagues here,
although the like were in other ages, as punishments attending upon the
gospel, because this was the very observation and objection that the heathens
of those times made : that since the Christian religion began in the empire,
wars, pestilence, and famine raged more than ever they did in former times ;
CUAP. IV.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 39
and SO laid it upon the Christians as the cause, in that they, contemning the
gods, provoked them to send tlieso plagues. This we find to be the main
complaint and calumny which the Christian writers of those times writ Apo-
logies to wipe off; as appears in Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius, <tc., whose
Apologies I purposely read, and found these judgments to be most frequently
taken notice of by the heathens themselves, and this calumny by the fore-
mentioned authors answered. Yea, Cyprian, in his Apology, says, that to
wipe oti" this calumny was the sole motive and occasion that put him upon
writing. ' I held my peace,' says he, ' till they laid all these plagues upon
us, as the cause of all.' Now, how properly, therefore, did the Lord Christ
single out those eminent plagues following the gospel, and present them
under these seals, as the most notable occurrent punishments of those times,
rather than any other !
And how fitly are they called seals, seeing they were so hidden that the
heathens were utterly mistaken in the causes of them ! For they being
punishments of their persecuting the saints, they turned the matter clean
contrary, and imputed it to the anger of the gods for the Christians' con-
temning their heathenish religion. But though they were hidden sealed
plagues, in respect of the causes of them, to the heathens, yet the four beasts
did then instruct John, who personates the church, and so the church in him,
concerning the true cause of them ; and therefore every seal hath a voice of
one or other of the beasts, saying, ' Come up and see.' For the oflBcers or
ministers of churches instructed them how that all these plagues were from
the gospel, and the contempt of it, and their persecuting the professors of it.
Tills you may read in the Apologies of Tertullian, Arnobius, and Cyprian,
whose Apology I will instance in for all the rest ; who, as he lived under
the fourth seal, in the rage of these four plagues, so he speaks in the very
language of the fourth seal. He writes against one Demetrianus, who had
long barked at Christian profession. And, says he, I forbore till he laid to
our charge that all these miseries on the empire we Christians were the
cause of : Cum dicas 'plurimos conqtieri, quod hella crehriiis surgant, quod
lues, et fames sceviant, ultra tacere non opoHet; — * When I hear you say that
many complain of us as the causes why those wars so often arise, and why
the pestilence and famine rage so, I can be no longer silent, but must needs
give you an answer ; ' and he plainly declares, from the Lord of hosts, that
their idolatries and persecutions of the Christians were the cause, and that
these punishments non eveniebant casu, came not by chance, but were the
vengeance of God, who hath said that ' vengeance is his,' and that he will
judge the cause of his people. And he withal tells them, that if they repent
not through these plagues, hell would then follow. Manet postmodum,
says he, career ceternus, jugis Jlamma, et pos7ia perpetua; — 'There remains,
after all this, an eternal prison, a continual llame, and an everlasting punish-
ment.' He speaks in the very language of this fourth seal, not knowing it,
nor referring to it, for he lived under it.
Thus doth Tertullian also in his Apology, wherein he attributes the cause
of their famine and other plagues unto their persecuting the Christians.
And this is the mystery of the four beasts calling upon John to ' come and
see,' and behold the mind and meaning of these judgments on the world ;
the ofiicers of churches in their sermons so instructed them.
Obs. — The only observation I shall raise from this instruction of the four
beasts is this : That during the first four seals, which indeed bring us to two
hundred and sixty years after Christ, the ofiicers of churches remained
according to the institution in the purer churches ; but afterwards you hear
40 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
not of tliom, corraptions coming in upon all the churches, and perverting
their right institution and end. You meet not with any more mention of
them till the vials begin, chap, xv., which was in the first separation from
Popery ; and then you read not that all four, but only one of the beasts
. gave those vials. But after a second measuring the temple before Rome's
ruin, as chap, xi., you read of four beasts, chap, xix., in their right order
again, praising God.
The fifth seal is that great and bloody persecution which followed after all
these plagues in the time of Dioclesian, about the year 300, which was, of
all the ten persecutions foregoing it, the greatest, and therefore is put in for
all the rest. Under it, there suffered one hundred and forty-four thousand
in one province of the empire ; how many, therefore, in the rest 1 Now
this last is here mentioned instead of aU the rest —
1. Because indeed those other plagues, for the contempt of the gospel, did
but enrage the heathens the more; for they thought that all this came upon
them for their suffering the Christians to live.
2. This, being the last and greatest, is brought in as crying for vengeance
in the name of all the foregoing martyrs ; for so their cry intimates, ' How
long, Lord, wilt thou not avenge our blood?'
The vision is —
1. Of souls severed from their bodies, even of men slain, or of martyrs.
2. These men are presented as new sacrificed, and with their throats cut,
lying bleeding at the foot of the altar, alluding to the sacrifices, for martyr-
dom is no other than a sacrifice. 2 Tim. iv. 6, ' For I am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand;' and Phil. ii. 17, ' Yea, and
if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice
with you all.' And whereas many understand this altar to be heaven, that
comes in afterward, when white robes are given them. It is an allusion to
the altar of burnt-ofierings whereon their bodies were offered ; but, chap, viii,
their prayers are offered up upon the altar of incense.
3. They are presented as crying for vengeance for their blood. Mark it,
it is not simply the blood that cries, as it is said of Abel's blood, but the
souls themselves that cry, and that for vengeance and utter ruin on the em-
pire. A Lapide makes it liberationem, so the Hebrew word signifies; and
so vindicare is to free, as praying for the liberty of the church below. But
these cries are in the behalf of their own blood already shed, and for that
there was no such liberty to be sued for.
The satisfaction to their cry is double : —
1. A reason why vengeance is delayed ; they had brethren to be made
perfect as they were.
2. In the meantime they are received to glory.
1. For the reason ; it consists in this, that the empire was yet a while to
stand in power, because they had other brethren to be perfected as well as
they, after a little season. So that it refers not to the persecutions of Anti-
christ, wliich were a thousand years after, but to those of Arianism, when,
under those emperors, as cruel persecutions, for the time, were raised some
thirty years after this as ever before; and then the trumpets sound, and
they ruin the empire itself through their prayers, as chap. viiL
2. For their glory; it is expressed by white robes given them. Which is —
(1.) A sign or badge of heavenly glory; so, chap. iii. 4, 'They shall walk
with me in white.' So Christ, when he gave a shine of the glory of his
kingdom, he caused his garments to look as white as any fuUer could make
them.
Chap. IV.] an exposition of tui; EKviaATioN. 41
(2.) It denotes joy. In triumphs, they were wont to wear white robes, as
a token of gladness ; ' Let thy garments be always white.'
(3.) Ilobcs were worn only by noble personages. Mulier stolata was dif-
ferenced from togata, as calling for a more special honour. Thus Mordecai
was apparelled in the royal robes, Esth. vi. 11.
This giving them white robes is an allusion to the bringing the priests
first into the temple when their thirty years were expired ; they clothed
them in white.
Obs. 1. — In that this persecution was the last and greatest of all, take
notice that it is God's manner to bring sorest trials just before deliverance.
So to David at Ziklag, a few hours before he was proclaimed king. In chap,
xi. there is a persecution and war of Antichrist yet to come, for the space of
three years and a half, when for ever the witnesses shall cast off their sack-
cloth. I fear it, for it is the last.
Obs. 2. — That though great punishments had befallen the empire by those
three horses, yet tliis is not vengeance enough for martyrs' blood, which
nothing will slack but the ruin of that kingdom and state which shed it.
This punishment, therefore, is brought in after all the other. So Manasseh's
bloodshed nothing would pacify but the captivity and ruin of that state.
Obs. 3. — That in a business wherein many ages have an interest, the
saints in the last age foregoing do put up their prayers in the strength of all
prayers and cries of blood preceding. So do these theirs in the name of all
foregoing martyrs ; ' How long,' &c. That as in a generation of wicked men
the last of them do inherit the sins and punishments of aU their forefathers,
so do a generation of godly men go forth against their persecutors in the
strength of all their forefathers' prayers and bloodshed. How comfortably,
therefore, may we pray against Rome and Spain, and the abettors of them,
the bishops, who all have even wallowed in the blood of the saints, and
against whom we have the prayers of all ages to join their forces to ours for
the more sure prevailing; and we may justly cry in the strength of them,
'How long,' &c. I have seen many cords so linked together upon a pidley,
and with such an artifice, that a child might draw up a mighty weight, for he
pulled in the strength of aU the cords. So here, though we be weak, yet
praying in the strength of all the saints' prayers, and of their blood, we must
needs be heard. It is but a little resting till our brethren, (it may be our-
selves,) the witnesses, are killed; and then down goes Rome, and the hier-
archy with it. In this respect, it is good living in the last ages of the world,
for we drive a trade with aU our forefathers' stock.
Obs. 4. — That the power of persecutors stands no longer than tiU they
have finished the great work of persecuting the saints. The empire stood so
long as it did mainly for this end, and therefore this reason is here given.
Thus, Hab. i. 12, 'Thou hast ordained them for judgment' on themselves,
' and established them for correction' of thine. We think much that they
should have so great power ; why, they have it to this end, to persecute.
Obs. 5. — That the souls themselves are here said to cry, and not their
blood only. A wicked man being murdered, his blood calls for vengeance ;
but not only the blood of a godly man, but his soul also calls and cries for
vengeance ; which cry must therefore needs come up with much clamour in
the ears of the Lord of hosts. Think you that he will not avenge his elect 1
Yes, he will do it speedily. And from hence raise up your thoughts higher,
that if Abel's blood hath a force in its cry, and his soul, that still lives, a
greater force ; then how much more hath Christ's blood, and how much
more yet hath Christ himself, who liveth to make intercession for us ! Thus
42 AN EXPOSITION" OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
the Scripture riseth in expressing the efficacy of the intercession of Jesus
Christ for us.
Obs. 6. — That the souls in heaven, following their interests on earth, they
prosecute the revenging of their blood. There is the same reason for other
interests; as for friends, for children, for businesses, and the like; which
having prayed for on earth, they still do prosecute them in heaven.
Obs. 7. — That the souls in paradise know the reason of God's dispensa-
tions and his counsels, which are satisfactory to them. God here opens his
utmost reason why the empire was as yet to stand ; and that was, to kill a
few more martyrs. They are guided by a spirit of prophecy, as Christ is,
they being prophets as well as priests.
Obs. 8. — That in all dispensations, if we knew what reason God hath for
them, we should rest. So the souls do in this standing of the empire. Let
our faith apprehend that God hath a reason for what he does, otherwise we
should have no persecutions.
Obs. 9. — That saints that were not yet born are called their brethren, as
being such in God's election. This persecution came not tUl forty years
after. So Christ calls all his people brethren, God having given them unto
him before all worlds. He knows perfectly who are his, and their number
in all ages ; and chose not qualifications, but persons. So says Christ, ' I
have sheep which are not of this fold.' Labour we therefore to love the
Jews, as those who are to be called; and the saints departed, as those who
are our brethren.
Obs. 10. — That martyrdom is a perfection ; it is said, ' tUl they are fulfilled,'
rrXjjswtroiTa/. So Christ calls his suffering : ' I will watch to-day and to-
morrow, and then,' says he, 'I shall be perfected.' If thou hast all hoUness,
and wantest this coronis, thou art not so perfect as martyrs for Christ are.
Obs. 11. — That saints departed do presently enter into bliss. They sleep
not, but have white robes given them, as the priests had when they were
first brought into the temple. These have the like when they are brought,
as priests, into the inner temple of heaven. And their robes of glory are
new ones, which they had not before ; for they are given them anew. Glory
clothes them, till they and their bodies meet again : and these are called
robes, as reaching from head to foot ; they are all over happy and glorious.
Obs. 12. — They reckon us fellow-servants and brethren, though we be sin-
ful; and do hold a communion with us. Let us do the like towards our
weak brethren, and esteem them such notwithstanding their infirmities, and
although we be holier. There is a greater distance between us and these
saints in heaven, in respect of purity, than can be supposed between us and
the meanest saint here below.
Obs. 13. — That the cause for which they are reckoned martyrs is 'for the
word of God,' and their testimony to it. So that if it be for any truth in
the word, though never so small, it is accepted as if it were the greatest.
Obs. 14. — God may defer to answer prayers for the present. He doth so
to saints in heaven ; he puts them upon staying a while ; much more, there-
fore, may he deal so with us. And yet God in the meantime recompenseth
this demur some other way. As he gave these white robes of glory, so wiU
he give thee other blessings that are better, in which thou mayest rest satis-
fied and content.
The sixth seal follows, from ver. 12 to the end of the chapter. Now as
the former seals contained several punishments upon the heathenish Roman
state, so this sixth expresseth the final accomplishment of God's wrath upon
the heathenish religion in it, in throwing it down; and upon heathenish
CUAP. IV.J AN EXPOSITIUN Ol-' TUi: KliVELATlON. 43
worshippers, and upholders of Gentilism, in confounding them ; and is there-
fore called, * the great day of the Lamb's wrath.' Now, because it is thu3
called, and some phrases arc used concerning it that are used of the imme-
diate forerunners of the day of judgment, as Matt, xxiv, 9, when before the
Son of man's coming the sun is said to be darkened, &c., therefore some
interpreters have understood it of the great day of judgment only ; and so
you may have heard it often quoted by such as by piecemeals take up inter-
pretations of this book, not having framed them to the series of the whole.
But, first, the great day of judgment it cannot be ; the series of this pro-
phecy will not admit that exposition. Which is argued —
1. From what goes before it; for John having but now spoken of the
primitive times in the five former seals, and brought us but to three hundred
years after Christ, in the tenth and last persecution, now to make a leap
over the thirteen hundred years since passed, and after those primitive per-
secutions to bring in the day of judgment, were too great a stride, too wide
a chasnia and gulph in this orderly story.
2. From the series of things after this ; for there is a seventh seal yet to
be opened, and that to produce seven trumpets, which are new and fresh
succeeding punishments upon that empire. And it is certain that there are
no such punishments to come after the great day of judgment.
And as for the phrases here sounding so like those used of that day, it is
certain that there is never a phrase here used but is frequently and ordi-
narily used to express great mutations and overturnings in kingdoms, and
great calamities brought upon men in those kingdoms by God, long before
the day of judgment. As —
1. That it is called the 'great day, in which who can stand?' ver. 17 ;
and that the sun and moon are said to be darkened, &c. ; you shall find the
same expressions used, Joel ii. 10, to set forth the great overturning the
Jewish state by the armies of the Chaldeans in the captivity. Their armies
the prophet describes, ver. 2, 3, 8, and their sacking Jerusalem, ver. 9 ; and
the confusion and calamities brought upon that state he expresseth by the
same metaphors that are here used: ver. 10, ' The earth shall quake before
them ; the heavens shall tremble : the sun and the moon shall be dark, and
the stars shall withdraw their shining.' And, ver. 11, because these were
God's executioners of his vengeance, therefore he is described as their general,
making a speech to them : * The Lord shall utter his voice before his army;
his camp is very great.' Therefore that time is called, as here, ' the great
and terrible day of the Lord ;' and ' who can abide it ? ' as here, ' who can
stand"?' Thus, Isa. xxxiv., where the prophet plainly describes the overthrow
of Edom, as appears by ver. 5, though he calls all the world to consider her
example as a warning to them, as ver. 1 ; that he would go on to do the
like to them, as ver. 2 ; yet thus he describes it, just as here, ver. 4, 'All the
host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together
as a scroll : and all the host' — or stars — 'of heaven shall fall down as from
a fig-tree.' And yet all this foretells but the sword upon Edom, overturning
that state, as appears by ver. 5, 8. It is the day of the Lord's vengeance for
their persecuting of Sion, just as here.
2. And those other phrases also, of ' hidmg themselves in caves and rocks
of the mountains,' and ' calling upon the hills to cover them ;' they are but
expressions of such shames, and miseries, and calamities, as the vengeance of
God in such great changes doth work. Thus, Isa. ii. 19, when God comes
to punish Israel for their idols, and to send forth the light of the gospel
unto them, the idolaters, as confounded, are said to go into ' the holes of the
44 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRI I
rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and the glory of
his majesty.' And when the ten tribes were carried captive by Ashur, their
calamities were expressed by this, Hos. x. 8, ' They shall say to the moun-
tains, Cover us ; and to the rocks. Fall upon us.' So that Christ, the giver
of this vision, and opener of this seal, hath but borrowed the similitudes and
expressions used by the prophets in several places, to set forth the like
change, calamity, and confusion that befell the heathenish state of the Roman
empu-e. But then —
Secondly, Because these places of the prophets alluded unto do speak of
the overthrow of kingdoms by wars, therefore ]\Ir Forbes would have this seal
to be that utter overturning of the western empire of Rome, by the Goths
and Vandals, which began four hundred years after Christ ; and so to note
out the ruin of the empire itself, and not of heathenism in it. And but for
these reasons following, I should have thought so also : as —
1. That the first seal beginning but with the conquest of heathenism in
the empire, (for Christ in the preaching the gospel did at first seek out-
wardly to overcome or plague nothing else,) here in this seal must be the
accomplishment of that victory or full conquest gotten, described, and set
forth ; and so the same thing made the subject of the complete conquest
described here, that is made the subject of the first onset in the first seal,
ver. 2, 3 ; and that was the heathenish religion of the empire, and the up-
holders of it. And so Christ's first step, or degree of conquest in order to
his kingdom, is completely in this chapter presented, vdth his first full
victory over the first enemy whom he encountered in the world, even Satan,
and his false worship ; to shew that what Christ began with he makes an
end of. And so this book still shews how he makes a clear and full
despatch of such enemies first, as first he encounters. He encountered
heathenism first by the gospel, then by plagues ; but now, as one grown
angry, he completes the victory by power and might, and by a violent con-
cussion and shaking of that state. And ha\ing despatched this enemy, and
so made clear work as he goes, as wise conquerors use to do, then he falls
upon the empire itself, in the trumpets. And that is the reason why this
last act of this tragedy is represented under such metaphors as the great day
of judgment is set out by ; even for this, that it imports a full and a com-
plete victory, and a final overthrow of that which he had encountered. That
as the day of judgment is a final conquest of all enemies by the Lion of
Judah, so is this a like final conquest by the Lamb of this first enemy whom
he did set himself to conquer, even Satan and his false worship set up by
that Roman monarchy.
2. The trumpets that come after are reserved for the nain of the empire,
as a distinct thing from heathenism in it ; and the vials for the overthrow
of Popery and the faction of Mohammed. And —
3. Thus the parts of this prophecy are found to run on similarly,
and things alike are put together in distinct visions. Here are three sorts
of enemies, and so of plagues to ruin them, in this prophecy : —
(1.) The six seals ; which are the beginnings of sorrows to the world ;
and they fall upon Satan's false worship, which stood in Christ's way.
(2.) The six trumpets; which fell upon the empire itself, for having
persecuted and prosecuted the church.
(3.) The vials; which fall on the Pope and his idolatry, and on the
Mohammedan faction, the Turks, his last enemies. These, therefore, are
called the last plagues, chap. xvL
4. And for a fourth reason, obsenre, that the 12tli chapter, which begins
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the revelation. 45
and contains the story of the church in the first primitive times, as this doth
of the heathenish empire, doth wonderfully agree with tliis chapter here, con-
tainino; the like space of time, and describing the same conquest and victory
over Satan (the dragon) in the lloman empire (in heaven) : only with this
difference, that here the calamities and confusion that befell the kings or
emperors, and the chieftains of heathenish worshippers, that did seek to
uphold that religion still, are set out; whereas there, only Satan's confusion in
being thrown down is described, which was very suitable, that being the
story of the church, this of the empire more eminently.
So then, two things are distinctly set out unto us under these phrases and
metaphors : —
First, By the darkening the sun, moon, and stars, according to the ana-
logy of the prophets, is expressed the deposing of those heathenish emperors
and governors in that state, considered as they did strive to keep up heath-
enism, with whom Satan and his worship also fell. So as though the state
stood still, yet those governors and the heathenism of the state were re-
moved and destroyed, and thrown down from their heaven, the superior
government of that state ; which was done by Christ's sending madness and
diseases upon Dioclesian and Maximinian, heathenish emperors ; insonmch as
they, out of a sense of the Lamb's wrath, gave over their government, whilst
they were in the meridian of their glory, to the wonderment of the world.
And afterwards Maxentius and Maximin, heathen emperors also, were over-
come by Licinius, whilst he favoured the Christians, and was colleague with
Constantine. By which Constantine it was afterwards more completely
furthered and carried on ; for when the foresaid Licinius made a revolt unto
heathenism, Constantine subdued him and his chieftains, (for heathenism
went not down without blows,) and turned that whole state Christian, when
he had deposed heathenish persecutors.
Now, such a deposing of governors in a state, and overthrowing their
armies, is in the prophets expressed by darkening the sun, moon, and stars,
as well as the overthrowing the state itself. So, Isa. xiii. 10, the depos-
ing the Babylonian monarch and his nobles by the Medes is set forth by
the 'darkening the sun,' their king; 'the moon,' their queen; 'the stars,'
their nobles. And in another place it is said, ' How art thou fallen, O
Lucifer, thou son of the morning!' speaking of the bright star the king of
Babel, who, Isa. xiv. 13, said he would ' ascend to heaven, and exalt his
throne above the stars.' In the dialect and phrase of speech used in the
eastern countries, (as among the Arabians and Jews, &c.,) to throw down any
one's excellency, is expressed by casting down his heaven to the earth. And
so it may be said, that which also some interpreters would have, that that
which after follows expresseth but the same thing which was at first meta-
phorically uttered under the prophet's allusions of sun, moon, and stars : all
which John afterwards hterally expoundeth, ver. 15, when he says, ' and the
kings of the earth ;' that is, those Roman emperors, the suns of this firma-
ment, were stepped off from their glory; and their stars, the heathenish
nobles that adhered to them, were deposed ; their mountains removed, that
is, their chieftains and strong men, as such are called, Isa. ii. 14 ; so that the
one is but an exposition of the other. And thus only the miserable over-
throw of the heathenish worshippers is here described, as became the seal-
prophecy ; even as the putting down of Satan and his worship is expressed in
the book-prophecy.
And that which may strengthen this interpretation is, that the rest of the
prophecy being to proceed with the like metaphors, of plagues upon the sun,
46 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT I.
moon stars, earth, trees, etc., (for in such, language and metaphors are the
contents of the trumpets and vials expressed ;) he, therefore, here gives one
literal explanation of them in this, which is his first mention of such, which
one may serve for all; that so, by the analogy of the Holy Ghost's own ex-
position here, the rest might be interpreted, who makes kings to be as the
sun, and nobles as the stars, &c. To this purpose, you must know that in
Scripture descriptions and expressions, (the prophets using to point things
out by similitude,) every kmgdom, state, or body of men is compared and
assimilated to a world, in which what is superior and highest is called the
heavens ; and therein, the highest the sun, the next the moon, and next to
them the stars, &c. ; and what is of lower rank is called the earth, sea, rivers,
and trees, (fcc. And therefore pimishments on states and kingdoms in this
book are expressed by casting them down from their heavens, and by
miseries falhug upon the rivers, the sea, (fee, whereby such things are under-
stood as answering in states amongst men in nearest resemblance unto the
sea, earth, &c., in the great world. And this is the key, as of this vision, so
of the trumpets and the vials that follow. And sometimes the Scripture
expresseth the alterations of kingdoms themselves, and of all places of rank
and of government, by this darkening the heavens, the sun, &c. So Hag.
ii 21, 22, ' Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I wUl shake the
heavens and the earth ; and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I
will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen ; and I will over-
throw the chariots, and those that ride in them ; and the horses and theii
riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.' And some-
tunes only the deposing of persons from those places and dignities, the
places standing still. IS'ow, in the trumpets, the casting down the sun,
stars, &c., is spoken of in the abstract, even the altering the very state,
(together -with deposing the persons,) power, and dignity of the empire. But
here it is to be understood of deposing the persons only, in the concrete, who
had that power, but were put down from it. And so it imports the throw-
ing down the chieftains of heathen emperors, and the dej^osing them from
their places, not yet meddling with the places themselves in the empire.
The second thing that these expressions hold forth is not simply the
overthrowing of kingdoms and states, or of governors, &c., and so to be
understood of political mutations only; but they are used to set forth a
change and mutation of worship and of religion in a state. For as bodies
pohtic are compared to a world, as was said, so religious bodies and states,
considered in respect to their worship or rehgion, are thus compared also.
So Jesus Christ is said to have his world, Ps. viii. 3, ' Thy heavens, thy
moon and stars,' (fee, where the sun is not mentioned, because Christ himself,
who is the ' Sun of righteousness,' is the sun therein. Now, Heb. ii. 5, 6,
that psalm is interpreted of Christ's world, the world to come, as it is
called, ver. 5 ; both this of the gospel, in opposition to Adam's world, and
Christ's kingdom hereafter.
Moreover, for the present, the state of Christ's worship and worshippers
imder the gospel, and his ordinances, are compared to a world wherein are
heavens, and moon, and stars. Thus, Ps. xix. 1, 'The heavens declare the
glory of God ;' which is interpreted of the preaching of the gospel, Rom. x.
18, ' But I say. Have they not heard ? Yes verily, their sound went into all
the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.' The apostles and
their doctrine are the heavens, the lights in this heaven of Christ, to declare
bis glory to the world ; and therefore the words of the 4th verse of that 19th
Psalm are there in the 10th to the Romans applied to their preaching. And
CnAl'. IV.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 47
you know ministers are called stars in the first chapter of this book of the
Revelation. So likewise churches are called heavenly lights shining in the
world, Phil. ii. 15 ; <pu(Sr^^ic, light-bearers, the same word that is given by
the Septuagint to the stars, Gen. i. 14. And it appears by that place that
they irradiate the world; not a house, as a candle or torch does, but the
world, as stars do. And the apostles' ministry is compared to twelve stars,
which the primitive church was crowned with. Rev. xii. 1. And so, Heb.
xii. 27, it is one part of the meaning of shaking the heavens; that is, the
ordinances of the gospel, which are called the heavens.
I'hat frame of worship which Christ hath erected and instituted to be
under the gospel, is interpreted to be meant by the heavens, — for as they are
the ordinances of day and night, so are these of the church, — as oppositely,
the legal worship is there called the earth. Yea, the temple-worship, with
the priests and elders of that religion, are so called. Therefore, Dan. viii. 9,
10, Antiochus's causmg that worship to cease, and putting down those priests,
is expressed to us by his prevailing over the host of heaven, and his cast-
ing down some of the host and stars unto the ground. Yea, ver. 11, he is
said to magnify himself against the prince of that host ; that is, against God
and Christ, the sun in this firmament, as the sun is prince of the stars.
Now then, as Christ thus hath his world, so Antichrist also hath his heavens,
and sun, and earth, &c., which are to be interpreted spiritually as well as
politically. And thus Satan's heathenish religion and worship in the Roman
empire is in like manner here expressed unto us. The false gods of the hea-
thens are called in Scripture the ' host of heaven,' as Deut. xvii. 3, not only
because some of them worshipped the sun and stars immediately, but also
because the Romans and Grecians did entitle the stars by the names of their
gods, or men famous among them whom they worshipped ; and so they wor-
shipped both at once under one and the same name. The sun they entitled
Apollo, and the other planets by the names of other gods and goddesses, as
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus; and the moon they called Phoebe, or the great
goddess Diana; all which had once been men and women among them,
though now, being dead, they were worshipped for gods and goddesses. So
that they worshipped the host of heaven under the names of men ; though
really and indeed, under both these, they Avorshipped Satan and his devils,
though not immediately, yet interpretatively. Thus speaks the Apostle,
1 Cor. X. 20, ' The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils.'
Now then, this advancement of Satan, under the names and titles of the
host of heaven, was truly his heaven, wherein the devils, by that religion,
were set up as the gods of this world, as 2 Cor. iv. 4. And answerably the
throwing down of Satan's worship and religion is expressed by a change Oi
the heavens, even as Christ expresseth the throwing down the heathenish
worship by the apostles' preaching to be its ' falling from heaven like light-
ning ; ' which Christ speaks of their casting out devils then, when sent out
to preach, as a certain omen which his faith had beforehand, that Satan, in
like manner, with all his worship, should be thrown down by the preaching
the gospel in the empire. And so accordingly, chap, xii., Satan and his
angels are said to be cast down from heaven, when he and they were acknow-
ledged for gods no longer.
Now, the alteration of this heathenish worship and change of this religion
in the empire is the shaking the heavens and earth here meant. The word
for earthquake is not to be confined only to the earth, (in English we have
no word large enough,) for it imports the concussion or throwing down by a
commotion of that heathenish world, the heavens and earth, and all of that
48 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION, '[PaRT L
religion, even of all that had a station in that accursed frame. Thus, Hag.
ii. 6, 7, you have the like allusion for the alteration of the Jewish worship
into the gospel worship ; and then, that alteration yet to come, of this gospel
worship, when the kingdom of Christ shall be set up. The one is expressed
by shaking the earth ; the other, the heavens. And that shaking is inter-
preted, Heb. xii. 27, to be 'removing away of the things shaken.'
And so the throwing down Satan and his devils from being worshipped
any longer under the names of the host of heaven, and those appellatives
given the stars, and titles to men departed, whereof he received all the real
honour, may fitly be here understood to be the darkening the sun and moon,
and the falling of these stars from heaven. As Christ is the sun in his hea-
ven, so Satan, the prince of devUs, the prince of this host of heaven, as
Daniel's phrase is, was the sun in this firmament. And the lesser devils, mth
him worshijjped under the title of the lesser gods, and of the stars, are the
stars here which fall from heaven. And as the moon is Christ's church, and
the queen in his heaven, so the college of priests, (who were then in Rome,
as the Pope and cardinals are now,) that were the instruments of his worship,
they were the moon in his heaven. And so his consecrated places, his islands
and mountains, the high places of his worship, were removed out of their
place ; that is, diverted from that use which they were once put to in that
idolatrous worship.
So then this mutation of the heathenish religion, from Constantine's time
downward, during the space of one hundred years, for so long was it ere
heathenism could be utterly extirpated and wholly abolished for ever rising
again, is here set forth unto us by two things, here distinctly and apart laid
down : —
First, The overthrowing the worship and religion itself, expressed by those
metaphors before mentioned. As —
1. By the eclipsing of the sun and moon : ' The sun became black, and the
moon as blood ;' that is, the glory of these their chief false gods, and the
priests of them, was darkened.
2. By ' the falling of the stars, as figs not fully ripe ; ' that is, by a violent
wind ; shewing that men's hearts were not loosened of themselves to a dis-
like of that religion, nor brought so freely off from it at the first. They
would have stuck on stUl, had not the wind of power and authority shook
them do^vn.
3. By the vanishing of the whole heaven of this worship, as * a scroll folded
up.' The manner of the Jews was to write on parchment, which, from being
folded or rolled up, they called vohimen, a volume ; and with us parchment
is from thence called vellum to this day.
Which metaphor imports —
(1.) That as when a scroll is folded up, not a letter of it is to be seen, but
immediately upon the rolling up all do disappear ; so these gods vanished,
not any of their worship retains the same name now that was then used.
There is not a tittle of those gods left ; they have had no worshippers these
thousand years.
(2.) As a book or scroll folded up is not used, so neither is this religion.
In the second place, this mutation is represented unto us in the confusion
that befell the upholders of that ethnic worship, the Atlases of these heavens,
that endeavoured to support them, and opposed Constantine and other em-
perors in the discarding of this, and bringing in the Christian religion. The
devil goes not out of a man possessed, nor out of our hearts, without blows,
nor tUl a stronger than he comes. So neither did he leave that station of
Ch\P. VI.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 49
his in the empire easily and without resistance, but egged on kings, namely,
some empert)rs and generals, and the common sort of people with them, to
join together for the upholding of the old religion and worship of his. These
the Lamb encounters, and in his wrath confounds. Now, it is observable
how John useth some of the very names which were given the Romans in
their several ranks; for here are three several ranks mentioned : — (1.) Highest
governors, as kings. (2.) The middle sort of men, as the rich and strong.
(3.) The inferior multitude of false worshippers, as bondmen and free.
1. Kings; that is, emperors, for which the Greek tongue had no word but
^aaiXiTg, which, therefore, the apostles used for emperor ; so Peter, 1 Pet.
ii. 1 3, and Paul, 1 Tim. iL 2. Then xf^'^-V/J^i captains of thousands. The
Roman legions, over whom these were captains, consisted of seven thousand.
2. Rich men and mighty men, who made up the middle sort of men.
3. Bondmen and free, who made up the lower and inferior rank of men.
These were usual distinctions of men's ranks among the Romans,
Now their confusion is expressed —
1. By their shameful overthrow ; they fly for shame, and hide themselves
in dens, a phrase expressing shameful confusion and disappointment.
2. Their despair of help, mtimated in that phrase, ' They shall say to the
mountains. Fall upon us,' &c. So Luke xxiii. 30, and Hos. x. 8, where when
common calamities came upon the ten tribes, and upon the state of Jeru-
salem, their being at their wits' end, in respect of getting rid out of them, is
expressed by their calling to the mountains to cover them, and the hills to
fall upon them, as wishing for death rather than the present miseries. Not
that they should use these very words, but that their state should be such
as should make them wish some such thing, or anything, rather than that
misery then brought upon them. Those of other nations who are reduced
to some extreme and miserable exigent, are wont to express their grievance
by wishing the earth to swallow them ; but this particular phrase is peculiar
to the Jews, who had a rocky country, full of caves, to which they for refuge
were wont to fly, — and therefore it is usual in Scripture to say, ' Enter into
thy rock, and hide thyself,' as Isa. ii. 10, — and being in those caves, their
fear and despair did oft-times put them upon wishing that those rocks would
faU on them, and make an end of them.
3. The phrases import that all this is done with a sense and conviction in
the hearts of these enemies of Christ, that it was by the power of Christ,
whom they called accursed, and derided ; and that he was indeed the king
of the world, and conqueror of them. For they that are thus confounded
do within themselves call to the rocks to cover them from ' the face of the
Lamb,' with whose anger their consciences were struck, in those victories
got over them, and miseries brought upon them. And therefore it is here
brought in as their speech, to bid the rocks cover them from the face of the
Lamb, for the great day of the Lamb's wrath is come, * and who shall be
able to stand,' or 'to abide it ?' as Joel ii. 11.
Now the story of those times, when the heathenish religion was altered in
the empire, presents such a face of things as this seal doth. For Dioclesian
and Maximinian, the greatest persecutors that ever the church had, in the
height and ruff of their imperial glory and rage, did give over their authority
and empire, and retired themselves, whereof no historian could give the rea-
son, but imputed it to madness; but indeed they did it so, as it were, to
hide themselves from the face of the Lamb. To these succeeded Galerius,
and Maximin, and Constantius, the father of Constantine. Maxim in, per-
secuting the Christians, was smitten with a strange disease, and being ever
VOL. HI. p
60 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaET L
and anon convinced that Christ was king, he recalled his edicts for the per-
secution of them ; and yet, like Pharaoh, he afterwards put them forth again,
till at length he died miserably, acknowledging Christ's wrath. Then was
Maxentius set up by the Romans, a defender of the heathenish cause. But
being overcome by Licinius, he threw away his imperial robes, fled, and lay
hid for the safeguard of his life, and acknowledged Christ by a decree ; but
his flesh was eaten of worms. Then Licinius opposing Constantine, joined
in the empire with him, was overcome by him, and he and his complices
condemned, at the place of execution acknowledging Christ to be God.
What afterward befell Julian, who attempted to set up that heathen religion
again, — as how, being shot in his wars against Persia, he took his blood,
and flinging it into the air, cried out, Vicisti Galilcee, — you cannot be
ignorant of.
Obs. 1. — Learn, when you see any notable overthrow given the enemies
of Christ, to raise up your hearts to thoughts of the day of judgment. "We
find, as here, so elsewhere, notable judgments on God's enemies set forth and
described under the language of that day. It is frequent in Scripture, as
Psalm xviii. and elsewhere. They may mutually help to strengthen our
faith in each other ; a particular judgment, in that of the great day, that it
will also come ; and that great day doth also assure us, that Christ will here
be avenged on his enemies, Christ hath many great days that forerun that
great day ; and wicked men, and wicked causes, have days of judgment
here.
Obs. 2. — How easy it is for the Lamb to make an alteration of religion in
a kingdom, causing the new one which he brings in to prevail Thus in a
few years he turned the whole empire Christian, even when heathenism was
rooted in all men's hearts, and when Satan had a throne fixed in appearance
to continue ; then, by his power possessing himself of the emperor's heart, he,
as the phrase is, 1 Kings ii. 15, 'turned the kingdom about ;' and this, when
men's hearts of themselves were not turned, but were as figs not fully ripe,
yet shaken off by this wind. And he folded up the heavens as a scroll ; not
one constellation or star of all those false gods, that then shone so bright in
all men's eyes, having shined in the world these many hundred years. And
Christ hath promised to do the like agamst Popery. Which state, as it is
the image of that empire and religion, so it shall bear the likeness of its
punishment. What a mighty change was wi-ought in the hearts of kings and
princes upon the first Pteformation ! And God will work the like upon the
second Eeformation, before Rome is destroyed, and will put it into their
hearts to ruin her utterly.
Obs. 3. — Christ thinks it not enough for him to confound his enemies, but
he will make them also to acknowledge his truth. Thus he did by Nebuchad-
nezzar, by Antiochus, and by those persecutors ; and thus he will do by all
the proud of the earth. He will not only confound the false church and
synagogue of Satan; but he will make tliem come and acknowledge that
God hath loved the Philadelphian, Rev. iii. 9. How often in the prophets
is this made the fruit of their punisliment ! and by this it is expressed, 'They
shall know that I am the Lord.' It is ill standing out with Christ in any-
thing. Christ will have, not only every knee to bow, but every tongue to
confess his name. Learn we therefore not to stand out against convictions
of any kind. The Lamb will in the end have, not only a real victory in
men's punishments, but he will have men render it more complete by their
confessions and acknowledgments,
Obs. 4. — How in dispensing punishments, Christ meets with persecutors
Chap. IV.] an exposition op the revelation. 51
in their kind : they caused poor Christians to fly into caves and dens, and to
worship the Lamb in corners, as the Apologies of those times shew ; now
Christ comes forth and appears openly, and drives them into comers, wherein
to hide their heads.
Obs. 5. — What a glorious and long time Satan, the god of this world, and
his devils with him, had of it, when they were counted as the only true gods,
and were worshipped for such by the whole world during the space of three
hundred years. They who are reserved in chains for hell were then counted
'the Immortal Gods,' possessors of Leaven ; and had their seat, in aU men's
opinions, above the stars, having all the world for their devout and zealous
worshippers. What, therefore, is it to have a great name, or the best name,
the name of a saint, for a while here ? The devils had not only the names
and titles, but the hononrs of gods, and that for some thousands of years ;
for whom, notwithstanding, the lowest place in hell is designed.
Obs. 6. — You will not wonder at the prosperity of wicked men, that they
carry it so long in the world, if you consider but how long the devil carried
it, without encountering any stop in his way ; as having all nations for his
inheritance. God was worshipped but in one poor corner of the earth ; but
the devil possessed the heavens, and was as the sun in the firmament, and his
priests as the moon and stars, as if they had been perpetual ordinances.
Think not much at the continuance of Popery for twelve hundred years.
Heathenism stood far longer, and Christ will make more quick work in the
last days than in those past.
Obs. 7. — That Christ, though he be a lamb, yet he can, and wUl be angry.
Men have all such sweet thoughts of Christ, as if he had no anger in him ;
but ' when his anger is kindled but a little, then blessed are all they that
put their trust in him.'
Obs. 8. — That God punisheth idolaters and their idols together. Here
both the heathenish emperors and their religion and gods are together
removed. Thus, Isa. ii. 17-19, 'And the loftiness of man shall be bowed
down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low : and the Lord alone
shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish. And
they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for
fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake
terribly the earth.' Which place is parallel to this here, and a prophecy of
the kingdom of Christ. Thus God punished Egypt, as appears by Num.
xxxiii. 4, where it is said, 'upon their gods also he executed judgments.'
The like you have in Jer. xliii. 11-13. So also was Babylon and her gods
punished, as Jer. 1. 2, ' Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set
up a standard ; publish, and conceal not : say, Babylon is taken, Bel is con-
founded, Merodach is broken in pieces ; her idols are confounded, her images
are broken in pieces.' And thus God also did, when he began to ruin
Popery, the spiritual Egypt and Babylon. He punished monks, pulling
down monasteries and their idols together ; his anger was against them, as
well as against their persons. And so superstitious ceremonies and will-
worship will down together.
Obs. 9. — How fearful and terrible will the day of judgment be, when
Christ shall come as the lion of the tribe of Judah, if now, when he reigns
as a lamb, carrying things meekly, and with much patience, he brings such
confounding judgments ! All vengeance here is but the vengeance of a lamb,
in comparison of the rending of a lion that is to come. For, as I take it, he
is set forth as a lamb in respect to his governing and dispensations until
the day of judgment ; but then he will come as the Hon of Judah, and shew
52 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaUT I.
himself so mucli more terrible then, as a lion is more terrible than a lamb.
All terrors of conscience which men suffer here, which yet make them call
for the hills to cover them, are but the wrath of the lamb in comparison of
those roarings of the lion at the great day. Oh, consider this you that forget
God, lest he come and tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you !
I shall now proceed no further by way of a large commenting, or raising
any more observations, until I come to the Second Part.
Chap. V.] an exposition op the revelation. 53
CHAPTER V.
The six first trumpets.
Now the six first trumpets contain several steps and degrees of ruining the
imperial government of the empire itself when turned Christian, by several
wars and incursions of barbarous nations upon it, whereof trumpets are
suitably made the denouncers ; and this in revenge of so much Christian
blood as was spilt when the empire was heathenish : even as the captivity
of Babylon did break the Jewish state for shedding innocent blood in the time
of Manasseh, at wliich time that state was idolatrous, though he and all
Judah did afterwards turn to the true worship of God again. And accord-
ing to the division of the empire, east and west, accordingly was God's
method in the ruining : —
First, Of the western parts of it, by the Goths and Vandals, who utterly
shattered the government of the occidental emperors, and broke it into ten
kingdoms ; over which the Pope succeeded.
Then, secondly, after that, overturning the oriental part : —
1. By the Saracens ; of whom Mohammed was the head, who wrung one
great part of the eastern empire, in Arabia, Egypt, and Assyria, out of the
emperor's hands, and subjected those dominions unto Mohammedanism.
And then —
2. By the Turks, professing Mohammedanism also ; who conquered and
subdued, not only what the Saracens before them had done, but also that
other part of the eastern empire remaining still Christian, namely, in NatoUa
and in Greece, over which the Greek emperors, successors of the Roman, till
then continued, but were now wholly subjected, together with Constantinople
itself, the seat of their empire, unto the Turks, who thus alone possess the
whole eastern empire unto this day.
And according to this method of ruining the empire, the trumpets are
answerably divided by the Holy Ghost.
The four first trumpets, which are made the lesser evils and miseries,
are the wars of the Goths and Vandals, in four several incursions, chap. vui. ;
but the two latter, the fifth and sixth trumpets, which are made the woe-
trumpets, chap. viii. 13, chap. ix. 12, chap. xi. 14, and so are distinguished
from the former, are those infinite calamities and inbondagements which
were brought upon the eastern part of the empire by the Saracens' wars
and conquests, who are the fifth trumpet, and by the Turks, who are the
sixth trumpet ; both longer for continuance, and greater for extremity, than
the four first, and that by far.
Now to give a little general light into these trumpets, as I have done into
the seals. The trumpets are the vengeance upon the empire itself, for the
blood of the saints therein shed; which therefore was promised unto the
martyrs under the fifth seal, chap. vi. 1 1, whose prayers are here, chap, viii
54 AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVELATION. [PaRT I.
5, oflfered up by Christ, the time being come for the vengeance promised,
and so the trumpets sound.
Section I.
The exposition of the 8th chapter. — The four first trumpets signifying the
ruin of the western empire.
The four first trumpets are chiefly upon the western empire extended all
over Europe ; which was performed by four steps or degrees.
The first falling on the earth, ver. 7 ; the second on the sea, ver. 8 ; the
third on the rivers, ver. 10 ; the fourth on the sun, moon, and stars, ver. 12.
You must remember, as before was said, that kingdoms and empires are
represented in Scripture by a world that hath heaven, earth, sea, &c., as Jer.
iv. 23. Wherein —
1. The earth, and grass, and trees thereon, are the lower sort of people,
both the richer and poorer ; as, Zech. xi. 2, ' Howl, fir-tree ; for the cedar is
fallen ; because all the mighty are spoiled : howl, ye oaks of Bashan ; for
the forest of the vintage is come down.'
2. The sea is the extent of the jurisdiction of an empire or kingdom over
several dominions. Therefore Rome is said to sit on many waters, and to
arise out of the sea, which is but the collection of many waters ; that is,
many nations. The like phrase to which is used of the Babylonish
monarchy over many kingdoms; they are called 'her sea,' Jer. li. 36, 44,
compared : ' Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will plead thy cause,
and take vengeance for thee ; and I will dry up her sea, and make her
s]5rings dry.' ' And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out
of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up : and the nations shall not
flow together any more unto him; yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.' And
the many nations under the Assyrian monarchy are so called, Ezek. xxxi 4,
' The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers
running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the
trees of the field.'
3. The rivers are the several cities, and magistrates over them, who have a
lesser kind of jurisdiction over those cities or provinces.
4. By the sun, moon, and the other stars in this world, are meant the
superior magistrates, and the glory of them, as Isa. xiii. 10, ' For the stars of
heaven, and the constellations thereof, shall not give their light ; the sun
shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light
to shine.' Jer. xv. 9, ' She that hath borne seven languisheth ; she hath
given up the ghost ; her sun is gone down whUe it is yet day ; she hath
been ashamed and confounded : and the residue of them will I deliver to
the sword before their enemies, saith the Lord.'
Now these four trumpets contain four several degi'ees of calamities by
wars that befell the western empire, and the city of Rome, the head of that
empire, by the incursions of the Goths and Vandals, from the year of Christ
400 to the year 540. Of which —
The first harrowed the earth, the people of that empire, as wars at first
used to light most heavy upon them. It proceeded to no further harm
than the burning up of the trees and grass; as, Rev. viii. 7, 'The first angel
sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were
cast upon the earth ; and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all
green grass was burnt up.'
The second fell on the sea ; for the Goths did break off from the imperial
Chap. V.] an kxposition of the eevelatio:*. 53
yoke those nations that were subject to it, and gave them opportunity to
set up ten kingdoms, which remain in Europe to this day, beginning in
France, anno 413 ; and by 450, all the ten were up, as the chronicles shew.
And this rending of the kingdoms from it, with the burning of that great
mountain, the sacking of Home itself, which, as Babylon of old, Jer. li. 25, is
called a ' destroying mountain,' as overshadowing all cities ; and her sacking
by Cyrus is there called the 'burning of the mountain ;' so this spoiling and
sacking of Rome by Alaricus, king of the Goths, anno 410, is called the
' burning of the mountain,' chap. viii. 8 : ' And the second angel sounded, and
as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea ; and the
third part of the sea became blood.'
The third trumpet produccth the fall of that bright star which is called ' a
great star burning as a lamp,' that is, a blazing star, or comet ; which was
the utter extinguishing and putting down of emperors, anno 476, who ceased
in Augustulus, whose fall is expressed like that of the king of Babel's, Isa.
xiv. 12, ' How art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer,' or morning-star, 'son
of the morning ! ' Which prince, upon his fall, hath his name given him,
Worimvood, for that he was a prince of bitterness and sorrows. And to-
gether with him, many provincial cities and magistrates (which are called
rivers and fountains) had their dignity taken from them*; and this is the
third trumpet, ver. 10, 11, 'And the third angel sounded, and there feU a
great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamji, and it fell upon the third
part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters ; and the name of the
star is called Wormwood : and the third part of the waters became wormwood ;
and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.'
Rome now being in the hands of the Goths, was the seat of those kinga
that won it, who yet conserved in it the senators, consuls, and supreme
magistrates, in their ancient glory. But then comes the fourth trumpet :
ver. 1 2, ' And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was
smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars ; so as
the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part
of it, and the night likewise.' And this totally deprives this city of Rome of
her ancient form of government, under consuls, senators, &c., with the glory
and majesty of which it had shined many hundred years, before ever the
imperial power was placed over it ; and therefore that government is here
called the sun, &c., because of the glory and majesty of that state, under
which it had won to itself the monarchy of the world ; which ancient
government had still continued under the emperors, but was now wholly
and utterly subverted ; and this was done in the last war, anno 542. Here
was the glory of the western empire and Rome utterly extinguished, but
that the Pope (whom you shall find in the 13th chapter, when we come to
the book-prophecy) obtains a power there, though upon another title than
these emperors had, over these ten kingdoms, and builds up another Rome
upon the ruins of the old, and so possesseth the seat of the former beast, the
empire. But because the title he pretends is the title of the church,
although a false one, therefore his story comes not in in this seal-prophecy,
but in the church-prophecies, chap. xiii.
But these four trumpets that fall uj)on the west are but lesser evils in re-
spect of those that are to fall upon the eastern part, which during all these
alterations in the west stands entire and whole, professing the Christian
faith. The other two trumpets, which are their portion, chap, ix., do, for
continuance and extremity of calamities, infinitely exceed the other; and
therefore they have this preface to them, chap. viii. 13, 'Woe, woe, woe, to
5Q AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the voices of the other trumpets,
that are yet to sound ! ' for so God ordered it, as his manner is, that that
eastern part, standing longest, should be reserved unto the sorer punishment.
Section II.
The exposition of the 9th chapter. — The fifth and sixth trumpets betoken the
ruin of the eastern empire, ivhich ivas first broken by the Saracens, and
at last utterly destroyed by the Turks, a.d. 1453.
Here the fifth trumpet sounds, which produceth the falling of a star from
heaven, wliich opens the bottomless pit, and lets out smoke as out of a fur-
nace, which darkens the sun and air, and lets out an innumerable company
of locusts, whose cruel description you have, ver. 7-10, 'And the shapes of
the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle ; and on their heads
were as it were crowns of gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And
they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of
lions. And they had breastplates, as it Avere breastplates of iron ; and the
sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to
battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in
their tails : and their power was to hurt men five months ;' who torment
men so that they shall seek death, but shaU not find it. Such shall be the
calamities of those times. By all which is set out the bringing in of Mo-
hammedanism, the greatest imposture that ever the world knew, which
darkens the sun and air by putting out the light of Christian profession.
And this was done by Mohammed, who is that star that feU from the pro-
fession of Christianity, and opened hell to brmg forth that damned religion
of his, making himself the prophet of God ; unto whom an innumerable
comjDany of Arabians, his countrymen, — who are here called locusts for their
multitudes, as the Midianites and Amalekites are also called. Judges vii 12, —
did cleave, and set him up as king : ver. 11, 'And they had a king over
them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew
tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name ApoUyon.'
Wringing from out of the hands of the eastern empire Arabia, Egypt, Assy-
ria, Armenia, and much of Asia the Less, and extending their dominion
further over Persia, East India, and a great part of Africa and Spain, they
became almost as great an empire as that of Rome had been, although this
dominion of Mohammed extended another way, yet withal possessing the
one half of the eastern empire. Only these are bidden by God not to ' hurt
the servants of God sealed in their foreheads,' ver. 4, for God had some true
believers in that part of the eastern empire who yet remained Christian ;
and among them God had some also whom you read to have been before-
hand sealed, chap, vii 3, ' saying. Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor
the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads,' ere
that any trumpets blew. Such was God's care to prevent all hurt unto
them, of which I shall afterwards particularly speak. And this kingdom
began to be set up anno 630, and contumed many hundred years.
Then succeeds the sixth trumpet, which is the second woe-trumpet, and
ordained to bring calamities on the other part of the eastern empire, which
was left standing still under the successors of the Roman monarchy, and
professing the Christian religion in Asia the Less, and in Greece, known com-
monly in historians by the name of the empire of Greece ; to ruin which, God
had ready prepared four angels, with four several armies of horsemen, which
amounted to 200,000,000, as chap. ix. 14-16, 'saying to the sixth angel
Chap. V.] a.n exposition of the revelation. 57
which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great
river Euphrates. Aiid the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for
an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of
men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred
thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them;' which armies, with
the angels their leaders, being a long while restrained, lay hovering about
the borders of the river Euphrates. Whom the angel of this trimipet lets
loose by the command of God, like so many furies, to fall upon the last part
of this eastern empire remaining, and also to conquer those other dominions
which the Saracens, under the fifth trumpet, had before overrun. Now,
according to all the characters and footprints which we find in the Turkish
stories, no prophecy doth or can more punctually describe any nation or
event than this doth the Turks, and their irruption upon the eastern empire ;
who, when they came first out of their native country, about the year 1040
after Christ, did seat themselves first by the river Euphrates, and were
divided into four several governments or kingdomaj known commonly in
historians by these four names — first Iconian, seated at Iconium ; the second
at Aleppo ; the third at Damascus ; and the fourth at Bagdat, or Babylon,
bordering on the river Euphrates. Who having lain hovering thereabouts for
the space of two hundred years, did, about the year of Christ 1300, overrun
all Natolia, or Asia the Less, and joining all into one kingdom under Otto-
man, the forefather of the present Great Turk, did not cease till they had
won Constantinople itself and all Greece, the empire of which they put
down, which was now the only relic of the ancient Roman empire, and this
in the year 1453, which is a hundred and eighty-six years since;* who
possess that whole eastern empire unto this day; for the number of the
Turk, which is an hour, a day, a month, and a year, is not yet fulfilled or
ex[)ired, being by computation three hundred and ninety-six years from his
first breaking out. The raising of the Turkish empire by Ottoman in Asia
the Less, was a.d. ISOO.f
Section IIL
The exposition of the 7th chapter. — Why 7'eserved till after that of the Sth and
9th. — Who are intended hy the hundred and forty -four thousand persons
that were sealed in their foreheads.
Having given you the meaning of the six trumpets, chap. viiL, ix., I must
now return to shew you the meaning of those twelve thousand out of every
tribe, in all a hundred and forty-four thousand, which you read of chap. viL,
and to tell you who they are that were there beforehand sealed. For though
God, to shew his care, is said to seal them before these trumpets blew, yet I
could not tell you who they were so fitly until after you should have heard
upon what parts of the world these trumpets chiefly blew.
The persons sealed are, ver. 3, called ' servants of God,' so that they are
true believers ; they are also called Jews, not that they were so by birth,
both for that the company they grow up into, and of whom these are the
predecessors, are said to be ' out of all nations, kindreds, and tongues,' ver. 9,
and therefore are of the Gentiles ; as also because the Jews have generally
been hardened all along the times of this proj^hecy, to this day. But the
Eevelation, speaking in the lang-uage of the Old Testament and the tjpea
thereof, calls true believers Jews, and the Israel of God : Gal. vi 16, 'And
as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and
* This being writ 1639. + Laonicus Chalcocond. de Rebus Turcicis, lib. L
58 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
upon the Israel of God ;' and folse and idolatrous Christians it calls Gen-
tiles, as chap. xi. 2, * But the court which is without the temple leave out,
and measure it not ; for it is given unto the Gentiles : and the holy city shall
they tread under foot forty and two months.' 'Who say they are Jews, and
are not,' — that is, profess themselves Christians, and are not, — ' but do lie,'
chap. iiL 9.
These are numbered up by thousands, in allusion to ' the thousands of
Israel,' as the phrase commonly is in Moses's writings, — Israel's seventy-two
persons brought into Egj-pt being now multiplied by thousands, — as Num.
X., xxxi. And these are said to be sealed, in allusion to that sealing of the
mourners before the captivity of Babylon, Ezek. ix. : so these, before the
miseries and captivity of these trumpets, as those that were to be preserved
under them in all ages. God preserving by a kind of miracle, (for it is no
other to consider it,) in the midst of all this Mohammedan tyranny, both
under Turks and Saracens, in the eastern part of the world, thousands of true
believers, even a hundred and forty-four thousand ; as he did, under the
tyranny of Ahab, preserve seven thousand that did not bow the knee to
Baal; and as he did the like number of a hundred and forty-four thousand
under the like antichristian tyranny in the west, as in chap. xiv. in the
book-prophecy will appear. Only there, chap, xiv., they are more roundly
in the general summed up together, to the number of a hundred and forty-
four thousand ; whereas here they are only reckoned by twelve several par-
ticular parcels, twelve thousand out of the twelve tribes : whether to shew
their more scattered and divided condition, happily alluding to the twelve
tribes, then, when the apostles wrote, scattered (as James speaks, chap. i. 1) in
those eastern parts ; or if not so, yet to the twelve tribes, as living apart in
several quarters of the land of Judea, and not as assembled at Jerusalem in
the temple.
So likewise these dwelling scatteredly in several nations, which were to be
overcome by the trumpets, not assembled in public worship or churches,
such as were acceptable to God, but remaining single ; they are numbered
by a set number, to shew that they shall be few. For this defining of their
number is in opposition to the ' innumerable company ' that are to grow out
of them, as ver. 9, ' After this, I saw a great multitude, which none could
number ;' and their number being multiplied by twelve, as their root, and
a thousand, hence it is a long number, extending in length much further
than in breadth ;* to shew that he speaks not of Christians as in one age
arising to this number, but through many ages continuing. And they are
multiplied by twelve to shew their breed and kind to be from the apostles,
and of the apostolic faith, which, chaj). xxi. 14, is made the mystery of this
number, ' And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the
names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.' And they are presented in one
uniform state during all that time, even unto the New Jerusalem ; of which,
because these and their successors are to be made partakers, therefore it is
that those promises of the New Jerusalem, and the representation of it, come
in from the 9th to the end, to shew their partaking therein, as the reward
of the great tribulation they come out of: ver. 14, 15, ' And I said imto
• The idea involved in this conceit seems to be founded upon the twofold meaning of
the term square, as denoting both a figure whose breadth is equal to its length, and the
number which results from the multiplication of a number by itself. As one hundred
and forty-four is a square number, and may be regarded as representing a square figure;
BO one hundred and forty-four thousand may be regarded as representing a rectangle,
whose sides are twelve and twelve thousand respectively. — Ed.
Chap. V.] an kxposition of the revklation. 59
him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to mc, These are they which camo
out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple : and he that sitteth on the
throne shall dwell among them.'
Now these seem to be a differing company from that hundred and forty-
four thousand in the 1 4th chapter : for those there do not remain till
the New Jerusalem, in that dark and loose condition, upon Mount Sion, but
long before do break forth into a separation from Antichrist, and set up
glorious temples, filled visibly with the presence of God, as smoke, out of
which come the vials ; but these continue in one uniform condition, still
alike, until the very approach of the New Jerusalem, and do then come
newly out from under a sore and long bondage, here called ' great tribulation,*
and are presented as more scattered and divided, as being more spread over
the face of the earth, singly here and there, and therefore reckoned up by
several tribes; whereas those there are summed up together only in their
total number. They are alike, being but a few both of them, and in like
times of darkness and desolation ; yet with this difference, that the one con-
tinues to the very New Jerusalem, but the other long before grows up to a
glorious light, and then outgrows that number.
Now, who these hundred and forty-four thousand are, out of whom,
as being the predecessors of them, do come that ' innumerable company,'
that shaU, together with the Jews, possess the New Jerusalem, is made the
inquiry of John, and is one of the wonders of this book ; which therefore
one of the twenty-four elders would have John especially to mark and ob-
serve, as a strange thing, beyond the expectation and imagination of men,
that God should ever take those, so numerable a company, into so great a
privilege, as to be made denizens of the New Jerusalem, and have their names
found there. This you may observe by the question which the elder asketh
John, to provoke and stir up his observation, ver. 13, 'What are these 1 and
whence come they V Thence ! where, when you are told, you will scarce
believe that God should intend this so great a privilege unto such, even the
poor Christian elect believers, dispersedly scattered over the eastern parts of
the world, the now Turkish dominions, which were anciently called the eastern
empire, and the churches therein, called the Grecian churches. And for this
I take the Holy Ghost's own designation, and as it were his pointing with
the finger at them, to be my guide and warrant for this interpetation ; as
also the characters of, and notes of difference of, the hundred and forty-four
thousand here and in chap. xiv.
1. It is evident their sealing here is for their preservation from hurt — as
ver. 3, ' saying. Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we
have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads ' — from the four winds
that were to be let loose, mentioned ver. 1, ' And after these things I saw
four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of
the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor
on any tree ;' by which are meant the cruel blasts of devastating and de-
populating wars of fierce and cruel nations, dashing against each other, as
winds use to do. Thus the wars that scattered Elam, or Persia, in Jeremiah's
prophecy, are expressed, Jer. xlix. 36, ' And upon Elam will I bring the four
winds from the fouj quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all
those winds ; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam
shall not come.' Now these wars, or winds, are all one with the blasts of
the ensuing trumpets, chap. viii. 9 ; for to prevent the hurt of these servants
60 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
of God undsr these trumpets is it that these are thus beforehand sealed.
Only, what is there particularly expressed by trumpets, is here in general ex-
pressed by the four winds.
Now then, according to reason, look, which of these ensuing six trumpets
are the sorest, and bring most hurt and danger to the servants of God, the
sealing of them must most respect the times and plagues of those trumpets.
Now, according to the note of aggravation which the Holy Ghost himself
hath put upon the fifth and sixth trumpets, that they are the voe-tuhcc,
the woe-trumpets ; so, chap. viiL 13, ' And I beheld, and heard an angel fly-
ing through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice. Woe, woe, woe,
to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet
of the three angels, which are yet to sound !' in respect of which the four
first are but mild and gentle. And then, according to the former interpe-
tation given, these two woe-trumpets being the overrunnings of the Saracen
and Mohammedan nations, the greatest plague in respect of outward war and
bondage that ever befell the Christian world. Which trumpets were to be,
and have been, for time, five times double the continuance of the other four
trumpets ; for it is already one thousand years since they began, and the
other four took up but two hundred years ; and for extremity of bondage,
there hath been no comparison between those four first trumpets and these
two latter.
The wars of the Goths, indeed, did rather relieve the servants of God
against the flood of Arian persecution, — as,chap. xii. 16, 'And the earth helped
the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood
which the dragon cast out of his mouth,' — although it did break and harrow
the empire. Hence, therefore, surely the hurt aimed at by God, which these
hundred and forty-four thousand were in danger of, must needs in reason
be from these two trumpets especially, and therefore must chiefly respect the
elect Christians in the eastern parts, where these trumpets sounded ; for the
Christians in the west were in no danger of them. It must, therefore, re-
spect these tribes seated among them. Add to this, that even the winds of
some of those four first trumpets also reached unto great devastations of
some of these eastern parts. And the first breaking forth of those Goths
and barbarous nations was upon Thrace, Maccdon, Thessaly, and Greece,
ruining aU the cities therein, except Athens and Thebes ; and then after five
years' harrowing the east, they fell upon the west, but first began in the east.
So then, the two first, and longest, and sorest being upon the eastern Chris-
tians, and they beginning and ending thus also with them ; in reason, the
sealing of them must principally and eminently be intended, according to
the proportion that the trumpets feU upon them, which was tenfold to what
they did upon the western.
2. And as in reason it must be so, so the Holy Ghost hath declared that
the preservation from the hurt of those Mohammedan invasions was the aim
of this sealing thus beforehand ; so great was God's care ; and that therefore
these servants of God, the hundred and forty-four thousand sealed here, are
indeed the Christians of the east, who were only in danger to be hurt in
their souls by apostasy, through the tyranny of these trumpets. You may
read in the 9 th chapter, ver. 4, that when these Saracen locusts, under their
ringleader Mohammed, were first let loose, and had their commission, that
then comes in this clause of exception, that ' they should hurt only those
men that were not sealed.' In that therefore then, and not till then, and
there only, the mention of this privilege of their being sealed comes in, it
manifestly argues that the main and primary intention of the sealing of
Chap. V.] an exposition of the revelation. 61
tliis company bad its place and accomplishment in persons that were under
the blasts of these locusts. The Holy Ghost hath set this as a hand in the
margin, to point at them ; and to shew, that although in the vision their
sealing comes in beforehand, chap, vii., yet here especially it receives its
intended aim and fulfilling in the real execution of it : as if he had said.
Now comes in the mystery of the sealing of those hundred and forty
four thousand, chap, vii., in these two trumpets, the fifth and sixth. Neither
can it be objected, that even the Christians in the Avest were preserved
from the hurt of these incursions, in that these Mohammedans were re-
strained from breaking in upon these ten kingdoms, and that so they might
be meant; for —
(1.) The mystery of sealing notes the singling out and marking of
some here and there, from the crowd of others, designed to ruin, by God's
special hand of providence ; even as the door-posts of the Israelites were
marked, as a man marks his sheep when he puts them in among other
droves. And so the mourners going into captivity with the rest were
marked. But so not the servants of God in the west only, but all the
kingdoms of the west should have been said to be sealed ; which is contrary
to the mystery of sealing here intended. And therefore it must mean God's
scattered ones, under the blasts of those trumpets scattered, like the twelve
tribes, James i. 1, here and there in those countries, but their souls preserved
faithful unto Christ, maugre all the Mohammedan seducements or bondage
they were then subjected unto. And —
(2.) They are said, when they partake of the New Jerusalem, ver. 14,
15, to 'come out of great tribulation;' and therefore it must be meant of
Buch as were not wholly kept free from Mohammedan incursions, but were
under them, and in great tribulation by reason of them. For, as Forbes well
observes, that great tribulation, chap. vii. 14, must needs be the danger of
those locusts, chap. ix. 4, from the hurt of which, so as not to damn their
souls, though afflict them they might, they should be preserved; although
he indeed interprets both this tribulation, and the hurt done by the locusts,
to be that antichristian persecution in the west; but it is rather that tyranny
of Mohammedans in the east.
Add to all this the many characters in the text that carry it to these
eastern Christians, affording probable reasons that they should be intended :
as —
First, That the angel who seals them is said to ascend from the east,
ver. 2, or from the rising of the sun, as it is in the original, as coming up
like the sun when it riseth, in the eastern part of the horizon, or of the
world. And his standing there to seal these Christians manifestly thereby
draweth our eyes to the eastern parts of the world, as the place where these
sealed ones are to be found.
And, secondly, that they are presented as a few that may be numbered,
and as making up but a few in many ages, as was said, and living in that
condition, even to the very times of the New Jerusalem, under great tribula-
tion, and scattered apart like to the twelve tribes; and that from the primi-
tive times, in this uniform condition of paucity, and tribulation, and dark-
ness ; which, as was observed, those hundred and forty-four thousand in chap,
xiv. are not, but do arise up to a greater light and victory, before the time of
the New Jerusalem under the vials. Now how doth this agree with those
poor, forlorn eastern Christians, whose churches have remained corrupt and
dark, and overwhelmed with superstition and ignorance under all these
times, and so but a few among them holyj and have been under these Moham-
b!i AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaET I.
medan tribulations a thousand years, the one half of them, and the other
half two hundred years, and continue still to do so under the Turks, without
any ease from niisery, or restoring to light and beauty t And yet Christ
hath had a company among them, though scattered and divided ; for so they
are jjarted into several sects and companies, as the Grecian and Armenian
Christians, &c. And therefore God hath preserved among them the know-
ledge and profession of Christ, and of much more truth than is in the
Romish church, in the dark times of it, to be found; which God sanctifies
to some of them. And in that, according to all the best interpreters, this
Turkish tyranny and tribulation is to continue, even till the New Jerusalem,
— for the Turk is to be overthrown, to make way for the Jews, the kings ot
the east, under the sixth vial, and to be destroyed by the seventh, — how
doth this accord also with this, that the state of these eastern saints is re-
presented here to consist of so few, and those to be under great tribulation
until the time of the New Jerusalem, as that which should prove their first
deliverance; and when they come into the New Jerusalem, to be as it were
but new come out of that great tribulation ?
And the wonder that is made at this God's gracious dealings with a
people so of all Christians forgotten, and not accounted of, — that ever they
should be taken into this New^ Jerusalem, — doth further confirm it. For that
the western churches, that have borne the heat of antichristian persecution,
and overcome Antichrist, and shall in the end perfect their victory, and have
set up temples, increasing more and more in light and glory, even until the
New Jerusalem; that these should be made partakers of the New Jerusalem
is no wonder, no strange thing; for they growing up unto it, it were strange
if it should prove otherwise. And therefore, chap. xix. 1, &c., we find them,
after the ruin of the whore, preparing themselves yet more for the marriage
of the Lamb. But that these forlorn Grecians should be taken into it,
among whom we scarce imagine any believers at all to be, this might well
be made one of the greatest w^onders of God's richest grace and mercy, and
hath as much affected my heart to consider, since the time God led me into
the thoughts of it, as anything through the whole book; that, as the prophet
saith, this Ephraim should be his pleasant child, who would have thought ?
But this is just like God, whose ways are unsearchable, and his works past
finding out. And therefore one of the elders says here unto John, ver. 13,
as provoking him to observe this passage, as much as anything in this book,
'What are these? and whence come they?' And John says unto him,
' Thou knowest ; ' and he said, ' These are they who come out of great
tribulation, ' and indeed the greatest tribulation that ever the servants of
God were under.
And there are these probable likelihoods for this also, even according to
the course of God's ways and dealings, for God to choose such a people from
under so great tribulation, and who are of all the lowest; and therefore, or
for this cause, as it is ver. 14, to make them partakers of so great a privi-
lege, this is just like God, who loves to do acts of mercy which may justly
set all the world a- wondering. And they having borne the heat of the day,
and continued in the profession of Christ as well as we, reason is, they
should be recompensed, and have their penny also. And they being seated
in those very dominions where the Turk is seated, who is to be overthrown
by or for the Jews, to make way for them to get possession of their own
land, which lieth in those eastern countries, and in the midst of those
nations, who are therefore called 'kings of the east,' chap. xvi. 12; how
probable is it therefore that upon the ruin of the Turks they shall be. thus
Chap. V.] an exposition of the revelation. C3
delivered, and tliat if any Gentiles be partakers of tlie Jews' privilege,
those Christian Gentiles should, who have been oppressed by this their
common enemy, and who dwell and inhabit in countries near and about the
land of the Jews : especially if their land shall be made, as is thought by
some, the chief seat of that fifth monarchy. Then surely, these nations that
are nearest them are like most to partake the benefit and light of it ; which
also the prophets have foretold, that the Gentdes, yea, and these Gentiles,
should walk in.
Lastly, If mention be not made of the Grecian churches here in this
place, then there is none, or scarce any, according to the course of the best
interpreters, in all this book. The book-prophecy is wholly taken up with
the state of the western churches opposing Antichrist, chap, xiv.-xix., as
being they whom God means chiefly to use for the ruining of that great
Antichrist, among whom therefore he hath continued the knowledge of Christ,
and the face of churches in the greatest power and purity; and therefore the
Revelation speaks most of them. But yet, there having been a continuance
of the profession of the Christian name in those Grecian and Armenian
churches, even from the primitive times, and at this day their number
amounting to as many as the professors in Europe do, notwithstanding
Mohammedan incursions ; can we think that God hath passed them over in
silence in this book ? Surely no. Seeing therefore that the book-prophecy
is taken up with the western oppositions to the great Antichrist of the west,
hence, most fitly, in this seal-prophecy, wherein the Mohammedan oppressors
bear so great a part, does come in the representation of the state of those
eastern Christians under ]\Iohammed, Christ so keeping possession, both in
the east and west. And the event hath been according to the prophecy.
True believers have been, and yet are continued among them, even as our
eyes may read in all stories of those eastern parts, and our ears have heard
the report of to this day : whose Confession of Faith you may read, being
printed in English, anno 1629, set forth by Cyril, the present patriarch of
Constantinople; and you may, with joy, find it in all fundamental points as
our own Confession is. See also Field of the Church, book iii., chap. 1-3, 5.
Section IV.
A short view of the 10th and llth chapters. — The ends for which the mighty
angel (i.e. Christ) descended from heaven. — The seal-prophecy being closed,
a new prophecy is given, which begins at the \'2th chapter.
Thus the seal-prophecy, under the visions of these seals and trumpets, hav-
ing run over the stoiy of all times, which concern the ruin of the Roman empire
downward, from Christ's time even to our days, — for the miseries of the sixth
trumpet still continue, and shall last till near the time of the seventh trumpet,
which is to bring in the kingdom of Christ, chap. xi. 14, 15, with whose
sounding this first seal-prophecy, as do all kingdoms and times, ends, —
Jesus Christ therefore, in the likeness of a mighty angel, comes down from
heaven ; and that to a double end : —
First, To give the world and the church warning by an oath, that now
time should be no longer, but till this woe of the sixth trumpet — that is, the
Turks' dominion — should expire and pass away ; as his speeches in the 10th
chapter, ver. 6, 7, and in the llth chapter, ver. 14, 15, compared together, do
shew : ' And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven,
and the things that therein are ; and the earth, and the things that therein
are; and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time
64 AN EXPOSITION OF THK RKVriLATION. [PaRT L
no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall
begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared
to his servants the prophets.' ' The second woe is past; and, behold, the third
woe Cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great
voices in heaven, saying. The kingdoms of this world are become the king-
doms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.'
And, secondly, to give withal a new prophecy, this seal-prophecy being
thus ended. Wherefore he now comes with the book open in his hand, which,
chap, v., John saw sealed, the seals being now taken off, and the visions of
them already past ; which book contains another distinct prophecy to be
given anew unto John, which therefore he is bidden to eat, as Ezekiel of old
was, and he should be enabled to receive and write a new prophecy, as
appears chap. x. 9, 11, 'And I went unto the angel, and said unto him. Give
me the little book. And he said unto me. Take it, and eat it up; and it
shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.'
' And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and
nations, and tongues, and kings.' Which new entire prophecy begins chap,
xii., after this angel had further, by word of mouth, a while discoursed what
should be the state and face of his purest churches in the western part, ver.
1, 2, in those last days, to which this seal-prophecy had brought John;
namely, the times immediately, or not many years, before that seventh trumpet
was to bring in his kingdom, and after that this angel had forewarned those
churches of a great and sore conflict which they were to have with Antichrist
towards the end of all ; out of which they should rise again. And then comes
the end of Antichrist, and of the Turk also. After he had given all this as
a signal or warning to the church when the end should be, — all which he
doth chap. xi. 1, and from ver. 7 to ver. 14, — then, I say, after that short
digression made by this angel (Christ), who came principally to give John a
new complete prophecy, doth that new book-prophecy begin in new visions,
at the 12th chapter, which contains the fates that should befall the church
in all ages from Christ's time, as the seal-prophecy had done those of the
empire.
Chap. Vi.] an exposition of the revelation. C5
CHAPTER VT,
Of the hodk-vrophecy, that begins at the \2th chapter. — An account of the
general design of it.
The state of the church, from Christ's time until the kingdom of Christ, may
be divided into two : — 1. The state of the church during the first four hun-
dred years after Christ, usually called the primitive times. 2. The state of
the church during the times of Antichrist, whom Jesus Christ is to destroy
with the brightness of his coming.
1. The state of the church, during those first four hundred years, may be
divided into its condition until the time of Constantine, the first Christian
emperor ; and the state of the church from his time, under the Arian
emperors, and others Christian, until the rise of Antichrist, about a hundred
years after the beginning of Constantine's reign. These were the two
eminent various conditions of the church in those first four hundred years.
2. For the state of the church during the times of Antichrist, namely, the
Pope, who succeeded the western emperor here in Europe, — for of the state of
the church in the eastern part of the empire, especially under the Turks and
Saracens, you formerly heard in the seal-prophecy, chap, vii., and therefore
this book-prophecy speaks little of it, but, in a manner, only of the western
church, which now indeed was made the more eminent stage, as for Anti-
christ, so for Christ to play his part upon; — this state of the church in the
west, I say, was either —
(1.) That of the false pretended church, whereof Antichrist is and was the
head; or —
(2.) The state of the true church under Antichrist, and during his time,
whereof Jesus Christ is the head.
Now, answerably to this division are the ensuing chapters to be divided.
The 12th chapter shews you the state of the church under the first four
hundred years; and chap, xiii., xiv., &c., shew the state of the church after-
wards, during Antichrist's times. These are the divisions of the state of the
church from Christ's time hitherto.
And, first, this 12th chapter shews the face of the church in these primi-
tive times, and that under those two forementioned eminent conditions: —
First, As under heathenish Rome until Constantine's time, when the
empire turned Christian; from the 1st verse to the 13th, under the vision
of a woman bringing forth a male child to rule all nations, — that is, a Chris-
tian emperor, — wherein she is opposed by a dragon, the devil, in the power
of a heathenish emperor, endeavouring to devour her child.
The vision and appearance of this woman is such, and so glorious, as it
fits no state of the church but that pure and glorious church of the primi-
tive times. She is a woman, weak, yet glorious, as being clothed with the
sun, (the righteousness of Christ ;) crowned with a crown of twelve stars, (the
twelve apostles;) her head, the first part of that church, having been honoured
VOL. IIL E
66 AN EXPOSITION OP THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
with their preaching, and holding forth the light of their doctrine. She
had the moon under her feet — she was above the world, and the rage of
heathenish persecution, for ' they loved not their lives unto the death ;' and,
as a woman, all that while labouring in sore travail, under ten sore throes
of jDersecution, yet labouring with God, day and night, in hopes and prayers
in the end to bring forth and obtain Christian emperors, that should set
Christ in the throne to rule with them, and throw down heathenism from
the imperial throne, in which the devil ruled; the empire being all that
while under the heathenish throne of Satan, and is therefore represented
under a ' dragon having seven heads and ten horns,' which are ever in this
book the character of the Roman empire. And it is now called the dragon,
because Satan did openly and visibly act it. Now the throwing down the
dragon from the throne, which was his heaven, and where he was worshipped
as God, doth this woman in the end obtain, and prevails through the help
of ]\Iichael (namely, Jesus Christ) and his angels, (the apostles and preachers
of the gospel.)
And then, secondly, the state of the true church, when the Roman world
was now turned Christian, for the first hundred years after Constantine ; which
church was also persecuted by Arian emperors, though Christians, and was
like to have been ruined by the multitude of carnal professors ; insomuch
as she is presented as 'hasting to fly into a wilderness,' — that is, into a
hidden, retired condition, — and in her flight, hath a flood of Arian persecution
sent after her, to drown her, but that the earth, the Goths and Vandals,
whom you heard of under the first trumj)et, came in accidentally, by God's
providence, and helped her, by breaking the Arian faction ; which is the
* swallowing up the flood.' The Arians, though they professed Christ, yet
they denied him to be God ; into which heresy the whole empire fell, and
persecuted the church for professing the contrary, as much as ever the
heathen emperors had done. And this state of the church you have described
from the 13th verse to the end of the 12th chapter.
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the revelation. 67
CHAPTER VIL
The exposition of the \Ztli chapter, in which is set forth the state of the false
church under Antichrist. — What his name, and the number of his name,
denotes to us. — A short account of the time tvhich some fix for his fall.
The state of the cliurch, and ber conflicts -with Satan the first four hundred
years, being thus described, chap, xii., in the following chapters is set forth
the state of the church from that time, during the times of Antichrist ; all
which time there was and is both his false antichristian church and the true
church under him running along together. Now, the description of Antichrist
(the Pope) and his false church, in his rise, power, greatness, and extent of his
dominions, and of the company that should cleave to him, is set forth in the
visions of the 13th chapter, which afterwards, in the 17th chapter, the Holy
Ghost himself interprets and makes a comment on. And then the opposite
company of the true church, who have the Lamb for their head, are described
in the 14th chapter; and that in all those several states and conditions which
during all that time they should run under, and this from the first rise of
Antichrist until these very times wherein we Live ; with which, I take it, the
visions of that 14th chapter do end.
First, for Antichrist and his church in the 1 3th chapter, and this set forth
unto us under the \'ision of a twofold beast, which points at the Pope accord-
ing to his double pretended claim of power and headship in the church ;
which is —
1. Temporal; which he claims over all kings and kingdoms, to depose and
excommunicate them and their subjects at his pleasure. Unto which the ten
kings and kingdoms of Europe, into which the western empire was now by
the Goths reduced, did tacitly and with one consent submit themselves, and
gave their power up, as you may read it interpreted, chap. xvii. 12-17.
And so the Pope, together with the body of these ten kingdoms joining
into one, whereof he becomes the head, is that first ' beast with ten horns,'
described in this 13th chapter, ver. 1-1 1 : which new beast is a true image
of the former Roman monarchy in the 12th chapter; which being wounded
and slain in the emperor's being deposed, is healed and restored to life again
in this beast ; and so the Roman monarchy comes still to continue, though
under another head, namely, the Pope.
2. Besides this temporal power which he receives from the kings of these
ten kingdoms, who in that respect do together with him make up one beast,
he and his clergy do claim a spiritual power of binding and loosing, of par-
doning sins, and of cursing men to hell, which is peculiar to Christ alone.
And in that respect he, and the body of his false clergy with him, do make
up another beast, having two horns like a lamb, as exercising that spiritual
power of Christ, for which they and he are properly called Antichrist ; and
this description you have of him from ver. 11 to the end of this 13th chap-
68 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
ter. He being head of two bodies, ecclesiastical and temporal, is described
under two beasts. Now this spiritual beast, the Pope and his clergy, is he
who by his lying doctrines did persuade the ten kings and their subjects to
subject themselves in one body under him as their head, and is said to make
the 'image of the first beast,' — namely, of that dragon mentioned in the
12th chapter, — that is, of the former heathenish empire, and the religion
thereof; which is therefore said to live again. For —
(1.) Both these kingdoms becoming one under the Pope as their head, are
in their very form of government the image of the empire under one emperor
formerly; and so the Roman monarchy, in the joining of these ten kingdoms
under one hend, the Pope, may be said stUI to continue. But besides —
(2.) This new beast is called the image of the first beast, not simply in
respect of like form of government and tyranny; but further, in a religious
respect, in that the Pope and his clergy do mould the Christian religion,
which now they profess, and the worship thereof, into a true likeness
and conformity to the heathenish religion, which the empire before was
framed unto. For all the Popish worship is but the translating of those
ceremonies, wherewith those false gods, Jupiter, Apollo, &c., who were cast
down under the sixth seal, were worshipped, into religious ceremonies in
their worship, wherewith they worship Christ and his saints. So as, were
any of the ancient heathen Romans now alive, and should come into their
assemblies, and behold their priests in white, their processions, their sprink-
ling with holy water, their altars, tapers, images of saints departed, and their
worship of them, their Pontifex Maxivius, or great bishop and high priest,
&c., they would cry out and say. This is just our old Roman heathenish
religion ; only Jupiter is turned into Christ, and the priests of the gods of
old into Popish bishops ; and our ancient gods, Mars, Janus, .^^^sculapius,
&c., who were men departed, are changed for saints departed. So that the
life of the old religion remains still, though there be a change of the gods
worshipped. Thus, as Babel of old made an image, and put to death all
that would not fall down before it, so hath mystical Babylon — for to that
Babel and to that image is the allusion — set up an image of the old heathenish
religion and worship, and upon the like penalty enjoins the adoration of
this image, and a conformity in worship, to all the subjects of these ten
kingdoms.
Now, the company that cleave unto this beast, and may more or less be
esteemed the followers of him, are, as Mr Brightman hath well observed
upon ver. 16, 17, distinguished into three ranks of men in several degrees,
some more, some less, acknowledging or clea\dng to him, and to this his
image and worship. Some receive his mark or character ; others his name
only ; others the number of his name : but so as thooc who will not receive
or submit to one of these, more or less, during the time that is allotted him
to reign, may not 'buy nor sell ;' that is, cannot subsist or abide in these
his allotted dominions. This ' receiving of a mark,' &c., is a similitude
drawn from the old Roman custom, which was to print on the forehead of
servants the names of their masters, and on the hands of soldiers the names
of their emperors or generals. So these men that do belong unto this great
lord, and that are of his faction, do accordingly, more or less, receive that
whereby they may be known to be his.
1. Some receive his character, as all priests and religious persons do,
whether they be Jesuits or others, who are this grand seigneur's janissaries,
Lis sworn soldiers and Praetorian band. Their doctrine is, that a man
Chap. VII.J an exposition of the revelation. 69
entered into holy orders doth, by his ordination, receive an indelible char-
acter, a secret invisible stamp or impress, which can never be rased out.
2. Others receive his name; and so, though not in orders under him,
yet so cleave to him and his worship, as themselves openly profess that they
are his, by suffering themselves to be called by his name, which is that
whereby they own him. Thus as he is called Papa, the Po])e, they profess
themselves Papists, or to be of the Pope as their head. And as he is called
Pontifex, they are called Pontificii. And even as Christ is called the ' high
priest of our profession,' Heb. iii. 1, and so we accordingly called Christians
from the profession of him ; so the Pope being their pontifex, or high priest
of their profession, they, to shew so much, do hold forth the profession of
him, by taking his very name, and in all things fully subjecting themselves
unto him as his sons. But now —
3. What should be meant by the number of his name ? That Mr Bright-
man carries rightly to a company taking part with him, by a more remote
kind of subjection ; but he not knowing well whom to fasten it upon,
brings in the poor Grecians, that are strangers unto him, and out of the
dominion of any of his ten kingdoms ; who, although they renounced all
acknowledgment of the Pope for their head for many hundred years, yet
were at last, through sleights, and the baseness of one of their emperors,
together with the conquest that the Europeans made of Constantinople for
a while, brought to yield a subjection thus far, as to acknowledge him for
their head, and so were called Latins, or of the profession of the Latin
church, (which name I find some to this day, that are Popish Christians
among the Greeks, to be called by, by way of distinction from the other ;)
and so received, says he, the mimber of his name, Aanlvoc, Latinus : the
numeral letters whereof, in the Greek tongue, make six hundred and sixty-
six, the number that follows in the last verse of this chapter. But this
forced subjection of the Grecians, so remote, as it might be intended, for
those more ancient times, yet withal I think that it is not only or princi-
pally meant : —
First, Because these Grecian Christians are not inhabitants within the
jurisdiction of those ten kingdoms of Europe, the subjects whereof are mainly
intended, as being those ' inhabiters of the earth ' that should be the wor-
shippers of this beast, and cleavers unto him, ver. 8, 14 ; and so of them,
and among them, must be found this number of his name, as well as those
that receive his name.
And, secondly, because the Christians in the west, who assist the pouring
forth the vials, are as well said, some of them, to overcome the number of
his name, as others of them do his image, or idolatrous worship, or his char-
acter of lying priests, or the beast himself ; so chap. xv. 2. I take it, there-
fore, that this number of his name must be found in Europe, in some of
these ten kingdoms where that company are that pour out the vials.
Now, take the times of Popery before the Reformation, — that is, before
the time that Protestant kingdoms did first begin to cast ofi" the Pope, — and
there were none that were suffered to have such a remiss, no, nor any lesser
kind of owning the beast, but must all, as they did, receive his mark, or his
name, and be professed Papists, coming to mass, acknowledging the Pope,
and worshipping his image ; or they might not buy and sell, they might not
live quietly as others did. Therefore these that receive the number of his
name must be some generation of men risen up since, and that also within
those kingdoms, some of them, that have renounced the Pope. For within
70 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
tlie Popish dominions, unto tliis day, either tlie Inquisition suffers none to
profess less than the receiving his name at least ; or in others, those that
are of Papists the most moderate yet receive the name of the beast at least,
and so more tlian the number of his name.
But this number of his name seems to be a company that proceed not so
far as to receive his character, professing themselves to be priests of Rome ;
nor to receive his name, for they do not profess themselves to be Papists ;
and yet are of the number of his name — that is, do hold and bring in such
doctrines and opinions, and such rites in worship, as shall make all men
reckon, account, or number them among Papists in heart and affection. And
so they are of the number of his name ; that is, in account such. They be-
have themselves so as they are, and deserve to be, accounted and esteemed
Pajiists, and to aim at Popery, in the judgment of all orthodox and reformed
Protestants, and that justly. For although their profession deny it, yet
when their actions, and their corrupting of doctrine and worship shall speak
it to all men's consciences, they cannot but judge that the Pope, and the fear
of him, is before their eyes, as David speaks of wicked men. And as those
in Titus, that profess they know God, j'et in their works deny him, are justly
accounted atheists ; so those that shall profess the reformed religion, yet in
all their practices and underhand policies depress it, and advance the Popish
party, are justly to be accounted Papists, and to have received the number
of his name.
The phrase, ' number of a name,' is not only taken for a name consisting
of numeral letters, and so not only for number arithmetical ; but the word
'number' is in many languages put for the account, reckoning, or esteem
that is commonly had of men : as in Latin we say, he is one nullius numeri,
of no number or account ; and so among the Grecians, h rroX'sfiu iva^ldfiiog
is used by Homer for one in great account in war, being numbered or
esteemed a soldier.
So then, number of a name is a common esteem or account to be such or
such a one ; and so the number of the beast's name here is the common re-
pute or esteem to be a Papist, procured through underhand advancing of the
Popish cause. It being therefore spoken in a distmct and lower degree from
receiving his name or his mark, which note out an open profession, doth yet
necessarily import so much inclining and cleaving to him, though secretly,
as shall deserve that account and repute to be so numbered, as being indeed,
tacitly and in heart, as truly of his company as those that receive his name.
Now if in opening the meaning of the Holy Ghost in the phrase here, this
description shall seem to the life to picture out a generation of such kind of
Popish persons as these in any, even the most famous of the reformed
churches, certainly there will not want good ground for it. For though
they, with an impudent forehead, renounce the Pope's character and the
name of Papists, and will by no means be called ' priests of Baal,' though
priests they affect to be called, but boast themselves to be of the Reformation,
and opposites to the Papal faction ; yet with as much impudence do they
bring in an image of Popish worship and ceremonies, adding to some old
limbs, never cast out, other substantial parts, of altars, crucifixes, second
service and the like, so to make up a full likeness in the public service to
that of the Popish church. They bring in the carcase first, which may after-
wards be inspired with the same opinions. And all this, not as Popery, or
with the annexion of Popish idolatrous opmions, but upon such grounds
only as upon which Protestants themselves have continued some other
ceremonies.
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the revelation. 7 1
And as in worship, so in doctrine, they seek to bring in a presence in the
sacrament of the Lord's supper, beyond that which ia spiritual to faith,
which yet is not Popish transubstantiation ; a power in priests to forgive
sins, beyond that which is declarative, yet not that which mass-priests arro-
gate ; justification by works, yet not so grossly as in the way of Popish merit,
but as a condition of the gospel as well as faith ; and many the like to these :
thus truly setting up an image of old Popery in a Protestant reformed way,
even as Popery is an image of heathenish worship in a Christian way. Say
these men what they will, that they hold not of the Pope, nor any way in-
tend him, or the introducing of his religion into these churches, yet their
actions do, and cannot but, make all men number them as such ; and there-
fore we say, they have gained that esteem at home and abroad in all the
churches. And it is no moi'e than what the Holy Ghost prophesied of, who
hath fitted them with a description so characteristical, as nothing is more
like them than this of these here who are said to receive ' the number of his
name.'
And they doing this in a way of apostasy from their former profession and
religion in which they were trained up, and in a church so full of spiritual
light, where God hath more witnesses than in all the rest of the churches,
and with an intention and conspiracy in the end to make way for the beast, —
this going before, as the twilight doth serve to usher in darkness, — therefore
the Holy Ghost thought them worthy of this character in this prophecy,
and of a discovery of them unto whom they do belong ; especially seeing they
would so professedly deny it. And though haply but in one of the ten king-
doms, — although the Lutherans elsewhere look very like this description also,
— yet seeing they were to grow so potent a faction as to have power to hinder
the ' buying and selling,' quiet living of others amongst them, who will not
receive this worship and doctrine, which is a new refined Popery, and with
it the number of his name ; that is, those opinions and practices which do
deserve that esteem ; and further, because they were to be the Pope's last
champions before his fall, whom those that are the true saints (of whom the
greatest number in the last age before the Pope's ruin is in, or belonging to
that one kingdom) are to encounter and overcome before the ruin of Rome ;
therefore the Holy Ghost thought not fit to leave such a company out of the
beast's number and followers : and that also although they were to con-
tinue but a short time. For the doom of these men we have in another
prophecy, as their description also, 2 Tim. iii. 1-10 : the prophecy there being
of a generation of men to arise in the last days, — the Papists' rising is attri-
buted to the latter days in 1 Tim. iv., but the rise of these to the last of the
last days, — who shall set themselves principally against the power and spirit
of true worship, and set up a form or image instead of it, ver. 5 ; but their
doom is, ver. 9, ' These shall proceed no further,' they shall have a stop ;
and their folly, and madness, and hypocrisy, to attempt to bring in Popery
with denying it, and when it is going down, then to build this Babel again,
shall appear to all men ; and being discovered, will be their overthrow. But
notwithstanding, they must ' proceed further ' than as yet they have done,
even to the ' killing of the witnesses ' in that kingdom, or tenth part of the
city, as chap. xi. will shew, when in its due order it shaU be opened. And
because these last champions of the beast, and healers of the wound given
him, should come in the last days of all, they are therefore last named, and
are said to be last overcome by the witnesses and pourers forth of the vials,
as chap. xv. 2.
There is but one seeming objection or difficulty in this interpretation ; and
72 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaKT I,
that is, that in the next verse the number of the beast is made six hundred
and sixty-six.
But the answer and solution is, that the ' number of his name ' in this verse
is one thing, and the ' number of the beast ' in the last verse is another. It
is not said that the number of his name is six hundred and sixty-six, but the
number of the beast, which betokeneth another thing, as we shall presently see.
Only the Holy Ghost, by a wise transition, passeth from the mention of one
unto the other, as agreeing in phrase of speech, yet differing in sense ; which
is frequent in Scripture, and particularly in this book ; as, chap. xxii. 17, ' The
Spirit and the bride say. Come,' as speaking unto Christ to come to judgment
quickly, as ver. 20 ; but in the following words, ' Let him that is athirst
come,' there the word come is spoken of the coming of a soul unto Christ, by
believing, as unto the waters of life. Even so the number of the beast, and
the number of his name, are here mentioned, the one upon occasion of the
other, because of the affinity of the phrase in speech, yet to a differing sense.
Now the number of the beast in the last verse is the time or term of his
ending ; which is spoken in reference to the time allotted him for his reigning,
ver. 5, which is to be, as there, forty-two months ; which counting thirty days
to a month, according to the Egyptian account, which is the account of this
spiritual Egypt, is twelve hundred and sixty years from his first rising, being
the same space that the church hath to lie hid in the wilderness, chap. xiL 6 ;
Avhich though she began to hasten into from Constantine's time, yet she first
began to enter into her desolate condition, wherein she still remains, but then
when the Pope's power began to rise. And during the same space of twelve
hundred and sixty years, the witnesses are said to prophesy in sackcloth, chap,
xi. 3 ; that is, in a mourning and mean condition ; for the eminent professors
of the truth, and opposers of the beast, who with their prophecy do feed the
church in the wilderness all that while, as chap. xii. 6, these are the two
witnesses, chap. xi. 3.
Which dates of time, both of the witnesses' casting off their sackcloth, the
woman's coming out of the wilderness, and the beast's dejection from his
kingdom and seat, (Rome,) will all expire about the same time ; which some
think will be about the year 1650, or 1656,- — which if not the Pope's ruin,
yet the Jews' call, as they say it to be, — or, at the furthest, in 1666 ; to which
latter some incline, as thinking it probable that it may be the meaning of
that account mentioned in the last verse of this 13th chapter, which doth
cast up the number of the beast ; that is, the date and period of his time
and power, which was given him to continue forty-two months, as ver. 5 :
which days shall then be numbered, that is, finished, as the jDhrase is of old
Babylon's ending, Dan. v. 26, ' God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished
it;' and this his number the Holy Ghost hath computed to be in the year
that, according to man's computation, shall be called six hundred and sixty
six. And for the confirmation of this interpretation, the word number is
often put to express time ; the very definition which the philosopher makes
of time is, numerus motus secundum, prius et jwsterius ; it is the number of mo-
tion. And therefore Johannes Viterbiensis, in his gloss upon this place, plainly
renders it thus : numerus est illius tempus, — ' this his number is his time.'
Therefore some have made this number to design out the year of the beast's
beginning, or confirmation in his kingdom, in the year after Christ 666.
But number, when it is put to signify time, doth not so properly signify the
beginning of it, as the ending of it, when the number is finished and made
complete, and cast up, as I may so speak ; for then his time is numbered,
and the account of it summed, and not before. And therefore Daniel, whoso
Chap. VII.] an exposition of tui; KLVi-LAXiuN. 73
phrase, as whose visions, this vision in this 13th chapter exactly follows,
useth this plirase to note out the ending of the time of a khigdom, and not
the beginning ; ' thy days are numbered.' And, whicli is strange, Irenseus
himself, who was the first thut interpreted this six hundred and sixty-six to
contain the numeral letters of Akt-e/Vo?, as the name of this Latin kingdom,
does withal seem to think that the end of the times of the beast should in a
mystery be hiddcnly contained, {Adver. Ilcereses, lib. v., towards the end of
the book :) refert hunc mimenim Q(j(^, ad sexies viillenos annos mundi in
quibus (ait) diabolica maliiia consummahitur. He mistakes indeed, refer-
ring it to the six thousandth year of the world, according to the old tradi-
tion of the Rabbms, commonly received among the fathers ; but yet in this
he agrees, that it should signify the time of the consummation and ending
of the beast's reign and the devil's malice, as that which is to determine with
tJie end of the world.
And I observe the Holy Ghost puts an especial wisdom on it, to reckon
this number ; which if it had lain in numeral letters only, had been no great
point of wisdom to have such an emphasis put upon it ; the like whereof is
used but once more in this book, and that in chap. xvii. 9, when the beast,
and the time of his rising with the ten kings, is set forth, as there, from the
9th to the 12th verse; and so now here, when his ending is spoken of : for
this wisdom indeed lay in reckoning the time of his beginning with the ten
kings, and so the time of his ending, by computmg the whole time of his
reign twelve hundred and sixty years.
The vulgar computation of years kept now in the world is, as we all know,
from the year of Christ's birth, by an account from which we difference one
year from another. And that is the style of the whole Christian world, to
say, such a year of our Lord, reckoning from Christ. And this computation
is called the ' number of a man,' for it is the ordinary vulgar way of reckon-
ing years, and the measure of time used by men ; and therefore so called, in
that man doth use so to number the years. Even as the measure of the
wall of the city, chap. xxi. 17, is said to be a hundred and forty-four cubits,
' according to the measure of a man,' — that is, the ordinary cubits in use with
men, or taken from the proportion of the measure of man's stature : so here,
say they, the beast's year of ending, when his number shall be complete, wiU
be in the year which, according to man's computation of the years from
Christ, shall be ordinarily termed QQQ. Now the number of the thousand is
not mentioned, as in vulgar phrase among the Greeks and Hebrews it seldom
was, neither among other nations is it ordinarily used to this day ; we using
to say, in '88, for 1588. And here especially it was needless; for if his
number was to end in a year which, according to man's account, should
be called 666, it could be no other, according to them, but that of 1666
after Christ; for the year &QQ after Christ, which is past, it could not be,
there being not two hundred of his years allowed him to continue, as then
run out ; aud in the year 2666, to come, the years allotted him would have
been well-nigh doubly run out, his years from his first rising to this his
ending being to be but twelve hundred and sixty years.
Now then, according to this their account, so as to end his time in 1666,
his time of rising must begin in the year 406 after Christ; and that the
Pope's rise did about that time begin, we are not altogether without the
Holy Ghost's warrant, who tells us, that the Eoman empire, seated at Rome,
over the west, must begin to be taken away, ere this man of sin could be
revealed, or come up and appear in the world, 2 Thess. ii. 7, 8. And it was
the western empire which was that which letted, whereof Rome itself was
74 AN EXPOSITION OF TUE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
the head and seat; and therefore the Holy Ghost affixeth this empire to the
city of Rome as the seat of it, which he calleth seven-headed, in respect of
her seven liills, and so meaneth not that eastern empire, whereof Constanti-
nople was the seat. Now this western empire, whose seat was Rome, began
then to be taken away, and the first foundation of its ruin laid, when the
Goths and Vandals, of whom you heard under the trumpets, began to break
that emiDirc into these ten kingdoms; and the beginning of the first kingdom
broken off from the empire was in the year 410, the emperor by covenant
allowing the Goths to set up a kingdom in France. Then was Rome also
first sacked and taken by those barbarous nations, and first lost her virginity ;
and Honorius the emperor, to recover Rome again, and restore it to her
former flourishing estate, was forced to part with one piece of the empire,
namely France, which was the first of all the ten kingdoms that were broken
oft". And in the year 412, he was forced to grant to the Huns to do the
Hke. And anno 415, he was forced to grant the like to the Goths in Spain.*
And by the year 456, all the ten were up who gave their power to the
beast. And this punctually agrees with Avhat the Holy Ghost says more
expressly of the very hour of Antichrist's rising, chap. xvii. 12 : that the
ten kings should begin to receive power as kings, one hour with the beast,
and the beast one hour with them ; the Koly Ghost reckoning from the be-
ginning of the first of these ten kingdoms the rising of the beast, because
therein was laid the first foundation of his empire over these ten kingdoms,
for they were to set him up. And, which is strange, Jerome, who lived in
the times of this first incursion of these barbarous nations, and wrote so
complainingly of it, who died about the year 420, when he saw Rome taken,
and the Goths obtain pieces of the western empire, said, then in those times
when it was a-doing, in his Epistle ad Gerontium: Qui tenehat de medio fit,
et non intelUgimus antichristum ajjpropiiiquare. He seeing the empire
begin to break, said. Antichrist must needs be at hand.
Some read fj^sra rb '^tjpIov, as importing the rise of these ten kingdoms, to
be after the beast first risen : which, if meant of the time when these ten
horns were completely grown up, is true ; for in nature the horns grow up
after the birth of the beast that beareth them. But whether it be after the
beast, or with the beast, it was but one hour after the beast, or 07ie hour
with the beast; stiU implying, that both the rise of the one and of the
other were near in time, and in the same age. And if the time be reckoned
from the very first rise of that first kingdom in France, granted unto the
Goths, anno 410, it will appear that it fell out together, or not an hour
after the rise of that beast, from whose time the centurists and others have
made the birth of the beast to have been, though his conception were before.
And indeed it so happened, through God's providence, who made all
things concur in this one hour, that he who was as then Pope, namely Inno-
centius I., — created Pope, as some say, anno 404, some 406, — began to usurp
and challenge jurisdiction over all churches, (as I could out of many autho-
rities shew, but you may see it in Simpson's History of the Church, in
English, Book ii. , 5th century,) and did set on foot that famous falsification
of the canons of the Nicene Council, as pretending that they gave these
bishops of Rome that power ; for which there is an epistle of this Innocen-
tius among the epistles of Augustine, (Epist. 91,) where he writing to Augus-
tine, and the rest of the African bishops assembled, challengeth power over
all, ex patrum illorum institutis, from the decrees of those fathers of Nice,
which his successors afterwards prosecuted: so that a copy out of the
* See Sigonius de Imperio Occiden '-ali, lib. x., xi.
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the eevblation. 75
authentic records of that council, held in the time of Constantino, was sent
for, by which this falsification was detected. This man also began first to
arrogate a power over princes ; for he excommunicated the eastern emperor,
Arcadius, who yet was out of his jurisdiction, for banishing Chrysostom,
which no bishop of Home before him had ever adventured to do, and this in
the year 407, the copy of whose bull of excommunication is extant to this
day, given at length in Baronius. In his time also, the Emperor Honorius
granted the clergy an exemption from secular power and civil tribunals; so
making them a distinct body for the Pope, their head. See here the first
and second beast in this chapter rising both together : first in this Pope's
proud usurping over churches and princes, and then in exempting his clergy,
to make up and constitute that second beast, with him as their spiritual
bead; and the ten kingdoms which were to constitute the first beast, under
the Pope as their head, then also beginning to arise.
And thus I have given an account of their opinion who fix the time of
Antichrist's faU in 1666; together with the arguments which they urge to
prove it.
76 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT I.
CHAPTER VIII.
The exposition of the \ith chapter, wherein the state of the true church under
Antichrist is described.
As in tlie IStli chapter you have the false antichristian church, whereof the
Pope is the head, so in this 14th chapter begins the description of the
true church during the time of Antichrist, whereof the Lamb is the head :
which church is made up of that ' seed of the woman' mentioned chap. xii. 17 ;
whom, during her lying hid in the wilderness, Satan through Antichrist's
power did persecute. Now the several conditions of the church, during
those times of Antichrist unto this day, may be reduced to three heads : —
1. The state of true believers in those darker times of Popery, when they
were mingled with Papists, as making no open separation from them, and
yet preserving themselves pure from much of their idolatrous worship and
opinions; and this during the space of seven hundred years from the Pope's
rising.
2. The state of the church when first a separation began to be made from
the church of Rome, and the gospel to be preached, from the year 1100.
3. The state of the church under the Reformation smce the times of
Luther and Calvin, for these last hundred years.
Into these three several states the church of God doth eminently fall
divided, to the view of any that are skilled in ecclesiastic stories. And these
three states are lively deciphered in this chaj^ter.
1. The state of that confused company under Antichrist's first times,
ver. 1-6.
2. The church's first separation from the company of Antichrist, in three
several degrees of it, ver. 6-1 4.
3. The state of the Reformation since Calvin's time, ver. 14 to the end.
First, The state of believers mingled among Antichrist's company, and
not setting up churches distinct from those under him, though opposing the
grossness of his idolatry, and keeping themselves pure from it. And these
?.re set forth in characters suitable to that condition. They are a scattered
company of a hundred and forty-four thousand, joining themselves to the
Lamb Christ, having his Father's name written in their foreheads, — that is,
professing the true God, in the sincere obedience and worship of him, — whilst
the opposite company of Antichrist went ' wondering after the beast,' even a
xoorld of them, as chap. xiii. 3, and received his mark, ver. 17. These are
set forth by the same number of a hundred and forty-four thousand that the
Christians in the east, under the Mohammedan bondage and darkness, are,
who were the fifth and sixth trumpets, their state and condition being much
alike in this, as they are a company of persons singly to be numbered and
scattered ujj and down, here and there, as they were, in the midst of the
corruptions of those eastern churches, under the darkness and oppression of
^lohammedanism. So in like manner, these are a company of true believers
Chap. Till.] an exiosition of the revelation. 77
scattered up and down under the growing superstitions and increasing dark-
ness of Poi)ish antichristianism ; which, until the year of Christ 1100, did
increase more and more u|)on the world. Tliey stand upon Mount Sion,
which was called the city of David ; as not yet having a tenij)lo, or instituted
churches distinct from Antichrist, erected and built, as in David's time Mount
Sion had not. And though they sung a ' new song,' — the truth of the gospel
which themselves believed, — yet so confusedly and indistinctly, as none could
hATTi it, or understand that they differed from them. It was a new song,
differing from what the Papists taught about Christ ; yet they did not j^ro-
pagate it to many ; there were few or none, it is said, that could learn it.
And they are said to sing it secretly, before this representative chorus of the
four beasts and the four-and-twenty elders, — as they are considered as a stand-
ing company, that do view all the visions of this book, — but themselves were
not cast into such an order of worship, they not having churches or officers
to begin the song, as in other times you may observe that it is said, the four
beasts began, and the four-and twenty elders sung that song. So that they
had no distinct churches and assemblies, nor officers of their own who sung
this song ; their voices being sometimes as the voice of many waters con-
fusedly murmuring against the superstitions daily arising in those times,
and thundering aloud. First, against setting up of images, anno 707, both
in France and Germany ; and then, against transubstantiation : sometimes
sweetly harping melodious strains of true devotion, which believers, and
some writers of those times, as we in their writings find, were full of. Those
kept themselves virgins from the gross idolatries of the whore, not defiling
themselves with the rest of those women ; by which are meant the daughters
(if the whore, — that is, those cities and kingdoms in which they lived, — which
(as the daughters receiving themselves the fornications of Rome, the mother
city) allured these also unto spiritual fornication with them. Thus during
those times of gross idolatry, we read of those who professed their detestation
of images, and that idol of transubstantiation.
The second state of the church is, that of the separation which believers
made from antichristian churches, having a new and a further light broke
forth among them ; which we have described unto us by three degrees, rising
higher and higher, presented under three several angels, from the 6th verse,
and so on, according to the usual course of this book : the first of which flies
in the midst of heaven, being to publish his message unto many nations,
having the gospel to preach ; that is, Jesus Christ, and justification by him,
and the true worship of him : which in those times was counted a new
gospel; therefore in opposition to that made calumny, the Holy Ghost here
calls it the everlasting gospel. And this began to be done about the year
1100.
But because I mean to begin the Second Part of this my Exposition of this
book with the story of the church's first separation from Popery, which here
begins at the 6th verse of this chapter ; therefore I reserve the particular
exposition thereof unto that Second Part in its due place, and break off this
First Fait here, although in the middle of a chapter, yet at a right joint or
period.
78 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaET IL
PAPJ n.
BEING THE STORY OP THE CHURCH FROM THE TIMES OP THE FIRST
SEPARATION FROM THE BEAST, THE POPE, UNTIL
THE GLORIOUS KINGDOM OF CHRIST ;
AS IT IS LAID DOWN CHAP. XI., AND FROM CHAP. XIV. 6 UNTO THE
BEGINNING OF CHAP. XX.
THE PEEFACE.
The main thing I aimed at, both in my first studying this book, and also in
this my exposition of it, was to search into such passages therein as did con-
cern and fall upon the last days, especially the present times of the church ;
and to inquire and find out under which of these constellations our own
times do fall, and what is certainly yet to come. Now, what hitherto hath
been expounded by me I found, by the general consent of the best expo-
sitors, though upon diverse grounds, to belong unto more ancient times, long
since past. And hence it is that, in the exposition of those 6th, 8th, and
9th chapters, I have been the less inquisitive, therein especially following Mr
Mede, whose scheme and division also of this whole prophecy into the Seal-
prophecy and Book-prophecy, and making the one to contain the fates of the
empire and the other of the church, I ever accounted a happy notion for the
understanding of this book, and have therefore enlarged it ; although, in the
exposition of the 7th chapter, I altogether differ from him, as also in some
few things else. Now, those parts of this prophecy which belong to more
elderly times being thus briefly run over and despatched, I have now selected
and singled out all that I find, both in the seal-prophecy and in this book-
prophecy, to have an eye to these present times, or to those yet to come,
and have cast them apart by themselves, as being those things in this book
which it concerns us more especially to search into. And to the end that I
might begin at a right joint, without mangling the whole, I have chosen to
begin from that state and time of the church's separation from Popery, and of
the Keformation, which this book-prophecy begins at, — namely, chap. xiv. 6, —
and so to give upon this, but especially what concerns the present age, a larger
exposition than upon the former I have done : having written that First Part,
Treface.] an exposition of the revelation. 79
especially that brief exposition of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th chapters, but to
make way for the understanding of that which now follows ; it being impos-
sible for any man to be contirmed in the true interpretation of any part
without some general insight into the whole.
Now, in general, if you would know what belongs to these latter times in
this prophecy : — •
1. The seal-prophecy, from the Gth chapter to the 12th, running over all
time from John's days unto the kingdom of Christ, and the passages thereof
in the 10th and 11th chapters, (being the last under that first prophecy,) do
therefore belong unto the last times, as hath been abundantly declared in
that general scheme given in the First Part ; and, indeed, most of the things
in the 11th chapter do belong to the times of the vials, chap, xvi., as will
appear in the exposition of it. Then, again —
2. At the beginning of the Gth verse, chap, xiv., in the book-prophecy,
begins the great restoration of the gospel from under Popery, and so the
story of the last days, which is continued along in such things as shall
befiill the church unto the kingdom of Christ, which begins not until chap.
XX. Hence, therefore, all these passages in those chapters mentioned out of
both prophecies, being put together in their due place and order, do fitly fall
in together, to make the story of the church complete, from the first separa-
tion from Popery unto Christ's kingdom ; and do indeed take in all that in
this book of the Revelation is spoken of these times : which, therefore, I call
a Second Part of the exposition of this book.
A particular scheme and division, presenting, in their due order and succes-
sion, all the contents of those chapters ivhich do concern our times.
Because the right ordering and ranking of the particular visions of this
book in both prophecies in their due times, either of succession after each
other, or their synchronising or falling out together at the same time, is the
chief key of interpretation ; therefore, as I gave a more general scheme and
division of this whole book at the first, to make way for the exposition
thereof, so I will now premise a particular scheme of these chapters men-
tioned, so to make way for the understanding of the exposition thereof also.
First therefore I will set together the materials therein contained, accord-
ing to that right and due order, either of synchronising each with other, or
due succession after each other ; that is, shew what times the several visions of
those chapters do belong unto ; which of them are, in order of time, before
the other, and which fall out at the same time with other. The full proof of
which method, and my so ordering them, I shall in part reserve to the larger
exposition itself, which follows ; only now take it briefly, for the better
clearing the exposition.
Two representations of the church, from the separation to the New
Jerusalem.
The church of Christ, from those times of separation unto the New Jeru-
salem, is presented, either —
80 AN EXPOSITIOX OF THE RKVEL.VTION. [PaRT IL
I. In the various conditions wliich in itself it should run through, all the
time until then, in several ages, both in respect of the progress of its separa-
tion further and further off from Rome, and so of its increase of light, purity,
and reformation ; as likewise in respect of persecutions and judgments upon
it, and its restitution and deliverance again from under them. Or else —
II. It is presented in one uniform, entire, and general condition, suiting
with all those times of it, first and last, both as within itself it partakes of
Like privileges all that time, and especially also in relation to the execution
of plagues and punishments, poured out of the seven vials, on the enemy of
the church, whom this true church is to be the instrument of raining. And
both these ways the Holy Ghost hath been pleased to represent the story
of it.
The churcKs uniform and alike condition entirely set forth together
in the 15th and 16th chapters.
This same entire condition of it, during all this long time, as I take it,
is set forth in the 15th and 16th chapters,
1. In the 15 th chapter is set forth the common, uniform, and like state
of the church all that while —
(1.) As within itself, ver. 2-5.
(2.) In the common and like description of the angels or powers out of
the vials which come out of those churches, from ver. 6 to the end. Which
representation of the church, and of these angels, all that whole time, is also
made as the immediate sign, great and wonderful, or the forerunner, of the
New Jerusalem, ver. 1, 2. There being after these vials, and this state of
the church, a more glorious state of it to come ; which, ver. 5, is called the
opening the temple of the tabernacle, (so called by way of distinction from
the temple of the seven angels,) as wherein the ark, Christ himself, is to be
seen, as chap. xi. 19 ; which, until the vials are all poured out, stands veiled,
as the holy of holies did. And so this present state of the church, which is
the temple out of which the seven angels come forth, ver. 6, holdeth but the
proportion and allusion of the inward court of the priests unto the noly of
holies in the Jewish temple, in comparison unto that other church or
temple to come after this, as ver. 5 speaks. And so the erection of it is
made the sign or immediate forerunner of this holy of holies, as ver. 1, 5,
compared, do evidently shew. And then —
2. In the 16th chapter, you have the execution and pouring out of these
seven vials by the angels out of this church or inner temple, erected from the
first separation from Antichrist, all along those times unto the New Jerusa-
lem ; which, in their several orders and successions, are in one view exhibited
in that 1 6th chapter.
The various condition of the church scatteredly presented in three parts.
Now, although this common, uniform condition of the church all this
time is set thus, in relation to the execution of those vials on the enemies,
in one entire view, in the 15th and 16th chapters ; yet that other various con-
Pkkfau::.] an exposition of the revelation. 81
<^liti()n (if the church, as in respect to its own particular and diverse state in
all those times, the Holy Ghost was pleased variously, and in several places
of this jirophccy, to describe and set forth, as best suiting to a special end
and occasion, yet with such infallible characters of their times, of the vials
they belong unto, and also unto what times of each vial, as cannot deceive us.
Thus, the first part of the story of the various condition of the church
during the four first vials is set forth, chap, xiv., from the 6th verse to the
end ; at wliich 6th verse the separation of the true church from Antichrist
beginning, there began also the first erection of true churches, or the temple,
first made mention of in that chapter, when Waldus and his company first
fell off fi'om Rome. And the reason why this was first done, ere the vision
of the vials was presented, was because it was meet to shew how the temple
was first built and reared, ere the seven angels and their vials poured forth
out of this temple should be mentioned. And therefore chap. xiv. shews
that first part of the church's story in all its first comings forth from Anti-
christ, and laying the foundation of churches ; but then it breaks off at the
times of the fourth vial, for that so far precedes the reformation of the true
church, as it respected a separation from Antichrist, and so runs along with
such vials as should by degrees first prepare for his ruin, as the three or four
first vials do.
But then the next state of the church, from the time of the fourth vial to
the fifth vial, when Antichrist's time of forty-two months is to expire ; that
the 11th chapter, which comes in as a chronology to shew the end and ex-
piring of those times of Antichrist, doth supply the story of it, ver. 1-14.
And this story comes in there, rather than here in chap, xiv., because that
was to be as an immediate signal of Antichrist's downfall ; and so comes in
most fitly there in that 11th chapter; that chapter being intended as an
exact chronology or computation of the times of the beast's reign, to the end
it might be discerned when his time should end : and so the immediate sign
before it is therefore annexed, for the church's warning and comfort against
the approaching of the time of his ending, and a fatal prevailing of Anti-
christ over them just before. And so the story of that 11th chapter doth, in-
deed begin where that 14th chapter endeth, or about the same time. And
as the 14th chapter presented us with the story of the reformation of the
church from Antichrist and his false church, and so what befell the church
during that time , so the 1 1th chapter begins with a new reformation of the
reformed churches among themselves, and what should befall them upon that
reformation — namely, the killing the witnesses between the fourth vial and
the fifth, or, at the utmost, before the sixth viaL
And then the third part of the church's story, from after the fifth vial
unto, the New Jerusalem, — which New Jerusalem begins chap. xx. of the
book-prophecy, and chap. xi. 15 of the seal-prophecy, — the 19th chapter pre-
sents us with in its due place : for the 17th and 18th chapters being, the
one but an explanation who was the beast, and where his seat was, that so
the church might be able to discern this Antichrist ; and the other being a
funeral-song for the pouring out of the fifth vial, when the seat of the beast,
VOL. IIL F
82 A.N EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaUT IL
-the whore, (tLe city described in the 17th chapter,) is ruined, when also Anti-
christ's kingdom, as it is most probable, doth end : therefore fitly, after both
these digressions, comes in, in its due order, the state of the church from the
time of that fifth vial, or the ruin of the city, unto the New Jerusalem. And
therefore the 19th chapter thus begins, 'And after these things, I heard the
voice of an innumerable company,' <fec., — that is, after the ruin of the city
and whore described in chap, xvii., and ruined, chap. xviiL, — and so goes
on to describe the state of the church then until the New Jerusalem.
Now to sum up all. As the story in the 14th chapter containeth the
first reformation and separation of the church from Antichrist in several
degrees, and the 11th chapter containeth a second reformation of the church
within itself from profane mixture ; so this 19th chapter contains a third
reformation personal, of the saints themselves in it, as then with might and
main preparing and adorning themselves for the marriage of the Lamb, which
then they shall evidently see approaching, now when the whore is cast off
and burnt ; and there you may see them getting all the fine linen they can, —
that is, of holiness and growth in grace, ' the righteousness of the saints,' —
that so their Lord and Husband might greatly delight in their beauty, as you
may see, ver. 7, 8. And this is the true general coherence and order of what
yet ren^ins to be interpreted.
The particular synchronism of the several visions and contents of all those
chapters : and, first, of the \ith chapter, from ver. 6, with the loth and
IQth, to its 8th verse.
Now because, according to this division and general scheme given, the
visions of the 15th and 16th chapters, namely, those of the vials, do run
along the same whole course of time through diverse ages that the visions
of the 14th chapter, from ver. 6, and also of the 11th chapter, to ver. 15,
and of the 19th chapter also, do, (though the one in a uniform continued
way, the other in a scattered successive representation of the church's
condition, aU along the same tract of time through many ages ;) therefore it
will be expedient to shew which of these several parts of these two repre-
sentations do synchronise and fall out together in the same age, and which of
them do succeed each other.
I win therefore a little more particularly set together the several parts of
these stories ; both of that of the seven vials, which are put together, chap.
XV., xvi., and those other several pieces and scattered passages of those
other chapters, in aU their due tim^s as they fell out together.
1. That same temple filled with smoke, chap. xv. 8, out of which come
the seven angels, I conceive to have been begun to be set up in the times of
the first separation from Antichrist, chap. xiv. 6. When also the everlasting
gospel was begun distinctly to be preached, both by Waldus and his follow-
ers, who did erect true churches unto Christ, (as the history of the Waldenses
shews,) when those harpers on the glassy sea, chap, xv., began more dis-
tinctly to sing the song of ]\Ioses and the Lamb ; that is, the doctrine both of
the law and gospel, which the hundred and forty-four thousand, in the darker
Preface.] an exposition of tue revelation. 83
times of Popery, had but muttered, and that so confusedly as none could
learn it. For this, compare chap. xiv. C, 7, with chap. xv. 3, 4. So that
the doctrine of the gosjjel, and the erection of the temple out of which the
vials do come, and the separation from Popery, do all begin together.
2. This erection of the temple, and preparation being thus made by the
first angel, chap. xiv. 6, the first vial out of that temple, chap. xvi. 1, 2,
began with the voice of the second angel, chap. xiv. 8. So that the first
angel, chap. xiv. 6, sets up the temple, and the second angel brings forth
the first vial. And therefore, accordingly, the voice of that angel, chap. xiv.
8, is, ' Babylon is fallen, Babylon is fallen ; ' that is, now is the first founda-
tion of her ruin laid, (as in opening the vials I shall afterward shew,) or, now
do those vials begin which shall be her ruin.
The second vial, chap. xvi. 3, follows with the voice or cry of the third
angel's preaching, chap, xiv, 9, then when the sea of Antichrist's doctrine
was both proved and pronounced damnable by Luther's doctrine, and the
waters which the whore sat on fell from her ; that is, those kingdoms and
commonwealths which had subjected themselves unto her. For this, com-
pare the year of Luther's preaching, recorded chap. xiv. 9-11, and that
second vial, chap. xvi.
The third vial, chap, xvi. 4, hath been pouring out since that harvest
began, chap. xiv. 14, since the snmnier weather and settled peace of the
reformed churches, meant by rivers and fountains, as in the opening the
meaning of that vial will appear.
The fourth vial, chap. xvi. 8, I take it, began about the time of the vint-
age, chap. xiv. 18, whereof this to me is an infallible character, that an
angel who had power over fire is said to excite unto it. Now, chap. xvi. 8,
the fourth angel, who poured out this fourth vial, is said to have ' power
given him to scorch men with fire.' And so that description, chap. xiv. 18,
is of the same angel, to shew that these two (the fourth vial and this vint-
age) fall in the same times : and so it is evidently evinced that the 14th
chapter, and the times of it, reach but to the fourth vial.
The synclwonism of the vision of the 1 1 th chapter, in the age between the
fourth and fifth vial; and of the 17 th and 18th chapters, with the times
of the fifth vial; and of the 19 th, ivith the age after the fifth vial unto
the New Jerusalem.
Come we next to the 11th chapter : —
Which, first, under the seal-prophecy, begins (now about the times of
the fourth vial) before the expiration of the world's monarchy. Antichrist's
times, and the church's oppression, and before the seventh trumpet, which
blows, ver. 15. And it begins with the representing the temple of the re-
formation, the same which the 14th chapter had represented, (out of which
the angel, with his sickle for the harvest, did come, chap. xiv. 15,) in
which these reformers, who erected that temple in the 14th chapter, having
committed this error, to lay an outward court unto it, — John there bearing
the persons of the godly of this age, — are bidden to measure that temple
84 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
anew, as not fully conformed to the pattern, and to cast out the outward
court. And so it contains a further reformation of the temple in that lith
chapter erected. And as in the vintage, chap, xiv., the Popish Gentiles had,
as was said, trod down the grapes in Germany; so here, chap. xi. 1, the Uke
outward court in other churches elsewhere is given unto these Gentiles to
tread down, and so with that exploit to end their date of treading down
the holy city for forty-two months, (or 1260 years.) with this their re-entry,
which shall be their last upon the churches of the Reformation. And so you
see the 11th chapter begins where the 14th chapter ends.
Then, secondly, ver. 5, 6 of that chapter, in the description of the wit-
nesses, you furthermore expressly have the first four vials briefly summed up ;
and no more of them than the first four mentioned therein, to shew that these
witnesses, in these latter times of their prophecy, are the same with those
angels that pour out the vials, chap. xvi. And observe, that that mention of
them comes in but by way of parenthesis in this speech of the angel unto
John, that he might discern who they were, and know them again in this
new book-prophecy ; and all to this end, to shew what after these four vials,
or from the time of the fourth and before the fifth, should befall them in the
expiring of the 1260 years allotted them to prophesy in, in sackcloth, or in a
mourning condition; which now should end with the beast's reign also,
which ends with the fifth vial. And so, ver. 7, when they shall be about to
finish their testimony, — that is, just now, at the ending of their prophecy, —
they that formerly have had the power to execute four such vials on the
beast's company already, must now, before they do fatally darken and over-
come his kingdom by the fifth vial, be themselves once more overcome by the
beast. Which kilHng of them, being thus mentioned after four of the vials,
summed up, ver. 5, 6, and in the end of their prophecy, and in the very ex-
piring of their time of mourning, must needs therefore be from after, or upon
the time of the fourth vial, and before the fifth, or at furthest with the sixth.
And then, ver. 13, the witnesses, they rise, and the tenth part of the city
falls, which some have interpreted to be the fifth vial, the ruin of the city of
Eome. But of that hereafter in the exposition.
After that, ver. 14, the second woe passeth away, which notes the re-
moving of the Turkish power and t}Tanny, — which was the second woe, or
sixth trumpet, spoken of chap. ix. 12, 13, — which is all one with the sixth
vial, chap, x^i., the drying up the river Euphrates, or the preparation
unto it ; as in the exposition wUl appear.
Then foUows the seventh trimipet, chap. xi. 15 to the end; at which time
the seventh vial begins, as is evident by comparing chap. xi. 9 and chap,
xvi. 18-21, as also chap. x. 7, in that it is said in one place that 'time shall
be no longer ' than until the seventh trumpet blows, and in the other, ' It
is done,' says the voice, when the seventh vial is poured out, chap. xvi. 17.
And, lastly, as under the seventh trumpet comes in the holy of holies,
which, as was said, is the opening the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven,
in which the ark is seen, chap. xi. 18; so you may read, chap. xv. 5, that
after the vials, (he says there, fura raZra, ' after these things,') this temple of
Peeface.] an exposition of the revelation, 85
tlie tabernacle of the testimony in heaven is said to be opened. That
temple out of which the vials come being but as the inward temple which
was begun to be erected, — for else they had no true churches, — from the first
separation, but polluted with the adjoining of the outward court by the re-
formers. But under the times of the fourth vial, this temple is measured
and purged, and that court cast out, chap. xi. 1, now ending in the holy of
holies succeeding it.
But whereas still what should befall the church from the time of the
rising of the witnesses, — which falleth out about the fifth vial, — is not ex-
pressed in that 11th chapter, nor what should be the church's condition from
that space between the fifth vial and the seventh trumpet and holy of
holies; but we are still to seek that, for the 11th chapter does setly describe
only what befell the church just before the expiring of the reign of Antichrist,
as a signal added for the church's warning: therefore this part the 19th
chapter supplies, — the 17th and 18th chapters being but a larger explication
of the fifth vial, as all agree, namely, the ruin of the city, — the first verse
of which begins thus, * After these things, I saw an innumerable company in
heaven, praising God for the downfall of the whore,' (at large set forth chap,
xvii., xviii.,) and therefore it must needs set forth the state of the church
now after the fifth vial until the seventh, as in the exposition will appear.
Acid then that great battle at the Lamb's marriage-supper, which follows in
that chapter, how that agrees with the seventh vial, let any one judge that
shall read chap xvi. from the 14th verse to the end, and chap. xix. from the
11th verse to the end. And then come in the thousand years, and New
Jerusalem, chap. xx.-xxii, which ia all one with the holy of holiea.
86 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT IL
CHAPTER I.
The \Zth chapter explained, from the 6th verse to the end.
"Now liaving ordered and cast these chapters, remaining to be expounded,
into this mould, I begin this exposition here, where the story of the church's
first separation from Antichrist doth indeed begin, where also I brake off the
First Part of this exposition.
In which my ranking of these chapters was shewed, that as the 13th
chapter does throughout set forth the condition of the false antichristian
church, and the several sorts of that company which shall cleave to the beast,
so that this 14th chapter does in like manner set forth the company of true
believers, which shall apart by themselves cleave unto the Lamb, and that
in those several conditions which they are to run through. As —
1. The condition of the church in the dark times of Popery, fi'om his
first rising until the gospel's light did break forth more clearly, and a separa-
tion was made from the church of Antichrist. And this, as I have opened
it, you have from the 1st verse unto the 6th. Or —
2. The condition of the church from that first separation from Popery,
and believers erecting churches and assemblies by themselves, from ver. 6 to
the end. Which now begins to be expounded.
And the scojje of the Holy Ghost in this remainder of chap. xiv. is but to
shew by what degrees the gospel should first break forth, and how churches
should at first be erected and a glorious reformation made. And so it reach-
eth no further than till the times of that prevailing again of the beast, which
after this great reformation he should a second time obtain to have over these
churches, about the times of the fourth vial, which is executed by the angel
that hath power over fire, who is mentioned ver. 18. Which prevailing of
his, the 11th chapter (the scope whereof is to shew how the beast's reign is
to end) does more fully shew forth.
Now when as the Holy Ghost had in this 14th chapter given the story of
that first separation and reformation, as being sufficient to shew the founda-
tion and progress of this new temple and true church, erected in opposition
to the false, he then breaks off, and presents the general and common condi-
tion and station of believers in this new erected temple, separate from the
church of the beast and from its doctrine and worship, and shews the judg-
ments to be executed upon the false church all that whUe, until the king-
dom of Christ, entirely together in one view, in the 15th and 16th chapters.
Now this state and condition of the church, as first breaking forth from
under Antichrist, and so coming out of Babylon and Egypt, laid forth in
this 14th chapter, imtH Antichrist's second prevailing, spoken of chap, xi.,
hath two parts : —
1, Their first separation, in the dark and elder times of the gospel, before
the Preformation. 'fe
2. The Reformation itself, made by Calvin and others.
Chap. I.] an exposition of the revelation. 87
1. The first separation, made and continued in the elder times before
Luther, hath three degrees of it orderly set forth, as light increased in the
church, from ver. 6 to 14.
2. The Reformation itself, from the 14th verse to the end.
First, Of that first separation : — ;
It hath three degrees, as was said, set forth by three angels, as by whose
ministry all the great things done in the church and world throughout this
book are still said to be effected, who in their voice and cry rise higher and
higher, and louder and louder, against Antichrist and his company.
The first angel, who lays the foundation of all, is said to have the * ever-
lasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every
nation, and tongue, and people,' and so to ' fly into the midst of heaven,' as
reaching his voice to all. And he also calls upon men to fear and worship
God alone, who made heaven and earth, ver. 7. So that the matter of his
preaching is the gospel, which brings to light the free grace of God in Christ
for the justification of a sinner, and also the true worship of this God alone ;
withdrawing men from idolatry and false worship of saints and angels, which
the world was then overwhelmed with : which because in those times it was
called the Neiu Gospel, therefore, in opposition to that calumny, the Holy
Ghost calls it the JEverlasting Gospel, which was now restored and brought
to light. And by the preaching of these two things to all nations, was the
foundation of that whole separation from the Pope that followed first laid.
Now this first angel's preaching doth most lively set forth the first pro-
ceedings of Waldus and his followers, who first began to make separation
from Popish doctrine and worship. This Waldus, an alderman of Lyons in
France, about the year of Christ 1100, being converted by occasion of the
sudden death of a friend of his, as they were walking abroad together, — which
mightily terrified and amazed him, God using that as a means to humble
him and bring him to Christ, — fell a-preaching in that city, and converted
many others to the saving knowledge of Christ. And he being a man learned
also, as even Popish writers say of him, opened the Scriptures, and turned
them into the vulgar French. And he and his followers, thinking it their
duty to preach this gospel unto others, as did the apostles, they forthwith
sent abroad some of their company a-preaching. Which when it came to
the ears of the Pope, they were prohibited, as being laymen. But they,
affirming it was better to obey God than men, and it being an article of
their faith, unicuique licere verhum Dei lihere prcedicare, — that it was lawful
for any man to preach the gospel, — they went on in the course they had
begun, though they were persecuted for it. And look, as in the primitive
times, when persecution arose after the death of Stephen, and that the
church of Jerusalem was dispersed, it was an occasion of further spreading
the gospel unto other nations : so Waldus, being himself excommunicated,
came into Picardy, and so into the Low Countries, and there, by his preach-
ing, made many disciples, and then went into Germany, and last of all into
Bohemia; and his followers were dispersed into Savoy, Lombardy, and the
countries on this side the Alps; and Arnoldus, his companion, went into
Spain. Insomuch that Poplinerius the historian gives this testimony of
them, that these Waldenses, maugre the power of all Christian princes, about
the year 1100, did broach a doctrine little differing from what the Protestants
now hold ; and not only dispersed it through France, but over all the parts
of Europe. Of these things you may read at large in the English History
of the Waldenses, and in Bishop Ussher's book. Be Successione EcclesicB.
Thus you see they preached, as here; yea, it was their profession; and they
88 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [1'aUT IT,
preached to all nations, and tlie doctrine they preached was only the goispel,
and to call men from idolatry to ■worship God aright, (as you may read at
large in those books mentioned,) as the angel is here said to do, ver. 7.
Ver. 8. — But in an age or two following, their number increasing in all
kingdoms, and their light growing more clear, there follows out of this com-
pany a second angel, who with open mouth proclaims that Rome was
Babylon, and the Pope that beast, and that Antichrist, in this Revelation
described, and ordained to ruin. Which thing Waldus did at the first but
begin to mutter ; for in one more ancient breviary of the articles of their
opinions, (as you have them in that forenamed book, De Successione Eccle-
sice, cap. vi., n. 16,) this is the first, concerning the church of Rome, in these
modest words only, Romanu^n Prcesulem reliqiiis pare7ri esse episcopis, — that
the Pope of Rome was but equal to all other bishops. But afterwards in
the following ages, their followers grew more bold ; and in another edition
of their articles, in the same chapter, n. 17, you find this, Romanam ecdesium
esse meretvicem Bahylonicavi, — that the church of Rome was the whore of
Babylon, Which thing the professors in those next ages did inculcate, and
insist on, and made it the eminent article of their profession and confession.
But this was especially done by Wicklifi" and his followers, beginning about
the year 1371, in England; and after him by John Huss, and Jerome of
Prague, and their followers, anno 1400.
But then follows a third angel, more vehement than the rest, — and that
was Luther and his followers, — and he proceeds further, and says, that not
only Rome is Babylon, but that aU those who cleave unto her doctrine
and superstitions 'shall drink of the wrath of God for ever;' that is, be
certainly damned, and go to hell. He shewing that her worship and doc-
trine, the image of the beast, was a damned doctrine, and laying open the
falsehoods and errors of it so manifestly, that now under so clear a light of
the gospel as this age held forth, it could never stand with salvation to live
therein. And so he urged a separation from Rome under pain of damnation.
The voice of this angel is from ver. 9 to ver. 12.
Then follows an intimation, once for all, of those martyrdoms and bloody
persecutions of all those three angels and their followers, as the effect of
this their preaching, and as a trial of the truth of their doctrine, and their
own sincerity. So, ver. 12,13, 'Here is the patience of the saints;' that
is, here comes in matter for the trial of it. And for their encouragement,
there is a comfortable acclamation subjoined, ' Blessed are those that die in
the Lord.' Now how, upon the preaching of all those angels, persecutions
were raised, — which from the times of the heathenish and Arian persecutions,
for the space of eight hundred years past before, in the dark times of Popery,
the church was free from, — and there followed the martyrdoms of the fol-
lowers of Waldus, Wickliff, Huss, and Luther, and of those that embraced
their doctrine, especially upon and after this third angel's preaching ; tliis
the Book of Martyrs will infoi-m you.
In the second place comes the time of the Reformation, after Luther ; the
state of which is presented to us under a double vision : the one of a harvest,
the other of a vintage, which useth to come after harvest.
The first betokens that glorious peace and sunshine of the gospel which
followed after those persecutions in Germany, England, &c., for sixty years
and upwards, and this from ver. 14 to ver. 17. By a harvest, in Scripture, is
meant the conversion and gathering in of the elect by the preaching of the
gospel. So in the Old Testament, Isaiah prophesying of the conversion of
the Jews in Egypt and Assyria, chap, xxvii. 12, 13, he useth this expression.
Chap. 1.1 an exposition of the rkvelation. 89
that God would thresh or * beat off,' all along from the river Euphrates unto
Egypt, those his elect people, that, as corn, should grow upon the shores
thereof; and that he would thresh so clean, that they should be gathered
'one by one ;' not leaving one grain of election behind, nor one ear of com
standing uurcaped. It is an allusion to a harvest, and having in of corn,
and threshing it. Like unto which is that speech of Christ, when he sent
out his disciples : * Lo, the regions are white, and ripe for the harvest,' and
'the harvest is great.' Which he spake when there were multitudes of
people ripe and ready to receive the gospel. And since the preaching of the
gospel by the third angel, what multitudes of such hungry souls have there
been in these kingdoms 1 And what a glorious time of summer and harvest
have we had 1 And this preaching of the gospel, that hath reaped this com,
hath been authorised by the chief magistrates, and by kingly power, even
whole kingdoms professing it. And therefore he who in this vision hath the
sickle given him to reap is presented 'crowned with a golden crown ;' which,
according to the analogy 'udth the other contents of this book, chap. xii. 5,
is when Jesus Christ, the Son of man, is visibly set in the throne, ruKng by
Christian magistrates, they using their power for him ; as when the emperors
turned Christians, you find the like expression used, chap. x.
The other vision is of a vintage, from ver. 17 to the end; which, as a
vintage comes after harvest, so this falls out in the end of this summer, and
after the harvest of the Reformation, and so shuts up the story of it. Wherein
God, after he hath had in his corn, falls upon the grapes, the wild grapes,
and cuts them down ; but with another manner of sickle than he had done
his own corn. He had reaped them with a sickle of conversion, but these
he cuts down with the ' sharp sickle ' — twice so called — of vengeance ; and
therefore, it is said that they are ' cast into the wine-press of God's wrath.'
And these grapes are those carnal Protestants and professors of religion, who,
together with the elect, have enjoyed the heat of this fair long summer, and
hung like to grapes in the sun, but retaining their sourness, have been ripened
indeed, but only for wrath and vengeance. And lo, how this sharp sickle
hath gone up and down in Germany for well-nigh these twenty years, being
such a wine-press of fierce wrath, and such a treading down to an overflow-
ing of blood and misery, as hath scarce been paralleled in any age ! For it
is the vengeance of the temple, not so much destroyed, as defiled and dis-
honoured by their mixture ; which as much provokes God unto wrath as
the persecution of his temple would have done. And therefore, the angel
that is the executioner of it is provoked unto it by the cries of an angel that
comes from the altar, as one who is zealous of God's worship, and disdains as
much that the temple and altar (the ordinances of worship) should be pes-
tered and defiled with such as call themselves the church, saying, ' We are
the temple of God,' and so cause God's name to be blasphemed, as that the
idolatrous Papists, whom this book calls the Gentiles, chap. xi. 1, should
tread down this holy city and sanctuary. For even these are no better than
GentUes also, who ' say they are Jews, but are not.'
And that this vengeance should be meant of this execution of it upon the
Protestant party seems evident unto me by this, that the wine-press is said
to be * trodden without the city ;' that is, without the jurisdiction or reach
of the power of the city of Rome, — for so that word city, according to the
style of this book, doth stUl import, as chap. xi. 8, chap. xvi. 19, &c., — and so
is on purpose added to shew that it befalls even such kingdoms and places
as had cast off the Pope's supremacy. And it appears also by this, that it is
mentioned apart from the vials which follow, which are all the judgments
90 AX EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT IL
that fall upon the Popish and Turkish enemies of the church ; but this upon
a third sort of enemies within the church itself And although it be true,
that so far as there hath befallen, through these German wars, a plague upon
the Pojiish party in Germany, (as upon the emperor, and those Popish princes
under him,) so far indeed as upon them, it is to be reduced to one of the
vials, which do contain all the last plagues on the Popish party, and particu-
larly comes under the fourth vial ; yet so far as these wars have brought
miseries and desolation on the Protestant party, so far in that respect it is
presented in this vintage. And therefure you may observe, that the angel,
who it is said hath ' power over fire,' — whb is indeed the angel of the fourth
vial, as the angel of the third is called the ' angel of the waters,' — because
he hath ' power to scorch men with fire,' chap. xvi. 8, that angel it is that
incites and provokes this angel here, with the ' sharp sickle, to cut down and
tread these grapes.' So that this vintage is a distinct execution from that of
the fourth vial, and yet contemporaneous w^th it. In a word, these wars, so
far as they hurt the Popish party, are the fourth vial ; and so far as they
hurt the Protestant party, they are the vintage here meant.
That horses are mentioned as treaders of this wine-press most fitly carries
it to these German wars ; the German horses being the most approved war-
horses in Europe, and these wars having been chiefly maintained and acted
by them. And then also this allusion of grapes trodden in a wine-press was
as suitable to express the miseries befaUen those countries ; which are famous
for vines and vintages, as the Palatinate and other places in Germany are.
And for the like reason the judgments upon Edom and Bozrah are expressed
by a vintage, Isa. Ixiii. 1, because it was a country famous for vines. And
then again, haply the space of 1600 furlongs here mentioned, which some
make more miles, some less, may, for the length, be found as fitly to agree
unto the chief seat of these wars and wine-press ; which, take the length of
the Protestant part of Germany trodden down, and here only intended, may
not every way extend much further. But the computation and measuring of
this I leave unto others.
And whether or no God will bring this wine-press into any other of his
vineyards, as England, Scotland, &c., and by bloody wars tread down the
grapes there, as he hath done in Germany, keeping still to the same propor-
tion of 1 600 furlongs, as our Brightmau reckons the length of England to
be, and fulfilling it over and over in other several Protestant kingdoms and
dominions. He only knows who is the Lord both of this harvest and vint-
age. Only this may be more confidently aflSirmed, that the rest of those
carnal Protestants in England and other places, who. Like the outward court,
have been laid and joined to the people of God, shall yet, before the expira-
tion and ending of the beast's kingdom and number, be more or less given
up to the Papists, and to the jurisdiction of the city of Rome, and be trod-
den down, and made to veil to them, if not all of them by bloody wars and
conquests, yet by some base and unworthy yielding to them, as a just pun-
ishment of their carnal profession of the gospel And this in England, we
eee, they begin to do ; and this, I take it, chap. xi. 1 doth foretell and pro-
phesy of. Which chapter being intended to give a signal or forerunner of
the beast's ruin, and the expiration of his 1260 years and period of his king-
dom, which now is approaching, doth present the state of the church, and
what shall befall it, not long before his ruin ; and so withal that face of the
church just before is presented there, chap, xi 1. And the setting down
what should befall it, ver. 7-14, must necessarily belong to these times, and
80 is to be subjoined unto this 14th chapter, (though it comes in there as a
Chap. I.] ak exposition of the uevelation. 91
common signal of the ending of both prophecies, and therefore between both,)
to make the story of the church complete.
And this I shall hancUe nnd make to appear when I have first opened the
meaning of the vials, especially of the four first of them : which though for
order's sake are, by the Holy Ghost, put (as in this book things of a sort use
to be) with the rest after this 14th chapter, yet they have been a-pouring
forth upon the beast and his company from that first preaching of the gospel
until now, as will further appear. And the reason why I would open these
four first vials, ere I open the 11th chapter, is, because they synchronise with
this 14th chapter; and because four vials are mentioned as poured out,
chap, xi., ere the witnesses are slain, which cannot be understood till these
be first explained.
32 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II
CHAPTER 11.
The exposition of the 15th chajiter.
The Holy Ghost having thus first of all shewn how the reformation from
Popery was to be brought about and churches erected, he here beginneth to
set before us the uniform state of believers in this temple, and the several
degrees of their ruining the false church, by several vials; and this, as set
together in one continued view throughout all these times, from the first
separation from Popery until Christ's kingdom. Concerning which, in gene-
ral, I shall premise three things.
First, The difference between their condition here and the condition of the
churches under the dark times of Popery, as is uniformly described chap,
xiv. 1-6. And observe this difference in these four particulars : —
1. Those, chap, xiv., were virgins, but not separate; but these here stand
alone in a temple by themselves, washing themselves from the defilement of
Popery, as being separated therefrom.
2. Those sung a new song confusedly ; but these sing the song ot Moses and
the Lamb — that is, the law and the gospel — distinctly.
3. Those there stood naked upon the hill of Sion, as it was ere a temple
was reared upon it ; but these here are gathered into a temple, and roofed
over their heads.
4. Those sung their song in Egypt ; but these are come out of Egypt, and
so sing Moses's song.
The second thing to be premised is, that these seven angels and their vials,
and this company here, are in the general description of them, or in that
preface to their description prefixed, ver. 1, called ' a sign, great and marvel-
lous,' and ' another sign.'
1. It is called a sign. A sign is always a forerunner of something to
come. Now, what it is that is here pointed at as to come, ver. 5 tells us ;
namely, that ' after these things,' — that is, after these vials, — ' the temple of
the tabernacle of the testimony was opened in heaven.' So then, these vials,
they are the sign of that glorious holy of holies which John saw was to come
after them ; or they arc the sign of the JN^ew Jerusalem, — for by that ' temi)le
of the tabernacle of the testimony ' is that state meant, — and also of Christ's
coming ; and so they are that ' sign of the Son of man ' spoken of Matt.
xxiv. And these plagues do here go before him, as m like manner the pro-
phets use to describe his progress with plagues and pestilence before him.
And therefore, if you observe it, just when the last vial approacheth, chap,
xvi. 15, then warnmg is given, 'Behold, I come as a thief,' &c.
2. It is called another sign : for that sign, chap, sii., was the sign of the
devil's being thrown down in heathenism ; but this, of the devil's throwing
down out of Popery, and Christ's coming to set up his kingdom. So that
we of this age do indeed stand in the midst of the times of these vials, and
Chap. II.] an I'.xrosixioN of the rkvklatiux. 9.3
so may see how much of Christ's train is gone before, and what is to come
hereafter, himself being to come in the rear of all.
The third thing to be premised and observed ia, that they are called the
* last plagues.'
Christ had three sorts of enemies to subdue, by three several sorts of
plagues : —
1. Satan and his false worship, together with the heathenish empire ;
which he despatched by the six seals, chap. vL
2. The Roman empire ; which he ruined by the six trumpets.
3. The Pope in the west, and the Turk in the east, who succeeded in the
place of the Roman (both eastern and western) empire ; and for these he hath
prepared seven vials. And because these are the last enemies, therefore
these vials are called the last plagues.
Thus nuich in general ; now more particularly to descend to the several
contents of this chapter.
There are two things which are more eminently presented to our view in
this 15th chapter : —
First, The church or company of believers standing in the temple, de-
scribed ver. 2-5, and ver. 8.
Secondly, The angels, who are executioners of the viaLs out of that temple,
described ver. 6-8.
First, For the company from among whom the angels come : —
1. They have a temple over their heads, as ver. 8, ' continually filled with
smoke ; ' as at the first dedication of Moses's tabernacle, Exod. xl. 34, 35 ;
and at the dedication of Solomon's temple, which was a larger edition of
that which Moses had given the pattern of, 1 Kings viii. 16. To shew that
during the vials there should be new erections, and editions, and reforma-
tions of the temple ; unto all which God still gives the testimony of his pre-
sence. As —
(1.) When that first separation from Popery was made, and true churches
were set up by the Waldenses, and smoke filled their temples.
(2.) In the Reformation made by Luther and Calvin there was a farther
edition of the temple, and smoke did afresh fill it also.
(3.) In the 11th chapter, ver. 1, you will meet with another reformation,
and casting avray the outward court ; and smoke will afresh fill those new-
measured temples also : God still giving new testimonies of his presence, as
new editions of purer churches do come forth.
2. Their station in this temple is upon a sea of glass ; which, as you
heard out of the 4th chapter, was an allusion to that brazen sea in which the
priests washed themselves : to shew that this company of beUevers, from out
of which the vials do come, should be such as should stiU more and more
purify themselves afresh in their several ages from those defilements of doc-
trine and worship which Antichrist had brought into the church. And they,
in their several successions, discovering new and further defilements, are
therefore still presented as coming forth fresh and anew out of the sea of
glass ; and accordingly are presented standing upon the brim, as being new
come out from wasliing themselves, and so growing purer and purer, until
they become a bride fiilly prepared for their Lord and King.
3. They are also presented as victors and conquerors, — for such, through
pouring forth these vials, they do become, — and in the end shall fully prevail
over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number
of his name ; which are several degrees of Popery and antichristianism,
whereof some are more gross and some more refined. All which they m like
94 AN EXPOSITION OF THE i:EVELATION. [PaRT IL
manner do by degrees, in their several successions, go on to discover and to
overcome ; until by that time that these vials are aU poured out, they have got
a fuU and perfect conquest over all. And therefore, in this general description,
they are set forth as those that had such a full conquest ; for that, take them
first and last, they shall have a perfect and complete victory over aU these.
The meaning is not, as Mr Brightman understands it, that this company had
first got a complete victory over aU these before the vials began ; but this is
spoken of the whole company and succession of them first and last conjunc-
tively, the intendment being to give a general description of them, and to
set down what they should do and accomplish by that time their whole time
is expired, and to shew how, by that time they shall have poured out their
vials, they shall obtain the victory. Thus, in like manner of speech, it is
said, ver. 1, that ' in them is filled up,' or fulfilled, ' the wrath of God ; ' ex-
pleta est ira Dei. Which is spoken as if it were already accomplished and
fulfilled ; but the meaning is, that by that time they are all emptied, the
wrath of God v/illbe thoroughly exercised and fulfilled through them and by
them. And so doth this here note out, not a full victory before the vials,
but a complete victory in and through the pouring out of these vials; and
that this company, ere the time of the vials is fully expired, obtains it. For
the vials are themselves the means by which they do overcome ; and for each
degree of which victory they sing a triumphant song.
4. These ' sing the song of Moses :' for the former of the vials are allusions
to the plagues of Egypt; and by that time that the fifth vial comes they will
have drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea, and so will sing that song,
Exod. XV. And after that they will sing the song of the Lamb, even hia
marriage-song, as in the 19th chapter, (which comes in after the funeral-
song of the city of Rome, or the fifth vial in chap, xviii.,) ver. 6, 7, 'Let us
be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the Lamb is come;' that is, is
approaching. Or this song may refer to the doctrine of the gospel, which
now began to be taught among them more clearly ; for Moses's song,
Deut. xxxii., was doctrinal; and so in the Old Testament it was ordinary to
utter matters of doctrine in songs. And thus in this book the doctrine of
the church is still expressed, and is called a song. And so whereas, during
the dark times of Popery, they sung as it were a new song, differing from
Popish doctrine, yet so confusedly that none could learn it, as chap. xiv. 3 :
now they have the everlasting gospel to preach, as chap. xiv. 6, and they
sing Moses's song and the Lamb's distinctly ; they preach the law and the
gospel clearly and rightly, and make manifest his hnatu^iiara, which we
translate judgments, but signifies his justiUcations (as Rom. viii. 4) of poor
sinners made manifest, as ver. 4. The doctrine of justification by Christ being
eminently revealed and made known in the time of these vials, and the
works of redemption most clearly manifested.
And, moreover, these do also set up Christ, both in himself and in his re-
lations to his church; as calling him —
1. The Lord Almighty ; 2. King of Saints ; 3. The only Holy One. And
80
\. As the only ruler and lord of his church ; 2. And king that must give
laws unto it ; 3. As the fountain of all grace and holiness : in a word, as a
God only to be believed in and worshipped, as being only and alone holy.
They magnify nor saints, nor temples, nor the Pope; no, nor any creature
whatsoever. For so, Jer. x. 7, the like speech is uttered in opposition to all
false gods ; and therefore, say they, ' Who will not fear thee ? ' or worship
thee, and that according to thine own ways prescribed in thy word, and not
Chap. II.] an exposition of the revelation. 05
according to men's inventions. ' Just, and true, and righteous are thy ways,'
that is part of their song, and all superstitions and human inventions in
worship are false. So says David, ' I hate every evil way, but thy law do I
love,' as being only true and righteous, Ps. cxix. — Thus much for their song.
Second/i/, The description of these angels, and their preparations to pour
out their vials, you have from ver. G of tliis 15th chapter to the end, as you
have the execution and pouring out of their vials in the 1 6th chapter.
The angels are described as ' clothed in white,' as priests, and ' girt with a
golden girdle' of alacrity, strength, sincerity, and truth ; for in Scripture men
are said to be girt with all these. And ' one of the four beasts' — that is, of the
officers of the churches, whose mouths in praying the officers still are — is said
to ' give these vials unto these angels,' in that theirs and the church's prayers
do fill up these vials in their several successions. And the plagues they
execute are said to be in vials, both because the prayers of the saints do fill
up the wrath poured out, — for, chap, v., the vials are interpreted the prayers
of the saints, — and also in allusion to the expression in the Old Testament,
where God's wrath is described by a cup or vial in the hand of the Lord j as
often in the Psalms you have it. And Rome's sin being expressed by * a cup
of abomination in her hands,' her plagues are therefore fitly expressed by
vials and cups of wrath, irresistibly poured out upon their heads from
heaven. And they are said to be ' filled with the wrath of God, that liveth
for ever and ever,' for that these plagues are spiritual as well as corporal, as
I shall shew, and are but the beginnings of an everlasting wrath, as that
fire from heaven upon the Sodomites is said to be ' an everlasting fire,' and so
called by Jude.
Again, these vials are said to come * out of the temple / that is, out of the
church or churches then erected. Which because it follows the mention of
the ' opening the temple of the tabernacle in heaven,' therefore some have
mistaken it, as if these angels had come out of the ' temple of the testimony,'
mentioned ver. 5 : whereas that temple there is, by way of distinction, called
the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony, even the holy of holies ; and
the opening of that temple, not spoken in relation unto the angels coming
out, as opening upon their coming forth, but for the discovery of the ark,
as you have it interpreted under the seventh trumpet, chap. xi. 19, in allusion
to the holy of holies, which was kept veiled. Now, by that 11th chapter,
it evidently appears that the vials are poured out before the opening of this
tabernacle of the testimony in heaven. For, ver. 5, 6, you read of four
vials before the killing of the witnesses ; and the fifth vial is after their
rising ; and the passing away of the second woe is the sixth vial ; and then
the seventh vial and the seventh trumpet are all one, as hath been often-
times shewed ; and then comes the tabernacle of the testimony, or holy of
holies, to be opened, and the ark to be discovered and seen in it, ver. 19 of
that chapter. And in like manner here also, the opening of this tabernacle
is said to be fi,sTa. Taura, after these things, — that is, after these vials, — which
is a phrase in this book always noting out things in a several succession
performed, and a diff'ering vision, as chap. iv. 1, and chap. vii. 9 ; and the
mention of it comes in here only to shew the event of these vials. The
temple therefore that these angels come out of is at the purest but the
temple of priests ; and yet ' filled with smoke from the glory and power of
God,' it betokening his special, glorious, and powerful presence in and with
the church during the time of the vials, which the smoke that filled the
temple at the dedication was a sign of. And this smoke here implies, and
is the sign of, three things : —
96 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaUT It
1. Of God's presence in these churches ; so, Isa. iv. 5, under the allusion
to the smoke in the temple, God's presence in his assemblies under the
New Testament is there spoken of. And here it is interpreted the glory of
the Lord : for so it follows, ' the temple was filled with smoke from the glory
of the Lord ;' that is, his glorious presence, which, Isa. vi. 1, is said to fill the
temple.
2. Of God's defence and protection of his church ; and therefore it is here
also added, ' and from the power of the Lord.' So that none can enter in
to hurt them within the temjjle. And thus also, Isa. iv. 5, the smoke is
interpreted ' a defence ;' and, ver. 6, there is said to be ' a covert and a refuge
from the storm,' &c.
3. Of offence also to their enemies. So in the 18th Psalm, smoke is made
a sign of God's anger and wrath ; ' a smoke ascended in his anger.' And
so, whereas it is said, that ' no man was able to enter into the temple,' one
probable meaning of that expression, to me, is, that whereas God poured
forth upon the enemies of his church vials of wrath, and these plagues were
rained abroad upon them, — against which this temple, as was said, was the
only refuge and covert, men stUl using to fly unto the temple, and to the
horns of the altar, as being their sanctuary, — God in his just judgment
hardeneth, and so keepeth those his enemies of the Popish party from
joining themselves to this his temple ; so that they, through the obdurate-
ness of their hearts, of which you may still read in the vials, are not able
to enter into it, and so perish, and are destroyed by these plagues. And
whereas it is said, ' they entered not in till the seven plagues were ful-
filled,' the meaning is, that they never entered ; as, Gen. viii. 7, and Psalm
cxii. 8, and Acts iii. 21,* until is put for never.
* Perhaps more apposite passages than any of these V/ulc' be Psalm ex. 1, and Matt.
L 25.— Ed.
Chap. III.] an exposition of the uevelation. 97
CHAPTER III.
TJie exposition of the \(jth chapter. — A division of the vials. — The two last
bnefly to?iched.
The execution of these two last vials doth follow the five first, from ver. 1 to
ver. 12; and they are vials upon the beast, the Pope, and his adherents; God
by degrees plaguing them as he did the Egyptians, until the fifth falling
eminently upon the seat of the beast, Rome itself, his kingdom be so darkened
and despoiled of its gloiy and power, that although the beast may remain,
for Jesus Christ himself, at his coming under the seventh vial, to have the
last blow at him, and the full glory of the conquest, yet so weakened and
darkened as that I believe the period of his power to do (as the word is in the
original, chap. xiii. 5) for forty-two months, or 1260 years, is there set, and
the date of his lease expired.
Now for the sixth and seventh vials : because they are further off to come,
and that the seventh vial, and the preparation unto it, from ver. 13, belongs
to the kingdom of Christ, as being the immediate maldng way thereunto,
therefore I will but briefly touch upon these, and despatch them first. The
five first, especially the fourth and fifth, being those that concern these times,
and which chiefly serve for the opening the 11th chapter, I shall treat more
largely upon.
Now the sixth vial is upon the great river Euphrates ; that is, the Turk,
whom the sixth trumpet left standing in the east. And he is compared
to the great river, (which is the epithet given to the river Euphrates in
the Old Testament,) as the Assyrian monarch and his army are called in
Isa. viii. 7 ; and to the river Euphrates, for his first seat was, as you heard
out of chap. ix. 14, upon that river. Now this river is to be dried up for
the kings of the east, the Jews, to possess their own land, according to that
prophecy of their last conversion, Isa. xi. 13, 14, compared with the 15th
and 1 Gth verses of the sam_e chapter.
The seventh vial is general, upon the air, the whole power of Satan all the
world over. The relics both of Turk and Pope, and of all the church's
enemies throughout the world, as ver. 14, mustering up all their forces
against the Christians in the west, and the Jews in the east, are to be over-
thrown by Jesus Christ himself and his armies ; as you may read more at
large in the 19th chapter, from the 11th verse to the end, that being an ex-
plication of this vial, the last upon the world, as the 1 8th chapter is of the
fifth vial, the most eminent upon the beast.
Section I.
Seven things premised for the undei'standing the five first vials, which are upon
the beast and his company.
Now for these five first vials upon the beast, Antichrist, and his adherents;
I shall premise these things for the true understanding of tliem : —
VOL. III. a
98 AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVELATIO>. [PaRT II,
First, That for the times of them, they, as was said, began with the times
of the first separation from Rome, recorded chap. xiv. 6, and so do indeed
contain all those steps and degrees of ruining Anticlirist, first and last, from
the first time of the church's attempting to come forth out, and separating
from this Egypt. And therefore the three first vials are an allusion, as you
shall see in the next jireniise, unto those plagues which Moses and Aaron, in
bringing Israel out of Egypt, executed upon the Egyptians ; and so do refer
to the times of the church's separation and first reformation. It appears
also from the thing itself; for how can we think that all those discoveries
of the Avhore's nakedness, and the falling off of these kingdoms from her —
although they for a time should begin to court her again — should not be
reckoned among the vials, they having been well-nigh as great plagues as are
like yet to befaU her, except that her last ruin 1
And it appears likewise from this, that in the vintage of the 14th chapter,
we find, as was observed, mention made of the angel of the fourth vial.
Therefore the times afore that vintage must belong unto those three vials
which preceded this fourth. And for the time of the beginning of them,
whether at the harvest, or the voices of those angels that made the separa-
tion, the Holy Ghost hath not left us without some character whereby we
may discern it, in the story of that 15th chapter, where the song which the
church sings, when the vials do begin, is, as you may see it there, ' Who
shall not fear thee, Lord, and glorify thy name ? for all nations shall
come and worship before thee ; for thy judgments are made manifest,' &c.
Of which this is one meaning, — though there is another, — that the plagues
of these vials now beginning, the judgments of God are made manifest.
Now see what the voice of the first angel is, he who began the first separa-
tion from Antichrist, and first preached the gospel to every nation, chap
xiv. 6, 7. His message unto all nations is, ' Fear God, and give glory to
him; for the hour of his judgments is come: and worship him who hath
made heaven and earth.' That angel did but begin to give warning to Anti-
christ and his company of the vials that approached. But then observe the
voice of the second angel, and you will find that the first vial did begin as
the effect of these two angels' preaching. Tor this second not only calls
Ptome Babylon, and discovers the Pope to be Antichrist, but says, ' Babylon
is fallen, is fallen ;' that is, the foundation of her ruin is laid. Now here began
the first vial, even in this discovery of him to be Antichrist, whom before
that the superstitious world did never so much as suspect.
And whereas it is said, ' Babylon is fallen,' the Scripture speaks of a thing
as done when the foundation of it is laid. So the western empire is reckoned
as taken away then when the wars of the Goths began, and when the first
of the ten kingdoms was broken off from the empire, anno 410 ; as was before
said in the exposition of the 13th chapter. And the Pope is from that time
reckoned to rise with his ten horns, though it was forty years after ere all
the ten kingdoms were fully erected ; yea, and seventy years after ere the
power of the western empire was wlioUy extinct. Thus in the like manner,
Isa. xxi., the prophet says of old Babylon, ' She is fallen,' he prophesying at
the very time when the Medes first revolted from that monarchy, and began
to set up a kingdom of their own, which afterward was to destroy Babylon,
being also enabled thereto by that revolt. Now so is it here : when the first
open and professed revolt from Home, as from a second Babylon, was made
by our predecessors, then was the foundation of her fall laid ; then, says the
angel, ' Babylon is fallen ;' and so there begins the first vial, for the viala
are the means of ruining of it.
ClIAl'. III.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 99
A second thing to be premised is, That these vials are expressed in an
allusion unto the plagues executed in Egypt by Moses and Aaron ; of which
the first were not so great, but they ended in the drowning of those Egyp-
tians in the Red Sea, even as these do in the utter ruining of the seat of
Antichrist.
The first is i;pon the earth, and the efi"ect of it a noisome and grievous
sore on the men who have the mark of the beast ; in allusion to that plague
of throwing dust in the air by Moses, which caused a botch on man and
beast then in Egypt.
The second on the sea, and the waters thereof.
The third on the rivers and fountains, turning all their waters into blood.
All this is a manifest allusion unto that turning the Egyptian rivers, &c.,
into blood by Moses.
The fourth is upon the sun, and tormenteth men with fire. Which may
be an allusion to the punishment of Sodom. For so in the 11th chapter,
where these four first vials are enumerated, ver. 5, 6, the antichristian state
is called Egypt or Sodom. Or rather it alludes to Moses's consuming by
fire that company that ofi"ered up strange fire in the wilderness, when they
were come out of Egypt.
A third thing to be premised is, That as in the trumpets the Holy Ghost
compared the empire to a world, so here in the vials he useth the same com-
parison, comparing the kingdom of the beast, and the several parts of it to
be plagued, unto several parts of the world. And as the four first trumpets
were so many degrees of mining the western empire, so are these vials of
ruining the beast's world or ompire. The first trumpet was on the earth,
the second on the sea, the third on the rivers, and the fourth on the suii.
And whereas it was there shewed, that in Scripture any kingdom or body is
usually compared to a w'orld, which hath an earth and heavens, die, wherein
what is lowest is the earth, and what is highest is the heavens, the sun and
stars, &c. ; so in that empire then, and now in this antichristian kingdom
here, the parts of it are compared to an earth, sun, sea, rivers, &c.
Fourth premise. And as I observed in the 13th chapter, that the Pope
and his company were resembled by a double beast, one representing the
political state of these ten kingdoms, which made up one body under him as
a head ; and the other the spiritual state of his church and clergy, as they
call it, which make up a distinct body under him as their high priest and
spiritual head : so, answerably, this his earth, and rivers, and sun, which are
the parts of these his kingdoms, may, according to the analogy of this repre-
sentation, be interpreted in a double sense ; either his spiritual earth, sea, &c.,
or his political earth, sea, &c.
Fifth premise. Seeing that in the 11th chapter, ver. 8, his kingdom is
called spiritual Egypt and Sodom, and this in relation to these very plagues
of the vials, which are enumerated there, ver. 5, 6 : ' The city,' says he,
' which is spiritually called Egypt and Sodom ;' and that is more than merely
or aUegorically such, it importing that this his kingdom is a spiritual Egypt
and a spiritual Sodom ; — and it is a state, we know, that claimeth spiritual
jurisdiction in spiritual things, and over the souls of men, as chap, xviii.
13 hath it, and not only or principally in things outward and political,
but in oi^dine ad spiritualia, in order to things spiritual : now therefore the
plagues (and so these vials, they being the plagues upon this Egypt and
Sodom) upon this city, must needs be understood of spiritual plagues, upon
the souls and spirits of Antichrist's adherents, as well as outward. For they
must be answerable to the Egypt upon which they are plagues ; yea, and
100 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
seeing that it is both a spiritual state, and yet withal a temporal kingdom
also for outward power and pomp, having an earth, sea, &c., as other worldly
kingdoms have; therefore they shall have double plagues, spiritual and out-
ward also, on their spirits and also on their outward worldly kingdom.
Even thus it became the righteous God, as in relation to these plagues he is
called, chap. xvi. 5, to proportion their plagues to their sins, and so to
* double unto her double according to her works,' as the phrase is, chap,
xviii. 6. For him to ruin this beast and his adherents but outwardly only,
as he hath done other monarchies, was not enough ; for he sinned, not only
in assuming outward power, pomp, and glory, and a kingdom like to other
monarchies, under the name and pretence of having Christ's power, but a
spiritual kingdom also. The merchandise of this city was not only gold and
precious stones, &c., chap, xviii. 12, but likewise the souls of men too, as it
is there. She traded in spirituals as well as temporals ; and therefore the
highest spiritual judgments, as well as temporal, shall beMl that state, and
the abettors of it. And as the plagues of Pharaoh and his Egyptians were
spiritual, in the hardening of their hearts, as well as temporal ; so such a
spiritual hardness and impenitency is made mention of in some of these vials,
as well as outward plagues. And therefore they are also said, chap. xv. 7,
to be ' the wrath of God that liveth for ever,' an eternal wrath seizing upon
the souls of them on whom they are poured. And such are these four first
vials, and so to be understood both of spiritual and temporal plagues.
I mention the four first especially, because there where this city is called
spiritually Egypt, these four are enumerated ; namely, chap. xi. 5, 6. And as
it is evident that these vials are in that 11th chapter to be understood spi-
ritually, so it is as evident that the same vials, as here in chap. xvi. they are
made mention of, are to be understood of outward plagues, and so meant of
both.
Sixthly, For the right understanding these vials, I premise. That though
there be a first, second, and third vial in order succeeding each other, and
which in a successive order begin after each other, and have some special
precise time for their eminent pouring out and execution ; yet so as some
sprinklings of the first may continue still under the second, third, and fourth,
and some relics of the second under the third, fourth, &c., and so of the
rest. And this seems evident to me, in that their soi'es begun under the first
vial are made mention of under the fifth vial, ver. 11 of that chapter. And
so in like manner the same effect, namely, blaspheming, which is a part of
the fourth vial, and an efi'ect of it, is also continued in a further height imder
the fifth. And so again, on the contrary, it may fall out that some droppings
of a succeeding vial may begin in the times of the vial foregoing it, and go
before, as the droppings of storms do, before their strength and fulness
comes; and so may these, before the extremity of pouring forth the vial
itself. As for example, during the times of tbe fourth vial some droppings
of the fifth may begin, and some preparations to it, though still the fulness
of that and every other vial hath a special time in its due order succeeding.
The seventh and last thing to be premised is, That all the plagues on the
Popish party, first and last, are reducible to one of these vials. For, chap.
XV. 1, they are said to be 'the last plagues, in which the wrath of God is
fulfilled' upon that party ; and so every drop and sprinkhng of wrath and
vexation poured out goes to fill up some vial or other, as a part of it.
CnAP. III. J AN EXPOSITION OF THE RKVELATION. 101
Section II.
A particular and more large explication of the five first vials on the least
and his company.
Now for a more particular explication of them : —
The first vial is piinciiially upon the beast's earth, the lowest part of his
kmgdom ; and this, accordhig to that rule given, both spiritual and political.
Now this vial was the effect of those first and second angels' preachings,
chap, xiv., especially of that second angel there. For the preaching of the
gospel, and the discovery of the Pope to be that Antichrist, did draw away
many of his inferior subjects, and of tlie common people in all kingdoms,
namely, the ten European kingdoms, whicli are his earth political. And so
his authority and interest in the hearts of the people all Europe through was
weakened, and the number of the worshippers of the beast lessened. So as
all the world did not now, without contradiction, go after him as they had
wont. And there was an effect of this vial also upon his spiritual earth ;
which his clergy were. For the Waldenses and their ft^llowers, by their
preaching in those ages, discovering the uncleanness, idleness, and hypocrisy
of the priests, monks, and nuns, who were the beast's enchanters, they did.
as it were, cast up dust in their faces, as Moses did ; and so they brake out
in botches, and became odious to all the people. So speaks the vial, ver. 2,
* There fell a noisome and grievous sore vipon the men that had the mark oi
the beast.' Now they are properly his clergy, who, being exempted from
the civil power, are more peculiarly his subjects and sworn vassals ; and,
indeed, by ordination do receive from him a character indelible — (for this,
see the exposition upon chap, xiii.) — who are also called the worshippers of
his image, they being the upholders of his idolatrous doctrine. And, accord-
ingly, we find in story that all those first gospellers before Luther made it
the chiefest subject and end of their writings and disputes, to render odious
and vile the pharisaical Popish clergy, as in the Book of Martyrs abundantly
appears.
Neither was this judgment merely outward, as only bringing shame through
such an outward discovery of their hateful and abominable iniquities, which
was also the beginning of their ruin, for it made way for it in aU men's
hearts; but further, it is most certain, that the effect of the light of the
gospel, which in their preaching was discovered, proved really a curse unto
this Popish clergy, in order to this their breaking forth in filthiness and
botches : in that for this their not embracing it, but shutting their eyes
against it, God gave them up, by way of a curse, unto all manner of gross
sins, of uncleanness, sodomy, &c., so as after this to commit them with more
greediness than before this j^reaching of the gospel ; even as he did the
Gentiles, Rom. i. : because ' they withheld the truth in unrighteousness,
therefore he gave them up the more unto vile affections.' So these, after
the first light of the gospel began to dawn, they daily brake out into botches
and boils more than ever they did before. And thus this vial was a spiritual
judgment upon them, as well as an outward, in discovering their sores unto
their shame. And this is the first degree of their spiritual judgment under
the first vial.
The second vial is upon the sea. And this is the fruit and effect of the
third angel's preaching, naiuely, Luther and his followers ; who as in their
doctrine they were raised up to a greater light, comparatively to the former,
so the fruit of their doctrme was a further plague, both upon the political
102 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. Pa:;T II.
and spiritual sea of the beast. The sea, in a kingdom or body politic, is put
for jurisdiction over many people, as was shewed in the second trumpet,
chap. viii. ; and so here the sea of the beast are those many kingdoms, and
peoples, and nations, and tongues, which she sits upon, as you may see it
expounded, chap. xvii. 15. Now after Luther's preaching, and his followers',
not only particular persons, as before, were divided from the Pope, but whole
nations were rent from him, as England, Germany, Sweden, Scotland, &c.,
and his sea lessened by a third part and more ; and some of the ten horns
of the beast wrung off, so becoming like as members when divided from the
body, and, as the similitude is, ver. 3, to express that division, as ' the blood
of a dead man.' And every living thing died in those seas divided from
him ; in that now those of the Popish faction could not, through the altera-
tion of religion by law. Live in their idolatrous worship, so quietly, safely,
and peaceably as before. There was no free living or breathing for them in
these se^jarated kingdoms.
And in like manner his spiritual sea also had a vial poured upon it, even
his abominable doctrine and worship ; as the doctrine of purgatory, indul-
gences, merit, &c., in which, as in the sea, his merchants — namely, his priests
— had brought in gain, both to themselves and to the Pope's custom-house,
as the expression is, chap, xviii. 17.
This sea of the beast's doctrine is turned into blood, and does, like the
blood of a dead man, begin to putrefy and stink ; yea, and, which is a further
plague, to be damnable. Insomuch that those who, after so clear a light of
the gospel now discovered, will still continue in that doctrine, die and perish
eternally. And so in that sense also it is true which is said, ver. 3, that
' every living thing died in the sea.' And see how this agrees with the
preaching of the third angel, chap. xiv. 9, 10 ; he preaching, that not only
that Ptome was Babylon, as the former was, but that ' if any one did worship
the beast or his image, the same should drink of the wine of God's wrath.'
And by that wrath is meant hell : for it follows, ' the smoke of their torments
ascends up for ever and ever ;' that is, now they shall be sure to be all
damned who know the truth but embrace it not. And this was a further
sphitual punishment upon them, above what their doctrine was unto them
in former times, wherein through ignorance men remaining, many more of
them were saved than now there are.
The third vial is upon the rivers ayid fountains ; that is, those who serve
to enlarge or any way recover that his sea again, or to sweeten it. They
are therefore called rivers, because as rivers run from the sea into the sea
again, so do these.
I shall now explicate both the rivers and fountains severally.
First, For hi's, fountains ; they are the lesser springs; and those —
1. The spiritual ones. "When the Egyptian waters were turned into blood,
we read that they digged fountains and wells ; and that they also were
turned into blood by Moses. So here, they, when their sea is become bloody,
dig fountains to live in. Which fountains are their writings and writers
since the Keformation, that with learning and eloquence would labour to
sweeten and make good some of their sea-waters again; but in vain, our
writers again confuting them, and turning all into blood, as it was before.
So as still those among them that shall read the one and the other, cannot
but so be convinced, that if they persist still in their doctrine they will be
damned, as the curse is, 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.
2. Their fountains temporal and political also. Such we may account those
politic agents, the Jesuits, and others that have, in aU these separated king-
Chap. III.] an exposition of the revelation. 103
doms, attempted to restore this his lost power and jurisdiction. And the
lesser springs, namely, particular persons, have many of them been turned
to blood, whilst laws enacted against them (in England, 1581 ; in Holland,
1586 ; in France, 1584 ; and again in England 1G05) cut off many of them,
and gave them blood to drink, many of them being martyred ; insomuch
that tlioy have a martyrology, or book of martyrs, even as we have. Thus
they have had a just reward, as the angel from the altar cries, ver. 7 ] that
is, true worshippers in churches, who through their prayers had procured
these edicts, and therefore do now return the praise unto God's justice, in
retaliating to them and upon them. That phrase, ' from the altar,' notes not
out martyrdom, as some think, neither here nor chap. xiv. 18, — but this
phrase, ' the souls under the altar,' is that which importoth martyrdom, as
chap. vi. — but altar is here put to signify worship ; and so, the angel out
from the altar, or place of vorship, is put to signify those public worshippers
and priests of God that stand at the altar, or in public assemblies, and give
thanks for these judgments upon all occasions. Their acclamation is, that
as they had dealt by us, so now themselves were dealt with ; and, indeed,
just in the same manner : for they had singled out particular persons, and put
them to death by bloody laws established; and these kingdoms, being fallen
off, have enacted the like, and put them to death in the like public manner."*
In the second place, this third vied is upon his rivers also, and greater
streams, namely, those armadoes and navies from out the sea of those king-
doms that continue stUl to uphold the beast, and endeavour to lay all king-
doms into this one sea again. As the Spaniards, both against England in
'88, and against Holland often since, sent out to regain Rome's jurisdiction ;
who yet have stdl been defeated. And unto this head may be reduced the
defeatment of that late navy, 1639, sent forth to the same end, as a sprink-
luig of this vial — though now be the times of the fourth vial — still going on,
according to the rule given in the sixth premise.
The fourth vial is upon the sun; and to the angel that is executor of it,
there is ' power given to scorch men with fire.' The effect whereof is their
blasphemy. This vial seemeth to me to have two distinct parts : — 1. The
effusion of this vial upon the sun. 2. The scorching with fire those that
adhere to the beast. And according to my former general rules, I do inter-
pret it both of outward and of spiritual plagues, and both of them falling
on the Popish party; and so the former [lart of the vial to import an out-
ward plague, and the latter a spiritual punishment. Now —
1. For the vial upon the sun. The sun here, according to the third
premise or rule given, may be put for the more illustrious light or prince
adhering to the Popish party, and shining in his political heaven, whereof he
is the great god or Jupiter. And this must be either the emperor, or the
king of Spain, or, as it may be, both ; they both being of the same family
of Austria.
The issue of these German wars, when the Popish party shall once have
had blood enough given them to drink, shall be either the ruin of the one or
the other, or both ; and if not of them both, then of the Austrian family in
Germany, as Mr Mede first well conjectured; though it may be the hint of
his conjecture might have been taken from what was Mr Parker's opinion of
this vial long before ; who interpreted this sun to be some Protestant prince
in Germany, who should first have a part of this vial poured upon him by
* It cau scarcely be necessary to point out that the author's manifest approbation of
persecution and persecuting ordinances, is a blot that, originally derived from Rome,
long attached to the Reformed churches. — Ed.
104 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PAIIT IL
the Popisli party ; but loeing thereby provoked, and afterwards raised again,
should, like the sun, scorch them with his heat, and so only the latter part
of this vial should fall on them. Thus Mr Parker, anno 1616, did first
interpret this vial, long before these German wars. But I do much rather
incline to Mr Mede's opinion, because these vials are wholly peculiar to the
beast and his company, and to those professed enemies of the church who
adhere unto him. And so this first part of the vial upon the sun cannot
be understood of any Protestant, but of those that do adhere to the beast,
even as well as the latter part of it, ' scorching them with fire.'
Now if this sun be one of these two, either the king of Spain or the empe-
ror, I rather take the latter : for the king of Spain, though now the greater
light in the present horoscope, and so would, rather of the two, seem to be
this sun ; yet considering those more elderly and former times, the empire
of Germany hath, for this 800 years, been the eminentest principality in
Europe, and hath upheld the Pope the most, and in those times done more
that way than any other king, though indeed some of the emperors opposed
the Pope. Now God, in bringing punishments on kings and kingdoms,
reckoneth with them for what their predecessors in state have done, and
respecteth former times as much if not more than present. And besides,
this German empire was peculiarly of the Pope's creation, being by him set
up in the first foundation of it in Charlemain ; even as God is said to set up
' the sun in his firmament, the work of his hands,' Psalm xix. So the Pope
may be said to have set up this sun in his. And so the ruin of the emperor
is more peculiarly a punishment, respecting the papal seat and authority,
than the ruin of any other prince, he having so pecuhar an interest in him,
as in his eldest son and chief begotten.
This vial Mr IMede thought to have been in execution in that great pre-
vailing of the king of Sweden against the emperor, whose death diverted
many men's thoughts from that interpretation. But surely, though he pro-
ceeded not to throw down that sun from his heaven, yet those glorious vic-
tories of his, and quelling of the Popish party, may weU be accounted in
itself a vial, although it should proceed no further, and such a darkening of
this sun as he will never more recover his ancient glory and splendour. And
that king did lay such a foundation of weakening his power as may end in
the utter ruin of that family in the issue of these wars. Others have inter-
preted this vial to be upon the Pope's o^\ti temporal and spiritual authority,
which is his sun or chief glory; for so sun in the Old Testament, and the
darkening of it, is put for glory, and the obscuring of it ; as Isa. Ix. 20, Jer.
XV. 9. And so that power and authority which the Pope once had in tem-
porals is here to be understood ; he so eminently and conspicuously shining
over princes in their temporal power, that, as their own decretals speak,
they used to call the Pope and the emperor the two great luminaries in
heaven, the sun and the moon, entitling the Pope the sun and the emperor the
moon. But how hath this his glory, in the consciences of his own vassals,
and in the eyes of those princes who sometimes were subject to him, waned
more and more ; which now at last may haply grow yet more dim ? The
whole kingdom of France ever denied him that absolute temporal power he
once challenged. And in these latter times, how is the king of Spain
rather become the sun, and the Pope the moon, who is glad to beg light
from him, and to flatter other princes, to be by them upheld, who once flat-
tered him, and whom he excommunicated at his pleasure 1 So that the
Pope indeed is but the chaplain to the king of Spain, whom he makes use
Chap. HI.] an exposition of tuk kkvklation. 105
of for the acquiring of a universal monarchy. But which of these, or
whether both of these, are here meant, the event must judge. And thus
much for tlie first part of this vial. Now —
2. For that otlier part which follows, ' and power was given him to
scorcli men with fire.' Tliis hath been much mistaken ; as if because the
sun useth to scorch with heat, therefore that power were here given to this
sun to scorch with fire, and so it should refer to the sun's heat. Whereas,
I take it, it is mentioned as a distinct j)ower given to this fourth angel ; that
as he hath power to pour out a vial on the Po[)e's sun, be it taken as political
or otherwise, so also that he hath a further power given him to scorch all
those with fire that shall continue to advance the Pojie in these his declining
times. Which, as I take it, doth, according to the rule given, properly refer
to a further and greater height of spiritual punishments — and so this latter
part makes up the spiritual plague, as the former did the political and out-
ward plagiie — inflicted upon the upholders of the beast in the times of this
vial ; even upon the learned among them, especially those who now take
pains to write for him, or to bring in his authority into these European king-
doms again, where the light of the gospel shines so clearly and perspicuously
as they cannot but long since have been convinced of it ; their sea being
turned into blood, and discovered to be corrupt, and their writings (their
springs) so clearly refuted and turned to blood also, that those that live in
those kingdoms, and still labour to bring in Popery again, cannot but mani-
festly go against their own light and knowledge.
Now, to punish this so presumptuous and high rebellion against so much
light still shining, and age after age increasing, the angel (or the executioners
of this vial) hath power to ' scorch them with fire.' And this is manifestly
interpreted, chap, xi., where the Holy Ghost, speaking of this vial, says,
ver. 5, ' I will give power to my two witnesses,' — who are all one vdth these
angels, — ' and if any man will hurt them, fire shall proceed out of their
mouths, and devour their enemies ; and if any will hurt them, he must in
this manner be killed.' The punishment there recited is spiritual, as all the
rest there mentioned are ; for they do execute it as Avitnesses by prophesy-
ing, and therefore this fire is said to come out of their mouths. And those
other plagues, (as their stopping the rain, &c., ver. 6,) must needs be so un-
derstood, namely, in a spiritual allusion. And so this of devouring with fire
notes out the highest kind of punishment that men are capable of, as being
killed with a witness ; ' in this manner must they be killed.' And it is also
there made the punishment of a wilful sinning of men, even of those that set
their wills against God, and these his witnesses. For so the emphasis is put,
' if any man ivill hurt them ;' and it is twice said, as maldng them go wholly
and fully against knowledge, and so to sin wilfuUy.
Now both this here and that in chap. xi. do seem to be an allusion either
to the fire of Sodom, the city being called spiritually Sodom, which, Jude 7,
is called ' the vengeance of the eternal fire,' because that fire that came down
from heaven upon the Sodomites was but a beginning of hell unto them, and
a type of it unto us ; or else, to which I rather incline, it is an allusion unto
that fire that came out of Moses's mouth, namely, at his prayer, unto Nadab
and Abihu, for offering strange fire unto God, Lev. x. 1,2, and upon Korah's
company. Num. xvi., when they said, ' All the people are holy.' Which,
Heb. x. 27, 28, is brought in as the type to express their punishment who
sin wilfully after the knowledge of the truth, and so sin against the Holy
Ghost : ver. 26, 'If we sin wilfully, after we have received the knowledge of
106 N EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATIOIs". [1'aRT II.
the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful
looking for of judgment,' (i-/.'6o^ri TtPi'a-co:,') or receiving judgment in their own
consciences, which he there calls ' fiery indignation, that shall devour the ad-
versaries,' uTTsvair/ouc, underhand adversaries, (so the word is,) as that company
was unto Moses, pretending to be for God and his people. ' All the people
are holy,' say they, and so themselves were. And that unto this ' fiery in-
dignation ' that fell on that company, the Apostle's allusion there was, — who
in that epistle openeth many types, — as making it a type of the torment and
punishment of such kind of wilful sinners under the New Testament, is evi-
dent by what follows in the next verse, ' He that despised Moses's law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses ; then of how much sorer pun-
ishment shall he be thought worthy,' &c. Now, bring but Paul's exposition
of that type there unto this allusion that is used both in chap. xi. and also
here, and it helps fully to expound this part of this vial, as I shall shew when
I come to open the 11th chapter, ver. 5, unto which I must refer you for the
full exposition of it.
As Paul there calls this sin a sinning wilfully, so, chap, xi., their sin is
expressed twice by the malice of the will. And that it is this sin, or at least
a high kind of presumptuous sinning against knowledge, accompanied with
terror, that is here meant in this vial, chap. xvi. 8, 9, appears fin-ther also
by the effect here mentioned, — namely, their ' blaspheming the name of God,
who hath power over these plagues.' Now, blaspheming the Holy Ghost,
or the woi'kings of him in others, knowing they are his works, — as here these
do blaspheme God, knowing they are his plagues, — this is the very spirit of
this sin. And then final impenitency is here also added as the effect of it ;
that they ' repented not.' So that it is presumptuous sinning at least that
is here meant.
And you may further observe, that this plague goes on in the fifth vial ;
and this sin agiiuist knowledge grows up to a further height under that vial,
for there they are so 'scorched that they gnaw their tongues,' as men in heU.
And that in these times (the times of the fourth vial) this sin against the
Holy Ghost grows very rife and common, by reason of the abundance of
light and conviction that shineth in churches, hath long been the observation
of godly men who have had senses exercised to discern the spirits of men
growing in rage and madness, beyond the supposal of any other principle
that should act them in their warped and eccentric motion and violent pro-
ceedings. And surely, how that many of the learned among the Jesuits
themselves should come to commit this sin is not hard to conceive ; for, in
their younger years, they are bred up in ways of devotion, and have truth
and light enough among them to give them a ' taste of the powers of the
world to come,' who yet, after their studying our writings and discerning the
truth, do, for worldly ends, wilfully go against it ; and being once engaged in
those ends they fall to despise the truth, and are given up unto a wilful
sinning of this great sin, through a just hand of God upon them, they being
ordained to grow worse and worse as their light increaseth, even as it became
God under these vials to punish them.
And so, as that first small and weaker light under the first vial being re-
jected, their punishment was a giving of them up unto gross sins ; and then,
further, undur the second and third vials, their doctrine having been, by a
clearer discovery, made to the persisters in it damnable; nothing was now
left, they yet persisting, and God being engaged to rise higher in his plagues,
but that God should strike hell-fire into their consciences, and seal up repro-
bation unto them. And thus it became him not to leave these opposers and
Chap. III.] an exposition of tue hevelation. 107
murderers of the saints and holy witnesses of God in all ages till ho had
given many of them up to this sin, of all other the highest, so to make full
the measure of their iniquities, before that kingdom and state be finally
mined; as he did the Pharisees in that last age, when he meant to bring on
them all their forefathers' killing his prophets in Jerusalem, giving them up
unto this sin, as the effect of Christ's ministry, as this here of the witnesses'
testimony.
But, above all, how those that apostatise and become of the Popish party,
having lived and been brought up in ' a land of uprightness,' as it is Isa.
xxvi., and yet ' will not behold the majesty of the Lord ' shining round about
them, but relinquish the truth they are educated in, and would bring in the
worship and doctrine of the beast and whore, after so clear a light and
powerful preaching so long enjoyed, — towards the latter end of the harvest,
and summer growing more bright than ever, — who yet in hypocrisy deny this
to be their aim, and yet their deeds do so manifest it that all the world
accounts them Popish, and to be of his faction, and so they merit the title of
the number of his name, being spirits such as Rome hath not worse in malice
and enmity against God's witnesses : how a man's thoughts, I say, should
excuse many of these as innocent, from presumptuous sins at least, yea, and
this great transgression also, is as hard not to think it as the thing itself is
hard to be thought of them. For their venom, rage, subtlety, hypocrisy, and
underhand opposing the saints is such as the godly do almost generally sus-
pect them for this sin. And, indeed, what other principle could act men so
cannot well be imagined. Their case being in this worse than that of the
Pharisees, in that they had been brought up in darkness and ignorance of
the righteousness of God and of the Messiah, when the ministry of John and
of Christ came upon them, calling on them to acknowledge and embrace
Christ as the Messiah, whom, being but a carpenter's son, they never acknow-
ledged. And yet they sinned that sin, through their smothering that new
light, because their owning him would have put themselves out of credit, and
have set up Christ.
But these men in this our age have been brought up in the contrary truth
and light, and have both professed it, subscribed to it, and preached it ; and
yet they love this darkness of Popery, and embrace this carted * whore, and,
courting her, would bring her into their tents in the face of Moses and of
the whole congregation ; and they loathe the truth of the gospel and of the
faith they once received, and this in the face of the clearest sunshine and
light that ever shone round about them. One would think God should
destroy them visibly ; but they must do one exploit for him first. Their
destiny further is, that they -should kill the witnesses for this their scorching
them through the powerful testimony of their lives and prophecy, and so be
even with them, and overcome them yet before the fifth vial comes. And
though, as yet, they have not got a full victory, yet they are now a-making
war, and shall prevail, and banish and disperse them among tongues and
nations throughout Europe. But by that time the fifth vial comes, these
witnesses in the end shall again have overcome them, who are indeed that
' number of the beast's name,' the last of all his company to be overcome, as
chap. XV. 2, they being the last sort of his champions, even these ' names of
men,' woiLaru. uv&^ui'kuv, as they are called, chap. xi. 13; and they shall be
* Probably referring to an old mode of punishing disreputable persons, who weru
dragged through the streets in a cart, with the executioner by their side. The guilt of
these abettors of Popery was all the greater, because the abominations ©f Popery had
been already detected and exposed. — Ed.
108 AN EXPOSITION OF THE RIOVKLATION. [VxilT II
killed instead of the witnesses at their resurrection, as the first degree and
preparation to the fifth viul.
The fifth vial is upon the throne, or seat of the beast; which is plainly
Rome itself, which was the old seat of the dragon, the heathenish empire,
which Satan did, as it were, openly govern that empire under heathenish
idolatry. But after that, this seat was resigned by the dragon unto the
Pope, at his first rising, chap. xiii. 2 ; which city the Sibyls long since pro-
phesied of should again become a sheep-cot ; and the Holy Ghost, in chap,
xviii., that it should be ' thrown down as a millstone, and be no more found
at all,' but should become ' the habitation of devils only, and the dwelling of
every foul spirit ' for ever. Of this vial we may say, as the disciples said to
Christ, ' Now he speaketh plainly, and not in parables,' as before ; only, as
the other vials are to be taken in the largest sense, so I think this is, though
not in a sjDiritual sense, for he speaks plainly, and not in figures. And
therefore, as was said, chap, xiii., in the explaining of that second beast,
that not alone the Pope is that beast, but concrete, and together with him,
his clergy, who make up one body Avith him as their head. And so it may
be, that by the seat of the beast here is not only and simply meant Rome,
the sea and seat of that chief bishop the Pope, but it may be extended to
other seas and seats that fixll together with it — namely, of such of the
clergy, whether in Italy or elsewhere, as cleave unto the beast, and profess
themselves of his number and company, who now, under this fifth vial, are
tumbled down from their usurped seats, thrones, and dignities, together with
this their head, whose whole kingdom is now become full of darkness and
obscurity. Yet so as eminently Home, the proper seat of the beast, is here
intended, and iu the letter of this vial held forth as the subject of it upon
which it falls ; and with the fall of Rome the number and time of the beast's
reign and kingdom is reckoned as ftdfiiled — namely, his twelve hundred and
sixty years allotted him 'to do ' in, which years have now their period. And
although the popedom remains to be destroyed by the seventh vial, yet his
glory is here reckoned as gone and taken from him, and he is now reserved
alive only for a further and more glorious execution. Therefore it is said,
* his kingdom is darkened,' for now he is put by his seven hills, his seat ;
his seven-headed kingdom is no longer reckoned of, as Mr Mede reasons.
But that which hath chiefly confirmed me in the opinion that the period of
*he beast's kingdom is by the Holy Ghost reckoned to end with this fall of
the city of Rome is, that I observe the 17th and 18th chapters are principally
and on purpose added, first, to present this city of Rome in all her braver)
before her ruin, as chap, xvii., and then to sing a solemn, stately, anc
triumphant song for her ruin and destruction, as chap, xviii. throughout
"Now that the Holy Ghost should make this ruin of the city that hath so
iong reigned, as ver. 18 of chap, xvii., over the kings of the earth, so great a
matter of tiiumph, and so eminent above all things else in this book, im-
ports that the last and fatal period of that fourth Roman monarchy, of which
that city was to be the seat, and the beast the last head, is here to be ac-
i^ounted as come, and the number of its years expired, the beast's kingdom
being now as good as at an end. He may indeed raise some trouble, and
again make some resistance, after the sixth vial, but reign any more he shall
not; for, otherwise, this had been pceana tvhimphalem ante victoriam canere,
to triumph before an assured victory, which the Holy Ghost would not have
done upon this occasion, but reserved it till after the seventh vial.
But then was to come another manner of triumph, more high and glorious,
for the marriage of the Lamb, when Rome's ruin and the beast's kingdom
Chap. III.] an exposition of the revelation. 109
will be forgotten. And, therefore, God ordained it to be performed at the
funeral of this great whore, the city of Rome. And it Is much that two
whole chapters should be spent on purpose to set forth the pageants of the
church's triumph over her. Surely here this great kingdom ends, and there-
fore, after that, the church prepares for the Lamb's marriage, chap. xix.
Now that that whore presented in those two chapters, the 17th and 18th,
Is this city of Rome, is evident by the last words of the 17th chapter, — the
whore is that ' great city that reigns over the kings of the earth,' — and so those
two chapters are but a fuller setting forth and enlargement of this same fifth
vial, as being the most eminent and tlie most fatal of the vials upon the
beast. Which chapters therefore I shall not need to spend time in exjjlicat-
ing of, but do now hasten to the exposition of the 11th chapter, which was
by me mainly intended, because that contains the state of the church, and
the condition of it in these times, and those that are next a-coming upon
us. And I join that next unto the vials, because these vials serve directly
to expound it ; and it mentioning the four first vials, goes on then to shew
what shall befall the churches of the Reformation under the fourth vial,
and before the fifth : with which fifth vial those twelve hundred and sixty
years, or forty-two months of the Pope's kingdom, there in that chapter com-
puted, are to end and expire, according to the notion even now given. And
as the 14th chapter shewed us the condition of the church witbin itself to
the times of the fourth vial, as was proved; so this 11th chapter begins where
the 14th chapter ends. And from thence the supplement of the story of the
church's various condition is to be fetched, as will appear in the opening of it.
110 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT 11.
CHAPTER rv.
The exposition of the Wth chapter, which was hut hriejiy touched upon in the
First Part, the larger explication being reserved here, as its proper 2>l(ice.
Section I.
Prolegomena. — Five generals premised for the understanding of it.
The first is to shew zvho this angel here spoken of is, and what is his pur-
pose, and ivhen the time of his coming down here in this vision. And for
this, know that the angel who comes down here, and delivers all the contents
of this 11th chapter unto ver. 15, unto John, and that immediately by word
of mouth, is Christ himself ; as appears by his words, ver. 3, ' I will give
power to my two witnesses,' which no created angel could speak. And
observe withal, that Christ himself doth speak nowhere in this book, but
only in this and in the first chapter. And, above all, observe that this is
the very same angel that came to Daniel in the end of his prophecy, to con-
firm it with an oath, chap xii. of that his prophecy. This, his alike gesture
here and there doth argue : there, ' lifting up his right hand to heaven, and
swearing by him who liveth for ever,' ver. 7 ; and so here, taking the very
same oath, with the same ceremony also, chap. x. 6. And then you may
take notice that his oath is taken about the very same thing and to the
same purpose. You shall find that that prophecy of Daniel containeth,
though more confusedly, the very same things that this prophecy of the
Revelation does more clearly. As, namely, the tyranny of the fourth Roman
monarchy, and the oppression of the church thereby, first by the heathenish
empire, then under the last head of it, the Pope, of whom Daniel had pro-
phesied, chap. xi. of his prophecy, from the 36th verse to the end; after
whose time expired, as Daniel had shewn, should come in a fifth monarchy
of the saints, chap. vii. All which tilings you have in this book, and the
visions of them more distinctly presented. As, namely, how under the
seventh trumpet, after the time of the beast expired, that same glorious
kingdom was to come in. Thus, in the subject-matter of both they do
agree; and so also in setting down the time determined by God, how long
this last head, the Pope and bis tyranny, should continue, do these two pro-
phecies and these two angels both agree.
For concerning this time, and the ending of the tyranny of this last head
(the Pope) over the church, after which should come in the kingdom of
Christ, it is that the angel there in Daniel doth take that his oath, and
discourseth of that his time, and the manner of the ending of his tyranny,
in that 12th chapter of Daniel, and at the end of that whole prophecy.
And, answerably, concerning the ending of that very time, and the manner
of the ending of the beast's t}T:anny, and the succeeduig of Christ's kingdom
when that is ended, that is the very thing that the angel here sweareth
about, and in like manner discourseth of just at the end of this first seal-
Ci:ap. TV.] AN EXPOSITION OF vni: ukvelation. ni
prophecy. So that his oath and speech, both there and here, are about the
very same thing. And observe the accord in both : for there, Dan. xii. 7,
he swears that ' it ' — namely, the Pope's reign — ' should be for a time, times,
and half a time,' so mentioning it there confusedly, and more indefinitely ;
' and when he ' — that is, that last king, the Pope, the head of that monarchy,
whom Daniel had last prophesied of in the foregoing chapter, from the 3Gth
verse to the end — •' shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy
people, then all these tilings shall be fulfilled ; ' that is, then is the time
when these things, which he had spoken of to be done just before Christ's
khigdom, shall begin to take end and accomplishment.
Now in a direct correspondency and answerableness unto the angel in
Daniel doth this angel here come down in this vision now, at the very end
of that time, according to that course of time run out in this first seal-pro-
phecy, which that angel in Daniel had sworn about; even now when this
fatal period of the fourth monarchy, according to the series of this vision,
v\'as near approaching.
And first he renews the oath then taken, and swears again here, chap. x. 7,
that 'time shall be no longer;' but that * in the days of the seventh trumpet,
the mystery shall be fulfilled which is spoken of by all the prophets ; ' that
is, the fifth monarchy, or the kingdom of Christ, which was to succeed the
other, of which all the prophets speak, as you have it Acts iii. 21. These
words of the angel's oath do imply that, now that the visions of all times
past in the former seal-prophecy, from the primitive times, had brought
things to the last scene of the world's time; JVoio, says he, as standing in
the extremity, and towards the approaching end of all,' ' time shall be no
longer;' or, as Mr Brightman well interprets the word, ' Belai/ shall be no
longer.' Stay now but a little, says Christ ; here you are at the last sands ;
tarry but till the seventh trumpet blows, it will end all.
And accordingly, the angel here m this 11th chapter explains distinctly, by
word of mouth, what and how much that time of the Pope, mentioned in
the oath in Daniel, was ; and what that ' accomplishing to scatter the holy
people' — which in the oath in Daniel was made the immediate forerunner of
the fulfilling of all things — also was. So that indeed this 11th chapter here
is, as concerning the point of time, but an explication of that 12th chapter
of Daniel, at least of that part thereof, and by this angel's oath and speech
there. And it is the same angel cometh here to express distinctly, as be-
came the Ptevelation, what was there delivered darkly and indefinitely. And
it is as if the angel here had spoken thus, or to this effect, in more plain
words, for the comfort of the church : —
* Now, beloved, I come now, after so long a while worn out, to bid you to
' lift up your heads ; for time now in these days of the sixth trumpet is
' expiring, and my kingdom is at the door : for the times of the beast, pro-
* phesied of by Daniel, — of which beast you shall hear more in this little
* book-prophecy, which is open in my hand, and which I here bring with
* me, and give you, — do now shortly end and determine. Daniel's period of
' a time, times, and half a time, allotted the beast, the Pope, the last head
* and king, to reign in the fourth Koman monarchy, is now in these times
' very shortly to expire, and with him the times of this present oppressing
* world. And that you, my church, may know, and have infallible warning,
' when the expiring of this beast's time to scatter the holy people shall be, I
* will both explain to you how long this time in Daniel, where it is but con-
' fusedly mentioned, is allotted him to scatter the holy people, my witnesses ;
' and I will also tell you how or in what manner it shall be that he shall
112 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
' accomplisli, as Daniel's phrase is, to scatter the power of the holy people ;
' that is, for your comfort I will reveal to you and describe the very manner
* of that eminent and last scattering, which in the oath in Daniel is made
* the immediate sign when Antichrist's ruin and all those other things should
* begin to be fulfilled. And further, I will present to you what the face of
' the church shall be in that age immediately before the scattering the holy
* people, that so you may have together at once both a true compute of the
' time, as also of such occurrences, and such a face of the sky presented, as
* may be an eminent signal unto you : that when you see these things done,
* then know that the time is expiring and determining. And this I myself do
' thus immediately inform you of, because that last scattering will be so great
' a one as all the fniih you have wUl be put to it : and therefore it is that I
' have took that oath, as it were, vow, in these times ; for that your faith
' had need of it to confirm it. Which oath, therefore, do you remember and
* have in your eye, for even now your redemption draws nigher than you are
* aware of
This is the first thing I premise,
2d Prolegomenon.
Now, in the second place, observe in how fit a scene or place in this
comedy, or vision of all times successively, hitherto acted before John, and
by him penned for us, doth this angel Christ here take to enter upon the
stage, and act this part in. You before heard at large how that the seals
and trumpets, chap. vi.-ix., contained one prophecy, that ran over aU
the times from John until the end; and then, that the little book that is
open in the hand of tliis angel here, chap, x., doth contain another prophecy
of the church, which m hke manner begins at the times of John, and so again
runs over all times unto the end.
Now this angel steps in now, just now, as in the last age, and towards
the expiring of the sixth trumpet, and so of that first revolution of all time,
with his new or second prophecy in his hand ready to be delivered. And
yet because that some sands or space of time remamed under the first pro-
phecy not yet completed, he therefore in this, as a convenient season between
both, fills up that little space of time that this first proj^hecy had yet left to
continue, with an additional discourse of liis own, to inform the church what
special occurrences were now, before the final consummation of all under the
seventh trumpet, to fall out in this small interim, as a warning to them when
the end of all, even of both prophecies, (viz. of this seal-prophecy and also of
that other book-prophecy,) should be.
Now the sixth trampet, which is the Turkish empire, we yet see standing.
An utter end of the Roman empire had been as completely set forth in the
sixth seal as it could be; and only now the ending of it remained, and so
there was no other matter of that kind, or belonging thereunto, to be added.
And yet that being to continue some hundreds of years before its ending
should be, and the seventh trumpet should blow, he therefore fills up that
space of time until the seventh trumpet should blow, and entertains John
with relating what special occurrences, that most nearly concerned his people,
should fall out in the western church, over which the Pope had the dominion,
now towards the end of both Turkish and Popish empire, and so in this last
age, before the ending of these times. Which occurrences, though they
properly belonged to the book-prophecy, — which, as was said, properly takes
cognisance of matters of the church, — yet they fitly come in here between
both prophecies, as the signal of the ending of the full course of both stages of
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the revelation. 113
times. And when he had thus, in tliis discourse, filled up that remaining
time in this interlude with such occurrences as were indeed yet to fall out
together with it, in the times before the sixth trumpet's ending; then, I say,
he concludes his discourse with this, ' The second woe is past;' that is, the
time of the sixth trumpet ends also hereabouts : and so then, as in its
orderly time, blows the seventh.
3d Prolegomenon.
Observe the manner of his delivering all this to John : namely, that he
utters this his narration as a chorus, or as an interlocutor in a comedy useth
to do his speech, and not by vision only ; wherein he opens and explains
what could not by vision well have been understood, and therefore gives it
by word of mouth. And as thus this angel doth here, so the like doth that
angel in the 17th chapter. And I the rather put together the parallel
speeches of these two angels, chap, xvii., and here, chap, xi., because that, as
the scope of him there was to give an interpretation and ex})lication who the
whore was, so his scope here is to give a clear interpretation of the times of
this beast and whore, and the immediate tokens or signals that shall forerun
the ending of them. And look, as in that 17th chapter, Avhen one of the
angels of the vials, and, as it is thought, the fifth, gives the interpretation
who the beast and whore is, he doth it by a speech, merely as an interlocutor,
to inform John ; so here, in like manner doth this angel. Yet so, as you
may also observe, that his narration here in this 11th chapter is first oc-
casioned by a vision presented of the face and state of the church as it
should be in that last age Avherein these things are to be accomi)li.shed :
namely, of a temple presented standing, with an outward court surrounding
it, and an altar in it, and two witnesses standing before the Lord, and minis-
tering in it. Which vision first to have been made unto John is tacitly im-
plied, in that the first entrance of his speech begins with bidding John to
arise, and to do a real act towards the temple, even to measure it. And
therefore such a temple, &c., must needs have been presented to his view.
And thereupon observe, how that this vision of a temple, and of an out-
ward court adjoined, is made the ground or occasion of the angel's following
speech ; as from which the angel takes the rise of his following discourse.
So that this vision of the temple's measuring, and giving its outward court
to the Gentiles, is the first occurrence that is here presented as belonging to
that age wherein time is to expire, as from whence he takes the ground of
that his discourse, wherein he explains how much time the beast was to have,
and how and when it should end. Which discourse, after that explained,
closeth again with the relation of another occurrence, ver. 7, that shall fall
out after this, in that age, as the last signal of all. And this is done just in
the like manner as, chap, xvii., one of the angels of the seven vials, who
therefore must be supposed to stand in the times of the Aaals, being to make
a description of the beast, and of the whore, — namely, Eome, the seat of the
fourth monarchy, — in all the times allotted her ; yet takes his rise from a
vision of that whore, as then in her last old age, and in the times of the
vials, she should appear, ' drunk with the blood of the saints,' just before her
ruin. And yet there, in that his speech about her, he speaks of her as in
her whole time of reigning she should be. Just so here, this angel (Christ)
first enters upon the stage but as an actor, under the times of the sixth
trumpet, and in the very declension of it, and takes his oath as under those
times ; and then presents to John a vision of the face of the church, in that
present age, under the latter times of the sixth trumpet, as of a temple which
YOU 111. H
114 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
in these present times he will have measured by John, as representing the
persons of the saints of that age, and leaving out the outward court of it, as
to be given again unto the Gentiles.
And then, from that occasion, — it being part of that scattering the power
of the holy people which Daniel aimed at, — he plays the part of an inter-
locutor, and makes a narration of the whole times of Popery, which, after
this their treading down this outward court of the temple, were to expire.
And he takes occasion also to relate and discourse of that opposition which
the witnesses should make against the beast, or these Gentiles, all the time
of his whole reign; and so describes them, ver. 3-6. And all this as an inter-
locutor, or a chorus in a comedy, useth to do. Till at last he comes again to
that last occurrence which belonged to that age wherein he stood when
he began his speech, — namely, now towards the end of the sixth trumpet, —
as that which should then befall these witnesses. With which he determines
his speech about them, from ver. 7 to the end of the chapter. Unto the
better and clearer understanding of which, all his former description of them,
and what else he related concerning them, had only made the way ; namely,
to shew, both what that time was, which in Daniel had been so darkly de-
livered, and how it should end; and how, to use the j)hrase in Daniel, the
' scattering of the holy people ' should be accomplished. So then —
4i/i Prolegomenon.
Observe how fitly the words of the oath in Daniel do agree with all the
things delivered in this 11th chapter, from ver. 1 unto the seventh trumpet,
ver. 15, where the angel's speech ends.
Now those things are reducible unto two heads : —
1. This angel's computation and interpretation of that time mentioned in
Daniel ; which when it ends, the fourth monarchy shall begin to end also,
and shortly after it the kingdom of Christ begins.
2. Such eminent occurrences as shall fall out at the ending of it, as signals
thereof. Or rather, thus : —
In the angel's oath in Daniel, four things were intimated : —
1. The time that the beast, the last head of the Pioman monarchy, should
have to reign ; which was ' a time, times, and half a time.'
2. A holy 2^eople, who all that time should yet continue to oppose him,
and whom he should oppress.
3. Who yet, towards the end, should get some power against him ; so it is
there called, ' the power of the holy people.' And —
4. Which power of theirs he should, in the ending of that time, scatter, and
themselves also, and that with an eminent scattering, which yet is the ac-
complishment or last act of his so doing ; that is, he should never scatter
them any more, but after that his reign was to end, and their mourning and
oppression to cease.
Now answerable to this, you here have —
1. That time, confusedly mentioned in Daniel, but here exactly computed
by a double account, (not to fail,) both of months and also of days : the one,
as expressuag Antichrist's whole time of reigning, even forty-two months ;
and the other, the holy people's time to oppose him in, even twelve hundred
and sixty days, though yet in sackcloth and oppression. But so as both
have one and the same period ; and as they begun, so they end together.
2. You have the holi/ people in Daniel here interpreted by Christ to be
his two witnesses.
3. You have the poiuer of this holy people all that while set forth, espe-
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the revelation. 1 1 5
cially that power tliey obtained in their last days; 'I will give to my
■witnesses,' ic, ver. 3. They had power given them to erect a temple,
backed with a mighty party of an outward court. And out of that temple
they have had power given them to pour out four vials already ; so as that
'if any man l^urt them, they will scorch him with fire,' &c., ver, 6. And in
the weakest days of their prophecy, they have had power to ' shut heaven,
that it rained not,' ver. G, &c.
4. This angel here shews, how in the end of this time, when tliey are even
about to cast off their sackcloth, and to finish tlieir testimony against this
beast, ver. 7, — so the word in the Greek is, are about to finish, &c., — that
then this their power shall be scattered, their outward court trodden down,
and so they left exposed to the beast's fury and outrage, to be by him ' scat-
tered among the nations and killed ;' which nations shall * see their dead
bodies lying in the streets,' &c. And then he gives a particular description
of this their oppressing, unto ver. 1 4 ; telling us withal, for our C(jmfort, that
thus they shall accomplish to scatter them, being never to scatter them again
any more, after they are once risen again, so ver. 11-13. And thus you see
how this 11th chapter is but a comment on the oath in Daniel.
5th Prolegovienon.
Lastly, observe this in general concerning the joint mention or bringing in
botli these occurrences, and this computation of times together. They are
mentioned thus together principally and chiefly in this respect, to shew how
this whole series of time should end and expire ; namely, with those occur-
rences here mentioned. So that the angel's scope is not simply to mention
this period of the twelve hundred and sixty days, &c., only to compute it,
though so also he makes mention of it ; but withal to shew how that with
these exploits and occurrences, or when tliese things here mentioned should
fall out, this time was near its end and expiration. Whereby this angel here
doth directly hit the veiy aim and scope of that his former oath taken before
Daniel ; which was, that with the very expiring of that his allotted time, he
should accomplish to scatter the power of the holy people. And therefore
he so mentions this whole term of time here, as withal to shew how it shall
at last be accomplished and fulfilled ; and to that end he mentions such
particular exploits as this beast to his very last shall play, even till his king-
dom be taken from him.
Now to explain this further : — In the 13th chapter, the beast had ' power
given him to do,' as the word is, ' forty-two months ;' and during that time to
' make war with the saints, and overcome them.' And power was given him
' over all tongues, and nations, and kindreds ;' that is, over the ten king-
doms of Europe, ver. 5-7. Now the Gentiles here, and that idolatrous
company that worship this beast, ver. 3, 4 of that 13th chapter, and that set
up this power of his, are aU one and the same ; and their lease here, of
treading down the holy city, runs, and is made, as you see, for the very same
term of years here that it is there. Only mark the different scope of the
mentioning of them in that 13th chapter and here : namely, that here it
comes in to shew how this whole time should end, and fully be accomplished ;
and also with a narration of that very particular last war and victory, which
this idolatrous company should obtain against the holy people, even their
last scattering them before the ending of this their time. But it comes in
there, as it was considered wholly and entirely, as yet through all times to
be fulfilled ; with all those wars and slaughters which in that whole time
Antichrist should make against the saints. So in chap, xiii
116 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT II.
Now that the mention of those two computations of that whole time does
thus come in here in relation to these last ex})loits and war of Antichrist, at
and towards the ending of that time, is many ways evident. Of both which
I shall demonstrate this severally and apart. And —
1. For the mention of their 'treading down the holy city for forty-two
months ;' this comes in but, as you may observe it, upon that one particular
occurrence of giving up the outward court anew to the Gentiles, to this or
the like purpose ; as if the angel had said, ' Cast out that same outward court
of the temple of this present age, which hath indeed helped against the
Papists, and kept them off, but yet hath defiled the churches ; leave them
out, for this court is given to the Gentiles now in this last age, for them to
re-enter upon and to get power over. And so with this last treading down
and overcoming that outward court, which once they had possessed, but lost
from their dominions, it is that they shall have accomplished that whole
term of forty-two months allotted them for treading down of the holy city,
namely Europe, the destined seat of this church and of their reign.' And
thus their full dominion over the whole for forty-two months' sjjace or length
of time shall be made good by this, that however they had lost for a whUe
part of their dominion over it, yet they regaining this outward court now
towards the end, they will be found to have possessed the whole forty-two
months, first and last. That look, as upon the giving in of the last payment,
we use to make mention of the whole sum as paid ; so here, upon that last
eminent regaining their lost power over some of the European kingdoms,
the whole term of the time of their reigning comes to be mentioned.
This I here premise, to prevent that great mistake which hath diverted
interpreters from taking the measuring this temple here, and giving up the
outward court, to be meant of some special occurrence to fall out, or some
act to be done to the churches of these latter times ; but they rather take it
of the Papists themselves, their possessing throughout all ages the face of
the church, which they interpret the outward court, because of this that is
added, and that followeth upon it, ' and they shall tread down the holy city
for forty-two months.' As if it imported, that after the outward court is
given up to them, they should have so many years of reigning over it.
Which if it were so, it could not be meant so particularly of the temple or
church in this last age, and the outward court thereof. But this, according
to the former coherence given, need not divert any man's thoughts from
the present age to former times ; as it hath done some men's, to think the
churches of the primitive times to be the temple measured, and the outward
court to be the outward face of the church, which the Pope hath possessed
these 1200 years. The coherence may easUy be found to be this : as if the
angel had said, ' Measure anew the temple you now see standing in these
last times of the sixth trumpet, and of Anticluist before his fall, and cast
out the outward court thereof ; for it is again given to the Gentiles : and
so — namely, with this last treading down of it, and regaining, as it were, the
whole anew — they shall fully accomplish their allotted time of treading
down the holy city, namely, their forty-two months.'
But the removal of this mistake more fully I refer to the Appendix that
follows. Only for the present, for a confirmation that this is, and may well
be, the meaning of the coherence of these words, observe —
(1.) It is not said that they shall tread down the outward court for forty-
two months ; but the holy city, which is much vaster than the outward court :
the greater part of which city, namely of Europe, they kept the lordship over,
even when the outward court was separated from them and not yet recovered.
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the revelation. 117
So that to me the outward court here is one thing, and the holy city another,
though this court indeed stands in the city • even as the outward court and
the temple were distinct things from the holy city of Jerusalem, though
standing therein, as I shall afterwards in the particular exposition more fully
shew. And —
(2.) The purpose and scope of the mention of their whole time of forty-two
months here, is to shew how in this latter age it should be fulfilled and
ended ; even in a full power and jurisdiction over the holy city, in a re-entry
on that part of it, the outward coiirt also ; which is again laid common with
and unto the rest of the city. And so now it may be said of them, as of a
king who reigns and hath jurisdiction over a country (suppose) for fifty
years; it may be said he hath I'eigncd over it fifty years, although some few
years before the end of his reign, some of his subjects haply revolted from
him, if so be he were their king before the revolt, and in the end again
recovered his royalty over them ; the account being taken from the beginning
to the end, first and last.
And one reason why Antichrist's time of ' doing' is reckoned by months,
and not by days, may be to shew, that though he hath not the whole time
of his reign the same continued jurisdiction, yet by months he hath, from
such a time to such a time, though not the like power all that time. For so
at first the Goths interrupted him much in the exercise of his power. And
then —
(3.) These words, ' and they shall tread down the holy city for forty-two
months,' do fitly come in, as a just reason why this outward court is now
in these last times given to these Gentiles ; and so do insinuate a reason
why Antichrist is thus permitted again to take possession of the most and
chief part, if not all, of this outward court, so as to have fair hopes of
recovering all Europe again. ' And they shall,' &c. The word xai, or and,
is often used as a causal particle, and notes out a reason of a thing. So
then, the term of their commission over all the nations and tongues of Europe
being forty-two months, and none exempted but such whose names are
written in the book of life, — as you have it, chap. xiii. 7, 8, — therefore,
though this outward court of carnal Protestants, and unregenerate, hath
made a separation together with the true worshippers ; yet they being in-
wardly Gentiles, and their names not written in the book of life, therefore
they are given unto these Gentiles again, as being their allotted inheritance,
as it were, for so long a time here mentioned ; which is not fully run out as
yet, in this age of the sixth trumpet, of which Christ spake this. They are
yet within the bounds and date of their lease, which is forty-two months,
not yet expired; and therefore they are to be re-entered upon by them. So
that the mention of this their term comes thus in : as if in a suit at law, to
recover one's own ground leased to one for twenty-one years, a man pleads
and shews, at the eighteenth year's end, how the whole term of his lease was
twenty-one years, as yet not expired ; which he exhibits as a just plea why
some part of it withheld from him should be restored to him, it being in-
cluded in the tenure of his lease as well as the rest. Just so is it here ; this
outward court being within the bounds of the city, and being land belonging
to the Pope by gift, for so long time, — they being not written in the Lamb's
book, — and his lease of forty-two months not being expired ; therefore, says
the angel, here it is given or restored to him again : and so ' he shall accom-
plish to tread down' it, and the rest of the holy city, for forty-two months.
Which are the angel's words in Daniel, chap, xii., and which this angel came
to interpret.
118 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT IL
2. And in tlie second place, for the mention of that other computation of
1260 days ; it is yet more plain that this is brought in here principally to
shew how this time should end and determine now at the last. And so that
both this long description of the witnesses, and the declaring their whole
time, is indeed but in order to this their last accomplishment. This is
apparent by the 7 th verse, which is the close of all the former narration.
The words there are, ' and when they shall have finished their testimony ;'
that is, held out to testify, during that whole time of 12G0 years. Or they
may, and ought rather to be rendered, ' and when they are about to finish' —
orav ri/Aauei. Which notes out, not a full end first made, but a being about
to make it. So that when they are about or near the finishing of this their
testimony, then shall this befall them. And further, in that he spends the
better half of his discourse in this chapter in the setting forth this one par-
ticular, — namely, their last scattering, upon the finishing their mentioned days
of prophecy, — this apparently shews that this was the chief scope which
that former part of his discourse had tended unto. And in that, although
Antichrist, the beast, hath had many famous overcomings of these witnesses
in former times, and killings also of them, yet that he should single out this,
which also is nowhere mentioned in the larger book-pro2:)hecy, and yet here,
and that haply not for the greatness of the prevailing in itself considered,
but for its eminency in this respect, that it should be the last, and with
which their whole time should end. ^Yhich also is made eminent by this,
that after these witnesses had got so much ground upon the beast, and won
a temple and an outward court from liim, set up upon his ground, as it
were ; that then, after all this, this prevailing of his should fall on them.
Hence it serveth as the most eminent prognostic and sign of their times ex-
piring ; and therefore is here mentioned. So that I shall conclude with this
brief series of the coherence and connexion of one thing with another in
these first verses.
Here is the same period of time twice mentioned, under a several com-
putation: the one of forty-two months, the other of 12G0 day.s, both which
come all to one. But the one is mentioned as the time that the Pope and
his company shall reign; and the other, as the time for the witnesses to pro-
phesy in sackcloth. And they both come in, in order and reference, unto
the two of those last occurrences, wliich shall accomplish the reign of the
one and the oppression and mournful condition of the other.
1. Their whole time of treading down the holy city shall end with a re-
covery and treading down the outward court of the temple, the reformed
churches. And so the mention of that their time comes in only in that
respect, to shew how it ends. And accordingly the vision of the temple, and
the angel's bidding John to measure it, comes in but as an introduction to
the mention of this last occurrence. And then —
2. Being in like manner to mention the same time of 1260 days, as
the time of the holy witnesses' prophecy, in order to their last scatter-
ing and oppression, he inverts the order, and first mentions the time of
their prophecy, by way of a continued narration with what went before;
and then after that, mentions their last scattering as the accomplishment of
that their time. And it was fit that this mention of their whole time should
first be immediately connected to the foresaid mention of their enemies' whole
time, and the times both of the one and the other first set together, for that
this latter serves to explain the former, which else were ambiguous and dark,
as I shall shew hereafter; and esf)ecially, because these witnesses are men-
tioned as the continual opposites set up against these Gentiles, and as the
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the revelation. 119
main butt and object of their malice. That same xa/, ver. 3, 'and I will
give power,' is used here, as often elsewhere, adversatively for but ; as if he
had said : * Whereas they have forty-two months allowed them to tread down
the holy city, — Europe, the chief seat of Christian profession, — and the
witnesses in the compass of that time have won a temple and an outward
court from them; yet that this allotted time of their reign may therefore be
made good unto them, even to the last, they shall regain that outward court
of the new erected temple separated from them ; hut so as they shall not so
reign all that while as to carry it withoitt ojiposition, "but I will give
power to," or uphold, " my two witnesses," by their testimony to oppose them
continually, though in sackcloth, that whole time of 12G0 days, and even
at this their last treading down the outward court, to avenge themselves of
these Gentiles with fire, &c. But yet for all that, these Gentiles shall go on,
and in the end of these their days prevail yet further, even over these my
witnesses also ; and when they are about to finish their testimony, shall kill
and destroy them.'
So that the mention of their time, though it comes in a good way off
before, yet is in order to this their last killing ; to shew, as in Daniel, how
it should be accomplished.
Section II.
The measuring the temple, and casting out the outivard court, chap. xi. 1, 2.
§ 1. — An explication of this double computation of 1260 da^/'s, or forty-two
months; and why they are together here mentioned.
These things thus premised, I come to interpret the contents of this chap-
ter, from ver. 1 to ver. 15, which are reducible to three heads : —
1. This double computation of the times above-mentioned.
2. The occurrences that were to fall out in those times of Antichrist, in
the age just before their fatal period, unto the accomplishment whereof
those occurrences do conduce; which age, as I take it, is that that we live
now in.
3. What is withal said of the two witnesses, as woven in by the angel in
his discourse of them, by way of describing them, in order to the explana-
tion of what should at last befall them.
1. For these computations of the times, both of the beast's reign, and the
witnesses' oppression here mentioned ; these things are to be expHcated about
them : —
(1.) That they are both the same term of time that in the oath in Daniel
the angel intended. This appears by chap. xii. ver. 6 compared with ver.
14, for what in ver. 6 is called 1260 days, is in the 14th verse of the afore-
said chapter expressed by this, * a time, times, and half a time.'
(2.) He makes this double computation of that time, first by months, then
by days ; so without ambiguity to explain how much time was meant in
Daniel by that indefinite number, ' time, times, and a half Which, as it is
laid down in Daniel, is altogether ambiguous; for who could tell what is
meant by a time and times'? or who could tell but that a hundred or a thou-
sand years might be the time, and ten thousand the times here meant, they
being only expressed in the plural number and indefinitely, as well as two
of those times ? Therefore, clearly to free it of all ambiguity, he explains
this first time here by forty-two months. Now, reckoning twelve months to
a year, these forty-two months make three years and a half. So then, by
120 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
time is meant a year ; by times, two years ; and by half a time, lialf a year
more. And yet because there was some ambiguity in that also, in that some
nations reckon but twenty-eight days in a month, whereas others reckon
more, — so the Jews reckon twenty-eight, but the Egyptians tliirty days, —
therefore he reckons the same time by days also, even 1260 days; which
forty-two months do make up, reckoning thirty days to a month.
Now all these are not solary days, that is, natural days, consisting of day
and night, but the prophetical days ; as in Daniel a day is put for a year, and
a week for seven years, and so thirty days for thirty years, and 1260 days
for 1260 years. And that thus they are to be taken appears by this, that
the witnesses, ver. 9, are said to lie in the view of all nations, as being haply
banished out among them, for three days and a half- and their enemies are
said to send gifts one to another in the meantime. Which if they were but
three natural days and a half, all this in three natural days and a half
could not be done.
(3.) By joining together these two computations here, and so shewing
them to be the same, he thereby clears the mention of them, as they are
apart named, chap. xii. and chap, xiii., of which otherwise there might have
been a doubt, whether the forty-two months, chap, xiii., had been 1260 days
of years. But by thus linking them together in this 11th chapter, it is
made certain that those numbers are the same.
(4.) Though both Daniel there, and the angel here, do mention only the
times of the Pope's reign, who is the last head of the Roman monarchy;
and not the whole time from John's days, but only the latter part of it for
the last 1260 years under the Pope; yet so as this was sufficient enough for
the computation of the whole time that the visions of the Revelation do run
through, and served fully enough to shew the contemporariousness of things
in both prophecies, and to shew when the fourth monarchy should end, and
so when the fifth should be towards its beginning. Which was his principal
aim; and therefore, as in the 17th chapter, ver. 8, he explains who this
beast was, and what he should be at last, so in this chapter he shews what
the time of this beast's reigning is, and when it should end.
Now to demonstrate all these : —
1. This explication of this time may serve as a sufficient measure of the
computation of the whole time spoken of in the Revelation. For if you
know but either when this time of the Pojdc's reign begins or when it ends,
you, who live in these latter days, may know how much time the prophecj
of this whole book runs over. We know by story when John began to
\vr'\i& this prophecy, even ninety-four years after Christ, or thereabouts. So
that it is about 1550 years since John. Now 1260 years are to be allowed the
beast, the Pope, from his beginning to his end. And to know when and in
v/hat age he began, the Holy Ghost hath given us a hint and character,
chap. xvii. ; telling us that he riseth one hour with the ten kings, which
was not long after the year of Christ 400. So that 300 years are aU that
before that, even from John's time, do belong to the primitive times, before
the Pope's reign. And then, after the end of this Pope's or beast's time,
there is but the Turks' ruin to come, (which is the second woe mentioned
here, ver. 14,) and then comes in the New Jerusalem. And if we who live
in these last days could but know when he either begins his time or ends it,
we might easily tell, at least with a conjectural knowledge, how long it will
be from the incarnation of Christ unto his kingdom here on earth, which is
the fifth monarchy.
2. I might also at large shew how this computation, coming in here in
C;iAP. IV.] AN EXPOSITION OF TlIK IIKVELATION. 121
this chapter, shews the true synchronising and contemporaneousness of things
both in the seal and book-prophecy, which was necessary somewhere to be
done, and is here in this chapter most fitly done between botli these prophe-
cies. For the sixth trumpet of the seal-prophecy is, ver. 14, made to end
upon, or not long after, the ending of the Pope's reign, whose story belongs
to the book-prophecy. For, says the angel there, after the rising of the wit-
nesses, 'The second woe is past, and behold the third woe cometh quickly.'
Now that second woe is the sixth trumpet of the seal-prophecy, (so chap. viii.
13,) and the passing of it away is the sixth vial in the book prophecy, the
effect of which is the ruin of the Turk, or at least a preparation thereunto
by the calUng of the Jews. And then tlie seventh trumpet begins with the
seventh vial. And so, as it is probably thought, these 1260 years of the
beast And the rising of the witnesses do end with the fifth vial, after which
the sixth vial shall not stay long.
And it is probable that the angel's division of things into this double
series, of six seals and six trumpets, is suited to his division of all times :
which, from John's time to the kingdom of Christ, he branches either into
the time of the beast's reign, which he defines to be 1260 years; or the time
before his rising, which he defines not. For the beginning and ending of
the beast's time being once known, thereby the other times foregoing, or the
primitive times, might easily be computed. So as, when we know, through
the help of this angel's speech in this chapter, that the book-prophecy and
the seal-prophecy do meet towards their ending and closure downwards,
then, how they run along upwards is not uneasy to conjecture. For the
seal-prophecy being blanched into two so equal divisions of six seals, chap,
vi., and then six trumpets, chap, vii.-ix. ; the six seals containing the story
of the empire till the beast's rising, and so taking up all that tract of
the primitive times before the beast's 1260 years do begin; it is therefore
likely that the six trumpets do contain the story of the empire during those
1260 years in which the Pope is to reign. And then, as they end not far
off from each other, as was even now shewed, so also the times of these six
trumpets, and the beast's reign of 1260 years, should begin not far off of
each other. Thus the mention of this one term or period of time here serves,
as you see, for the measure of the computation of the whole times of this
book, and both prophecies of it ; and so comes fitly in between both for
such a purpose.
And, lastly, the reasons why the Holy Ghost singleth out only the times
of this last head, the Pope, thus to be the rule and measure whereby to sum
and cast up the account of aU the times of this book, are —
(1.) For that the beast's reign was to have the longest time allotted it of
any monarchy after Christ, and the longest of all the heads of the Roman
monarchy foregoing him ; yea, it was to contain as much time as had passed
from Rome's first building until his rising, and so would afford a computa-
tion of the greatest part of that time, and indeed three parts of the whole
time from John untU the kingdom of Christ.
(2.) The matters of this book being not so fully to be opened till about the
time of the end, as it is in Dan. xii. 4 ; if the times of the beast, whose
reign was to continue till towards the end, should then come to be known,
then the whole time from John downward would be known also by them
that live in these latter days, for whose benefit and comfort, as most con-
cerning them to know it, this computation was made and here given.
(3.) This beast, the Pope, being the last head of the fourth or Roman
monarchy, which but for him had failed, but was in him healed again and
122 AX EXPOSITION OF TUE REVELATION. [I'aRT I.I.
restored; to know when lie should end, and with him that monarchy, this
would be inlding enough of the approach of Christ's kingdom, which is im-
mediately to succeed it. To give the inkling of which, for the church's
comfort in these latter days, was the thing herein principally aimed at.
And—
(4.) This beast being to be the most eminent oppressor of the church in
the times after Christ ; therefore the computation of his time, beginning
and ending, and the oppression of the witnesses by him, would be most
acceptable to be known, and so be most inquired after by the church. — And
thus much for the computation of the times here mentioned.
§ 2. — The occurrences that fall out towards the expiring of these times here
computed : and, first, a general view and division of them.
As Christ was thus careful, as you have seen, to give us this computation
of times ; so further, for our comfort, he makes a relation of such occurrences
also as should fall out towards the ending and expiration of these times :
which is the second head we are to explain.
And as the computation of Antichrist's times was twofold, so answerably
the chief occurrences of things appertaining to the accomplishment of those
times are two : —
1. The re-giving up the outward court to the Gentiles, with the treading
down whereof they are to end their whole reign and time of the treading
down the holy city.
2. Their killing the witnesses, with which their 1260 days of prophesying
in sackcloth do end also. The one is annexed as the signal of the period of
their reign, and the ending of their forty-two months ; the other as the signal
of the accomplishment of these witnesses' oppression for 1260 days, with this
most eminent victory of the Gentiles over them.
And then again observe how each of these occurrences have two others
here mentioned with them, as conjunct appendixes to them, or occasions of
them : —
1. The giving up the outward court to the Gentiles is accompanied with
a measuring the temple by John, representing the godly of that age, who
leaves out the outward court, as being ordained by God to be given up to
the Gentiles.
2. This last killing the witnesses is much occasioned, and, in a more espe-
cial manner, enemies are provoked unto it, by the hurt these witnesses did
them by fire in the times just before, as we shall, see anon ; in revenge of
which they are encouraged to kill them.
Or, for the better conceiving all these, I cast them into this mould : —
John and the angel standing here in the very extremities of time, even the
times of the fourth vial, (this age, as I take it,) wherein Antichrist's reign
is drawing near to its end ; John hath represented to him, as an introduction
unto all that follows, the face of the church in that age, and is himself bid-
den to represent the work of the godly of that age towards that church.
And—
1. The church in this age is represented to him as the temple standing in
the holy city Jerusalem, — as it was represented to Ezekiel, chap, xl., which
he also mea.suied with a reed, as John is bidden to do here, — namely, the
temple inward, in which the priest only was to come, and in which stands
the altar, with a company of true worshippers ; but round about it, as en-
closing the temple without, lies a vast outward court, into which (as of old,
the multitudes and crowd of the people of the Jews professing the true God,
Chap. IV.] an exposition of thi': uevklvtion. 123
so here) all sorts of professors of true worship do come. This temple, the
church of this age, is moreover represented as adorned within with golden
candlesticks, and two stately olive-trees, ver. 4, being two eminent witnesses
and projihets that minister before God in his church. And the Gentiles, they
possess the city already, and have done a long time, and are still to possess
it, till their forty-two months be expired. But the temple, and the outward
court about it, of late days erected in this city, they have been kept out of ;
and so could not come at these witnesses, who are within the temple, nor
have been able to overcome and kill them, as in former times ; against whom,
notwithstanding, in that they have so tormented them with fire and other
plagues out of this temple, they are even mad again with vexation, and an
eager desire to be avenged on them. But now, before the expiring of their
forty-two months, God being angry, both with the carnal gospellers in the
outward court, so profanely mixing themselves with his worshippers, and
lajdng themselves to his building and temple, and also with the carnal gos-
pelling of the two witnesses among them, and with the imperfection of his
temple building, not yet answering the pattern, and therefore intending to
erect a purer temple ; he —
2. Bids John, representing the godly of that age, measure the temple anew,
and so begins to make a new reformation therein, more answerable to the
pattern in the mount ; for he is not pleased with the old one that now hath
stood so long. And therefore, in this new reformation, he commands John
to leave out that outward court, as intending, after his purer churches shall
thus first have, as it were, excommunicated them, to give up that outward
court to these Gentiles, who have already took possession of the city, and
kept it a long time, but shall now again enter upon this outward court, it
being within their lease and demise. And so with this overrunning the out-
ward court of the church, shall they accomplish their reign over the whole
city, being then to be driven out of all for ever, which makes them so angry,
as you have it ver. 18.
And thus they having gained the outward court, which fenced and kept
safe the witnesses, as from persecution by the Papists, who yet had vexed
and plagued them, by shooting of wild-fire out of the temple, though they
had also shot back again that which had hurt the witnesses all that while :
but now the beast can come to them to overcome them and kill them quite,
for their outward court was won, and so utterly scatter the power of the holy
people ; but yet so as with this the days of their oppression shall cease, this
being the accomplishment of their years of scattering, and the last war
wherein Antichrist shall any way prevail. He (the relics of him left) shall
indeed make head again before the seventh vial, but it shall not come to a
victory as this doth.
§ 3. — The occurrences, ver. 1, 2, (fhe measuring the temple, altar, <&€., and the
leaving out the outward court, and treading down the holy ciii/,) more
particularly and fully explained.
So then, here are two things to be explained :—
1. What this temple and outward court are, and what the measuring of
the temple, &c., and the leaving out and treading down the outward court
and city. And —
2. Who these witnesses are, what their description, and what this their
last killing.
For the first ; I will make good and establish what I think to be the true
interpretation, and then consult those other false interpretations given of it.
12i AN EXrORITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
It is -wonderful to me to see how exactly this vision, in the whole series
of it, represents the present face, the affairs, stirrings, and alterations now a-
working in the churches of Europe ; the type and antitype so full}' answer-
ing and suiting each the other.
1. For the tirst ; the holy city here, wherein these Gentiles have a lease of
forty-two months' reign, are these kingdoms of Europe, which for these
thousand years and upwards have been the metropoUs and chief scat of
Christian profession, as Jerusalem of old was of the worship of the true God ;
which, therefore, in the foUowmg part of this book-prophecy, is made, from
the rise of the beast, the only stage of all, until that New Jerusalem and holy
city, which comes from heaven and succeeds this ; this being in the mean-
time the Old Jerusalem, as that the New. Yet —
2. This city, for the pimishment of the world, God permits the Gentiles
to tread down for forty-two months, alluding to that expression which Christ
used of the sacking of that Jerusalem in Judea, by the Romans, Luke xxi.
2-i. Now the beast, the Pope of Ptome, with his idolatrous crew, they are
these Gentiles ; and so called because they set up the image of that worship
which was practised under heathenish Rome and Gentilism ; so chap, xiii
15. And as the hundred and forty-four thousand, the company of true
lyoTshippers, are called the Israel of God, so are these called the Gentiles ;
their religion and worship being, as was said, the image of the first heathenish
religion, under the heathen empire, the first beast. And this city they were
to have power and jurisdiction in till forty-two months were fulfilled, as in
chap. xiii. appears. But —
3. Towards the end of their time, there begins a great part of this city
to fall from them, though they still kept possession of the greatest part ; and
they lost mucli ground, and enclosure and separation being made from them,
and within it a temple built, namely, churches separated from Antichrist,
which 3'ou heard of in chap. xv. And further, as that in Jerusalem was
built on the north side of that city, Ps. xlviiL 2, so is this temple built in
the northern parts of Europe, — the city here meant, as was foretold in Isa.
xlix. 12, and Dan. xi. 44, — for in these northern kingdoms hath been the
reformation of religion.
4. Unto which temple there hath been an outward court laid of carnal
and unregenerate professors, who have made the greatest show in this build-
ing, and took up so much of the room, that although true churches and
temples, by reason of the true worshippers among them, have been set up,
yet they have been defiled with the addition of an outward court, into which
all sorts came. So that indeed these reformed churches are outward courts
more than inward temples. And by reason of this their mixture, great cor-
ruptions and defects, both in the form of the temple, or church-fellowship,
and imjiurities in the worship and about the altar, have been continued
among them.
Now for the understanding of these allusions, we must know that there
were belonging to the temple in Jenisalem —
1. The holi/ of holies, which was at one end enclosed and separated from
the rest of the temple, after the manner of our cathedral quires.
2. The borl^/ of the temple, whereinto came the priests only ; and in which
stood the altar of incense, which was answerable to the body of our cathedral
churches, compassed by the inner court : wherein —
3. There was a larger outward court encircling the whole temple, into
■which the people of all sorts, both men and women, did come. And this
was answerable to the churchyards which go round about our churches.
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the revelation. 125
Now this third and last court is tliat whicli is here said to be ■without ;
that is, without the compass of the temple. And it is called the ' great court'
going round about the other, namely, encompassing the inward court of the
priests, and the holy of holies ; thus, 1 Kings vii. 12, it is expressly called.
And it is by Ezekiel called the ' outward court' very often, in distinction from
the inward court or temple where the alt;ir was ; which, in distinction from
this, is also called the ' court of priests.' So 2 Chron. iv. 9, where it is said,
Solomon ' made the court of the priests, and the great court,' namely, that
ijito which the people came.
There was indeed a fourth court for strangers to come into, built by Herod.
But that is not here alluded to, for the Scripture nK'Utioneth it not. But
the outward court here is that which Ezekiel, as I s...,I before, does so often
call by thcit name, in distincaon from the court of priests : for to his mea-
suring there, is the allusion of this measuring here ; of which you may read,
chap. xl. 17, 27. And the inner court is put for the temple, and the temple
for it, as being all one.
Bring this then to the New Testament. The Scriptures and prophets, by
the notion of a temple, do still express the true church, as 1 Cor. iii. 17,
Eph. ii. 21, and many other places. And by priests, who only are to enter
into the inner temple, they express true worshippers. You have both these
expressions put together in 1 Pet. ii. 5, ' You, as lively stones, are built up
a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, accept-
able to God by Jesus Christ.' And whereas the people entered not into the
temple then, now all that are holy are bidden ' to draw near, having their
bodies,' or whole man, ' washed with water,' as the priests were wont to be ;
even water of regeneration and sanctification, as Heb. x. 22.
Now, in distinction from these true worshippers, the carnal professors of
religion, and crowd of unregenerate men, that join themselves to the church,
by professing tlie same religion and faith, though yet continuing in the natu-
ral uncircumcision of their hearts, are called the ' outward court ' here, they
having no right to approach this altar. And, by the law of distinction and
opposition, if the true worshippers now under the gospel be typified out by
the priests, who were in a peculiar manner holy unto God, and whose holi-
ness typified forth inward lioliness under the gospel, then carnal professors
now, who are Jews outwardly only, are left typified out by that common
crowd of Jews who came then into the outward court. And these may most
truly be termed an outward court, in a comparison with this temple and true
worshippers, be the notion of temple taken in what sense it may. For
whether temple or church be taken for the mystical temple or church of the
elect and sincere worshippers, these are without, (as the Apostle's phrase is,
1 Cor. V.,) in comparison to them, and are carnal worshippers, worshipping
God in the letter, not in the spirit, with 'outward bodily exercise,' not 'in
spirit and truth,' as 1 Tim. iv. 8 ; and they are such as to a stander-by, who
hath skill to judge, are, for the generality, apparently such ; even Jews out-
wardly only, not within, as Rom. ii. 28, 29.
Or if temple be taken for churches instituted, or congregations of tnie
public worshippers, (as Eph. ii. 22, it is taken ; as also Heb. x. 22, com-
pared with ver. 25, where the assembling together to worship is called a
'drawing near,' &c.,) in that respect also these cai'nal men joined with them
are but as the outward court laid to the temple, who join in the same ser-
vice, but do 'draw near with their hps' only, and, as Isaiah speaks, chap, i.,
' tread his courts with sacrifices abominable to God ; ' whilst the other, as a
holy priesthood, are only within the temple, and do ' draw near with assur-
126 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II
ance of faith, having their hearts sprinkled, and their bodies washed with
water,' as the allusion to the priests' entering into the inner temple where
the altar stood is, in Heb. x. 22.
So that, in what sense soever the Papists, whom some would have to be
the outward court here meant, might be called the outward court, these also
may. As whether because they arrogate to themselves the name of the
church, and say, ' they are Jews, and are not, but do lie.'
In this respect may these also be called the outward court, who with im-
pudence do arrogate to themselves the name of the church, and under that
name do in some places cast out the true worshippers; and who, by reason
of their multitude and number, — the best congregations of the first Reforma-
tion consisting of many more apparently bad than good, and many of those
churches having none but men unregenerate, — are in view only or chiefly the
church; whUst the true visible worshippers are a company of hidden ones
in comparison : and therefore the outward court, in the type, was called the
great court.
Yea, these unregenerate Protestants are much rather to be accounted the
outward court, and so are mainly here intended; which wUl appear, if you
put but two things together : —
First, Outward court here is oppositely put unto all these other particu-
lars enumerated that were to be measured; both unto temple, altar, and
worshippers therein ; and so oppositely doth imj)ort, not merely an outward
face and place of worship, but as withal including persons worshipping also,
and so carnal worshippers, in full opposition to the other. For otherwise
this expression answers not the type, namely, the outward court in the Jewish
temple, in which were the multitude, as in the inner temple the priests. So
that the outward court imports and includes a company or sort of worship-
pers, as well as it imports the outward visible face of the church ; and that
by a metonymy, the continens being put for the contentum, the thing con-
taining for the thing contained : even as these phrases, heaven and earth, do
often import, and are put for, all things therein contained. And so outward
court here implies a sort of worshippers therein; and in that respect is
opposed to, and distinguished from the temple, and the true worshippers
therein. And indeed, churches, and the face thereof, in the notion of the
New Testament, consisting not of material buildings, as Cameron well shews,
it is the persons worshipping who have the name of churches : and so here,
persons worshipping, distinct from the temple and true worshippers, must
needs be meant, as those that do constitute and make up this outward court.
So that, take persons away, and the face of an outward court ceaseth to be.
Thus Cornelius a Lapide upon the place : — In hac parte templi, says he,
et in adorantihus sacerdotibus symbolice signijicantur fideles, qui Antichristi
tempore erunt optimi, religiosissimi, Deo conjunctissimi, et in cultu ejv^ soli-
dissimi. Per atrium exterius intelligit Christianos infirmiores, et vitce laxioris,
ideoque a Deo remotiores. Hos (ait) ejiceforas, id est, extra ecclesiam. Quasi
dixisset, Rejice eos inter in fideles et apostatas ; quia hi cedunt gentibus et
Antichristo affectis, et idea indigni sunt qui inter jideles numerentur.
Now then, secondly, add to this, that this outward court, thus consisting
of a multitude of false worshippers, is here made distinct from the Gentiles :
for this outward court, and the worshippers thereof, are 'given to the Gen-
tUes ;' and therefore are to be left out in the new measure taken.
Now a company of worshippers, who aro distinct, both from the true
worshippers of the temple, and from the GentUes or Papists, must needs be
the multitude of carnal Protestants that fill our churches, and make an out-
Chap. IV.j an exposition of the PvEVElatiok. 127
ward court, together with the temple. For if the Gentiles be this outward
court tliemselvcs, then wlio are these Gentiles that are to tread it down 1
Neither, third!//, can it be thought that the Gentiles, possessing the out-
ward face of the church, should so till up this outward court here meant, as
to be made, as they are here, the other sole contradistinct and opposite party
to the temple and true worshippers. Unless we would say, that all Protes-
tants are the inner temple, as well as the priests and true worshippers therein,
and both to be here measured ; and so the Papists and they share these two
alone between them. But we assuredly knowing that of Protestants not
one of a hundred are true worshippers, according to outward judgment, by
those rules the reed warrants us to judge of others by, may as assuredly also
conclude that this multitude of carnal professors are not here intended by
the angel, as at all included in the temple, and among the true worshippers ;
especially seeing he puts the reed into John's hand, to measure none but
such as are visibly true worshippers. And therefore they must necessarily
make up that third party, distinct both from the temple-worshippers and
from the Gentiles ; and are they who are to be cast out by the one, and
seized on by the other, as the outward court is here said to be. And more
sure I am that, according to apostolical institution, such as they ought to be
left out by those that build true churches, and churches to be measured anew
without them. And therefore, if this measuring the temple fall under the
times of this sixth trumpet, I cannot but imagine this new reformation
begun, to be intended ; and that re-entry the Gentiles are now a-making
upon the outward court of our churches, and their yielding to them, to be
the gi^'ing thereof unto these Gentiles here.
And, fowthli/, the Papists cannot so well be meant here by the outward
court, as some would have them. For I see not that the angel would vouch-
safe them, in this his mention of them here through this ty|De, so much as
the bare name of the outward court unto his temple. That Romish church
is not worthy in his esteem to be so accounted of in the proportions of this
allusion. But he rather calls them Gentiles, as being idolatrous worshippers ;
and elsewhere, the ' synagogue of Satan,' ' worshippers of the beast and his
image,' ' Sodom, Egypt,' &c., as being in a further distance and degree of
comparison remote from the true temple here, and the worshippere therein.
And so between the true worshippers in the inner temple, and these Gentilea,
he placeth a third sort of worshippers, who are not Gentiles in their worship,
but separate from them in it as well as the true Israelites ; and who worship
the true God after the manner of the worship of the temple outwardly ; and
yet are but ' outwardly Jews,' as Rom. ii. 28, and remain uncircumcised in
heart and life. And these in this allu.sion doth God allow the place and
name of the outward court ; which till the reed, the light of the word, came,
distinguishing true worshippers from them, were accounted as of the inner
temple, but are now discovered to be without, as the word in the original is.
So that the outward court doth typify out a company who in these times
have a greater nearness to the true worshippers than the Gentiles have, and
yet are but without. And though this outward court is here said to be
' given to the Gentiles,' yet, mark it, not to them as those who are reckoned
the worshippers therein, not as the ' treaders of the outward court,' — as in
Isa. i. the phrase is of God's house, — God reckoneth not them such ; but as
the ' treaders down ' of this outward court, as they are said to do by the holy
city in the next words, God bringing in upon these carnal professors, for
their contempt of the gospel and of the true worshippers, the worst of the
heathen upon them, to tread them down by violence, either of conquest over
128 AN EXPOSITION OF TIIE REVELATION, Part. II.
tlieir bodies, as in Germany, or over their consciences, in making them again
to submit to their superstitions and idolatries, as they shall go on to do in
other places.
And observe the glorious wisdom that is in God's proceeding herein, as the
reason of it. For God intending to have a church most holy unto himself,
under the seventh trumpet, in which ' the ark shall be seen,' which notes out
the holy of holies, as it is ver. 19 of this 11th chapter, — and his manner
being to carry on his church unto perfection by degrees, — he doth therefore,
about the midst of that time, between the first reformation long since made
and that seventh trumpet, in an age or so foregoing it, set his builders on
work (whom John here represents) to endeavour to erect a new frame, and a
reformation of that reformation ; and to take the reed, and measure over
anew both temple, altar, and worshippers, and to cast out that outward
court of worshippers, with those corruptions of theirs which hindered that
thorough reformation; and so to contract his temple into a narrower com-
pass, as the proportion of the inner temple to the outward was, yet purer
and more refined ; he delighting more in truth, and piuity of worship, than
in magnitude or multitude of sacrifices and worshippers : and so to make
to liimself a church that shall consist of priests, and an inward temple sepa-
rated from that outward court, into which the true worshippers are called
up from the other, which before lay common to both. And how elegant is
this aUusion here, whereby he sets forth the several states and conditions of
his church, growing up unto perfection !
The first reformation he sets out by an inner temple, more imperfect,
unfurnished, and, besides, defiled by the adjoining of an outward court
unto it. ''
The second reformation, more pure, he represents by the inner temple
measured again, to be finished and cleansed from that mixture.
And then, in the last verse, he opens the holy of holies, into which no
unclean thing shaU enter, as it is chap. xxi. 27. For thuugh their second
reformation, and the reed thereof, keeps out men civil and profane, whom
godly men, whom John here represents, may judge visibly so to be ; yet
many a hypocrite, that maketh a lie, may scape and crowd into this inward
temple still, whilst the judgment of men, who often err, applies this reed.
But into the other temple to come, under the New Jerusalem, shall none of
these enter. There shall be a golden reed then, as chap. xxi. 15 ; whereas
now there is but an ordinary cane, reed, or staff, which, though in itself it
be straight, yet being to be applied by men, they may be deceived.
Now, having given this more general view what is meant by the temple
and outward court, I will more particularly explain what it is to measure
the temple, altar, and worshippers therein ; and what it is to leave out this
outward court.
1. To this end Christ 'puts a reed into Jolm's hands,' who represents the
builders of this age ; that is, puts into their hearts and hands the word, and
the light thereof, as alone a sufficient rule to square churches, both worshij>
pers and worship, by. Other reeds men would have, but God hath given
us rules in his word to square the whole frame and model of this temple
by. And this is to be laid as a princijile, that we admit of nothing in mat-
ters of the church which the word does not warrant. Which principle was
never yet so fully taken up and practised by our reformers hitherto ; though
it hath long been contended for, as the fundamental groundwork of this
building.
2, By temj^Ie here I understand not only the church of the elect, — for they
CilAl- IV.] AN EXPOSITION' Ol- THE IlKVLLAXJOV. 129
are all due and the same with thcin tliat worship God in spirit and trutk ;
whereas here, in this enumeration, temple and worshippers therein seem to
import distinct considerations at least; — but I rather understand churches
or congregations of public worshippers considered as such ; church-fellow-
ship, as you call it ; which, as well as the company of the elect, was typified
out, and called the temple, as Eph. ii. 20-22. For the Apostle there
having first said of the Ephesians, that as they were saints in common with
others, so they were built up with all the elect into a temple unto God, and
this ver. 20, 21, and so made part of templum eUctorum ; he after that, says
again of the same Ephesians, as they were a company knit in church-fellow-
ship, that they were ' built together for a habitation to God,' ver. 22. And
so the particular church at Ephesus made a temple and a habitation apart,
and, as it were, a little sanctuary. Now every such particular church bears
the name of the whole, and may also justly be called the temple ; because
in a church so gathered, the ordinances of church-communion and worship,
as the sacraments, excommunication, &c., are to be administered, and not
out of such a church-state, or such assemblings ; as at the temple of Jeru-
salem only sacrifices were to be offered. And therefore —
3. By altar here, which was that main ordinance of temple-worship serv-
ing for sacrifice, which was nowhere out of it to be used, I understand
church-ordinances of public worship and sacrifice. And —
4. By worshippers, I understand the persons who only are to be of this
temple, and to approach to this altar ; as only the priests then did into the
inward temple, and unto the altar : even such only who are ' lively stones,
built up in a spiritual house, and a holy priesthood, to offer up acceptable
sacrifice unto God ; ' as it is in 1 Pet. ii. 5. So that, although temple here
doth connotate and import worshippers, — for now, under the New Testament,
temple and worshippers are materially the same, as by that place of Peter
appears, though formally they may be considered as distinct, as here they
seem to be, — and so tvorshippers importeth these persons considered in such
meet qualifications as belong to them as saints, and are required in them to
make them meet worshippers in this temple, which this reed lays forth;
yet formally temple notes out these persons as to be gathered up in a church-
assembly, according unto Christ's institution. Now then —
5. To measure all these with this reed implies a drawing of a true plat-
form by the rules of the word ; by shewing both —
(1.) What a true church or temple is, and how to be built ; and what the
power, the frame and constitution of it, <fec. This is rightly and truly
measuring the temple. And —
(2.) Laying out the right way of the administration of all church-worship
and ordinances, as excommunication, sacraments, ordaining ofiicers of holy
things, who partake and ' serve at the altar,' and all this by the word. This
is to measure the altar. In a word, all that which, Eom. xii. 1, the apostle
calls Ao^/ixri "karoiia, word-service or worship ; he speaking to the Eomana
in that chapter as they were a body of a church, as in the 1 3th chapter he
speaks to them as members of a commonwealth.
(3.) Measwing the worshippers is, with the reed, laying forth who are true
saints, and so are meet matter for and to be worshippers therein ; and so
judging of men by the rules of the word, and accordingly admitting into, or
rejecting from this fellowship, and 'judging them when within,' as the apostle
speaks.
1. And thus measuring is taken for drawing a platform of all these thinga.
As appears by that measuring the temple by Ezekiel, unto which the angel
VOL. III. J
130 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaUT [I.
here alludes, Ezek. xliii. 10, 11, where it is called a ' shewing them the pat-
tern, the form of the house, and fashion of it ; ' together with the ' goings out
and comings in ' for administration, &c. ; all the ordinances thereof, and aU
the forms of those ordinances, and all the laws thereof And as there Eze-
kiel sees distinctly, and apart measured the temple, chap, xli, xliL ; then
th*^ altar, chap, xliii. 13 ; and then concerning the worshippers the angel
gives laws, chap, xli v., blaming them that they permitted ' strangers, men
uncircumcised ' in flesh and heart (speaking in the language of the type) to
be in his sanctuary, ver. 7 ; giving a law, ver. 9, that none such should enter
in ; shewing whom he would have to be priests and Levites, and who not,
and their duties, in the rest of that chapter : even so here John is bid to
cast out the outward court, as being strangers unto God, and unclean, and
using strange forms of worsliip. And —
2. Measuring is here also put to signify that such a temple, altar, and
■worshippers should now, in this age, begin to be built and erected, and men
set on work to do it. So in Ezek. xliii. 10, 11, the measure is taken to that
end, that Israel, seeing the true pattern, might be ashamed of their former
aberrations, and for the time to come might keep to, and do according to,
that pattern, and square all by it. Measuring here respects not the old
temple so much, as if the temple that had hitherto stood were to be mea-
sured, but it respects a new budding, or finishing of a church. So also Zech.
ii., the measuring the city, ver. 2, was to signify not the taking the platform
of Jerusalem as then it stood built, but as further anew to be built and in-
habited, ver. 4, 5. So also the temple, as then being yet unfinished by the
Jews after the cajjtivity; the plummet, or measuring-line, chap. iv. 10, which
answers to the reed here, signified that the tem2:)le should be finished ; which
appears, if you compare the above-named place with ver. 9 of the same
chapter. And —
3. Measuring imports protection also. So, Zech. ii., the measuring the
city there is in the interpretation given, ver. 5, explained, that ' God would
be a wall of fire round about them, and their glory in the midst of them.'
And so here so much may be intimated, and so hoped for. For the outward
court is therefore not measured, because it is given to the Gentiles. But, on
the contrary, the worshippers are measured, and called up, as it were, out
from the outward court, that they may be preserved from the re-entry of
those Gentiles upon them, or power over them ; at least, from such power as
they had over the outward court. To get into this temple is the greatest
preservative to keep the saints from the over-growing corruptions and defile-
ments of these Gentiles ; and it may unto many prove a protection and
sanctuary from their power, as to those churches in New England it may be
hoped it shall. ' God will create a defence upon his glor}'.' And, however,
they shall hereby be reserved lor that resurrection which afterward is to
come, ver. 11, 12, &c.
Now, in the second place, on the contrary, the not measuring and the
leaving out the outward court, and yet measuring the other, is —
1. By the word exactly putting a difference between them that fear God
and them that fear him not ; measuring out who fear him by marks, signs,
and spots upon his people, (as in Deuteronomy God speaks,) which the word
gives. And this distinguishing and putting a difference between men and
men, the word calls excluding or leaving them out. Which, accordingly, to
make way for the right constitution of churches, in discerning the true mat-
ter of them, hath been the chief work of the godly ministers in England in
this last age; who, though they wanted the ordinance of excommunication in
ClIAr. IV.] AN EXPOSITION OF TUE KEVELATION. 131
their churches, yet in lieu of it they had excommunicating gifts, and were
forced, because of that profane mixture in churches, to spend most of their
ministry in distinguishing men, by giving signs and marks of men's natural
and regenerate estates, and convincing and discovering carnal men to them-
selves and others : which God in providence ordained, to make way for the
erection of more pure churches. For by this light was set up in godly men's
hearts a spirit to discern between the clean and the unclean ; and so to hew
and set a[)art the materials for this temple, as the stones for Solomon's were.
2. This implies a rejecting them from church-fellowship, and not admitting
them into the new-reared temple, as being not fit matter for this building ;
which is a kind of excommunication of them.
3. This leaving out the outward court may also imply a rejecting such
forms of administration in worship, (liturgies, &c.,) and corruptions therein,
which are not found agreeable to the word. For I take the phrase of oitt-
ward court to import a full opposition to those particulars mentioned in the
former words ; which, as you have heard, are these — temple, altar, worshippers.
And therefore oppositely, all carnal and corrupt worshippers, or forms of
worshipping, cleaving to ordinances, as left in the first reformation, as the
filth which the sea leaves behind it at an ebb^ these are all comprehended
under that expression of outward court.
Now, in the last place, consider the reason given why God stirs up his
people, now in this age, to do thus by this outward court. Which is, be-
cause, as their forms of worship came from Popery, and themselves are
inwardly and in heart Gentiles ; so he hath, for many glorious ends of his,
ordained them unto Popery again, more or less to be subjected to it. And
therefore he declares this as the reason why he would now, and not before,
put it into the hearts of his builders thus strangely and suddenly to reject
them : because that the time is now come when, by his decree, they must
return to the Gentiles again. Only ere the Gentiles should thus again seize
on them, they must first be left out by the templers, the true church ; which,
being once done, they forthwith become as heathens, as Christ says ; and
being ' cast out ' they ' wither,' and become a prey to men, as it is John xv.
6. Popish opinions and practices take them again. And how, by degrees,
do these Gentiles win ground upon the outward court in England 1 And.
how does their winning ground drive the true worshippers into the inner
temple, and cause them to abandon their mixture with the outward court 1
So that as this new reformation made way for their ruining the outward
court, so the Gentiles' winning more upon the outward court doth further
this new reformation ; God carrying on these two works at once.
Now the word given — ' it is given to the Gentiles ' — imports an easy kind
of conquest which the Popish party obtains over them ; they yield, and give
up the fort as it were, and sufier the Papists to come in upon them, without
much or long holding out. Now in such a dispensation of God towards the
carnal Protestants, thus to give them up again unto the Gentiles, there
are many and glorious ends which God may have in it, that may make it
the more probable that so indeed he intends to do, ere he means to bring in
that glorious church to come. As —
1. That he might have a purer church, according to the primitive institu-
tion; these treaders of his courts becoming loathsome to him, with their
oblations. And though the first reformation was, outwardly in show, more
specious and glorious, for the multitude of those that reformed, and this is
to be by much a smaller and narrower building, — even as in proportion the
outward court did far exceed the inner temple, — yet this consisting of purer
132 AN KXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
worshippers and worsliip, squared by the word, this second building shall
in true glory excel that other.
2. God may do this to let many of these worshippers taste of the fruit of
their own ways. They took upon them to be the true church-zealots and
defenders of religion against the Papists, and yet cast out God's true wor-
shippers and their ministers, saj-ing, ' Let God be glorified ;' whilst they beat
their feUow-servants, as the parable hath it. But here they are met with
being cast out by them agam. And upon their being rejected from their
fellowship, the protection and defence of these from the Gentiles cease, and
they are given up to them.
3. For the same cause that God let Popery come in upon the Avorld at
first, for the same he suffers it thus again to overflow ; even because men
' received not the truth ' — so clearly shining in the prophecy of the witnesses
amongst them — ' in the love of it.'
4. To throw out this rubbish that would hinder that temple, which after
all he intends to build and make most glorious. For these, like those
Samaritans, Ezra iv. 1, 2, offer indeed to build with them; but being, ac-
cording to God's appointment, not to have a hand in it, they would be a
hindrance to it ; as indeed they have been.
5. That of that glorious restauration, and resurrection of the church and
witnesses, which is yet to come, and is foretold in the 12th and 13th verses
of this chapter, only true worshippers, who in this time of trial stood out as
faithful witnesses against Popery, and the invasion of it, might have the
honour and praise. Therefore God brings this trial upon all the churches,
so to burn up and consume this dross, and to discover those carnal Protes-
tants — that have spoken as big words and talked as hotly against Popery as
any, and made that the evidence of their sincerity — to be such, and unsound,
by a base yielding unto the Gentiles the Papists : that so, when Christ seems
to revive his church again after this, ver. 13, then, as you have it in Isa.
Ixvi., Christ may appear to his people's glory, but to their shame who yet
before cast them out, and said, * Let God be glorified.'
6. That the Gentiles and the Pope might thus accomplish their time and
period of forty-two months, with an investment of the Pope into his old
territories, now towards the expiring of that his time. Which reason the
next words do give, * And so they shall tread down the holy city for forty-
two months,' and be found domineering in it, in a manner, as fully as before,
towards the end of their forty-two months; that so their lease may well-nigh
expire in a full possession : and that so the confusion of Antichrist — the
greatest work to be done for the church from the apostles' days — may be the
more glorious unto God. Thus Daniel seemed to ftiretell, that after those
'tidings out of the north should trouble him,' which was this separation of
these northern kingdoms from him ; as also ' out of the east,' through the
prevailing of the Turk, when he came so near unto his territories; that,
enraged with this, he shall 'go forth in great fury,' chap. xi. 44, 'and plant
his tabernacle' (his power and jurisdiction) again 'upon the glorious holy
mountain,' (where the temple stands,) ' between the seas.' And what follows!
Even that after all this his recovery of power over these churches of the
lleformation towards his end, yet ' he shall come to his end, and none shall
help him.' And after Rome's recovery of her power thus, and when the
whore begins to sing her sister Babel's song, just before her fall, — as Rev.
xvii. 7, 8, — and saith in her heart, ' I sit as a queen, and am no widow,* as
having her ancient paramours again, and so thinks she shall now see no
Borrow; therefore ' shall her plagues come in one day; for strong is the Lord
ClIAP. IV,] AN EXPOSITION OP THE REVELATION. 133
that judgeth her.' And thereby will be seen God's omnipotent power in her
confusion. There is nothing also in it, that, chap, xvii., the ten kings or
states of Europe are twice mentioned as giving their power unto the beast ;
and, ver. 17, arc the second time said to agree to do it, through some special
hand of God to fulfil his will : even till those words of God, uttered by
Daniel in the fore-cited place, shall be fulfilled ; for unto some word of the
Old Testament do these words here refer.
§ 4. — An appendix to the 1st and 2d verses of the Wih chaj^ter, refuting
other interpretations given of the measuring of the temple and outward
court, {ivhich you may read, or not read, as you please).
This interpretation of John's measuring the temple, as in this latter age to
be performed, being thus made forth to hold in all things, as you have seen,
I shall not need to spend much time, and yet some, in refuting other inter-
pretations.
Mr Mede w-ould have the new book-prophecy to begin here at this 11th
chapter, and the sixth trumpet under the seal-prophecy, fully ended before,
at the conclusion of the 9th chapter; and the oath of the angel, chap, x., to
supply the seventh trumpet. And so makes the angel here, in chap, xi., to
begin again anew, aloft from John's time; and so this 11th chapter to be a
short, compendious representation of the story of the church in all ages, be-
ginning here anew from John's time, and, as it were, the contents and brief
sum of that larger story which begins at chap. xii. And so would have all the
several states of the church in all ages more briefly here represented through
all times. As —
1. That of the primitive times, until Antichrist's rising, under the type of
the temple measured; till when, says he, the church remained pure, accord-
ing to the pattern : and therefore John is bidden to measure it, as a pattern
of the truth unto after-ages. And then —
2. The face of the church during Antichrist's time, for 1260 years, under
the type of the ' Gentiles treading down the outward court and holy city •'
thereby, says he, representing how the Papists should arrogate and possess
the name and face of the church so long time; which yet, because it will
not bear the measure of the reed, John is therefore bidden to leave out, as
neither in doctrine nor discipline keeping to the word, nor unto the primitive
pattern, but utterly swerving from it, as the church of Rome hath done.
And in this state the church continues for 1260 years; the Gentiles having
that time allowed them to tread down the holy city. And the state of the
true church all that while is but as of these witnesses in sackcloth. This
interpretation the reverence had to the integrity of the church for the first
400 years did beget; together with that appearance, at first view, that the
outward court should here be said to be given to the Gentiles, to be by them
trodden down, as the holy city is, for forty-two months. Which mistake I
have abundantly removed in the first section, and in the fifth general pre-
mise to this my interpretation.
But further to remove the supposition on which this interpretation of his
is founded : —
1. The sixth trumpet, and the times of it in this vision, are not yet ended
here in this angel's intention. For the angel, after his long discourse of the
occurrences that are to fall under the times of the sixth trumpet, doth then
(when the time of it, according to the series of this vision, did indeed come
to end) say, ver. 14 of this chapter, ' The second woe is past, and the third
Cometh quickly.' And you may observe, that after the expiration of the
134 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaUT II.
time of these woe-woe-trumpets, which are the fifth, sixth, and seventh, such
a closure comes in after each of them, * One woe is past, another comes,' &c.
And thus, after that the times of the fifth trumpet were out, according to
the series of the vision, this closure is added, chap. ix. 12, ' One woe is past,
and behold there come two other woes more.'
Now at the end of the 9th chapter, there is no such close annexed. But
here, chap. xi. 14, when the angel had related the occurrences which are to
fall out in the latter days of the sixth trumpet, — that is, whUst the Turkish
kingdom yet stands, and which shall fall out not long before his fall, — then,
and not before, he brings in that close of the times of that trumpet, ' The
second woe is past, and behold the third cometh quickly.' Which shews,
that either part of the matter and of the woe that goes to make up that
sixth trumpet complete, remained to be uttered by this angel, chap, xi.,
(which when he had declared, he says, ' The second woe is past,') or that,
according to the course of the vision, the time of it was now expired.
And then —
2. The angel takes his oath, chap, x., as yet standing under the times of
the sixth trumpet, and afore" the times of the seventh; and that seventh
trumpet's time yet not come to blow, according to the order of time pre-
sented in this vision. And therefore it is not a mere suspension of the vision
itself until he had begun with or run over all times again, as Mr Mede
would have it ; but its time to blow was in this vision not yet come. This
the very words and phrase of the angel's oath, chap, x., do imply ; when he
says, * In the days of the seventh trumpet, when he shall begin to sound.'
Mark that phrase, the days of the seventh truvipet. It im2)lies that he
speaks according to the compute of vision-time, as I may so caU it ; for
vision being a representation of events, even as a comedy is of stories, ac-
cordingly these visions that succeed each other have a supposed artificial
time that runs along with the representation of those events in these visions,
in their due order, — even as the several seasons of the year are in a prog-
nostication laid forth according to artificial names, (as in an almanac you read
of dog-days and the like,) or even as in a map all countries are represented,
with their several climates or situations, by lines of longitude and latitude,
which have artificial names by geographers given unto them. So from the
6th chapter of this book, hath been represented a map or vision of all times,
and these as successively governed by angels, from whence they have their
names, as seasons have from their planets that govern them, (as the dog-days
in summer, from the dog-star's reign at that time.) So the days of Christ's
kingdom to come are called 'the days of the seventh angel j' and so the
times before it are called the days of the sixth angel, or the sixth trumpet,
under which the Turk reigns. Now then, in that the angel swears, ' time
shaU be no longer but till the days of the seventh angel ;' when he begins
to sound, all shall be finished ; it implies, that according to the course of
time in this vision begun, this time was not yet ended.
To demonstrate this, consider —
1. That those words, 'Time shall be no longer but till the days of the
seventh angel,' do imply a long series of time already past in the visions of
the former angels, and time hitherto brought down ; and so he must needs
speak this in a respect to vision or representative time, as I may so call it,
which he, as an actor coming in his due jjlace and order, stood under. And
accordingly, likewise he must be supposed to speak unto John as a sjiectator
brought to the last stadium or scene of time. And therefore he speaks as
* In the original edition it is after, which I have ventured to alter to a/ore.— Ed.
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the revelation. 135
taking it for granted that there was some time yet left, according to the
series of this vision ; and yet no more but until the days of the seventh
trumpet, which was next to come upon the stage. And so the angel must
be supposed to speak those words as yet standing under the days of the
sixth trumpet, as yet not ended, but as having some time still to come. For
should he be supposed to begin again aloft at the top of time, and so to
bring John thither, as having ended the former prophecy ; and then, with a
new vision, to begin to run over all time again ; he should, in the same
speech, take in two several accounts of time at once. For whilst he says, ' time'
(or delay) ' shall be no longer,' (which imports that whole space of time
under the former trumpets, from the age wherein John lived, to be past and
off the stage already,) in respect thereto he must be supposed then to stand
under the sixth trumpet, as viewing all that time gone over. But in the
following words, when he says, ' but in the days of the seventh trumpet,
when he shall begin to blow,' he should speak as taking all time afore him
anew, and as beginning all time again, according to this opinion. And it
"were strange if in the same sentence two speeches should bear such differ-
ing dates.
2. Those words, ' But in the days of the seventh angel, when he shall
begin to sound,' do also argue this. For —
(1.) He says not to John, The vision of that angel, and his sounding, I will
not give thee now, John, uhicli yet should now in order follow; but he
says. The days of his sounding (as speaking of vision-time) are yet to begin.
* When the angel,' says he, ' shall begin to sound ;' as manifestly noting the
time of sounding, according to the order of representative time in the vision,
not }^et to be actually come to be presented ; and not the vision only sus-
pended unto John. And —
(2.) When he said, chap. xi. 14, that 'the second woe is past,' he adds,
* Behold, the tliird woe cometh quickly;' as noting yet some space of time
between this and the seventh trumpet to come, as between the sixth vial
and the seventh there is to be. So that the vision is not suspended only;
but really, according to the series of this prophecy, it still wen', on, and this
seventh was to follow. And —
(3.) Accordingly, when in the 11th chapter the seventh trumpet doth
indeed sound, there is a voice heard — in answer, as it were, unto what the
angel had said, chap, x., that ' delay should be no longer' — that 'now that
time is come,' &c. He had said it should be no longer than till then ; and
now, when it sounds, the voice says, that ' time is come.' So that then, and
not till then, according to the series of this vision, was the time of the sound-
ing of it. And all this argues the vision of this 11th chapter, and the occur-
rences of it, to be a supplement or addition to come in towards the end of
the sixth trumpet, and not to begin again at the top of time. So that rather,
I take it, he still speaks all in this 11th chapter, as standing in the last days
of the sixth trumpet, the times whereof are not ended ; and so mentions
such occurrences as shall fall out in the latter times of it, in which John and
he do stand, as hath been shewn. And —
Secondly, for that other thing supposed, — namely, Mr Mede's making
the first four hundred years until Antichrist's rising to be the temple mea^
sured, as so long agreeing with the reed, and so continuing as an exact
pattern for churches, and so intended in this measuring, — I say two things : —
1. If the meaning should be that these primitive churches are therefore
measured, that they might be held forth as a pattern to churches afterwards,
as is intimated in his quoting Ezek. xliii. 10, 11, and applying it to this
136 AN rxrosiTiON of the revfxation, [Part II.
measuring in such a sense only, I cannot imagine, that although a just and
a due reverence is to be given to those times, that yet Christ would ever
impart such an honour to any church not purely apostolical, as to make
them the pattern for worship and doctrine, which is honour due only to the
word, and unto those churches extant in the very times of the apostles, only
so far as they kept those ordinances in which the apostles settled them; so
1 Cor. xi. 2, 22. Otherwise the apostle pulls down the pride of that Corin-
thian, and of all other churches, for arrogating tliis unto themselves, saying,
* What! came the word of God out from you, or to you only?' chap. xiv. of
that epistle, ver. 36. It is therefore too much to give to those primitive
tunes, esjjecially for the first 400 years. For —
2. Although the doctrine and discipline of the first age in which John
lived, and in which churches were then settled by the apostles, might then
be thus measured to be held forth, and so to serve for a pattern, as we have
the story of it in the word, which on purpose relates the state of those
churches, yet to make such an integrity to extend to those other following ages,
until the very times wherein Antichrist rose, — which in many matters both
of worship and government did so much swerve one age after another still
more and more from the rule, — this were unsafe. For the corruptions which
still did steal in upon the doctrine and worship, in the first 300 years after
the apostles' deaths, were indeed the occasion of the rise of Antichrist, the
mystery of whose iniquity began to work in the apostles' times, and in every
age more than other so prevailed, as that Antichrist arose in the view of the
best churches and fathers, though then undiscerned by them; which, had
they kept that primitive integrity, had been utterly impossible. And there-
fore to reduce our worship, &c., now unto the pattern of the first four or five
hundred years, which is the plausible pretence of our new deformers, is to
bring Popery again in by the same degrees now as it at first crept in by. And
this the devil, who knew the way of introducing it then, to that end crieth
it up now.
For my part, I rest assured that the light which hath broken forth in
many of our reformed churches since Calvin's time, and which still increas-
eth, and shall until Antichrist be consumed, is both in matter of doctrine,
interpretation of Scriptures, worship, church government, &c., much purer,
and might be taken for a truer measure, than what shines in the story and
writings of those three latter primitive ages. But yet it were too much to
attribute that to it which this opinion puts upon the light of those primitive
times. But all that I have said in my foregone exposition is, that now in
this age, light coming in, and discovering how fiir the constitution of
churches in their outward government, &c., hath swerved from the true
pattern, therefore John is set at work afresh to measure it. Which use of
the phrase is very proper, as implying only a reformation and restitution of
the church attempted, after a swerving from the rule. In which sense Beza
and other interpreters understand it, without any arrogation to these times.
And —
3. For his making the outward court to represent the church's state as in
order of time succeeding this temple of the primitive times, I only say this,
that it seems to me that these two, the temple and the outward court, are
represented as rather existing together and contemporaneous, the one being
bid to be measured, and the other to be cast out, at one and the same time,
as being not capable of the true measure. And the contrary opinion would
make no churches erected according to the pattern in this Reformation, since
Luther and Calvin, but still to remain, as it were, hidden under Popery as
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the uevklation. 137
an outward court until Antichrist's times arc fully out. Whereas churches
are, and have been, long since erected, and that as exactly according to the
pattern as any we read of, the apostles' age only excepted. And then —
4. For that other supposition, that the 11th chapter should be a com-
pendium of all times from John's age unto the seventh trumpet, so to shew
the synchronising of two prophecies, I say —
(1.) It were strange that in a compendium one particular passage (of the
killing of the witnesses) should be insisted upon more largely than all the
rest, and take up the half of that discourse, as from ver. 7 to 14 this does ;
and that such a j)assage or occurrence as this, that is not mentioned in the
large prophecy that follows, whereof this should be the compendium and
argument, should yet come in here by itself; would it not rather argue that
the angel here did chiefly intend to give some special occurrence, which
should go before the seventh trumpet in the church of the age that preceded
it, as a sign of its approach 1
(2.) It is true, indeed, that one end of this angel's coming down was to
shew what was the time and period of the fourth monarchy, under that last
head the Pope, whose time and continuance Daniel had mentioned but in-
definitely. But yet his purpose was to make mention, and but a mention,
of no more times than simply those 1 2G0 years of the last head, which were
enough to interpret Daniel, which was his scope, and not explicitly to ascend
to the whole time of the Revelation. And then his annexing to that com-
putation such occurrences belonging to the book-prophecy as should fall out
at the ending of that time, and his subjoining the expiring of the sixth
trumpet, which belongs to the seal-prophecy, it being the passing away of
the second woe, ver. 14, presently upon the ending of these occurrences;
this serveth sufficiently enough to shew the connexion of all times in both
prophecies, and more clearly than that other way of Mr Mede's.
There is but one objection, both against this way of mine, and that makes
most for that opinion of his, that I know of; and that is, that, chap, x., John
eating a little book which contains a new prophecy, and therefore, ver. 12,
he says he must prophecy again ; hence, therefore, it follows that the seal-
prophecy must be supposed ended, and so this 1 1th chapter to contain a
new prophecy from the beginning.
To which I answer, that the angel's coming down now towards the end
of the old prophecy had a double scope ; the one to give a new prophecy,
the other to give an exact computation of the times of both prophecies, him-
self as yet standing in the end of those times of the one prophecy, and being
shortly to enter into the other; and so withal intending to give a signal of
the ending of those times for the church's warning. Which occurrences that
were to be the signs, because they were passages belonging to the book-pro-
phecy, as being the fates of the reformed churches in the days before the
Pope's ruin, which are matters belonging to the book-prophecy; hence it is
necessary that John should now first eat that little book, the story of which
was entirely to begin at the 12th chapter, that so thereby h.^ might be, as
it were, enabled to conceive of these passages related, chap, xi, they being
such as belonged to that book- prophecy. For John had not yet seen the beast
ascending out of the bottomless pit, who is mentioned, ver. 7, nor heard of
the witnesses and their vials; but by eating that little book now was signi-
fied to him that therein was contained the vision of these things which these
passages here related did concern. And besides this, there was likewise
signified unto him thereby, that now in the last days of the sixth trumpet
the book was open, as Daniel says.
135 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT IL
But for a more fiill answer to be added to these, take in that fifth pre-
cognition, or premised consideration, which in the beginning of this exposi-
tion of chap. xi. I laid down beforehand, tending to the opening of it.
I might do the like by the interpretations of Mr Brightman and Mr
Forbes; who, though they make the measuriug to signify and represent the
godly's discerning the difference between the temple, the true church, and
the outward court, the Popish and false church, in these latter days of the
first Keformation ; yet so as they make the outward court here to be the
outward face of the Popish church, the seat and name of which they pos-
sessed, and the temple to be the church of God in all ages hid under Popery,
as the temple was, within the outward court, and for many ages not discerned ;
whilst the Popish church, possessing the outward court, stood only outward
to the eye, and held the name and face of the church, but became now to be
discerned or measured by the reed of the word; which is, say they, the
measuring here. So that they make the church, in these anterior times
under Popery, to be the temple, and the outward face of the church all that
while to be the outward court. And having placed this temple and out-
ward court in the first days of Antichrist, and this measuring of the temple
thus high, even from the dawning of the gospel so long since, they accord-
ingly go on to make the following occurrences of this chapter to be all
already fulfilled.
The 1260 days of the witnesses, — which they would have to be the two
testaments, — their ' j^^ophecy in sackcloth,' they make to be expired, and
their slaughter past, in that councU of Trent, coincident with the Smalkaldic
war in 1547, or thereabouts. After which there was in Germany a restora-
tion of the gospel, after ' three years and a-half ;' where the ' tenth part of
the city' fell off again from Popery. After which the seventh trumpet
sounded, say they, when these northern kingdoms settledly embraced the
gospel, and became the kingdoms of Jesus Christ; where, that he may for
ever reign, without any recovery again by the beast, I say Amen, as Jere-
miah did.
But this interpretation I cannot assent to; for, as we shall see afterward,
this killing the \Adtnesses, and the passing away of the second woe, or the
Turkish dominion, together with the soundmg of the seventh trumpet, are
aU yet to come.
And for their making the temj^le measured to be the company of elect
past through all the ages until then, but now in the beginning of the gospel
discovered, these things are against it : —
1. The visions of this book are still of things present or to come, and not
of things past. And therefore this seems much rather to note out the pre-
sent state of the temple, existing as then unto John, under some of the times
of the sixth trumpet, than a discerning what was past and gone before that
time.
2. The condition of the true worshippers, whilst hidden in those anterior
times of Popery until the Eeformation, are rather represented in chap xiv. —
which chapter summarily contains the several faces and conditions of the
church through Antichrist's reign, as the 13th chapter doth the state of
Antichrist during that time — to be as a company of a hundred and forty-
four thousand upon Mount Zion, whereon as yet a temple was not built : and
so distinguished from them under the times of the Reformation, when only
we cume to have the first mention of the temple, ver. 15, 17, and of the
altar, ver. 18; therein alluding, as it seems to me, unto the state of the holy
city, wherein, until Solomon's time, there was not a temple built, though in
Chap. IV.] an exposition of the kevelation. 139
David's time that mount was by the Jews inhabited. So nor was this virgin
company as yet formed up into a distinct temple and altar of worship dis-
tinct from the Popish, in any eminent manner, but rather lay scattered in
the Popish churches, and were hidden among them, although they were not
of them. But now, in the Reformation, they began to be built up into a
temple apart, and to set up an altar distinct from that of these Samaritans.
And then —
3. To make the measuring this temple to be an after-sight, or discerning
of them, does not enough fill up the meaning of that phrase, though that be
connotated and implied in it; which we find elsewhere used, as Ezek. xlui.
11, for drawing a platform of God's house, and the ordmances thereof, to
keep them, and put them in practice ; or else for building and finishing an
edifice, as Zech. ii. 2, 4, compared, and Zech. iv. 9, 10. "VVliich must there-
fore rather respect a temple as in these times existing and in being, or to
be built and finished, than a temple in ages past, and but now discovered.
And—
4. These opposite negative words, ' Measure not, but leave out the out-
ward court,' do import a real act of rejection put in execution, and, in fact,
done towards that outward court as then existing, and not merely a disco-
very or judging them only to have been but an outward court in ages past.
They do imply an act of leaving them out in that building that was now
erecting, as being such whose form and frame was not for this building, nor
capable of that measure which was now to be applied.
AU these things argue to me, that this vision and work appointed John
here respected not anterior times, but the face of that church the times
whereof he then stood in, and the work of that age about it. Whereas,
according to their interpretation, the outward court must have existed at the
beginning of the times of Antichrist ; for they suppose the outward court —
that is, the face of the church — possessed by Antichrist forty-two months,
even from the beginning.
There is a third interpretation, which to me seems more probable than
either of these, and which I exclude not in this of mine ; and that is, that this
measuring the temple, &c., should be that first reformation and erecting of
churches, with that separation made from Popery by our worthies, they cast-
ing out that catholic Eomish church as not agreeing with the rule. And so
that reformation and separation falling out together with, or not long after,
the Turks' possessing the eastern empire, which is the sixth trumpet, chap, ix.,
this 11th chapter, beginning with that reformation of the church, should
thereby orderly continue the story of the sixth trumpet, without any chasma
or void space of time between the 9th and 11th chapters. Whereas, to draw
it down to our time, leaves an interim or vacuity of a hundred years.
But—
1. I conceive the scope of the angel here not to be so much to make up a
complete story continued to the other, chap. ix. For the former story of the
trumpets having contained only the fates of the empire, it therefore suited
not his scope to annex this reformation of the church thereunto, as any ho-
mogeneal part of one continued story, although in time immediately succeed-
ing it. For that more properly belonged to the book-prophecy that follows,
and is at large set forth, chap, xiv.-xvi. But his scope seems rather to be
to give a computation of the times of Antichrist, and a signal of their end-
ing, by the occurrences of the age just before, singling out to that end such
particular passages, that otherwise belonged to the book-prophecy, about the
church in that last age as should be most eminent, and likewise designatory
140 ' AN EXPOSITION OP THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
of the ending of those times, being such also as should fall out before the
expiring of the sixth trumj^et or second woe.
And if these occurrences have any affinity with the sixth trumpet, it rather
lies in this, that whereas the fifth and sixth trumpets had contained two woes
on the Christian world in the east, for their idolatry, from the Turks and
Saracens, this contains a like woe on the churches of the reformation in the
west, by the Papists overrunning their outward court, as a punishment of
their carnal gospelling. Which, added to those woes brought upon those
Grecian churches by the Turks, should make the woe of the sixth trumpet
complete. And so the treading the wine-press without the city, (in Ger-
many,) chap, xiv., should be reduced to the sixth trumj^et, as a part of it,
rather than to any of the vials. The vials being upon the Turk and Pope
only, but these other woes upon those other professors of Christ and his
name, after a fleshly way, both Grecians and Protestants ; the one by the
Turk, chap, ix., the other by the Papists here in this 11th chapter. And
then —
2. The main eminent business of the first reformers from Popery being
chiefly about matters of doctrine corrupted by the Papists, and about the
idolatries of Rome, therefore both in chap, xiv., in the voices of those three
angels, and in chap, xv., in their song there, matters of doctrine only are
mentioned. And though they laid the foundation of the building of all
churches, yet that was not to hyhv, that very work unto which they did so
specially attend. It was not so much the right measuring and constitution
of churches, and of the materials of them ; as here that is made the main
thing intended, even to measure the temple, altar, &c., and indeed is, and
hath been eminently and pecuUarly the work in hand now in this last age.
3. Let it be considered that the Popish party in this allusion cannot so
properly be called the outward court, but they are rather intended by Gen-
tiles here ; and so the outward court must note out that third sort of wor-
shippers between these Gentiles and the templers, as I before shewed.
And—
4. This being that exceeding great error and defect laid in the founda-
tion of the churches of the first Pteformation, especially in our British
churches, — namely, the adjoining this outward court of carnal and unregene-
rate Protestants, and receiving them from the first into the temple, worship,
and communion of all ordinances ; so that the bounds of the church were
extended as far as the bounds of the commonwealth ; which was done out
of human prudence, suddenly to greaten the party against the Gentiles in
the city : that as the earth helps the woman, chap. xiL, so this, as an out-
ward court, might round about shield the true temple and worshippers in it
against the beast. And then, on the other side, this being, in this new-begun
and second reformation of these churches, the main fundamental principle
which is here mentioned, of receiving none into churches but only such
worshippers as the reed, or light of the word, so far as it gives rules to judge
others by, applied by the judgment or men, who yet may err, shall discover
to be truly saints, (which belongs to another dispute ;) and this vision falling
out in, and as belonging to, the times of this latter age, and being purposely
intended, as it were, to amend and correct that very error : hence it seems
most property to belong to this work of a second refoi-mation.
Yet, because that was a true measuring, and this but the finishing of that
building whereof their hands had laid the foundation, and like Zerubbabel's
finishing the temple ; therefore I verily think the Holy Ghost had an aim at
both, as unto two several gradual accomplishments of it. For this I per-
Chap. IV.l an exposition of the revelation. 141
ceive in almost all prophecies: that there are several accomplishments which
the Holy Ghost hath in his eye, yet so as he fixeth upon one, and usually
the last of them, as the main intended. For which I could brmg many lu-
stanccs : of which one I shall hereafter give. And that he might have such
a double aspect iu this, I shaU shew when I come to the kilhug of the
witnessed.
142 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
CHAPTER V.
The exposition of the Wth chapter continued. — The description of the
witnesses, ver. 3-6.
Section I.
Some things in general premised. — The division of the particular acts
ascribed to them: with the order and time of each.
Now I come to the angel's discourse concerning the 'two witnesses;' who
are the holy people, whose power is at last to be scattered. The description
of whom is set down, to make way for the relation of that their scattering.
Two things, as was said, are here related about them : —
1. The description of their condition and of their power, ver. 3-6.
2. The last scattering of them, and of this their power.
I. For their description, which the angel makes, to the end that John
might know whom he spake of, who were at last to be thus killed; he de-
scribes them as throughout all ages they had opposed Antichrist : which he
doth upon that occasion that he had for to mention their whole time. But
especially he sets them out by what in their latter times, the age immedi-
ately foregoing this their killing, they should have power to oppose the beast
in; and yet, how that after all he should prevail against them. So that
there is this use and end of this so large a description of them, ver. 3-6,
that the time of this their last killing might be more evidently discerned,
when it was to come; namely, after they should have done thus and thus
against the beast and his company, — to wit, set up a temple, and poured
out four vials, — and when they should be come to one of the highest plagues,
even ' to devour them with fire,' which is the fourth vial, that then their
enemies should prevail against them.
Now this description of them is absolved many and several ways : as —
1. By their office; they are witnesses and prophets.
(1.) Witnesses, as being in all ages to testify against Antichrist; but espe-
cially now at last.
(2.) Prophets, as being to prophesy, and thereby to feed the church, whilst
in the wilderness, the same term of 1260 years; as you have it chap. xii. 6,
where it is said that ' they ' — that is, these prophets and witnesses — ' shall
feed her,' &c.
2. They are set out by their condition, which is in sackcloth and mourn-
ing; whilst the Pope and his clergy are in their silk triumphing.
3. By their number; they are two. For —
(1.) £i/ the mouth of tivo witnesses (at least) every word is to be established.
And—
(2.) They are two, in allusion to those famous pairs or couples, for by
couples they have still gone, in the Old Testament, living in the like times;
Chap. V.] an exposition of the revelation. 143
and which were fit types of these times of Antichrist, and the church's state
therein, in the various progress of it throughout all ages of Antichrist's
reigu.
The couples were these : —
1. Moses and Aaron, prophets to the church in Egypt, and in the wilder-
ness.
2. Elias and Elisha, prophets to Israel in Ahab's time, wherein idolatry
prevailed, and no face of a church was seen, and but seven thousand hid in
corners that were godly.
3. Zerubbabel and Joshua, prophets in the days of the finishing the
temple, after the people were come forth from Babylon's captivity.
And that to these three pairs the allusion is here made, is manifest.
1. To !Moses and Aaron : for —
(1.) These execute Egypt's plagues, ver. 6, like as they did.
(2.) They * devour men with fire,' ver. 5 ; as Moses did twice by his gain-
sayers in the wilderness.
2. To Elias and Elisha ; for as they shut up heaven, that it rained not,
so these here do the like, ver. 6.
3. To Joshua and Zerubbabel ; for therefore, in ver. 4, these are called the
' two olive-trees,' and ' candlesticks,' that began and finished the temple after
the captivity.
Now, out of this allusion made to such persons, you may in the general
observe, that they are eminent both as ministers and magistrates, for such
were all these types in their times, who especially are here intended, under
the notion of two witnesses. And thus we have had the description of their
quality, office, condition, and number.
Then further, they are set forth to us by their several exploits, which they
are to perform and execute during the whole time of their prophecy. And
these are particularly related in each verse following. Which before I ex-
plain particularly, let me premise this in the general to your notice about
them : That the angel doth enumerate them, and order his recital of them,
so as to draw our eyes unto two of these exploits or facts especially, as being
the more eminent, and as those which were nearest to the times of this last
age, wherein John measured the temple. And these are —
1. Their devouring their enemies with fire, which is mentioned, ver. 5.
And—
2. Their being two olive-trees, &c., ver. 4.
Which two are first mentioned, and set in the first view, as being such as
did set forth these witnesses according to what they should be in this latter
age. And to confirm this, you may observe —
1. That those words in the 5th verse, ' If any man hurt them, fire comes
out of their mouths,' &c., have indeed a direct reference to those words, ver.
3, ' And I will give to my two witnesses,' &c. ; so that it is as if he had said,
' I will give to my two witnesses power, that if any man hurt them, fire
.shall come out of their mouths,' &c. And the particle xa/' — and I will give,
(fee. — is there, ver. 3, adversatively put for hut ; as noting out that special
opposition that these witnesses should have power to make against the
Gentiles that should enter upon their outward court. ' But,' says he, ' I
will give to my two witnesses power, that if any man hurt them,' <fec. To
this I say, do these words, ' and I will give,' ver. 3, refer, as well as to those
other words, 'they shall prophesy,' (fee, which follow in the 3d verse, as Pis-
cator also observes. That whereas he had said three things in the 1st and
2d verses : as —
Hi AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVKLATION. [PaET IL
(1.) That tie temple was to be measured and finished in this latter age, by
the godly in it, whose person John sustains ;
(2.) That their outward court, which fenced the temple and witnesses, was
to be regained by the Papists, and trodden down ; and —
(3.) That the Gentiles' whole time of reigning, upon this occasion mentioned,
was to expire : —
Answerably and oppositely, as xai is taken, he says three things of these
witnesses : as —
(1.) That the same space of time that the Gentiles are to have to reign
in, the same these have, even as many, to prophesy in, and shall be enabled
to oppose them all that while. The witnesses are to have their twelve hun-
dred and sixty days, for the Gentiles' forty-two months ; so ver. 3. And —
(2.) Whereas this temple was in his latter age to be begun to be mea-
sured, but that work is interrupted and hindered by this assault and inva-
sion made by these Gentiles upon this outward court and temple ; yet
these witnesses shall be as those ' two olive-trees,' ver. 4, ' that minister
before the Lord of the whole earth,' whose power is engaged in that work.
And thus they are called, to signify that as Joshua and Zerubbabel then, —
who were called two olive-trees in that vision, Zech. iv., in respect that they
were to perform the like work of finishing the temple, against all opposition
made, — so should these two witnesses now complete the finishing of this
temple measured, notwithstanding this interruption by the Gentiles' invasion
of the temple and outward court. And so this is oppositely spoken to that
second thing said of the Gentiles. And —
(3.) Although these Gentiles in their subduing the outward court do
much hurt to the witnesses, who shall oppose them in this their assault
upon it and the temple, yet they again shall be able to avenge all the hurt
done to themselves, by fire returned upon their enemies, and spit out of
their mouths against them, whilst they are thus endeavouring to regain the
outward court from them. And this is the first thing in general to be ob-
served. Now — ■
2. To the same purpose j'ou may observe, that this power given them to
hurt their enemies is spoken of as a matter of fact, done at that present
time, and in the age wherein John in the vision stands, bearing the persons
of the godly who were to measure this temple. Yea, and that this is spoken
of as an encouragement to that work, that ' if any man will hurt them, fire
comes out of their mouths.' But now —
3. On the other side, it may be observed, that whatever else is said of
their power in the 6th verse, besides these two things in the 4th and 5th
verses, is broiight in merely as a thing added for illustration's sake, to shew
what power besides this they have in their days formerly exercised. As
thus, ' These have power in the days of their prophecy,' &,c., ver. 6. But the
prime and eminent thing which is first mentioned is that their devouring
their enemies with fire ; which is plainly the fourth vial, mentioned next the
measuring the temple, as conjunct with it. And again —
4. This exploit of theirs hath an emphasis set upon it also, ver. 5, ' In
this manner he,' speaking of Mm that shall hurt them, ' must be killed,' as
noting the greatest plague which these witnesses could execute, and that
which so vexeth and tormenteth their enemies, as ver. 10 hath it, and so
scorcheth them, as the fourth vial expresseth it, that they are thereby pro-
voked to kill them for it, and so to rejoice over them chiefly in this very
respect, as ver. 10 tells us. Yea —
5. These four plagues being plainly the four first vials, you may observe,
CiIAP. V.J AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVBLATION. 145
that they are here mentioned online inverso, in a clean contrary order from
what they arc ranked in, chap. xvi. For the fourth vial of fire, which in
chap. xvi. is made last in execution, is yet here ranked first ; and that vial
on the earth which is first there, is mentioned last here ; merely to shew
that this of lire was that which belonged to the i)rcsent times of this chapter,
and the visions of it, namely, when the temple is measured, and also as
that which was mainly intended, — and the other to come in only for illustra-
tion's sake, to shew more fully who these witnesses were, even the same that
the pourers forth of those vials.
Section II.
The acts of the witnesses : first, in the darkest times of Popery, withholding
the rain, what ? — next, in the times of separation from Popery, in the
three first vials, ver. 6.
This being premised, to the end that you might know what times to refer
these unto, I come now particularly to ex^ilain these several exploits here
against their enemies, and that great service they do for God all this long
time of their prophecy. Which serviceable acts of theirs have a double
aspect : —
1. Towards their enemies.
2. Towards the temple, the church of God.
Or they may be divided, according to the several times in which these
services were performed. As —
1. What in this last age they were to do before their killing, and now
when the temple is measured, and the outward court to be trodden down ;
and this in the 4th and 5th verses. And —
2. What in the former ages of their prophecy they had also done ; which
is laid down ver. 6,
And this division you wdll here see to fall in according to that division
which I made of these times, chap, xiv., and in the vials.
For the first, what they did to their enemies. And —
1. What they did against them in the days foregoing this latter age,
wherem John is supposed to stand. Which acts of theirs are set forth in
the sixth verse.
(1.) And those were either done in those first times of all, even in the
darkest times of Popery, when the hiindred and forty-four thousand stood
on Mount Zion without a temple, and when idolatry overspread the world,
chap. xiv. 1-6. Then these witnesses did ' shut heaven, that it rained
not ;' which in the allusion refers to the times of Ahab, as the fittest type
of these first times. For that exploit carries us unto what Elias then in
like manner did, when he brought that curse on the land for their idolatry,
that it rained not. When also the church was so small, that Elias thought
himself alone ; and when Ahab and his priests of Baal — that is, the Pope
and his mass-priests — ruled all the world. But hereby is signiiied, that then
these prophets had this privilege, to have true grace only, and the dews and
influence of heaven to come down upon themselves, to have a truth of doc-
trine among them to save them ; which fell not into the knowledge and
hearts of these priests of Baal. You heard, chap. xiv. 3, that they had a
pecuUar song unto themselves, which none else could learn. Now all these
dews of grace and saving doctrine were restrained and withheld from those
idolaters, as a just curse upon them for their apostasy. Or —
(2.) In the times succeeding next to these first times ; that is, from and
VOL. IIL K
146 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
after the times of their separation from Popery, and upon their coming out
of that Egypt. Then, as Moses and Aaron, they execute the like plagues to
those of theirs on Egypt, even the three first vials, which are therefore also
mentioned in this Gth verse; for which I refer you to the IGth chapter.
And these are the days of that separation of churches from Antichrist, and
first reformation, set forth in the 14th chapter.
Section III.
The acts of the witnesses in this their last age of prophecy. And, first, their
devouring with fire, ver. 5, ivhat ? The allusion thereof unto Moses's
destroying Nadah and KoraKs company with fire, applied.
But then —
2. In their last days of all, towards the time of this new reformation
of the temple, and before this their killing to come, they pour out the
fourth vial in scorching and devouring their enemies with fire, as ver. 5
shews us. Even as Moses and Aaron, when the church was come out of
Egypt, and in the wilderness, devoured Nadab with fire, Lev. x. 1, 2, and
two hundred and fifty princes in the rebellion of Korah, Num. xvi. 35. And
this devouring their enemies with fire holds not only to those that profess
Popery, but of ' any man that shall hurt them,' though living among them ;
as you have it ver. 5.
Now observe how this type agrees with the face of things in this latter
age. For as when this fell out, Moses had then brought the jDcople out of
Egypt, and had long before begun to set up the tabernacle and other ordi-
nances of worship ; so when falls out the rebellion of these men here de-
voured with fire 1 It is after the church has come out of that spiritual
Egypt where these former plagues were executed, and after that pubUc wor-
ship is erected and set up according to God's appointment in many things ;
that is, after the first great reformation made by Luther, &c. But here
is a company of rebels that rise up against Moses for his endeavouring to
keep to the word in his temple's frame and fabric, and for his calling for this
at the builders' hands.
Observe the quarrel of both those companies then, and of these now.
The first quarrel then was about introducing human inventions in God's
worship, which himself commanded not.
The second was, not only a renewing and continuing that quarrel, but
further, to take away all distinction of persons in worshipjjing.
For the first; (1.) Nadab and Abihu, they offer strange fire — namely, the
common culinary fire, which in God's worship was strange fire — before the
Lord ; which God commanded them not. For by his command, only fire from
the altar should have been offered which originally came down from heaven.
And so the sua for which they were devoured with fire, it was a transgression
in bringing in, or continuing to use, such human inventions in worship as God
had not commanded, and a justifying such to be warrantable. And —
(2.) That other company that clave to Korah, their sin was as their offer-
ing incense, not being true priests, so their quarrelling Moses and Aaron for
putting such a difiference between the people, as making some to be priesta,
(of the tribe of Levi.) and others not. Whenas, say they, ' all the people
are holy;' and therefore 'ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi,' &c.
Seeing every one throughout the whole congregation is holy, and so is as fit
to worship and draw near to God as you, ' wherefore then lift you up your-
selves above the congregation of the Lord V who, they thought, were God's
Chap. V.] an exposition of the revelation. 147
people, and whom he had chosen to draw near unto him. This was the quarrel,
as Moses states it, ver. 5, and unto this sin they added rebellion, ver. 14.
Now, what has been the quarrel, that in England, which I instance most
in, as being best known to us, and in some other reformed churches, wliich
hath since the first Reformation been continued, — of the latter days of which
times, this is especially here understood, for it is the fourth vial, — but about
human inventions ? Which are as that strange fire then which God com-
manded not, which yet are introduced and continued in worship, and by the
most justified against the few witnesses, the pleaders for the commands of
God to be the only rule of worship. And again —
Secondly, for that other, the putting such a difference between men and
men, by the faithful witnesses and prophets, between the holy and the profane;
this hath been another and a greater ground of hot and violent oi)position
against these witnesses. And for this, the latter of the two, as then also it was,
these witnesses have all generally still preached that only those who have
such or such a work of grace upon their hearts, and that do endeavour to walk
thus and thus holily in their lives ; that such only are saints, and the chil-
dren of God. The stream of their ministry in England hath still run in this
channel, thus to distinguish men from men, and to separate the precious
from the vile, and this occasioned from that promiscuous mixture of all sorts.
The chief work and bent of their ministry hath been to mark out whom God
hath chosen, and who only are true priests and worshippers of him in spirit
and truth. And for this, whatever hath otherwise been pretended, have
those of the other side quarrelled, opposed, and silenced them, saying, as
Korah's company, ' Are not all the people holy V Have they not all been
baptized 1 ' You take too much upon you,' you precise ones, out of the
pride of your spirits, to ' lift up yourselves above the congregation of the
Lord.'
Or else the quarrel hath been about God's own election of a few to be
priests unto him, even as then, that God chose the tribe of Levi from the
crowd of common Israelites, ' who are his, and whom he hath chosen ;' as
ver. 5 of Num. xvi. This was the quarrel then ; and these now plead the
cause of all mankind in universal grace and redemption.
All the quarrels between the Popish party, the number of the beast's
name, and the witnesses, are reducible to these two heads : —
(1.) True purity of worship; and, (2.) true holiness, and peculiar election
of worshippers.
And the light in both these things hath in our days grown up so high
and clear, as that many of those who oppose either or both of these do sin
even out of rebellion and presumption in opposing that the truth of which
they are convinced of, as Korah's company did. And so their punishment
riseth to be like to that of Nadab, and those two hundred and fifty of Korah's
conspiracy, even fire from the Lord devouring them ; which is, as was said
in the fourth vial, a spiritual punishment on their souls ; and this is the
effect of the powerful conviction of the word out of the mouths of the wdt-
nesses, who spit fire into their consciences, and begin hell-fire beforehand.
And this very allusion is thus interpreted and applied to that ' fearful expec-
tation of wrath ' which those have in their consciences who ' sin wilfully
against the knowledge of the truth,' and so against the Holy Ghost, Heb.
X. 26, 27.
And, indeed, bring but Paul's exposition there of this very type and ex-
ample of those Israelites then, unto this allusion here made unto it by the
angel ; and that of Paul may clearly expound this of John. The allusion
148 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT IL
there is to those who died by Moses's hand, and that ' without mercy,' for
despising the law which he brought from God to them, and more particu-
larly to those who ' died by fire,' as that phrase, ' the expectation of fiery
indignation to devour the adversaries,' doth shew ; who therein were true
types of those that sin wilfully under the gosj^el, and despise it. They were
types of these, both in their sin and punishment ; for —
1. Their sin is rebellion, as the others' also was. Korah's company, after
Moses's conviction of them, came to a despiteful scorning of Moses, and
doing opprobrium to him for bringing them out of Egypt ; as you may read,
Num. xvi. 13, 14. And such is their sin mentioned, Heb. x. 26, even a
' sinning wilfully, after the receiving of the truth.' And so here in this 11th
of the Revelation, the emj)hasis of their sin is put upon their wills, — ' if any
man will hurt them/ — and again it is repeated, ' if any man will hurt them/
ver. 5. And —
2. As they then were struck dead by God, upon their ' despising Moses's
law/ and conviction of it 'under two or three witnesses,' as Paul inter-
prets it, Heb. X., Moses and Aaron themselves testifying against them, and
convincing them ; so here, the angel adjudgeth them to this notorious
death, for despising the testimony of these two witnesses, and the light of
the gospel in their mouths. — Thus in their sinning they were true t^^jes of
these.
And then, secondly, in their punishment they were their true types also ;
for —
1. A punishment they there have executed on them, of all the sorest,
which Paul calls a ' djing without mercy.' So in that 10th to the Hebrews,
' How much sorer punishment,' says Paul, ' shall he be thought worthy of?'
&c., sorer than that of Nadab and Korah's company there being devoured
with elementary fire ; and indeed so sore, as he knows not how to express
it, but utters it by an imperfect indefinite speech, how much sorer ? rather
leaving it to us, from comparing their sins together, to conceive it, than that
he was able to express it. And in like manner here also, their punishment,
you see, hath this emphasis put upon it, ' in this manner he must be killed ;'
as noting out the extremest punishment that could be.
2. A punishment it is, not so much killing their bodies as their souls.
So in the type, the fire that came forth rather blasted than burned them.
Their bodies and clothes were left whole, Lev. x. 5. It burned and scorched
their souls, not their bodies, say the Hebrew doctors ; and so it was the
liveliest type that could be, to lay a punishment upon their souls. Now
unto such sinners under the gospel doth God answerably become 'a con-
suming fire.' Again —
3. That which here in the Revelation is called fire, is there by Paul
expounded, 'fiery indignation,' and 'a fearful looking for of judgment,' —
namely, in the consciences of those men who sin this sin, — po/Stjri i'x.ho-)rf\
xoidiug, a fearful and certain expectation of judgment, as it is in the origi
nal ; God sealing up, by some flashes of his wrath, these men's eternal dam
nation, who do sin this sin. And this fiery indignation sparkles forth upon
all occasions, from the writings and lives, and from the preachings and testi-
monies of these witnesses' mouths, as this place implies. And —
4. As Paul here useth the word, ' devouring the adversaries ;' so the same
is used of them. Lev. x. 2. And so also here you see the same phrase used,
'devouring their enemies.' In the original the same verb is used in one
place that is in the other ; and the word for enemies used Heb. x. 27 is
uitivayTio-j;, suhcontrarios, underhand adversaries : shewing that not always
Chap, v.] an exposition of the revelation. 119
those that thus sin do presently renounce all profession of God, as the
Pharisees did not ; for then they should not have place and opportunity to
hurt tlic witnesses. So that they profess God still, but do underhand, and
by pretences, oppose his people.
The like to this, we read the effect of the powerful light of the ministry
of John Baptist and of Christ to have been : whose crucifying, as it is
manifestly alluded unto here, in killing the two witnesses, from ver. 7 to
ver. 14 ; so also this effect of his ministry on those Pharisees in those his
times, who were tormented with it, is m the like manner alluded unto here,
in those that were tormented with the light and heat of these witnesses'
prophecy, as ver. 10 of chap, xi, expresseth it, which, chap. xvi. 9, is called
a 'scorching men with great heat and pain.' Now John, and after him
Christ, were ' burning and shining lights,' as Christ spake of John, which
the Pharisees despising, the effect of their ministry upon many of these was
this very sin, and so a tormenting of their consciences with this ' fiery in-
dignation.'
And accordingly, in the prophet Malachi, we have the times of Christ's
ministry, in thit, respect, called a ' terrible day that shall burn as an oven '
those Pharisees' consciences; so Mai iv. 1. And as it was the torment
from Christ's ministry that made these Pharisees crucify him, though know-
ing him to be the Son of God ; so it is the torment of these witnesses'
ministry here, increasing so in light and power under the fourth vial, that
causeth their adversaries to kill them; as, ver. 10 of this 11th chapter, is
expressed.
And thus you have seen the power which they have against and over
their enemies.
Section IV.
Secondly, their temple-work in their last days, in being two olive-trees,
explained ; from the allusion to Joshuas and ZeruhhabeVs finishing the
temple.
But, secondly, their power is also further set out in that temple -work
which they do for Christ and his church in these latter days, especially in
that measuring, building, and finishing the temple, spoken of ver. 1. To
represent which to us, the Holy Ghost hath called and singled out the most
proper and choice type, and the most lively allusion that the Old Testa-
ment doth afford us. ' These,' says he, ' are the two olive-trees, and the
two candlesticks, that minister before the God of the earth.'
Now, where in the Scriptures do we find this spoken, and of whom, and
upon what occasion ? Find but this, and by having recourse thereto, you
will see all things suit and conspire to make up a full type of that work of
this age. You have this vision of two olive-trees and a candlestick made
unto Zechariah, as you may read in the 4th chapter of his prophecy, and
the interpretation thereof. And it is made unto him on this occasion. The
people coming out of Babylon's captivity, Joshua and Zerubbabel had from
their first coming forth begun to sacrifice, and to set up public worship ; and
after two years began the erection of the temple, laid the foundation of it,
and set up the altar, as you may read in the 3d of Ezra; but left the work
imperfect, without the roof covered, or the temple as then adorned with
all those holy utensils and ornaments of it which yet were ordinances that,
to the complement and perfection of his worship then, God had appointed.
And you may further find, that they had then left the temple so incom-
150 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT IL
plete, througli the opposition of a Samaritan faction, that pretended to be
for God as well as they. So, Ezra iv. 2, ' We seek your God,' say they, ' aa
you do.' Who yet were of a mongrel religion, between the Jews and Gentiles ;
as, 2 Kings xviL 41, you may read. And being not taken into this work
of building the temple, nor OT\Tied by the true Jews, they therefore hindered
the people in building, ver. 4, and raised up the opposition of the Persian
monarchy to frustrate their purpose, ver. 5, and made them to cease by force,
ver. 24, 25, and so the work lay imperfect for years, — and yet, notwith-
standing, it was a true temple and place of God's worsliip, — until God
stirred up the prophets Zechariah and Haggai, by their prophecy, to move
Joshua and Zerubbabel unto the finishing of this work, Ezra v. 1.
Now, among other visions which, to excite them to finish the work, the
prophet Zechariah had had, this, in his 4th chapter, of two obve-trees and a
candlestick, into which the olive-trees did empty their oil, was one. The
meaning of which vision was this. The two olive-trees were Joshua and
Zerubbabel, sons of oil, as in ver. 14 they are called. Which phrase notes
out their being fuU of oil; as being those two who should lay out their
grace, gifts, and estates, which was their oil, and spend their fatness, and
use their heartiest endeavours in and for the repairing and finishing the
temple. Which finishing of it is there represented by the candlestick, the
candlestick being one of the most necessary utensils that went to make
complete the glory of the temple ; and so, by a synecdoche, is put for all the
rest. And it bemg one of the last to be brought iiato the temple when
once fully finished, and when the roof is covered, therefore it fitly served to
resemble the finishing of that temple, and the adorning of it with all those
accoutrements and ordinances which God had appointed for the perfection
of it. And hence, in the exposition of this vision in that chapter, is Zerub-
babel presented with a ' plummet in his hand,' and ' a measuring Une,' to
measure this temple to be now fully finished, even as here John is presented
with a reed; and this promise is annexed, that in despite of that mountain
of o^jposition raised by that Samaritan faction, ver. 7, Zerubbabel's hands,
which ' had laid the foundatian of this house,' even ' his hands shall also
finish it;' as you have it, ver. 9.
And all this is made the meaning of that hieroglyphic, there represented,
in a vision of two olive-trees and a candlestick : for, ver. 5, when the angel
said to Zechariah, ' Knowest thou what these be?' that is, Knowest thou
the meaning of this vision? and he said, 'No;' the angel answers, 'This
is the word of the Lord,' namely, his mind in this vision, ' unto Zerub-
babel,' &c. — namely, this which I before recited, about Zerubbabel's and
Joshua's finishing the temple, as you may there read it interpreted by the
angel
Now this is the very type alluded unto here. And how fully suits it all
our former interpretations given of measuring the temple ? The church
having been long since come out of mystical Babylon, hath set up public
worship, and by the authority of princes hath begun the foundation of the
temple ; but hath been hindered from going on to full perfection of disci-
pline intended and endeavoured, through the mixture of a Samaritan party,
by whom they have been still interrupted from attaining that, perfection
which many have contended for. But in the end God stirs up many of the
English spirits, like Joshua and Zerubbabel, to finish what was before left
incomplete, and to begin to make a further and purer edition of churches
according to the pattern. And so they stand in this age with a measuring
line, as Zerubbabel, or a reed, as John here, in their hands ; and, like these
Chap. V.J an exposition of the revelation. l')!
two olive-trees, do empty oil out of themselves irnto this work, endeavouring
to add unto this temple such ordinances as, though to the being of a church
not absolutely necessary, for they were temples before, yet are institutions
of God, and do tend, as the candlestick then did, unto the perfection, beauty,
complement, and glory of it. And though the foundation of this temple,
laid in the first reformation, is in this allusion included, yet the allusion
principally falls upon this finishing of it. For that is the most proper and
peculiar aim of the vision of the olive-trees, as in Zechariah it is presented,
unto which the allusion here is ; the end of Zechariah's prophecy being to
excite unto the finishing of the temple.
These two witnesses the Holy Ghost here calls the olive-trees and the
candlesticks, which are the churches themselves, as chap. i. 20. So that
both eminent persons, and likewise churches themselves, the purest of them,
are the witnesses against the false church that are here spoken of.
But some would carry it thus; that the witnesses are the olive-trees unto
the two candlesticks, the churches; for so in the vision of Zechariah they are
mentioned as pouring oil into the candlesticks. And besides, the copulative
and being in the Hebrew sometimes put for the preposition U7ito, accord-
ing to this Hebraism, Ttal here should be so taken. Ajid the churches now
under the New Testament are called two candlesticks, whereas there in
Zechariah is mention but of one candlestick, because now there is not one
church only, as the Jews then had, but they are multiplied by particular
congregations. There are sister churches now, and not one mother church
only. And you shall sometimes, in the allusions to the temple, find in this
book the proportion doubled to what it then was; to shew the increase of
the gospel, as we observed out of the 4th chapter.
Now this new reformation of the church here typified out, though it be as
yet but as their first attempts to finish the temple then were, even a ' day of
small things,' (which who, almost, despiseth not 1) yet it shall go on and
spread, and at length be perfected, as that work then was. For it is of God,
'the God of the whole earth;' which attribute of his is here mentioned to
shew the power that backs these builders, and to shew that now the work is
not to be effected so much by power and might, — as that finishing the temple
then is said to have been, — but by the Spirit, causing the hearts of the godly
to fall to it. And that Samaritan ' mountain' of opposition, even Eome itself,
that hath stood in the way of it, shall in the end ' become a plain before
it;' as there, Zech. iv. 5-7, that Samaritan faction did before Zerubbabel.
And out of this temple are the vials to come, and to pour out their plagues
upon this false church, as you may read chap. xvi. 1. So that the true
church is still ordained to be the ruin of the false. And ' when that which
is more perfect comes, that which is imperfect will be done away.'
And however the beginning of this work may seem small and contemp-
tible, yet the work itself is of such moment and concernment for God and
his glory, and shall so far go on and prosper, as he is pleased in this book to
take notice of it ; as of any further progress of his church unto purity he still
doth, as in the 14th chapter we have seen. And yet I fear these olive-trees
and candlesticks among us will, as the rest of the churches in Europe, have
their ' power scattered ' ere this building be fully finished. But after this,
they shall revive agaio, and ' grow up into an holy temple unto the Lord,'
from the times of the witnesses' rising, after their being kUled, until the New
Jerusalem, as chap. xix. will shew.
Now, to make the allusion to the condition of Joshua more full, I will
only add this, that as these witnesses are here presented in sackcloth, so is
152 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
Joshua there, in ' filthy apparel,' Zech. iii. 4. And as there he had change
of raiment given him, so after a few years will these witnesses also have the
* garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness,' as Isaiah speaks ; and their
testimony being ended, they shall put off their sackcloth, and put on ' fine
linen,' the wedding apparel of the Lamb's bride, as chap. xix. you have it.
And so in the end, the glory of this temple, set up after Anticlirist's demolish-
ment, will yet be rendered more glorious, as that of Zerubbabel's also was, by
Christ's coming into it. And a holy of holies shall be added unto it, or
rather swallow this up, in which ' the ark shall be seen,' as it is in the last
verse of tliis 11th chapter. But these witnesses must be killed first; which
is the last thing I am to speak of in this chapter.
Chap. \'i.] AN EXPOSITION OF THIS iiliVELATION. 153
CHAPTER VI.
The Icilhng of the zvitnesses, ver. 7-10 of the 11th chapter.
Section I.
The time of their three years and a half not yet come. — A reconciliation of
this and Mr Brightmans opinion, in a double fulfilling of it.
This angel's scope is, as was said, to shew how, according to the angel's oath
in Daniel, Antichrist should ' accomplish to scatter the power of the holy
people,' towards the end of his reign of ' a time, times, and half a time.'
And so, what is here said of the beast's war and victory refers not to the
conquests and slaughters which Antichrist, during his whole reign, should
make of the holy people, or witnesses, spoken of chap. xiii. ; but particularly
designeth out an eminent prevailing over them at the last, or, as the first
words of ver. 7 have it, nrav rO.hcuai, &c., ' when they are about to finish' or
end the term of their prophecy in sackcloth, even their 1260 years ; which is
the same space that Antichrist hath allotted to him to reign in. Now, what
power these holy people, the witnesses, had got before this their last scatter-
ing, hath in their description been declared. They had power to erect a
temple to themselves, and out of it to pour forth four vials upon their ene-
mies, as hath been shewn. And that they might the better fence themselves
against the beast, possessing the greatest part of Europe, the holy city, we
have heard how they had environed the temple wi.th a mighty party of car-
nal professors, separating with them from the beast, as with an outward
court; which, we have seen by ver. 1, the Gentiles are again to subdue unto
themselves and to tread down. Which ' treading down their outward court'
is indeed one part of that his last ' accomplishment to scatter the power of
the holy people,' or haply it may rather be termed a preparation unto it.
For come at the witnesses they could not, till this outward court were gained.
Which, when they shall have more fully won, which is now a-doing, then
they further shall ' kill the witnesses ;' for then both they and their inner
temple will be exposed to the irruptions of the Gentiles, and will be easily
subdued by them, whenas their outworks shall first be thus taken and reco-
vered. And this will not be fully done till even towards the finishing their
allotted time of prophesying in sackcloth, — and so of the beast's reigning,
which is to expire soon after it, — with their ascension into heaven. Now —
I. For the times when this last ' killing ' of them here intended shall come
to execution ; the question among interpreters is, Whether it be yet past or
yet to come 1
Mr Brightman, as was said, maketh this measuring the temple to be long
since fulfilled and past. So also this killing the witnesses here, and the ex-
piration of their time of prophesying in sackcloth, to be already wholly past ;
lO'i AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT IL
and this in that great overthrow of the Protestant party in Germany by
Charles the Fifth, anno 1547, and in that condemning the Scriptures, which
he makes the witnesses, by the Council of Trent about that time, now well-
nigh a hundred years since.
But most others, as Graserus, Matthias Hoe, Mr Mede, Mr Wood, &c., do
think it yet to come. And according to that series of interpretation hitherto
by me given, if that hold good, it must necessarily be as yet to be executed.
And it seems to me most evident, both by what is said to go before it, and
also to follow after it ; of which nothing that is to follow after it is yet ful-
filled, although a hundred years, since the time that Mr Brightman inter-
prets it of. are run out. For —
1. This IS to fall out towards the ending of their prophecy in sackcloth,
or of their mourning and oppressed condition, after which they are to cast
off their sackcloth. As Joshua's filthy garments — who was one of the types
of these — were taken from him, and a 'fair mitre was set upon his head;'
so after their resurrection, these witnesses are to be clothed in ' fine Linen,'
as you may read, chap. xix. Now it is evident that the time of their pro-
jjhesying in sackcloth, of bewailing the condition of the church under Anti-
christ, and of their oppression by him, is not yet out. The filthy garments
they wore during their captivity in Babylon, they still have on; as Joshua
also had his on in Zechariah's time, which was a long while after they were
come forth out of Babylon. So the true witnesses are still in an oppressed
condition, whilst Antichrist's church, and those of their enemies even in the
reformed churches, are as the church- triumphant, in silk, and at their full
liberty.
2. This is here to fall out towards the ending of the reign of Antichrist,
in respect of his ' power to do;' for this is that last scattering, prophesied of
by Daniel, with which he is to accomplish his times. Now we see he hath
his kingdom yet standing, and his power to do; and there are a hundred
years more run on since that havoc made of them by the Papists in Germany,
and yet Antichrist's forty-two months are not expired, we being now but
under the fifth vial. And when the seat or throne of the beast — Rome itseK
• — shall come to be ruined, then shall his kingdom be full of darkness, and
the glory of it so damped and extinguished, as it is thought, that from that
time his reign is accounted of as at an end. And —
3. We see Antichrist as yet but in his first march towards this war; he is
but now going forth to win the outward court, which he must again recover
ere he can come at the witnesses; and this killing of them is placed here,
after his recovery of that. And though he hath trod down Germany, yet he
is but setting up and advancing his engines of assault and battery upon other
such places where God hath the most of his powerful witnesses in these last
times : though already he be evidently set down in his siege of them also,
by his instruments, and those that receive the number of his name, who are
to be his last champions.
4. We evidently see by what is gone before in the description of these wit-
nesses, that four vials of the seven are to be poured out by them before this
their killing. For in the days of their prophecy, they ' smite the earth '
with plagues, which is the first vial ; and turn the ' sea and rivers into
blood,' which is the second and third vial ; and then ' devour men with fire,'
which is the fourth. And then after all these exploits of theirs, comes their
killing. So that this falls out after, or under, the fourth vial. But that
slaughter a hundred years since was but under the second Adal, and indeed
but in the beginning of that vial; and we as yet see not the full effect of the
Chap. VI.] an exposition of the uevelation. 155
fourth vial, which is but now a-pouring forth. And therefore this killing of
the witnesses here is not as yet fulfilled.
5. After their rising again, the * second woe ' is said to * pass away.' Now
that second woe is the sixth trumpet, which then is said to pass away when
the times of it are expired, or the foundation of its ruin laid. And that
sixth trumpet is, as hath been said, the Turk, and his great power and
tyranny. Whose kingdom we see yet to stand in its full vigour and flourish,
and no fundamental blow of weakening given to it.
6. Much less is the seventh trumpet begun to be blown, which yet is to
* come quickly ' after the sixth, as you have it ver. 1 4. For although Jesus
Christ, in these northern kingdoms, hath been assisted in that his harvest of
his elect since the Reformation, by supreme and princely authority; and
therefore, chap, xiv., that peaceable harvest was reaped by an angel crowned;
yet —
(1.) The kingdoms of the world becoming Christ's, for him to reign for ever,
and this at the beginning of this seventh trumpet, his kingdom then shall
be another manner of one than as yet he hath had ; even that fifth monarchy
which is mentioned in Dan. vii. 14, and is to begin at the end of the days
of the beast. And, if you mark the words, this shall be a kingdom that
shall not be administered by deputies, and by a delegated power; but by
Christ the king's immediate rule and government: 'Thou hast taken to
thyself thy great power, and hast reigned,' &c., ver. 17. And —
(2.) When that seventh trumpet shall begin to sound, ' then,' as chap, x.,
* shall that mystery be fulfilled spoken of by the prophets,' and which Paul
calls a mystery, Rom. xi., even the ' New Jerusalem,' and ' kingdom of the
saints,' and the 'first resurrection,' as appears by ver. 15-17 of this chapter,
compared with chap, xx., xxi., &c. But now since that resurrection of the
witnesses, which Mr Brightman would have this to be, is almost a hundred
years, and yet none of these things are begun, nor as yet to begin.
(3.) The seventh trumpet, and the last vial, as hath been often said, do fall
out together; or rather, the last vial begins the seventh trumpet, as the last
verse of this 11th chapter, compared with the seventh vial, chap, xvi., doth
shew; for there are the same thunderings, hail, &c., in them both. Now we
are yet but under the fourth vial, and so very far off from the last.
Yet I will add this, which may reconcile that opinion of Mr Brightman
with this other, and haply serve in the closure of all to give some small
further hint about the time of the last vial's fulfilling, and so concerning the
expiring of times before mentioned.
As I said before, about the measuring the temple, that the angel might
have an aim, both at that first laying the foundation of true churches, and
also at this second reformation now in hand, and take both in his view at
once, they both being degrees of the same work; yet so as ultimately he
looks unto the latter, as the special intendment of this place, though the
other were in itself infinitely far the greater work : so I conjecture that he
might take in two killings of these witnesses, which should follow after, or
it may be, accompany both those measurings; the one at or after that
foundation laid, the other at or upon the finishing to be begun, and so
ordered that the first should be a foregoing resemblance of this other to suc-
ceed. Yet so as his ultimate aim and scope still should be at a latter kill-
ing of them, which is yet to come.
I have observed it in many instances, which I could produce, that many
prophecies in Scripture have had two several gradual accomplishments,
whereof both the one and the other are intended by the Holy Ghost; yet so
15() AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT XL
as the latter is usually more emiuently intended, and the first sometimes in-
tended as a foregoing type of that which is to follow. You may observe
many passages quoted out of the prophets, and applied by the apostles in
the New Testament unto the times of the gospel, as being then fulfilled,
which yet had a gradual accomplishment under the Old Testament, in the
times after the captivity of Babylon. So that the Holy Ghost aimed at both.
Thus the 9th verse of the 1st chapter of Isaiah is quoted by Paul, liom. ix.,
and applied unto the gospel times.
Yea, and you shall sometimes find the same prophecy even under the Old
Testament fulfilled over and over ; and so to have two several intended ac-
comjjlishments. For instance, I will give one which some learned men have
fallen upon, although I find others do dissent from them in it. And I rather
pitch upon it, because it is proper to the thing in hand; for it is made the
type of this measuring the temple. It is that prophecy of rebuilding the
temple after the seventy years' captivity in Babylon ; which, as some think,
had a double accomplishment aimed at. And as there were two eminent
leadings into captivity, the one of Jechoniah, the other of Zedekiah, when the
city was destroyed ; so, according to learned chronologers and best interpre-
ters, I find a double reckoning of the seventy years, and of the building
again of the temple : some reckoning from that captivity of Jechoniah, in the
first year of Nebuchadnezzar ; some from that of Zedekiah, in the nineteenth
year of Nebuchadnezzar, as the Jesuits Sanctius and Ribera do affirm. I will
not meddle with the dispute about it ; but that God kept a double reckoning
of that seventy years, in respect to a double gradual accomplishment, to me
seems evident. For Ezekiel begins the captivity from that carrying away of
Jechoniah, Ezek. i. 2, 3; -and the prophet Jeremiah, in the 29th chapter of
his prophecy, ver. 10, comforts those that were carried away with Jechoniah
with this, that after seventy years God will visit them, &c. Now one seventy
years was ended, when Cyrus gave leave to lay the foundation of the temple,
as reckoning from the first captivity. And yet after this, in Zechariah's
time, when the temple was to be again measured and finished, there is an-
other seventy years said to be ended ; as the time wherein this temple, which
hitherto had lain imperfect, was to be perfected. This you may see by Zech.
i 12, 16, compared. For there the final ending of the seventy years i?
made the foundation of the last work of perfecting the temple, and God's
returning in mercy, according to his promise, for to do it. So that a double
captivity, and a double seventy years, ending in a double work, the one of
laying the foundation, the other of finishing the temple, seem to have been
in the Holy Ghost's eye.
Now why may it not be so, even in this also, that the computation of the
beast's reign, and the church's, coming out of Babylon, the killing of the wit-
nesses, and the measuring of the temple, may have a double accomplishment
and expiration, and all intended, yet so as the latter mainly aimed at 1
The like instance might be made of the computation of another period of
time and prophecy fulfilled, which, because I may, in the closure of this 11th
chapter, have particular cause to mention, I will also instance in. It is that
of Daniel, chap. xii. 1 1 ; the things in which chapter refer to the times of the
end, under the New Testament, when is the time of which the angel tells
him that ' kn(j\vledge should be increased,' &c. And Daniel inquiring when
these things should be, the angel answers, ' From the time that the daily
sacrifice ' — namely, of the Jews — ' shall be taken away, and the abomination
that maketh desolate set up, shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety-
days.' Now by history it is evident, that there hath been a double taking
Chap. VI.] an exposition of the revelation. 157
away of the Jewish sacrifice under the days of the New Testament, and a
double setting iip the abomination of desolation ; that is, heathenish idolatry.
And so a double computation must needs be taken of these 1290 years.
When Vespasian and his son Titus sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple,
and advanced heathenish idolatry in the room of it, then was one time when
both these things were evidently done ; both the Jewish sacrifice taken
away, and the ' abomination that makcth desolate' set up. And if from that
time we reckon 1290 years, that first setting up heathenism instead of the
Jewish worship being in the year after Christ's birth G9 or 70, they end in
1359 or 1360 ; when indeed the first great increase of knowledge, and dis-
covery of Antichrist began, under Wicklilf, Thaulerus, &c., and a great dif-
fusion of the light of the gospel amongst us Gentiles. But there was another,
both * ceasing of the daily sacrifice,' and setting up of heathenish idolatry, by
Julian the apostate emperor, about the year 3G3, who both suppressed the
Christian religion, typified out by the daily sacrifice, after it had been set
up by Christian emperors, and also advanced heathenish worship. Yea, he
did set up the Jewish sacrifice again, which till his time had ceased, and was
then taken away, and never unto this day set up again. And it is observ-
able how special a hand God hath had in binding the Jews from setting
up their daily sacrifice at Jorusalem again. The Turk, whom they live
under, tolerates all other religions, and theirs also in all other exercises of it,
but sufiers them not to live at Jerusalem or to sacrifice there ; and yet per-
mits the Christians to inhabit in it, -and to possess the sepulchre of the Lord,
and to perform all rites of their religion. And though the Jews would give
much more for the like kind of liberty, to have that place to dwell in, and
to sacrifice there, yet it is prohibited them.
Now from either of these times above-mentioned may this computation of
1290 years be taken : the one respecting the blessed times when the more
clear light of the gospel, and the discovery of Antichrist, began to come
among us Gentiles ; the other those happy times to come, when the Jews
shall first be recalled, which some fix about the year 1655 or 1656. And so
two accomplishments of those 1290 years.
Now then, to return unto the thing in hand. Mr Brightman, he reckons
the beginning of Antichrist's reign, and the witnesses' beginning to prophesy
in sackcloth, from the time of the Roman emperors' removing to Constanti-
nople ; which he interprets to be that ' taking him that letted out of the
way,' as Paul to the Thessalonians hath it, — namely, the emperor, — who being
removed to Constantinople, and the Pope having Rome, ordained to be the
seat of the beast, thus left him, he might soon begin to gain power. And
that, indeed, from thence his first conception did begin, may not be, nor is it
by most, denied. And so Mr Brightman, from thence beginning the 1260
years of the witnesses' prophesying in sackcloth, which falls eighteen years
short, according to the account he makes, after that of Egypt, and of our
vulgar account, makes the end of those years to fall out in 1550, when the
rising again of the Protestant cause in Germany did begin. And thus in
like manner the term of Antichrist's kingdom or power to do (namely, as
formerly he had wont) might be reckoned to have had one kind of period in
the falling off of these kingdoms of England, Scotland, &c., which fell out
not many years after this, even before 1560, — which Mr Brightman, according
to that his series of interpretation, interpreteth to be the seventh trumpet,
when the kingdoms of the world became the kingdoms of Jesus Christ, — •
and so before that settled peace of the gospel established, and the throwing
of Antichrist and his power out of those kingdoms. In all which kingdoms
158 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
the witnesses had first their times of being overcome and killed for three
years and a half, though at several times in each of them. So in Germany,
in that victory got over the Protestants, anno 1547, or thereabouts; just
three years and a half after which they revived and enjoyed that peace which
since they have had.
In like manner in England, after that, in Queen Mary's days, whose
reign, although it lasted five whole years, yet the first part of her reign was
spent in ' making war' upon the witnesses, or, as I may so speak, in the
preparations of war against the witnesses, in getting statutes made for their
burning, &c. ; and the killing and martyring of them was but for three years
and a half. After which ended, they rose again in Queen Elizabeth's be-
ginning to reign, and liave since that time hitherto enjoyed, as it were, a
heaven.
Thus also in France, in the year 1572, which was fourteen years after,
and about 1260 years after Constautine, (according to our account of years,)
the massacre of the Protestants began, and in appearance an extinction of
the religion, as they called it, for three years and a half: when, anno 1576,
their peace and liberty was again granted them, and they had a manifest
resurrection. Thus God observed a gradual fulfilling of this their killing
and rising, as a shadow foregoing that great ^d last one to come.
But then there is another computation of the beginning of Antichrist's
reign, and of the witnesses' prophesying in sackcloth in opposition to him,
reckoning it from his birth and bringing forth into the world, as that former
was from the time of his conception, about a hundred years after Constan-
tine, in anno 406 or 410, when not only the Eoman emperors were removed
out of the way unto Constantinople, but also the western empire itself began
first to break into ten kingdoms. Which is the truest and utmost character
of the time of the beast's rising, as was shewed in our exposition of the 17th
chapter. Which breaking the western empire was that ' taking out of the
way ' which Paul especially aimed at. For then the Pope had full scope to
get his power, which these new kingdoms were to give unto him. Which
term of his, if the reckoning be made after the ordinary compute of years,
will end in 1666 or thereabout.
Now as there is this other computation of the Pope's times, (beginning and
endmg,) which falls out in this century of years now running on ; so also in
this same century, since the year 1600, there hath answerably been begun
another, or second measuring the temple, as being to precede the expiration
of this other computation of the witnesses' prophesying, which is yet to
come. And in like manner also there will follow another great and eminent
slaughter of the witnesses, and prevailing of the beast over them, before this
second computation of his and their time be ended; that is, before 1666.
Section II.
The allusion unto Christ's last passion, in this last slaughter of the
witnesses, explained.
Thus much in general for the time of the witnesses' killing. Now —
II. To come to the thing itself For the understanding of which I shall
also in the general premise this : —
That this their last killing, rising, &c., is represented in an allusion unto
the story of Christ's own crucifying and rising again ; which makes this the
most remarkable of all former sufferings, in that it is in an exact * conformity
Chap. VI. j an exposition of niE revelation. I.'} 9
to his death,' and to the circumstances of it. In all other passages of this
book, the allusions are still to stories of the Old Testament. But this, in a
manner alone, alludes to that great and eminent story of Christ's passion
and resurrection, wliich are the centre of all, both in the Old and New
Testament. And whereas all other stories in the Old arc but types of the
sufferings and resurrection of Christ, here those sufferings and that resur-
rection of his are made the pattern of these of the witnesses; and that not
in respect of that general, common conformity that is in all the sufferings
of all the saints for Christ and his gospel unto those of Christ, — as Paul
speaks, Phil. iii. 10, and therefore calls them the 'after-sufferings of the
body of Christ,' Col. i. 24, — but this here is made such in some peculiar
eminency and transcendency, above all sufferings that have been formerly in
any age ; and it being the last, it is in a singular manner set forth unto us
thereby. Which may at once both provoke us to prepare for it, as Christ
did, when he knew what he should suffer; and also comfort us against it,
as being therein in a peculiar manner to be made conformable unto Christ :
which will draw on with it a peculiar conformity also in reigning with him
in glory.
Now that the allusion here is indeed unto the last sufferings of Christ,
&c., is acknowledged and observed by all interpreters. And it appears in
every circumstance here related.
As, for example, in that, as he, after three-years-and-a-half's preaching
upon earth once finished, — when that he had almost carried it in the people's
hearts, the world going after him, — was yet in the end prevailed upon by his
enemies, and put to death by the foreign power of the city of Ptome, having
then jurisdiction over Jerusalem, and for three days did lie in their power:
so in like manner that these witnesses, after three-years-and-a-half's (for that
is the exact compute of 1260 days, or forty-two months) prophesying weU-
nigh expired, and now when they are about even to finish it, — having so
mightily prevailed in the people's hearts, that their Pharisaean enemies are
afraid of utterly losing their credit and authority, — that then these Pharisees,
again acknowledging the foreign power of Rome, should prevail over these
witnesses, and that so far as by and under the authority and jurisdiction of
the beast, and for his sake, should now at last kill them, and have them in
their power for three years and a half; which do bear a like proportion to
those 1260 years or days forepassed, that Christ's three days did to his three
years forepassed ; their enemies also rejoicing, feasting, and sending gifts for
joy that they had them thus down, and in their power; even as the Pharisees
did at that their great feast of the passover, when they were, as they thought,
rid of the torment which Christ's ministry had put them to, and made it the
joyfullest feast and passover that ever they kept : after all which, that those
witnesses should notwithstanding rise again, even as our Lord did, and rise
with an earthquake, as he then did, and with an affright to their enemies
that see it, as befell those soldiers who saw his, — as you may read in the
story of his resurrection, — and after this should ascend up to heaven, as he
then did ; — all this makes the allusion here very full and observable. And
because the Holy Ghost thus alluded unto Christ's sufferings, therefore John,
by way of parenthesis, puts in these words, speaking of the place where this
slaughter was to be : ' in the city,' says he, ' where our Lord also was crucified,'
ver. 8. That same ottov xal, where also, may have a double reference : it
may as a copulative relate to the former cities unto which he had resembled
it, even Sodom and Egypt, in this sense, 'and that city also where our
ICO AN KXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT IL
Lord was crucified ;' that is, Jerusalem. And it may as well refer unto the
word crucified in this sense: where our Lord was before in like manner
crucified, there are these now in like manner to be killed.
Section III,
That this killing of the witnesses is to be executed by and under the power of
the beast of Rome ; and so could not be meant of any of the former per-
secutions in tlie reformed churches, which were from among themselves.
Thus much in general for the understanding this great occurrence which
is yet to come in the church.
Xow more particularly to explain some things about it, though it be a
difficult thing to hit right in the understandmg, and much more in applying
the circumstances of a prophecy unto things to come, and which the events
do best interpret.
1. Take notice, that the power and authority by which this slaughter shall
be made is to be that of the beast, or the Pope of Pome ; and this as having
regained more or less power in these places where these witnesses are. This
is evident —
(1.) In that not so much their enemies who are among them, and of the
reformed religion with them, that yet hate them, but ' the beast that ascends
out of the bottomless pit,' is said to kill them. And —
(2.) In that he calls the place where their dead bodies lie, and so, by con-
sequence, where this slaughter is to be executed, ' the city where our Lord
was crucified.' Which is not spoken of Jerusalem, but of Rome ; that being
here called the great city, which, chap. xvii. 18, is called 'the city which then
ruled over the kings of the earth ;' which can be none but Rome. And to
make this good, we are to know, that the jurisdiction of the Roman empire
was then in John's time called ' the city.' And therefore the whole world
was called Oihis Romanus, the Roman world. And in like manner now, all
kingdoms subjected to the Pope are called the church of Rome, as together
making that great city. And in that world the city of Rome was the regal
palace, from whence issued out edicts and commands over alL And in such
a sense it is said, ' the city where Christ was crucified ;' because it was the
Roman power and authority by which he was put to death, though it were
done at Jerusalem, for thither did the jurisdiction of Rome reach ; and there-
fore Christ says, ' they should deliver him up unto the Gentries,' Matt. xx.
19, — that is, the Romans, who then had trodden dovrn that holy city, and
got the command of it ; the Pharisees owning Cassar for their king. And
thus now for the killmg these witnesses, it must be that the beast of Rome
shall again recover so much owning and acknowledgment in the places of
the Reformation, whether by secret combination or by professed avouch-
ment God only knows, where the witnesses are to be killed; so as, for his
sake, and at his instigation, these Pharisees, either as joining with him, or
else usuig the help of his party, shall kill them. And so far must the beast
have a hand in it, that he may truly be said to do it ; and that in order to
the further advancement of his power in those places. And therefore —
(.3.) The place where their dead bodies are said to lie is said to be izKania.
coXrw; rfii /xEyd/.?;?, — 'the street,' the extension of the jurisdiction, 'of the
great city,' — as being -within the jurisdiction or walls of it, as it were. You
heard before how that the Gentiles were to regain the outward court, and
so it to become part of the city again, and within the extent of its juris-
diction.
ClIAP. V[.] AN KXrOSITION OF THE REVELATION. IGl
So that, however the witnesses have had enemies from among themselves,
who have been, as those Pharisees were to Christ, of the same nation and
religion, and yet have persecuted them from the lirst, even from the times of
the lirst reformation downward, and therefore it hatli been that the faithful
witnc.-sos have continued to prophesy in sackcloth and mourning, even now
in their last days, when yet a separation hath been made from Antichrist,
becaiise those among them still continued to oppress them ; yet none of all
those wars and prevailings against them all that while, by those of their own,
are this same war and killing of them here so eminently set out. For this
must be by the beast, even by their enemies combining with the Papists, or
using the help of the beast, to join with them against the witnesses ; or, it
may be, beginning again to submit to the beast, in a more open and avowed
manner, as those Pharisees did to Cajsar. And so, for his sake, and to ad-
vance his power, shall they kill those witnesses, who indeed arc only and
alone the greatest and most hearty withstanders of him, and that will stand
it out against him. Or if, when this is done, they do not ^o openly avow
the beast's power, yet it may be said to be done by the beast, if by a party
or combination of men that are for him, though not professedly, yet who, in
order to reduce his power into those churches, do raise this war against the
witnesses and oppress them. And that which may give suspicion of this is
because, as I shewed out of chap, xiii., there is a generation of men set forth
as the beast's last champions, who yet should not, at least at the first, so
openly own his name or character, that yet receive the ' number of his name.'
And these are there reckoned his as truly as the other, as being they who
should interdict buying and selling to the beast's opposites, in order unto
his advancement. And they doing this in order unto the beast and for him,
the beast therefore and his power may be said to do it.
But I fear that they shall proceed yet further, even to an open acknow-
ledgment and professing the Pope's power, though perhaps not as infallible
head of the church, yet as universal patriarch of the west, and so endeavour-
ing to effect a union and reconciliation with him. For these men, as was
said, are to bring in but an image of Popery, as it was of heathenism, espe-
cially at first, though with intent to introduce more. And v.'ith this doth
that speech of the angel in his oath, Dan. xii. 7, accord, which, as I said,
this angel here came to renew and interpret ; that when ' he,' namely, this
beast, ' shall have accomjjlished,' namely, with this last killing, ' to scatter
the power of the holy people,' &c.
That which I here cite this for is, that it must be he and his power that
must do it. And in that the GentUes are here said to obtain the outward
court, ver. 1, so as to ' tread it down ' with the rest of the holy city ; this
would argue a prevailing of them, so far as to gain a subjection from carnal
Protestants, by reason of which it shall be that even the beast's power, as
entertained and owned by the most, may be said to kill them. And like-
wise the allusion here to Christ's suffering, by the power that then Rome
had in Jerusalem, the holy city, would argue this also. That even as then,
a governor, or president, from Piome, namely Pilate, lay at Jerusalem, and
was, in the name and power of Rome, the author of Christ's crucifying ; so,
at least, that Rome should now in like manner have her legates, that should
have power in these places to procure the deposition and death of these
vritnesses. That so, as God ordained Jerusalem, the city where Christ was
crucified, unto which the allusion here is made, to be the slaughter-house of
all the prophets, insomuch that Christ said, ' It was not possible that a pro-
phet should perish but in Jerusalem ;' and therefore it was that himself waa
VOL. in. L
162 AN EXPOSITION OF THK REVELATION. j^rART II.
SO secure that he should not be killed until he came thither ; so that Eome
is in like manner ordained to have a hand in the deaths of all the witnesses,
though others may persecute them too. And so this last and great slaughter
and martyrdom of them shall be executed by her. That so when at her
downfall she comes to be reckoned with, it may be said, as it is in chap,
xviii. 24, that ' in her was found the blood of the prophets, and of the saints,
and of all that were slain upon the earth.' And therefore, until the Romish
flag be advanced upon the walls of the outward court of this temple, reckon
not this time of the witnesses' three years and a half to be come. But when
you see that abomination of desolation begun to be set up, then flee into the
mountains, as Christ in another case speaks.
Section IV.
The time of the beast's enjoying this full victory hut three years and a half.
— The time of obtaining it, and of killing the witnesses, may be longer.
2. For the time of the continuance of this slaughter. Whereas there is here
mentioned the beast's ' making war against them, and overcoming and killing
them,' then ' when they are about to finish their testimony,' — that is, towards
the time of the end of it, — and then their ' lying dead for three days and a
half;' we must herein warily take heed we mistake not this only mentioned
time of three years and a half, as if that were all the time allotted for this
last war against them, victory over them, and slaughter of tliexii. No, it is
not said they should be overcoming and killing them only so long time ; but
that these witnesses should lie dead no longer, after a full victory obtained,
and slaughter once made. So that that war against them, and killing of
them, may be much longer in execution than for three days and a half only.
And indeed, how long that shall continue before these three years and a half
begin, we know not. The Gentiles have already been a long while a-besieg-
ing and making war against the temple, and have not as yet prevailed. It
is not yet come to an overcoming of so much as the outward court ; that
out-work is not yet fully enough gained : for the winning of the outward
court I account part of this their making war against the witnesses. But
how long soever this war may prove, and how far soever it may be length-
ened out, yet when it comes to a complete victory once, then, for our com-
fort, we are sure that the time of the witnesses' lying dead shall be but for
three years and a half, until their rising, or beginning to rise again. And
as in a great echpse of the moon, the time whilst all or most of its body is
darkened, and whilst that ccliiise is in its fulness, useth especially to be set
down and taken notice of by astronomers, and that time is especially ac-
counted the time of the eclipse, and not so much the time when it begins to
lose, or after that to recover some light : so is it here in this great and last
hour of darkness which the church is to have, wherein the time of its total
eclipse is only reckoned. The Pharisees were long a-laying their plots against
Christ, and consulting how to ruin him, but at the last prevailed only for
three days. And thus all hitherto done is but the war in order to this
conquest ; the enemies are as yet but a-taking the out-works, and making
their approaches, ttc.
3. For this time here mentioned of their Ij'ing dead, it is but for three
years and a half, which is here called three days and a half; Avhereby three
natural days, consisting of twenty -four hours, cannot be meant. For how
shall the noise of this full victory be carried to nations and tongues, who are
said to * see their dead bodies/ partly in that respect of having the news of
Chap. VI.] an kxposition of the revelation. 1G3
it? And how shall the whole Roman party universally rejoice, and send
gilts one to another to congratulate this victory 1 These three days, there-
fore, and a half, in which they are to lie dead, are such as those 12 GO days
formerly mentioned were, even prophetical days, taken according to the style
of the prophets, namely, days for years. And such a three years and a half
had Jerusalem, the holy city, under Antiochus, when the temple was pol-
luted, and ' the daily sacrifice,' God's true worship, ' taken away,' and hea-
thenish idolatry, which there, and still elsewhere in Daniel, is called the
' abomination that makcth desolate,' set up ; and when those that were the
most eminent for godliness did fall by the sword and by captivity, (as you
have it Dan. xi. 31, ifec.,) for many days. But the last persecution of his
reign was for three years and a half, as in 1 Mace. i. 30 to chap. vi. you have
it recorded. But in the 11th chapter of Daniel, where this Antiochus is
prophesied of, he is in this made the type of Antichrist ; and therefore after
that the prophet had thus set forth and ended that his tyranny at ver. 35 of
that chapter, he begins, ver. 3G, to set out the Pope and his tyranny unto
the end of the chapter : so passing from the type to the antitype, even as
Christ doth, in the 2ith. of ^Matthew, from the story of the destruction of
Jerusalem to that of the end of the world, because that was a type of it.
And therefore it is that Daniel useth this transition, ver. 35 of that 11th
chapter, when he had ended Antiochus's story, that there remains yet
' a time ordained,' so Graserus and others read it, — that is, yet another
series of the fates to be related, w^hereof this was the type ; and so he
passeth on to describe Antichrist (who is that king mentioned ver. 3G) unto
the end of that chapter, whose ruin and end, he says, should be after
' iU tidings to him out of the north ' — that is, the reformation of religion
in these northern countries — had so enraged him as to cause him to ' go
forth in fury,' at his last endeavouring utterly to root out, <fec. And in
which expedition he should so far prevail as to ' plant his tabernacle on
the glorious holy mountain,' that is, to overrun the church. Which, indeed,
I take to be all one with this last war and killing the witnesses here, for it
is there just before his end too, for three years and a half ; whereof that last
prevailing over the Jews by Antiochus was the type. And such a like time,
as I said before, had the Pharisees over Christ, even three days, which Christ
calls the ' hour of darkness ; ' even as this is thought to be that ' hour of
temptation to come over the whole (Christian) world,' Eev. iii. 10. The ene-
mies, indeed, think to have the day of it, but they shall have only the hour
of it. This great and fearful eclipse, in the fulness of it, shall last no longer ;
this is their hour.
And such a like space of time is used in Scripture to express a short time ;
as Hos. vi. 2, ' After two days he will revive us, and in the third day raise
us up,' &c.
Again, such a like time had Julian over the church, when he had again set
up heathenism. Some say his reign was three years long, though others say
less. And so hath God ordered it, for the like holy ends, that as heathen-
ism had a prevailing again in the world, before it was utterly extirpated,
for that small time in Julian's reign, and this even after that Christianity
had been set up forty years before hj the imperial power of Constantine ; so
that Popery (the image of it) should in like manner expire, and after a glo-
rious reformation made by kingly power, and casting out of Popery in many
states, that it should yet have a prevailing over those churches, or the emi-
nentest of them, once again before its final and utter extirpation.
164 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
Section V.
The sharpness and the extent of this victory, hoio great ; whether unto death
natural or onartijrdom discussed.
Concerning the sharpness of this victory of the beast, and of the Popish
party, how far it shall extend ; as —
Whether nnto blood or to martyrdom and to death natural of the wit-
nesses, and whether this killing here be meant of such a kind ?
I find some who interpret all done to them to be meant of a civil death,
not a natural ; that is, a killing them considered as witnesses, not as men ;
that is, a taking away all power from them of prophesying as they had
wont — a general silencing of ministers, and deposing magistrates and men of
worth that profess and uphold religion, putting them from their places,
shutting their shops, burning their books, &c. And for this makes —
1. That their death and lying dead here is but correspondent to their
resurrection. Now, their resurrection is not from a natural death, and there-
fore such not their kUling,
2. That their bodies, when dead, are said to ' lie in the street of the great
city for three days and a half,' and after that a ' spirit of life to come into '
those dead bodies. Now, that cannot be meant of naturally dead men, for
their bodies cannot be suj^posed to have lain naturally dead: so long above-
ground. And then, in that the spirit of life is said to enter into those bodies
that were dead, and in that it must be supposed that those lay dead who are
first here said to be killed, all this would seem to carry it to the very same
individual persons that were killed, that they should rise ; which to suppose
of a natural resurrection before the day of Christ, we have no warrant nor
any ground for.
And accordingly they interpret that following passage, that those of the
nations, tongues, and kindreds, suff'er them not to be put in graves, as that
which may be construed and taken in the better part, as shewing what should
hinder their enemies from killing them outright, namely, that there was a
party of Protestants in the nations about them that should hinder their ene-
mies from martyring and utterly extinguishing them, and should preserve
them above-ground for a reviving ; even as men whom we think not dead,
but in a swoon, we use to keep out of the grave, and not bury them, because
we hope they may revive again. And so these Protestants, that the cause
may again prevail, they may preserve the persons. And this the rather ap-
pears the intendment here, in that these of the nations, tongues, and kin-
dreds seem to be a diverse and distinct company from the enemies of the
■witnesses; for of their enemies, that is said which follows in the next verse,
' And those that dwelt on the earth rejoiced over them,' &c. As if the angel
went about to describe the differing spirits of the two sorts of men, of whom
he speaks, towards these witnesses : the one, whom he calls those of nations,
tongues, and kindreds, as friends doing them this kind office, as ' not to
suffer their bodies to be put in graves ; ' but the other, whom, as diverse from
these, he calls under a new phrase, ' those that dwell on the earth,' as ene-
mies rejoicing over them.
Which makes this suffering of the witnesses herein alone to differ from
Christ's, — unto which, in all other circumstances, the allusion holds. — that
Christ was really killed, and therefore buried. But these, though killed as
witnesses, yet are not suffered to be buried ; as noting out a keeping them
from an extinction, or an utter taldng them out of the way, though by their
Chap. VI. J an exposition op the revelation. 1Gb
enemies they be suppresscil. And it nicay be, that as Christ forctohl liis re-
surroctioii tlie third day, and so it was coinmonly known and bruited, that
even the riiarisees had Icnowledge of it, and said unto Pilate, ' Tliis deceiver
said he would rise the third day,' which they laughed at as a vain dream :
so it may be, this very notion of such a prevailing of the Popish party for
three years and a half, which hath been so long and so much spoken of in
the church, shall be so conmionly known, as already it begins to be, that for
that very cause these friends of theirs may so far interpose as to hinder the
litter extinction, or the burial of them, wholly imder-ground, (as it were,) as
hoping that this notion given out of their resurrection, after three years and
a half, may prove true, as the disciples hoped of Christ's resurrection all the
while that he lay in the grave.
And whereas it may be thought, that because the Holy Ghost singleth
out this one last killing, and instanceth in it alone, aliove all those other
that have foregone it throughout the beast's whole reign, — although he hath
made many wars against and slaughters of the witnesses in former times, —
that therefore this should be the worst and sharpest; their answer hereunto
is, that this killing of them here is thus particulaiiy and alone mentioned in
another respect, — namely, as it is the signal of the Pope's ruin, — and so that
tliis argues not tht; soreness of this their last killing above any foregoing.
This is that which useth to be said for this opinion. But, for my part, I
think it cannot be denied but that —
1. This lying dead here of these witnesses must needs be metaphorically
meant, and understood of such a civil death, and of a suppression of them
and their cause, and, as they are tvitnesses, to be so put down and extin-
guished, that they for a time remain as men laid forth by the walls fof
dead, and as men in whose testimony there is in appearance no life, or likeli-
hood of a revival, their enemies having now got such a power over them.
This is certainly made the great matter of their enemies' rejoicing : that as
the Pharisees thought they had Christ sure enough when they got him con-
demned and crucified, and had him in the grave ; so these their enemies shall
think they have the witnesses down sure enough for ever, so great, desperate,
and heljjless in all view will the suppression of the witnesses by these their
enemies be. And this was principally intended in their being said to lie
dead; and, oppositely, the revival of them and their cause is set forth by a
resurrection from the dead.
And to this purpose there may be something in that phrase in Daniel,
when the angel, speaking, as I take it, of this last war of the beast, says,
' He shall accomplish to scatter the power of the holy people ;' as noting out
rather the dissolving their power as witnesses, than killing them as men.
So that whatever proceedings the power of their enemies may reach unto,
further to kill or martyr the natural bodies of these witnesses; yet this is
the thing eminently held forth in this metaphorical expression, and therein
eminently intended, that the cause and testimony of these witnesses should
be as desperate and hopeless, without any appearance of life. And the Holy
Ghost would have us take notice that their enemies' prevailing should so
far reach.
2. But yet withal, in the second place, I am notwithstanding afraid, lest
that so great a victory over them, and the suppression of them as witnesses,
should also be followed with great effusion of blood, and with martyring
many of them. And although this their lying dead and rising again be meta-
phorically meant and intended to set out the desperateness of their cause and
testimony, and so to illustrate that glorious revival of theirs afterward; yet
166 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT II.
tliose otlier foregoing -words, ' He shall make war against them, overcome
them, and kill them,' may import further proceedings, by which they got
this complete victory. I confess I am afraid of those many metaphors;
lest this same killing mentioned after overcoming should not be meant
really and properly of some further cruelty in enemies so malicious, when
they have got the power in their owti hands. For if the intent of that word
killing were to express their suppression only as witnesses, that word over-
coming had then been sufficient to import it. Sure I am, in the 13th chap-
ter, — where the rage and utmost cruelty which the beast should at any time,
through his whole reign, exercise against the saints, is so prophesied of, — all
that cruelty of their enemies, which proceeded to so great slaughters of them,
is expressed in the same words that here, ' And it was given him to malce war
against the saints, and to overcome them,' ver. 7. And yet under those two
expressions — whereas here are three, killing being added — are contained all
those bloody executions and butcherings of the saints, by martyrdom and
death, which afterwards, in the 10th verse of that chapter, is more fully ex-
pressed, when it is said, ' He that kills with the sword must be killed by the
sword;' as she-ning the cause and manner of the beast's bloody fall and ruin
in the end, and what it is that should provoke God and man unto it, even
their butchering of the saints.
And although Antichrist's power is in general there set out, as it should
be in his height and ruff, and during the whole time of his reign, as getting
power over all nations, tongues, and kindreds, and here only his last par-
ticular war against the witnesses is described, which should immediately
forego his ruiii; yet it follows not that this expression here should not be
of the same nature and kind, and import the same cruelty and manner of
prevailing, that is there intended. For notwithstanding that the issue of the
last particular war is the fatal and utter rum of the beast, yet that hinders
not but that he may first recover again the like power, and exercise the like
cruelty over these witnesses for this small space, which he had done in
former ages, when he obtained power so long to continue over them. Yea,
it may be feared, by that dirge of her own funeral song, which herself at
last makes, in the 18th chapter, ver. 7, 8, that she shall recover her ancient
power again, or at least entertain certain hopes and expectations of it, through
her prevailing over some, and those of the chief, of her lost kingdoms. For
there you may read, that when the next day, as it were, she is to be burnt
for a witch and a whore, she saith in her heart, and sings, ' I sit as a queen,
and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow :' which is spoken of her pre-
sent condition just before her fall; for it follows, 'therefore shall her plagues
come in one day, and she shall be utterly burnt with fii-e; for strong is the
Lord who judge th her.' All which implies, that as her destruction should
be sudden, and in the midst of her rejoicing, so that she shall have got such
power and footing again, as that God's omnipotent power must be put forth
in that her so sudden and unexpected ruin after all this.
There is the like intimated in that mention of the beast's recovery of his
power in Dan. xi. 45, where it is added, 'yet he shall come to his end;' as
importing the greatness of that work, and the utter unlikelihood of it, now
when he shall have gained his power so settledly again. That yet comes in
there as that yet in the 2d Psalm does : ' Yet I have set my king on my
holy hill of Sion,' maugre all the opposition and rage of the Gentiles and
Pharisees ; though they have so far prevailed as to cracify him, yet I have
Bet my Son as king on Sion, and raised up him and his cause again to
prevail.
CflAP. VI.] AN EXPOSITION OF TUE REVELATION. 107
And I therefore incline to think, that that song of the whore, mentioned
ver. 7 of the 17th chapter, Is uttered by her a.s during this her merry time
at last; when she and her friends rejoice so, and make merry during the.sc
three years and a half, ver. 10 of this 11th chapter; when suddenly after
it she is to be ruined. Yea, I believe that the cruelties which upon this
recovery of her power she may now at last exercise, according to her manner
in former ages, may be the means to revive the memory of all her fonner
slaughters, and so to provoke God and men, as for this her last bloodshed,
to bring upon her the blood of all the prophets and martyrs before shed;
even as the blood of Christ at last brought upon the Jews the blood of all
from Abel, to provoke God to ruin Jerusalem. That as the ten tribes were
enraged against the Benjamites, with eagerness to root them out, because of
their great victory at first got over themselves ; so may the Protestant party
be whetted on by these fresh killings of the saints, which may revive the
memory of all the former, otherwise apt to be forgotten, to do execution upon
these their enemies without all mercy. And so shall be fulfilled what is
said, chap, xiii., 'He that killeth with the sword nmst be killed by the
sword.' They shall reward her as she had rewarded them just before, as
chap. xvii. 6.
And whereas it is alleged, that this being but one particular war against
the witnesses, why should it be alone mentioned at la.st as some way peculiar,
if it were such as Antichrist had commonly made upon the saints all his
former days, which are mentioned chap. xiii. 1 The angel would not have
recorded it thus alone by itself, if it had not been a difi"ercnt war from those
former ones which the beast made against these witnesses.
The answer is, that it follows not that this is not such a kind of war and
prevailing as formerly Antichrist had. For this, though such as the former,
is thus particularly and alone mentioned, merely for this respect, because it
is the last of them all, and so as a signal to shew the time of Antichrist's
ending, and to make known the wonderful dealing of God, both with his
church and with his enemies; that after so great a victory by it obtained
against the beast, he should notwithstanding thus prevail over it again, and
have power to do for this space of time, even as in former ages; when
thinking himself as secure as ever, that then he should for ever be over-
thrown : the wonder of this deserved to be made a sign, and that this war
of all other should particularly be instanced in.
Then again, add to this, that it is that last, great, and eminent suffering
of the church, — namely, of the European churches, — and therefore it, of all
others, may be ordained to be the sorest. These witnesses do now die to
rise, and so to die no more, as Christ did not after his resurrection, Ptom. vi.
9, but to enter into their glory, as Christ also did. I have observed that those
last afflictions, which are the immediate forerunners of the greatest happi-
ness and good, are still the sharpest. So it was with Christ himself ; so with
all Christians in their last conflict with death, the king of fears, who yet is
the porter to let them into heaven ; and so it is with the church in her per-
secutions. The Egyptian bondage was sorest at the last. ' And,' says Paul,
' God hath set forth us apostles last, as it were appointed unto death,' 1 Cor.
iv. 9, alluding to those gladiators or fencers in the Koman games, the last
of whom, there being three sorts that used to come upon the stage, were
appointed not to go off, but to fight it out till they were killed, they being
ordinarily either slaves or else malefactors. The greatest persecution that ever
the church had under heathenish Piome was that last one under Dioclesian,
and the fifth seal. And therefore aU the former martyrdoms of the saints
168 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [Pa1:T II.
by that state, during tlie times of the former seals, do, with a general cry of
their blood, come but then in, when as that the cruellest of all the former
was come. And yet that Vv'as not the last neither of those persecutions that
the church ever was to have; for it is there told those saints that they
had other brethren yet to be killed. But here these witnesses are to rise
and die no more; for as they died as Christ did, so they shall rise as
Christ did.
Yea, and further ; j-ou may observe, that this is now mentioned not only
alone, and above all other conquests over the saints, but also as the very
epitome of all their former "sufferings during the whole tune of the witnesses'
prophecy. Jind therefore in the very time of the duration hereof — namely,
three days and a half — it is set forth as bearing the proportion of a com-
pendium of the whole time of their prophesying and suffering, which was for
three years and a half, or 1260 days. As in like manner Christ's sufferings,
unto which the allusion here is, were all summed up in his death, v/hich is
therefore put for all his sufferings. When therefore it came to a ' My God,
my God, why hast thou forsukon me?' then he was heard and delivered from
what he feared. And so in this last brunt of the church, when you shall
hear the like voice uttered by it, know then that delivery is near.
We may also further consider, that now the beast hath been so chafed by
these mtnesses' prophesying, and hath had so many vials emptied upon him
and his company, they wUl thereby be so enraged, when once they shall get
the victory and power into their hands, that surely ' in their rage they wQl be
cruel,' as was said of Reuben. And the angel in Daniel, chap. xi. 44, ex-
pressly attributes this hLs last invasion of the churches unto his rage for
their opposing him by this northern reformation, which in these kingdoms
hath been the occasion of it. ' Therefore,' says he, ' he shall go forth with
great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.' So that nothing
but blood and cruelty will be in their hearts. And therefore if God restrain
not their spirits, or cut them short by an almighty work of his power, this
last must needs come to be far the sorest of all former persecutions.
Add unto this, that in chap. xvii. 6 the whore, the city of Rome, is pre
sented as she shall be just before her ruin ; and this, as ' drunk with the
blood of the saints.' Which unto me seems to argue, that drunkenness now
at last shall be added to that her thirst of blood, which, by her being scorched
with fire by these witnesses, hath been increased. I know it may be said
that it is spoken of her in her relation to her former bloody martyrisings of
the saints. But that vision being made of her as just before her fall, (for,
ver. 1, John says, that ' one of the seven angels of the vials' — and as it is
conjectured by interpreters, the fffth, because he it is that pours out his vial
upon the seat of the beast, the whore — ' shewed him the judgment of the
great whore, ■nith whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication,'
&c., that is, in so many ages fore-passed ; so that he presented her in her
old and last days,) and that then she appears so drunk, makes me fear that
it is by reason she was new come out from her cups of blood ; and that now
at last (after these * years for her to sleep in) some fresh cup, some
new draught, shall make her tipsy again, that so she may be surprised
somno vinoque sepuUa, buried in sleep and drunkenness, as Babylon was ;
which will be the greater judgment and confusion unto her.
But yet, whether it shall be thus or no, I dare not nor cannot certainly
and peremptorily determine. For on the other side, how God may ' restrain
* Left blank in the original edition. — Ed.
Chap. VI.] an exposition of tiiis kevelation. 1G9
their wrath, and cut short their spirits,' as the Psalmist speaks, we know not.
Yea, notwithstanding all their rage, malice, and si)irit of revenge, yet how
far their own wisdom and policy may move them of themselves to forbear
the full execution of that vigour which their power gives them opportunity
of, we know not. For when their victory is gotten, they may use it more
moderately; especially in a respect to that Protestant party, which, though
outwardly overcome by them, yet they cannot but in their hearts and con-
sciences continue firm unto the cause of these witnesses. The light of the
gospel hath took such a deep impression on men's spirits, as it cannot be
extinguished, nor they be brought so suddenly to embrace Popery as the
truth. And as the Pharisees, ' for fear of the people,' forbore many attempts
against Christ, so may these for fear of these tongues, kindreds, and nations
here mentioned, which are in heart inclined to the Protestant cause, forbear
the extremity of their rage, though for the present they have the power ;
especially considering that they may wait for, and promise to themselves,
some after age and time when their power shall more perfectly be recovered
and settled, and men's consciences quieted in Popish ways, and when the
adverse Protestant party shall be brought low and diminished. And so they
may come to forbear and defer their full revenge so long, imtil this limited
and short time of their full power, namely, their three years and a half, be
expired, and out of date sooner than they dreamed of. Which may prevent
and hinder the execution of theh cruel intentions to •' destroy and utterly
make away many.'
And we have experience of the wisdom of this generation of men, who
love easy and gradual conquests. And their own experience hath and doth
teach them that the martyring and butchering of the saints hath still ad-
vanced the cause of the Protestant religion, and branded theirs with blood
and cruelty, as a mark of the false and whorish church. And though they
be full of malice, which puts them on to use the utmost extremity, yet their
wisdom, having some further mischievous end, may keep down the rage of
that their malice, even as in Julian the Apostate, who sinned against the Holy
Ghost, it did. For he seeing that martyrdoms did tend rather to add unto
and increase the church than to diminish it, and knowing that martyrdom
would procure to those that suffered it a fairer crown of glory, out of envy,
therefore, and a witty malice, he would make no edicts for the killing of the
Christians, but rather used ways of subtlety, by laying snares and tempta-
tions to draw men from the truth, and to shipwreck their consciences ; and
so with his profane hands to paddle in the blood of their souls — a sweeter
victory to him — rather than of their bodies, and to triumph over them in
their falls from the truth, rather than in their deaths. And to that end he
invented another way to mischief and diminish them, by denying them
schools of learning and the use of books, and suffered none of the Christians
to bear any office, either in war or peace.
Moreover, there may be insinuated some mitigation of this rage of these
Gentiles in the pursuing this their last victory, in that which follows the
before-cited place in Daniel; where although it be said that he shall go
forth in such fury and rage, and with an intent to root out many, yet all
his prevailing is in the issue and success expressed but by this, that ' he
shall plant his tabernacle upon the glorious holy mountain.' Which may
imply, that although his intention is utterly to destroy, yet for the execu-
tion of it no more shall be done than getting a possession again in the
church, and a planting his tabernacle, his power and throne, therein ; which
170 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
is therefore called a tabernacle, because it must presently be pulled down
again.
The event only must declare how far this prevailing shall succeed. In
the meantime, we have cause to fear, and to ^jrepare for, the worst ; both
from the sins of the witnesses in yielding too far unto the superstitious of
Eome, and in suffering some of those superstitions to be left in their churches,
by the overflowing of the Romish sea, as we see much filth useth to be left
on the shore by the overflowing of the ocean, and from many other sins of
theirs, as carnal-gospelling, worklly-mindedness, &c., and also from their
base yielding up the outward court, and deserting the cause. For, as the
angel in Daniel says, many among them shall do wickedly.
Now to conclude this point. That whereto my last and utmost thoughts
and hopes concerning this matter do chiefly incline and sway me is, to think
that it will be such a time with the church as that under Julian was ; and
that haply that persecution of his was a kind of type of this ; that being the
last prevailing of heathenism, as this of Popery. Julian abstained from
extremity of cruelty, in respect of blood, especially at the first ; but having
the power in his hands, he endeavoured, by crafty means, to undo and ex-
tinguish religion, by denying the Christians the iise of schools of literature,
and books, &c., as I before told you ; and rather shewed his malice in flout-
ing and jeering of them than m killing them ; and studied snares for their
consciences, setting up his own image, with the idols of the heathen gods
round about it, in the Forum or market-place : that so in doing reverence to
his image, they might seem to reverence the gods ; and refusing to bow to-
wards these false gods, they might be accused as denying reverence to the
emperor. Which course, in the end, was the cause of much bloodshed,
though by no public edict of his made, as formerly by other emperors. And
the people knowing his hate unto the Christians, they fell upon them in
divers parts of the empire, and persecuted them even unto death.
Now for this prevailing to come, I think that through many temptations
and snares laid, together with cruelties inflicted, it may prove worse than
death and martyrdom itself. And it may perhaps be eminently rather an
hour of temptation and tiial, than of the blackness and darkness of martyrdom
unto the generality of behevers, though haply accompanied with the martyr-
dom of many ; and therefore the Gentiles are also said to kill these witnesses.
These times are like to be (as Paul to Timothy hath it, 2 Epist. iii. 1) xai^oi
^aXi'TToi, diflicult times, rather than bloody times, the apostle there speaking
of the last days, as in his first epistle, chap. iv. 1, he speaks of the latter
days of Popery. And these are called diflicult times, because of the cunning
and subtlety that shall be used to ensnare men, and the temptations laid for
them ; and yet they may be stained with much blood also.
Yet so as however this we may be sure of, that many shall survive this
war, and only be made white and tried, (as it is in Daniel.) Which is the
rather to be hoped, because so sudden a resurrection of so great a multitude,
as chap. xix. 1 are mentioned, who shall possess that glorious state of a church
described in that chapter, ver. 1-10, after that three years and a half once
ended, is not likely to arise merely out of a succession of new converts ;
but is probably to be made up of the same persons surviving and outriding
that great storm.
Section VI.
Of that concomitant of the witnesses killing : the nations seeing their dead
bodies, and not suffering them to be put in graves. — Several senses given
Chap. VI.] an exposition of the revelation. 171
of it : whether talcen as an office of favour or an injury ; and whether
to be understood of friends or enemies, discussed.
Now for that particular clause that follows, that ' those of the nations,
tongues, and kindreds, should see their dead bodies lie, and not suffer them
to be put in graves,' which is interpreted in a way of favour to the witnesses ;
although I think their lying dead to be meant in a metaphorical and allu-
sive sense, yet it is exceedingly doubtful unto me whether or no this clause
be not to be taken in laalam partem, in the worser sense, as rather express-
ing inhumanity by this metaphor than kindness and love. And this seems
to me to be the meaning of it, whether those of the nations, tongues, and
kindreds, be taken for friends or for enemies ; and so to have been here
added further to represent unto us the extreme misery and desperate cala-
mity into which these witnesses shall be brought, in tliis their time of trial.
1. If these nations, &c., be meant of enemies, this phrase, ' they saw, and
suffered not,' &c., doth imply their feeding their eyes with this sight, and
making it a spectacle of delight and joy unto them. For to see or view a
thing, when the sights are of this nature, is in such a sense used in Scrip-
ture, and implies that the thing seen is made a spectacle and gazingstock ;
and in the seers and beholders it imports derision and triumph. Thus in
Christ's sufferings, unto which the allusion is, they are said to come out to
' see him and to mock at him.' And, Psalm xxii. 8, ' All they that see me do
mock at me,' says the prophet there in Christ's name. And in the 109th
Psalm, ver. 25, ' They saw me,' says Christ there, — for of him is that psalm
made, — ' and shaked their heads,' &c.
And thus seeing is usually mentioned in this sense, when any judgment
is executed, to shew how the opposite party comes forth, and sees it, and
rejoiceth at it. Thus when judgments are executed on the wicked, ' the
righteous shall see and laugh at him,' Psalm lii. 6. So, Isa. Ixvi 24, ' They
shall look upon the carcases of them that have transgressed against God ;
which shall become an abhorring unto all flesh.'
And so that other phrase that follows, ' and they shall not suffer them to
be put in graves,' may also import a height of inhumanity. For, Psalm Ixxix.
3, when that like miserable desolation of the temple, and slaughter of the
saints, be it either that of Antiochus, the type of this, as some think it meant,
or that of the Babylonish captivity, as others, this aggravation is there added
unto their slaughter, that ' there was none to bury them.' Yea, and that
here it should rather be taken in such a bad sense, appears by this, that
their killing being an allusion unto Christ's passion, this circumstance is
therefore mentioned, as heightening the suffering of the witnesses above
that of Christ's, in this respect. For though his lying in the grave, as
endured by him, is accounted a part of his humiliation, yet it is noted as a
work of humanity in Pilate, to suffer his body to be taken down from the
cross, and laid in a grave ; and especially in Joseph of Arimathea, who
begged it to that end, and afterward honourably entombed it. This was an
office of the greatest charity, and therefore recorded ; which this prophecy
notes out as that which shoiild be wanting in these nations and tongues here,
whether they be friends or enemies. And — •
2. If they be taken for friends unto these witnesses, and as such among
those nations, tongues, and kindreds as are in heart of the same religion
with them, and who do in heart respect and love them, as the people did
Christ ; the query then will be. Whether this their not suffering them to be
buried be a friendly office 1 I confess, indeed, they seem to be some distinct
company from those their enemies, who do so rejoice over them, ver. 14, and
172 AN EXrOSITIOK OF THE RKVELATION. [PaET II.
some special company also of the nations, and tongues, and kindreds. For
it is not said that all nations, kindreds, and tongues, &c., as in the 13th
chapter, when Popery was in its first height undiscovered, it is said that Anti-
christ had power over all nations and tongues, &c. Xor is it said the nations,
(tc, but tlLey of the nations, or some of the nations, — ix 'ruj\> '/.aujv xa! fvXuv
y.ai y'/.uacui'j y.ai livojv, &c., — and not all in those kindreds, and peoples, and
nations, among whom these witnesses are. And so the phrase of speech
serves fitly to note out a contradistinct, special party or company ; even the
Protestant party, who are not in aU nations ; neither are they all universally
Protestants in those nations where the gospel is preached and professed. But
only some nations are Protestants, and but some in and of those nations.
And so the mention of them here may come in to shew what part they should
play in this tragedy.
For this killing the witnesses falling out in an age when so many among
the nations do in heart stiU continue of the same religdon with the witnesses,
the inquiry w^ould be, What wUl they do ? Will they endure it when it shall
come to such extremity ? WiU they not put to their hand to help the wit-
nesses of their own reUgion ? No, says the angel here ; ' they shall see their
dead bodies, and not suffer them to be put in graves.'
1. It is said, ' They shall see their dead bodies lie in the street,' or public
market-place, as the word may also sig^iif}'. Which their so public l}ing in
such a place notes out the greatest scorn put upon them by their enemies
that may be. And yet these behold them as friends that have no heart to
help them, and so will not once stir to reheve them, but like standers-by and
mere lookers-on are shy, and list not to intermeddle in their killing, one way
nor other. They stand aloof off, as men use to do from malefactors executed,
although they be friends and weU-willers to them ; or as men that pass by
and go on the other side of the street, when they see a dead carcase lying
before them. Thus the phrase seeing them is also used in Scripture, and
particularly in this book. For thus when the wheel is turned about, and
after this Ptome's turn comes to be burnt, her friends, ' the kings of the
earth,' that shall in heart stiU cleave unto her, are described as standers
aloof off, and spectators that ' see her smoke,' as xibraham did the smoke of
Sodom, so chap, xviii. 9, 10, 18. And thus, it may be, those of the peoples,
kindreds, tongues, and nations who have taken part with these witnesses
formerlj', shall now not dare to do it, but stand afar off, as it were, and pass
by and see them killed, and not have hearts to help them. This the phrase
seeing them may import.
Or further, it may be said, that those of the peoples, kindreds, (tc, should
see them, in that these witnesses should be driven out among those peoples,
nations, &c., and should fly unto them for refuge and help.
2. And so, in the second place, that w-hich follows may come in as a further
degree of inhumanity, which these, their false friends, should shew to them,
which shall be added unto the indignities put upon them by their enemies,
50 to make the calamity and distress of these witnesses the more complete ;
namely, that these, their friends of the Protestant party, should be so far
overcome and prevailed upon by the power and dread of the Papists, that
they shall deny these witnesses all help and shelter which they shall seek for,
and all thotu common offices of friendship and humanity which might be ex-
pected from them. Those that are friends use to bury the dead bodies of
those whose lives they could not rescue out of the hands of their common
enemies ; but these here shall be so far from helping the witnesses, that they
' shall not suffer them to be buried' among them, or ' to be laid in graves,
ClIAP. VI.] AN rXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 173
■\vliich are here metaphorically put for resting-places, where they might be
sheltered from the sliame, contempt, and iiulignitie-s imposed on them by
their insulting enemies, who now were complete victors over them.
And thus the allusion herein may be unto the sufferings of Christ, who,
though he had a great party of the people for him, crying, ' Hosanna in the
highest !' yet those very Jews were so far prevailed upon by the Pharisees,
when they once had Christ down in their power, as to cry with the rest,
' Crucify him, crucify him ! ' and to run out in troops to see him executed.
So Luke xxiii. 35 : ' The people,' says the Evangelist, ' stood beholding him ;
and the rulers also with them derided him.' The people that before had
rejoiced in his ministry now take part with the Pharisees, his enemies. And
even so, it is to be feared, shall the Protestant party, overawed Avith the
power and tyranny of Rome, which shall have power to tread down them
also, comply with her against the witnesses ; though not so far as to have
their hands in their blood, yet so far as not to suffer them to be put in
graves, and to be harboured amongst them or by them ; so far as thus negar
tively to be against the witnesses, as not to shew any office of kindness in
relieving them.
And so this their inhumanity is, after the manner of men, (who use to per-
form this as a common office of humanity, to put dead men's bodies into
graves,) expressed unto us by this contrary carriage of theirs, that they suf-
fered not their bodies to be put in graves : a metaphorical speecb it is.
And particularly ; the allusion here is made unto the putting the carcases
of dead men into gi-aves ; which, you know, is an honour and a shelter to
them, and, indeed, all the office of kindness that lies in the power of friends
to afford them. And so kindness unto men in that dead condition is by this
here fitly expressed. Now therefore, when these witnesses are deposed from
their station, and haply banished from forth the nation in which they lived,
which haply is their death here meant, and cast forth with the highest con-
tempt, and persecuted with the greatest malice of their enemies ; and shall
come to those of other peoples, nations, and tongues, who are of their own
religion and party, for succour and shelter from these indignities, and base
usages from their enemies, so to find rest to themselves, — who are now, in re-
spect of that active life of witnessing by prophecy, laid by the walls speech-
less, and as dead, — and to have only a harbour among them, (which unto those
that are among strangers of another langa;age, is but of the nature of a grave,)
and a place of rest, where, at best, they cannot so much be said to live, as
to lie still in quiet, as men dead ; — when they shall seek but thus much, and
shall not obtain it, these nations and kindreds who refuse it them may justly
be said not to suffer their dead bodies to be laid in graves. Which yet to
perform for them were but a common favour of humanity, and, by the law
of nations, to be imparted unto banished strangers, especially to those of
their own religion.
And we see it hath hitherto been allowed the witnesses flying out of Eng-
land, by the Low Countries ; and to the Protestants flying out of Germany,
by the English. And so, in Queen Mary's days, the English professors found
graves at least, some at Geneva, some in Germany, and others elsewhere ;
where they lay quietly enjoying their consciences, though put by that active
life of prophesying which before that they lived in and enjoyed in King
Edward's reign. But now such shall be the surpassing misery of these three
last years and a half, above what in former times, and so potent the preva-
lency of the Popish faction, and such their vigilancy to stop all holes of
refuge against these witnesses, that they seeking only for graves among these
174 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT IL
states of their own party and religion, which formerly they had permitted
them, shall yet be refused it by these nations, tongues, and kindreds, who
shall so inhumanly be carried on against their own principles, as not to suf-
fer them to have such graves among them ; namely, a condition of harbour,
rest, and quiet.
And further ; because this shall be done with a prohibition to the con-
trary, therefore it is thus expressed, that ' they suffered not their dead bodies
to be laid in graves ; ' that is, by edicts prohibiting any of the banished wit-
nesses to have harbour among them. And although this phrase, putting their
dead bodies in graves, may seem improper to express oj)pressed men's flying
for shelter, because to be put in a grave is a passive phrase in respect of
them that are dead, and imports a thing done by others ; we must therefore
still remember that this is a metaphorical speech, and so a civil death, and
civUly lying dead, are here to be understood. For these witnesses, many of
them, are not to be killed with a death natural, as they are men, but with a
civil death, as they are witnesses ; and so may seek for shelter as men when
they are dead as witnesses, which shelter in this allusion is called a grave.
And because dead men cannot bury themselves, therefore, according to the
metaphor of men dead, the Holy Ghost expresseth their seeking a place of
rest by their being put into graves ; so passively expressing it. For how
else, speaking of them under the notion of dead men, could it be expressed %
It is but rh t^sitov figurce ; the decorum of following the metaphor taken up
required this, and no other kind of expression. The like unto which is
usual in Scripture phrase, and in all other languages. Which putting the
witnesses into graves, in this sense taken, these their friends shall yet not
suffer or permit.
And thus, as it may be mentioned, to note out the inhumanity and
cowardice of their friends ; so withal, the great misery and desperate calamity
of the church in this their last being subdued : which will prove worse than
ever any before it, in that now they shall have no sanctuary, no safe retiring
place to rest in throughout all Europe, which shall in this respect univer-
sally become the jurisdiction of the great city ; so some interpret that word
ntXazi'ia, street. It shall not now be, as at other times it hath been, that ' when
they were persecuted in one city, they might flee to another,' and there have
quiet and safety. But the jurisdiction of the Popish X'^rty shall so far now
prevail in Protestant states, if any such remain, as they shall not dare to
receive and protect the oppressed witnesses, seeking a refuge and a harbour
amongst them, but shall rather prohibit them so doing. Which in this allu-
sion is spoken in opposition unto that humanity and charity in Joseph of
Arimathea, who honourably laid Christ's body in a grave, when yet he had
not power to hinder his crucifying.
And that even the Protestant party may turn thus inhuman towards the
witnesses, the unfaithful carriage of many Protestant states towards their
neighbours and brethren, now whilst this war is but begun against the wit-
ziesses, may give us cause to fear and suspect.
How hath the Lutheran party in Germany complied and took part with
the Popish for the ruin of the Calvinists ? And it were haj>py for other
states, professing the Calvin religion, if they could wash their hands of the
blood of the churches, not only not assisted, but even betrayed by them.
Thus I have projiosed another diff'crent interpretation from that formerly
given, by way of mitigation of this extremity ; yet leaving both it and the
other unto the event to determine, and to the reader to judge of.
CUAP. VL] AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 175
Section VII.
Of the universality of this slaughter. — Whether reaching to all churches re-
formed, and in them to all professors, or only to eminent witnesses. —
2^hat some one may be more eminently designed. — What is meant by the
street of the city, <L'C.
III. The next query may be concerning the generality or universality of
the extent of this slaughter : hew far it may reach ; as —
1. Whether to all sorts of professors of religion, or whether to eminent
persons in the church only ?
Now for that, it may seem principally to be of witnesses ; that is,
those that are eminently such. It is probable that the purest and best
professors will be singled out to a duel or single combat, as it were. The
Gentiles before this had the outward court of carnal professors more easily
given up unto them ; but among these truly godly ones, they find serious
and stiff opposers, that will never be brought to yield unto them. And this
the Popish party themselves do both see and find — namely, that the godly
of the Protestants are their only real enemies, and those who still put the
great bars and impeachments to their plots, and that are the great stakes
in the hedge of the church, which stand in the gap against their irruptions.
And these are they who only by their lives and profession do torment the
ungodly, as you have it, ver. 10 ; who therefore rejoice for their victory over
them. And therefore this is not like to be a massacre of all sorts of pro-
fessors at large, as was that in Paris, anno 1572 ; but a particular combat
and set battle against the sincere witnesses only, whom their enemies have
been taught to know and distinguish from others, by the fire they have shot
into their consciences, as ver. 5. Thus in Antiochus's three years and a half,
the type of this, the persecution fell especially upon those that were teachers
and instructors of others ; so Dan. xi. 35. And thus will this do.
Only let me add this : that these witnesses being the golden candlesticks
also, as may seem by ver. 4, therclore a scattering of them — namely, of the
purer churches — will be joined with it. And if their olive-trees be felled
and removed, if their prophets and rulers be scattered, themselves then must
needs be scattered. ' Smite the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered,'
as Christ spake of himself and his disciples ; which smiting of his there
— namely, at his passion — is here alluded unto.
2. But a second query may be . Whether this killing will be over all the
reformed churches, and so generally of the witnesses in all Protestant states
and kingdoms 1 Graserus, a judicious Lutheran divine, thinks that it will
be universal, and that this is the angel's very scope here, thus particularly
to design out this last killing, as herein differing from all other former ones,
that it should at once be a general and total eclipse of true churches for
three years and a half. And so, says he, quod hactenus per partes impleri
nunquam desiit, jam plenarie et universaliter perficietur ; that is, that perse-
cution which in some place or other hath never ceased, and so by parts hath
been fulfilled at several times, that shall now at once more fully and univer-
sally be accomplished. And I must confess, that the treading down the
outward court, and the sins of all churches, so great and so general in all,
do universally threaten this. And it may be part of the drift of that speech
which we have explained, that ' those of the peoples, kindreds, tongues, and
nations, should see their dead bodies lie in the street,' or jurisdiction, ' of the
great city ;' as importing, that generally, in all those nations where witnesses
176 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
are to be found, tliey sliall be killed ; and so, by that means, they should all
have opportunity to view and see their dead bodies.
This I deny not, but think it may be the event, more or less. Yet, how-
ever, I believe that sonne one kingdom or state will more eminently be made
sedes belli, the field of this battle, the shambles of this slaughter.
And one reason hereof is, because where the witnesses rise from this their
dead condition, there is an earthquake joined with it, whi(di shakes ' the
tenth part of the city;' that is, as I take it, and shall afterwards give my
reason for it, one of those ten European kingdoms that have given up their
power unto the beast, shall now in this slaughter begin to fall from and
cease to be a part of the city, or to belong to the jurisdiction of Rome any
longer, under which, for the space of these three years and a half, it had been.
Now that falling away of the tenth kingdom, being joined with these wit-
nesses' rising again, it would argue that accident of the earthquake to fall out
for the especial help and furtherance of the witnesses' rising, who are in or do
belong unto that kingdom, or tenth part of the city. Some one particular
state or kingdom shall assist the witnesses in it in their rising and ascend-
ing into heaven ; and shall revenge their slaughter by ' killing seven thousand
names of men,' who were their enemies, and had been executioners of them
in their fore-passed slaughter. Now, if their resurrection and ascension be
in some one part of the ten kingdoms made more eminently glorious, and
so the special privilege of the witnesses belonging unto that tenth part ;
then one would think, that the killing or slaughter of them should also be
in that tenth part of the city more conspicuous than in the rest. For in this
suffering, whereof Christ's passion is propounded the type, those that suffer
most with him shall rise and enter into this their glory spoken of, which is
to be answerably proportioned to their suffering. If, therefore, the glory
that follows seems to be more peculiar to one tenth part, the suffering fore-
going it would also seem to have been more peculiar to that tenth part like-
wise, and the main shock of the storm to have fallen there ; though haply
all the heavens may be covered with black, and all churches feel some drojjs
and sprinklings of it.
It hath also somewhat moved me, that the place where they are said to lie
dead is called -T^^ars/a, the street, not streets, of the great city, as noting out
some one eminent place or street of that city, or some state belonging to the
jurisdiction of Rome ; so comparing the jurisdiction and power of Rome
through and over all Europe unto a city, and the kingdoms and states of it
unto several streets. And so some one state or kingdom is this same 'TrXarss'a
rrii m'oXioii;, this same street of that city. I know what critics say, that this
is numerus singularis pi'o plurali — street for streets; but the elegancy of the
allusion seems better made up by taking it for some one place of the city, by
this slaughter made the market-j^lace, and, as it were, the shambles therein,
more eminently than the rest of the streets.
And thus also that former interpretation of those of the peoples, kindreds,
&c., they being taken as meant of the Protestant party of other nations round
about ; and their seeing, &c., to be their knowing and taking notice of this
slaughter, as standers-by, aloof off ; and their not suffering them to be put
in gi-aves, to be their prohibiting them a sanctuary and resting-place among
them, when they fled unto them for help : that interj^retation, I say, is
made more clear by this, that the slaughter falling more eminently upon
some one part or kingdom, the rest of the kingdoms and nations about it
do deny them of that kingdom shelter, and a grave to hide their heads in,
when from thence they flee unto them and seek it at their hands.
Chap. VI.] an exposition of the revklation. 177
And if ill this last combat the witnesses be singled out as the one party,
and by witnesses be meant only such faithful Cliri.stians and professors as
do, in respect of their godliness and sincerity, hold forth an eminent testi-
mony and witness, above that which others of the crowd of common pro-
fessors do; and so not men of learning, but of holiness and zeal, are they who
are here said to be the real tormenters of these their enemies ; then surely in
that part of the reformed churches where such witnesses are chiefly found, who
do continue eminently to hold forth such a kind of powerful testimony as
holy men, (for this is a testimony of holiness, not of learning,) their forefathers,
who were killed before them for the same cause, have done, — surely there
especially will be the seat of this war, and the field where this combat is to
be fought.
Now then, look generally over almost all the reformed churches, and how
few of such witnesses, with difference from the common crowd, do appear
amongst them ; the fire, the heat of tliose godly men, their first reformers,
which is the thing that should torment those enemies at last, being gone,
and the light only remaining, which gives but a fiiint, cold, and dull testi-
mony, and which these enemies do therefore despise. Only in the witnesses
of Great Britani both the light and heat of religion have been kept up and
increased ; and among them only hath the profession of the power of godli-
ness been continued, with difference from the crowd of common professors.
And, according to what appears in view, more of such true witnesses, now in
these last days, wherein this slaughter is to fall out, are to be found in it,
and belonging unto it, than in all the reformed churches besides ; and that
according to the testimony which they of those churches, who in these times
of scattering have come hither for refuge, have and do give.
And surely the place of this killing the witnesses must be where most
witnesses are. And so that kingdom may be designed more than any other ;
as in which also more eminently are found those last sort of champions for
the beast, who receive only the number of his name, who yet shall be the
chief executioners of this last slaughter, and who are to be overcome last of
all the beast's company, before the fifth vial on the seat of the beast, as chap,
xvi. tells us.
Add unto this, this conjecture upon Dan. xi. 45, which chapter, from ver.
36, hath Graserus excellently, and Mr Mede, in his Discourse of Demons,
upon 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2, applied unto the Pope, who is that king there men-
tioned, and whom Antiochus, whose story is contained in the former part of
the chapter, typified out. But the larger interpretation and application of
all, from ver. 36, I leave to be fetched from them, and shall only mer.tion
my own conjecture, as supposing their interpretation good, upon the last
verses, unto the purpose in hand. It is evident that the angel's scope there is,
as I find others to acknowledge, to shew the issue of the beast's last expedi-
tion against the reformed churches, after their reformation and before his
end ; and so to denote out this last war here prophesied of — namely. Anti-
christ's * accomplishing to scatter the power of the holy people,' as before
hath been at large related.
Now, when he shall go forth in this his last war, in such fury and rage,
with a purpose utterly to destroy, the main event and issue of that expedi-
tion of his is made to be this, that ' he shall plant the tabernacle of his
palace between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain : yet he shall come
to his end, and none shall help him.'
The allusion in that phrase, ' the holy mountain,' is to that of Sion, where
the temple stood j which therefore, in the usual phrase of the prophets, is often
VOL. IIJ M
178 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [P 4.RT II.
put to express the true cliurcb, whicli is the mountain of the Lord. This
mount, and the temple thereon, was erected in Europe by the northern
reformation mentioned ver. 44, which he shall prevail against, and tread
down, and place the tents of his throne upon it, or some part of it, again.
This Alstedius and others acknowledge to be the meaning of the place.
And so it agrees with what this angel, who came here to expound what he
had told Daniel, affirms, that the outward court, now at last, was to be given
up unto the Gentiles.
That which to Graserus occasioned the greatest puzzle in the interpretation
of this verse, was this phrase which is added, to describe the situation of this
mountain, inter maria, 'between the seas;' that there the Pope should at
last replant his ancient throne. He stands wondering why to the mention
of Mount Sion, which nakedly, says he, without this addition, had been
enough, there should have been subjoined, between the seas; which, says he,
hath puzzled all interpreters : for Sion stood not between two seas. And
therefore, says he, those words must be added by way of difference and dis-
tinction from the holy mountain, by the type and name of which the angel
had yet expressed the state of the church. And if his scope had been thereby
to set forth the church universally throughout Europe, then the bare men-
tion of the holy mountain, as, chap. xiv. 1, it is expressed by, had been
sufficient and suitable enough unto so general a scope. But it being with
this addition of difference concerning the situation, that it was between the
seas, or among the seas, it therefore must more particularly design out some
church or people of God, whose place and habitation is, for the situation of
it, thus between the seas, and thereby singled out from the rest.
Luther, he makes it to point out Rome, which is the seat of the beast,
which stands in Italy, between the Adriatic and the Tirrheue seas. But
his ancient seat, Rome, cannot be here meant; for, ver. 44, he is said to go
forth as from that his old seat, and to plant, as noting out this to be a new-
gained seat, which was not the ordinary place of his residence, as Rome is.
Graserus gives a touch that Germany may be intended as that place
which should again be subdued unto the Pope, as lying between the Baltic
and the German Oceans, which it does but veiy remotely, and only the north-
ern parts of it being bounded with and touching upon those seas.
But I rather fear that these British islands are here intended, in that they
so eminently, above all other places of the churches reformed, and with dif-
ference also from all others, do stand between the seas, even wholly among
seas, — -penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos, — which islands likewise God hath
made the eminent seat of the church in these latter days, and which ' he
hath loved above aU the habitations of Jacob.'
And in that the angel there calls this mountain, in a high and transcen-
dent phrase, yet of further difference, ' the mountain of delights of holiness,'
or, as Junius turns it, mons decoris sancti, the mountain of holy comeliness;
it seems in some way of peculiarity from others, even in that respect also, to
note out a place which for holiness should more eminently be God's delight,
■and comely in his eyes ; where he should have a most holy people, and which
he should make a land of uprightness, where his majesty and glory should
more eminently shine. Which place, notwithstanding, for the trial of the
witnesses in it, God shall again give up unto the power of Antichrist, there
to plant the tabernacle of his palace or throne, or his clergy, as Graserus
reads it; even as Nebuchadnezzar did his throne at Tiiph-haanies, when he
had conquered Egypt, as a sign of that his victory. By the coixpiest of which
kingdoms and regaining them unto him, he shall seem so rooted in his an-
CllAP. VI.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. 179
cient power, that in hope of all the rest the whore shall sing, * I am now no
widow,' and that just before her fall. And yet this prevailing is but a pre-
paration to Antichrist's ruin ; for it follows there in Daniel, * Yet he shall
come to his end, and none shall help him.' Which notes out, as that this
is to be done just before his end, so also that that regaining his power should
seem so to strengthen him, that he should be, as it were, out of the danger
of ruin, and as for ever secure.
But this his sudden victory is but as the planting of a tent or tabernacle
in a field, not to stand past three years and a half; though that party and
their abettors do in their hopes think they build for eternity. But it being
of man's, not God's planting, it shall therefore come to nothing; for 'every
plant which the Father plants not shall be rooted up.'
180 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT ll.
CHAPTER VIL
The rising of the witnesses, from ver. 11 to ver. 15 of the 11th chapter.
Section I.
Three things in general observed. — Christ's resurrection the pattern of this. —
The liroportions between their hilling and rising. — This resurrection a
shadow of thai to come.
I come now to their rising again, and to tliose events which, do accom-
pany it.
Three things in the general I observe about it : —
I. That the particular circumstances of it are like to those in Christ's re-
surrection and ascension : this rising of theirs being an allusion to that resur-
rection of his, as was before saidj and Christ mystical being in these last
days, when his visible kingdom approacheth, more eminently to be made
conformable unto Christ personal, both in his death and resurrection, the
last of his acts done on earth before that his kingdom then. Yea, and, for
our comfort, although there are some evident characters of likeness to that
his last passion mentioned in this their killing here, yet there are more
apparent ones of a conformity unto his resurrection in this their rising again.
The several particulars whereof will arise to our observation in the explica-
tion. — This but in the general.
II. That God hath so recorded the more eminent circumstances of thi-s
their resurrection, that they do, as it were, answer unto those more eminent
circumstances noted in their killing; and this, as it were, a reward suited
and proportioned unto the debasement in the other. For —
1. Then they are said to be killed; and now a spirit of life is said to come
into them.
2. Then they are said to lie dead in the street; and now they are said to
stand upon their feet.
3. Then these their enemies or false-hearted friends are said to see them,
either as rejoicing over them, or at leastwise as not helping them; but now
at thek' resurrection it is twice noted and indigitated that their enemies saw
them, and that both when they arose and ascended; so ver. 11, 12 : both
which acts are done in the very face of their enemies, the more to spite and
vex them. Yea, and, as Parens observes, the Greek word for see is here
changed; for as there it imported that they then saw them with pleasure, so
here it intimates that they now behold them with horror.
4. Then their enemies rejoiced over them, but now great fear is said to
faU upon their enemies who beheld them.
5. Then they were exposed to such contempt that their bodies were not
suffered to be buried, which is a degree of humiliation beyond death; but
now, instead of this, they have therefore a further degree of glory put upon
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the revelation. 181
them beyond restoring to life. A voice calls them up to heaven ; and they
ascend, — that is, to a far more glorious condition than they had before.
And—
6. Their enemies are now killed in their stead, as being sacrificed unto
them, for their killing them before. Seven thousand of their enemies were
slain, ver. 13.
And all this is but to make the parallel of their resurrection and ascension
unto that of Christ the more full. For so it was in Christ ; the lower he de-
Bcended, the higher he ascended: Eph. iv. 9, 'Now that he ascended, what
is it but that also he first descended into the lower parts of the earth?'
And, as Dr Ames hath well observed, the degrees of his exaltation were
answerably opposite to the degrees of his humiliation : his rising from the
dead being opposed to his death; and his ascension into heaven, to his
descent into the grave, and going down to hell, or into the state of death;
and his sitting at God's right hand, to his remaining in the grave and in tha
estate of death.
III. The third thing which in general I observe is, that in this their re.
surrection there is a forerunning shadow of that last great victory which
brings in the kingdom of Christ and of his saints for the thousand years;
of the glorious beginning whereof, under the seventh trumpet ensuing, ver.
15, this is ordained to be the dawning.
But the particulars thereof I shall observe, when I have despatched the
particular interpretation. It is enough now in general to have observed it.
Section II.
The several steps and degrees of their resurrection and ascension.
I. The first step of their resurrection is the ' entering of the spirit of life
from God into them ]' even as in Christ's resurrection, the coming of his soul
into his body was the principle of that his future life. And such a principle
this same spirit of life here imports. And so here in this allusion, it notes
out their full restoring to their former state, even to that Ufe and power
which at any time before their killing they had had. This resurrection here
is not to be understood of the resurrection of their natural bodies, which is
not to begin till the thousand years, yet it is the resemblance and shadow of
it ; but it shall be a rising of the persons of these witnesses who shall survive
this short storm, or of their successors standing up in their cause. That
whereas they were laid as men utterly dead, during these three years and
a half, in respect of any active life of prophecy; and partly, it may be,
through the discouragements and base fears of their own spirits, they lay
too still and quiet, like dead men, and suffered their enemies to carry it, by
their not opposing them so boldly as they ought to have done : yet now, a
bold and steeled resolution to lie still no longer, together with an active
spirit, comes upon them, and they ' stand up upon their feet,' and make head
against their enemies, and so, in that sense, are said to rise again from the
dead as it were, namely, comparatively to their dejected estate during those
three years and a half.
And as for those who were bodily slain by their enemies the Gentiles, during
that war and slaughter, they may be said to rise in their successors, who con-
tinue to profess the same cause. For the saints are a holy nation and com-
munity; and what the next succcession doth, through the prayers or suffer-
ings of a former generation, that former generation is said to do, as Isa. Iviii.
12; and so John Baptist rose up in the spirit of Eliasj and when Christ
182 -^N EXPOSITION OF THE KKVKLATION. [PaRT II.
preached, they thought John was risen from the dead. And this spirit of
life is said to be from God, r/. io\t ©£&[;, as noting out a more than ordinary
hand of God therein, and a special demonstration of his power, such as he
put forth when he 'raised up Jesus Christ from the dead,' as Eph. i. 19,
and Rom. L 4. If in auythmg Christ was ' declared the Son of God with
power,' it was in his resurrection from the dead. And such a power shall
raise up these witnesses.
II. They stand upon their feet ; that is —
1. As in their former station or state.
2. As men erect, and taking heart, their cause being just, though before
condemned. And —
3. As ready to defend it, and as men able and resolved now to confront
their enemies; which strikes a mighty dread into their guilty consciences.
* Great fear fell upon them that saw them ;' that is, a disheartenedness and
dejection of mind. Their hearts begin to sink and die at the witnesses' first
beginning to live ; for they see this prophecy, beyond all expectation, ful-
filled : that, as Christ foretold he should rise again the third day, so it being
generally foretold that these witnesses should rise after three years and a half;
which they, as these Pharisees, had slighted : but now, think they, surely
the ruin both of us and of our cause will follow. So the hearts of Haman's
friends misgave them when they saw him begin to faU before Mordecai.
And now may the church well begin to say, ' Eejoice not against me, O mine
enemy ; when I fall,' and lie in the street, ' I shall arise. . . . Then she that
is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her ; . . . and she shall be
trodden down as mire in the streets,' never to rise again; as you have it
Mic. viL 8, 10.
Or, it may be, this great fear that is here said to * fall upon them that saw
them,' is meant of those standers-by of the peoples, kindreds, tongues, and
nations, that had before seen their dead bodies, but relieved them not, though
they were friends unto them; upon whom therefore this great fear and
reverence of God and his truth in these witnesses doth fall, so as now to take
part with them, and be on their side ; being moved thereunto by the mar-
vellous spirit of life and zealous courage, which God, according to the prophecy
which before run of them, did now cause to come upon them. The word
3swj£/V implies a fixed diligent observance and intention of mind; such as,
upon seeing a wonderful work of God, we use to have. They see the finger
of God in this, and that makes them to fear and dread his power and majesty.
For in that sense we often find in Scripture, that, upon some great and emi-
nent deUverance, or work of an almighty and divine power put forth, fear is
said to fall upon the beholders; so Jer. xxxiii. 9, and elsewhere.
III. As Christ ascended up to heaven in a cloud, so also these, being
called up to heaven by a great voice from thence, saying, ' Come up hither.'
Where, by heaven, the place mto which they are called, is meant a condition
more honourable and glorious than ever they had before, and which, com-
paratively to their former estate, is a heaven. For now they are about to
cast off their sackcloth for ever. And again, as Christ rose to die no more,
Rom. vi 9, so shall these ; they shall die no more, as men that ascend to hea-
ven do not. And thus, as Christ said of himself, Luke xxiv. 26, 'It became him
to suffer, and so to enter into his glory :' so it may be said of these. So that
by heaven here is not simply meant the church, as often in this book it is, —
for these that rise are of the trae church already, and were so even when
they lay dead, — but it is meant of their following condition, which for liberty
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the revelation. 1S3
and honour shall be as a church in heaven, in comparison to what it was
before, which was but as a church on earth.
Tluis, ascending into heaven is used to express an obtaining of new power,
freedom, and gh)ry; as Isa. xiv. 12, 13. And tliis is done in recompense of
that contempt which they lay in before, especially just before, when they lay
dead. And indeed, as I take it, the dawning of the glory of the new heaven
and new earth approaching begins first in this glorious condition, which the
church, after this rising of the witnesses, shall within a while be raised up
unto, and quietly enjoy, as those in heaven do, whose state is described,
chap, xix., ' I saw a great multitude in heaven,' &c. Of which hereafter. —
And thus much of their resurrection and ascension itself
Section III.
The events that accompany their resurrection.
Now farther ; as there are certain events which accompanied Christ's re-
surrection, so the like do accompany theirs. When Christ arose, there was
an earthquake, which aiirighted the soldiers that watched him ; and so was
there here hkewise, as ver. 13.
Now, to explain what is here to be understood by this earthquake : —
1. For the time of it; it is said to be at 'the same hour,' namely, with
this their resurrection, or beginning to rise ; and so may seem to be men-
tioned as one of the means which did make way for and facilitate this their
rising, by removing the impediments of it, and, as it were, rolling the stone
away, that so these witnesses might rise from under the power of their
enemies ; which former obtained power of theirs this earthquake doth scatter
and dissolve.
Now where£»5 their resurrection and ascension are both together mentioned
in ver. 11, 12 ; and then after both comes in the mention of this earthquake,
ver. 13, 'There Avas the same hour,' &c. ; yet, as I take it, this follows not
that all of them — resurrection, ascension, and earthquake — were at the
same time or hour together. For their resurrection and ascension are two
distinct degrees of their exaltation, as in Christ they were, and therefore
may not so immediately follow one after the other, as in Christ they did not,
his ascension being forty days after his resurrection ; and yet they are both
recorded and set together, because they are things of a kind and sort, as
pertaining both of them unto the exaltation of the witnesses. So that for
this passage that follows, ver. 1 3, that ' there was an earthquake the same
hour;' it may perhaps not refer to the time of both, namely, their rising
and ascension, but unto the beginning of the time of their first rising, as an
occurrence that feU out the same hour when this great turn began ; or rather,
indeed, as the way and means God first used to remove impediments for the
setting free of these witnesses, and restoring them unto their former state
and life.
2. For the thing itself, and the place where this earthquake shall be, and
what shall be the effects of it ; this is expressed in what follows : ' the tenth
part of the city feU,' and ' of the names of men were slain seven thousand.'
Great earthquakes have oft-times shook down cities and buildings, &c., and
many men have often perished by them. And such shall be the effects of
this here.
184 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaET IL
Section IV.
The fall of ilie tenth jyart of the city, what ? — Whether thereby he meant the
ruin of Roine, tlteiifth vial 1
But the main question is, "What is meant by ' the tenth part of the city,
and what by ' the names of men ] '
Mr Mede thinks, that by the tenth part of the city is meant Rome itself,
and its ruin by the fall of that tenth part ; as being that which shall fall
out immediately upon, or at the same hour with, this rising and ascending of
the witnesses ; and so to be all one Avith the fifth vial. And his reason is,
because this being an overthrow of the Popish party, who are the enemies of
these witnesses, for the beast kills them, it must therefore be reduced to one
of the vials : and to which of them but to the fifth ? For four are men-
tioned before, in ver. 5-7, and the sixth seems to be all one with that which
follows, ver. 14, when it is said, 'The second woe is past;' and then the
seventh vial is all one with the seventh trumpet. And this interpretation
he thus makes out : —
Rome, which now is the seat of the beast, being but the tenth part of ancient
and imperial Rome, as history and chorr>graphy tells us, the scope therefore
of the angel here must be, to shew how tliat relic of Rome, before brought to
a tenth part, by the former wars and trumpets, chap, viii., ix., should now
wholly and for ever be defaced and overthrown. And so, accordingly, the
names of men that are said to be slain, he makes to be those dignities, (haply
ecclesiastical dignities, says he,) whereby men are ranked in Italy whUst
Rome stands, as cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, &c., the merchants who
in Italy have enjoyed so great traffic by reason of this whore's merchandise ;
these are together, with the faU of the city, to be deposed, and civilly to die,
as the "SA-itnesses before had done, this seat of the beast now falling into the
Protestants' hands. An interpretation learned and ingenious.
But that which hath carried my thoughts to some other distinct event
from this, though this ultimately may be intended, hath been the observation
of that so different effect, mentioned ver. 13, as wrought upon the hearts of
the remnant of those, and so of the same company with them, that are slain
with the fall of the city in this earthquake ; together with that other con-
trary effect, which the full and fatal ruin of the seat of the beast, under the
fifth vial, is said to have i;pon the remnant of the beast's company there, as
the event of that viaL Here the remnant of men that are not slain are said
to be affrighted, and to give glory to the God of heaven ; but there, upon
the execution of that fifth vial, in the height of it, it is said, 'they gnawed
their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their
torments and their sores, and repented them not of their deeds;' so chap,
x^d. 10, 11. Now, if we interpret this their giving glory to God, here in
this chapter, in the lowest and most diminishing sense that can be supposed,
and as not arising to true repentance ; yet at least it implies an acknowledg-
ment of God to his praise, such as Achan made, though haply forced, and
out of fear constrained ; and if it be so taken, yet it is utterly opposite to
blaspheming the God of heaven, which these other, feeling his hand, upon
the ruin of Rome, are said to do. This remnant here, chap, xi, being such
as were, through fear, drawn in to be of the Popish party, and therefore do
now repent.
So that it rather seems to me to be some special occurrence, more nearly
and properly belonghig unto the witnesses' rising and ascension, as immedi-
ClIAr. VII.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 185
ately making way unto tliem both, in those parts of Europe where the
witnesses had chiefly been killed ; where, for the helping forward their re-
surrection, God causeth this earthquake, and mighty commotion of the state
of things and of the people's hearts. That whereas through a forced consent
and yielding, the Pope's power had again been entertained by that tenth part
of the city, for the killing the witnesses ; they now do cast off that power,
with a mighty commotion and insurrection, and so proceed to ruin the op-
posite party unto the witnesses, who were the instruments of that former
slaughter. Of which party the remnant unslain do, as men affrighted, ' give
glory unto God,' and turn back again to embrace the truth, and acknowledge
God to be in these witnesses, and in their cause.
So that, although this may and shall end in the ruin of Rome, which is
the highest effect of the fifth vial, for this resurrection and ascension of the
witnesses are truly the preparation unto it ; yet this other passage of the
earthquake, iSic, that here is said to be the same hour with their rising, is
rather to be understood of the means, or thing, making way unto that their
resurrection. So that this insurrection, or rising of the people, in the tenth
part of the city, which is meant by the earthquake, is the preparation unto
their resurrection, which ends in the ruin of Rome ; the scope of the Holy
Ghost here being to shew what did properly and peculiarly concern the
rismg of the witnesses, as the means to it : yet so, as still this earthquake
here, and fall of the tenth part of the city, are reducible unto that fifth vial,
as a degree unto it. And so that fifth vial may also be ultimately intended
in this passage recorded of the witnesses' rising, as the preparation unto it.
Thus in the interpretation of the vials, I shewed that there may be many
sprinklings of the same vial, both long before it come to its a5c/y,jj and vigour,
and also after ; all which are, notwithstanding, to be reduced unto that vial
of the kind whereof they are, or unto which they are either preparations or
appendixes.
Yea, further, the word city being taken in a double consideration in this
book, — one more strict for the city of Rome itself, another larger for the
jurisdiction of that city, — as was before observed ; accordingly may the tenth
part, both of the one and the other, be here meant, as the one is successively
to follow and fall after the other. And so both interpretations may aptly
be here intended ; the fall of the one being as a degree unto the fall of the
other, which is the height of that fifth vial. Unto this I do the more in-
cline, for that such a double scope and aim, in things of equivocal significa-
tion, I find the Holy Ghost oftentimes to have in his eye. So in the vials,
as I before shewed ; and so I believe in this passage and event. So that I
exclude not that interpretation of Mr Mede's, but do only join another with
it, though I think that may be mainly and ultimately intended.
Section V.
More partiadarly, that hy a tenth paH of the city is meant one of the ten
hingdoms of Europe. — How it is said to fall. — The earthquake in it,
what ? — The names of men, what ? and their killing.
Now to come to a more particular interpretation of this place : —
1. By the tenth part of the city I understand, as Mr Brightman before me,
some one tenth part of Europe ; which, as it all once belonged to the juris-
diction of the city of Rome, and is in this book called ten kingdoms, so now
again, upon the Gentiles, or idolatrous Papists, their recovering the outward
court, shall now at last, more or less, come under the jurisdiction of that
186 AN EXPOSITION OF THE P.KV ELATION. [PaET II.
city ; but especially, or at least this tenth part of it here intended, where
most faithful witnesses shall be found, and where most of them shall be
triumphed over and slain, shall, during these three years and a half, become
a part of the city again ; and so is called ' a tenth part of the city :' city being
put here, as it often is in this book, for the extent of the jurisdiction of the
city of Rome, which had these ten European kingdoms by charter allotted
unto it, chap, xvii., and unto which these kingdoms are a second time to
agree to give up their power. In one of which ten, or in the tenth part of
the whole, the witnesses shall first begin to rise ; and therein shall this
earthquake accompany their resurrection. This tenth part of the city may
perhaps be all one with that street of the city, mentioned ver. 8.
2. By the earthquake here, which is said to be a great one, is meant (as
stiU in this book it is) a great concussion or shaking of states, politic or
ecclesiastical, for of either or of both it is used. Thus under the sixth seal,
the great alteration wrought in the Roman empire, when it turned from
heathenism to Christianity, brought about by the power of Constantine, with
the deposing those heathenish emperors, captains, (fee, and altering the face
of the empire's religion, is called an earthquake, chap. vi. So that the like
mighty commotion, with an alteration of the face of things, (either civil or
ecclesiastic,) shall ftill out in a tenth part of the city, and shall accompany
or usher in this rising of the witnesses. Now —
3. By and through this earthquake's faUing thus out in a tenth part of
the citj', this tenth part of it is so shaken that it falls, — that is, ceaseth to
be a part of the city, or to belong unto its jurisdiction any longer, — or,
which is aU one, falls off, as we say, from being of the number of those that
give their power to the beast. Which if it prove to be any of the Protestant
states that should yet again, as was said, embrace the beast's power, and
come under his jmisdiction, or, in order to the bringing in again of the
Pope's power, should kill these witnesses, and so thereby become a part of
that city, and be reckoned as pertaining unto its jurisdiction ; yet now re-
volting from under the power of this city, and recoiling again through this
earthquake, it may truly be said to fall, — namely, qua urhis pars est, as it is
a part of the city, which it before was, but now ceaseth so to be, it now
utterly renouncing either to belong to its jurisdiction, or to be of its party
any longer. And as earthquakes are from inward motions in the bowels of
the earth, so this here may seem to arise from within that kingdom itself;
whether through the supreme magistrate's beginning to ' hate the whore,' (as
the promise is, chap, xvii.,) or the people's abominating the cruelty and con-
tempt put upon the witnesses and their cause ; their consciences having been
enlightened in the truth, while themselves were trodden under, as the out-
ward court, by these Gentiles, and so they come to shake off that yoke ;
and the witnesses having a spirit of bfe now come into them, these take
heart, and join with them and their cause : whether, I say, through the
working of either or both of these I cannot determine, but I think through
both. For the ruin of the city, unto which this is at least the preparation,
is to be effected through God's changing one of the ten kings' hearts so to
' hate the whore,' as to ' eat her flesh, and burn her with fire,' chap. xvii.
And this voice speaking unto the witnesses out of heaven, Mr Mede con-
jectures to be that of supreme authority, with which the people also shall
join ; for an earthquake certainly notes out a commotion in the people and
nations.
4. The effect of this earthquake, and fall of this tenth part of the city,
is the killing seven thousand of the navies of men ; so it is in the oiiginaL
ChAV. VII.] AN EXPOSITION OF TUE UliVELATION. 187
A phrase which, as tlius joining names and men together, is not so to be
found in the whole book of God. By these nam^s of men are certainly
denoted out those, be it interpreted of whomsoever, that had been the wit-
nesses' enemies, and that had the great agency and hand in killing them, and
in subjecting those nations unto the power of the beast.
Mr Mede conceives it to be oKj/xara a^d^uixuiv, names of men, for men of
navies, accordmg to the usual phrase of Scripture ; as riches of grace fur
rich grace, &c.
Now, by men of names, in Scripture, is meant men of office, title, and
dignity. So Num. xvi. 2, those two hundred and fifty men, who were princes
of the congregation, and in Korah's conspiracy consumed, are called men of
name, (so in the Hebrew,) that is, men of title and dignity.
You heard before how the last sort of enemies unto these witnesses, under
the fourth vial, were set forth unto us by the type of those very opposers of
Moses and Aaron, who were then the two witnesses of the Lord, as was
shewn in the exposition of the 5 th verse of this chapter. Now as there, in
Numbers, the spiritual punishment of many of them, for their enmity against
the witnesses, is noted out by that fire which then devoured them : so here a
civil punishment falls upon these ; for having thus killed these witnesses,
themselves are to be killed, haply by being bereft of their names and titles,
which are to be rooted out for ever, and condemned to perpetual forget-
fulness.
This Mr Mede carries to ecclesiastical dignities under the Papacy, those
Latiales Episcopatus, kc. And for the number seven thousand, it is an in-
definite number, and put for many, as the usual manner of the Scripture is.
And certainly, if these names here do prove to be ecclesiastical dignities and
titles, the phrase here used fits them and is most proper for them ; for they
use it of themselves, and when they would in a word or two comprehend all
the several ranks and orders of the hierarchical ministry, from the highest
to the lowest, which for them particularly to enumerate were too tedious,
they involve all in this indefinite expression, ' by what names or titles soever
dignified or distinguished.'
Now, as they call their dignities names, so the Holy Ghost, you see, calls
them names of men ; that is, merely human, of man's institution, and not of
God's. For so are most of their offices themselves, and, in a manner, the
names of them all ; they being not such names as the Holy Ghost teacheth
us to call them by, but such as the canons and constitutions of men have
imposed. And this may, indeed, be the true reason why this phrase, used
nowhere else, is yet used here, now when the ruin of the Pope's creatures
comes to be mentioned ; as most fitly, by names of men, denoting forth that
evil and error of theirs which is one true cause of their ruin. But now for
civil offices and titles, for them to be of man — that is, to have their rise from
men — is proper to them, and therefore they are called creations, or ordinances
of men, dvd^MTrhrj kt'ish, &c., 1 Pet. ii. 13 ; and this in opposition or distinc-
tion unto ecclesiastical offices. Whereas ecclesiastic offices and names should
aU, for the foundation of the calling and office itself, be of God, and not of
men. They are of another building and constitution, although man designs
the persons to them, and that, too, in a way of God's appointment. Thus
this phrase, of man, is used of this sort of offices, and to this very purpose,
in other places of Scripture. So when Paul speaks of his office of apostle-
Bhip, and his being designed to it. Gal. i. 1, he useth this phrase, ' An apostle,
neither of man, nor 6y man ;' that is. My office itself is not of man's appoint-
ment, nor was I put into it by man, — that is, designed to it by man's choice.
188 AN KXI'OSITION OF THE KKVKLATION. [PaRT II.
And although that office of his was an extraordinary office, yet other ordi-
nary ministers' offices are divine for the institution of them, and in that
respect not of man, though by man (that is, the church) their persons be
designed unto those offices. For Christ is Lord of these administrations or
offices, as you have it, 1 Cor. xii. 4, 5 ; and so they hold of him as truly as
gifts in the same place are said to do of the Spirit, and operations of the
Father. And men are no more to assume to appoint church-offices than they
are able to give gifts, or to bless those gifts with operations ; and when they
do so, they derogate from Christ the Lord as truly as they should from the Holy
Ghost, in attempting to bestow upon such as Simon Magus, who desired it,
the gifts of the Spirit. No, it is God who hath set iSito, (as you have it,
ver. 28 of that chapter,) teachers, as well as apostles, in the church. Paul
there reckons up ordinary officers as well as extraordinary ; for the institution
of the one is from God as well as the other.
Now therefore, when the Holy Ghost here speaks of those false names
and titles of church-officers which Christ appointed not, he disclaims them
from holding of him, but calls them names of men, as being of human crea-
tion, whereas they should be only of divine institution. And so being ' plants
which God the Father planted not,' they are here said to be 'rooted out' of this
one kingdom or state, where, it seems, they had been the causes and authors
of all this mischief and cruelty agauist the witnesses ; and which, through
the efficacy of their working to uphold their names, had again been become
the tenth part of the city, but now, by this earthquake, falls from being any
longer under that jurisdiction. And together with it are all those steeples
and cathedrals, and all those names and titles that belong thereto, utterly
shaken down also, it being a just punishment and reward of their conspiracy
against the witnesses, and agency in their killing.
Section VI.
What tenth part of Europe, or which of the ten hingdoms, it is most probable
that this earthquake and resurrection of the witnesses shall fall out in.
Now, which of these ten kingdoms or of the ten states in Europe, and
what tenth part thereof, shaU first have this great privilege, as a blessed
handsel to the rest that follow, is not hard to conjecture, though it be rash-
ness peremptorily to determine ; for God maketh new choice of nations and
churches therein beyond the line and reach of our conjectures, and ' his ways
are past finding out ; ' neither can the face of his former proceedings with
any of the churches give us any certain and infallible designment which of
them he will do most good unto.
I will therefore only cast in such conjectures as, according to the face of
the sky in the churches of this present age, do seem to prognosticate where
and in what parts tliis heaven, which the witnesses shall ascend up into, is
like first to clear up in, from under these clouds, and from out of this hour
of darkness to come upon the world.
1. The saints and churches belonging unto the kingdom of France God
hath made a wonder unto me in all his proceedings towards them, first and
last, and there would seem some great and special honour reserved for them
yet at last. For it is certain that the first light of the gospel, by that first
and second angels' preaching, chap, xiv., which laid the foundation of Anti-
christ's ruin, was out from among them, namely, those of Lyons and other
places in France. And they bore and underwent the great heat of that
morning of persecution, which was as great, if not greater, than any since.
Chap. VIL] an kxposition of the revelation, 1S9
And besides, the churches of France have ever since had as great a share in
persecutions, yea, greater than any other churches. And though it be well-
nigh live hundred years since they began first to sei)aratc from Antichrist,
and they still continue a glorious church unto this day, yet they never had
that great honour and privilege, which other churches have been so blessed
with, as to have a supreme magistrate professing their religion ; but either
they have been bloody persecutors and oppressors of them, or else they have
apostatised from them. May it not, therefore, be hoped and looked for, that
their kings in the end should be of the number of those kings who, as you
have it, chap, xvii., are to be wrought on to * hate the whore,' and to ' bum
her with fire;' and so that this voice here, which calls these witnesses,
who there have ever prophesied in sackcloth, up to heaven, may proceed from
one of their kings ; and so, as that kingdom had the first great stroke, so
now it should have the honour to have the last great stroke in the ruining of
Rome ? But yet —
2. If you take a view of the face of the present condition of the saints and
churches in Europe, as in this last age, wherein these things are in all like-
lihood to be fulfilled, it presents itself, together with a prospect into the
times past also, and then if you put all together, the churches and saints in
Great Britain, and the islands belonging to it, have, in my thoughts and
conjectures, (not swayed unto it through affection only, which may betray
the judgment, but through a serious and impartial consideration and weigh-
ing of things,) more hopeful characters upon them for this glory than any of
the other reformed churches ; and so appear the likeliest unto me to prove
the more eminent stage, both of this great slaughter, and also of the rising
and ascension of the witnesses.
(1.) For the ages past, there hath been these three himdred years as glo-
rious a succession of godly witnesses and martyrs as any other nation can
produce, as you may collect out of Mr Foxp's Martyrology.
(2.) For the last foregoing age, since the times of the Reformation, and for
the present one, the marks of these witnesses designed to this slaughter and
glory, as in the former part of this chapter you have had them laid forth,
appear the livehest, and, in a manner, only upon them of Great Britain :
for —
[1.] There hath God continued the most 'faithful, and called, and chosen,'
as they are called, chap. xvii. 14, who are of the Lamb's side, and who are
together vdth him to overcome the kings that shall hate and burn the whore ;
and, indeed,%nore of them that hold forth the power of religion with differ-
ence from the world, than in all the nine kingdoms besides. And surely,
where most of the witnesses are, there will be their most eminent slaughter ;
and where their greatest slaughter is, there will be their most glorious resur-
rection and ascension. For all these will certainly be commensurated and
proportioned one to the other : magnitude of sufferings to multitude of wit-
nesses ; and then greatness of glory unto the greatness of sufferings. Now,
that the saints in these kingdoms of Great Britain are like to be the subjects
of that slaughter, and those kingdoms made the street, or open market-place
thereof, I shewed before.
[2.] There God hath eminently stirred up men's hearts to breathe after a
further and purer reformation, and measuring of the temple. And they have
been put to contend for it more than all the other churches ; and this, more
or less, ever since the first erection of the English church at Frankfort, in
Queen Mary's days. And in the contention about it, and through that bitter
persecution for it, they even for this very cause having prophesied in sack-
190 AN EXPOSITION OF THE EEVELATION. [PaRT IL
cloth more apparently than others in other reformed churches, their spirits
have increased both in spiritual light and holiness, and in practical know-
ledge in the waj's and works of sanctification, by which the worshippers are
to be measured, and also in further and clearer light about the institution
and true government of a church, by which the temple and altar are to be
measured, more than all the reformed churches besides have done ; who, in
the quiet enjoyment of much of what these contend to have in a further
purity, have run out almost into nothing but an outward court of profession,
and a mere form, there being few priests, or true worshippers, that, with
difference from others, do worship God in poAver, in spirit, and in truth, that
are to be found in the inner temple of their assemblies. And let but the
exposition of the six first verses of this chapter be consulted with, and that
interpretation given be but impartially applied to the Protestant professors
this day in Europe, and how eminently above the rest will the condition of
the saints of Great Britain, and their constant conflicts with the beast and
his abettors unto this day, be found to fit the measure thereof, and to look
more like, and come nearer the life of, that face of things therein presented,
than any other, or than aU other the reformed European churches since that
their first reformation ! And —
[3.] That description of those who are to be the eminent opposites of the
witnesses in these last days, and the authors of this their slaughter, fits those
open and professed enemies of them in those kingdoms also. And there, if
anywhere, are found those that ' receive the number of the beast's name ;'
who, notwithstanding, hitherto have, and may yet for a while, deny hia
' character ' and disclaim his ' name.' Whom shall we liken this generation
unto, or where shall we find similitudes that will suit them, if those
descriptions forepassed in this chapter suit them not ? Sure I am, if these
be not they, they are as like as ovum ovo. And these (the ' number of his
name ') being the beast's last champions, — as appears out of chap. xiii. 1 7,
and chap. xv. 2, and are therefore there mentioned last, — are to hold up the
last great quarrel of the beast's cause, and to fight this last combat with the
witnesses ; and so in this last age to be overcome in open field by them, as
their predecessors that had the mark and image of the beast have been over-
come by the former generation of witnesses in elder times. And —
[4.] In which of the reformed churches are these ' names of men,' who
are to be the killers of the witnesses, and therefore are slain in this earth-
quake in their revenge, continued but in these kingdoms 1 And that in this
otherwise unused phrase, ' by what names or titles soever distinguished !'
Which names and titles, and several dignities, — take in all sorts of them, from
the highest to the lowest, — in all those kingdoms, may haply be found to
amount to 7000, that number being an indefinite kind of number, and taken
for more or less, even besides such ministers of parishes and assemblies as
have for the substance of their office a warrant from God, though for their
usual names, whereby they are called, they retain a name of man's devising.
Yea, is not this very thing made the quarrel now, whether their ranks of
ministry be names of God or of men ? About which the witnesses have, from
the very beginning, contended. Yea, is it not the suspicion and general
opinion that to continue and to secure these their names they would again
introduce Poperj' 1 And is not the matter as thus stated the very ground
of their quarrel 1 And hath it not long been the ground of all the opposi-
tion against the witnesses and saints in this kingdom, — as of sHencing, fining,
depriving them, and deposing them from their ministerial charges, &c., — lest
that, as the Pharisees said of Christ, the people's running after the witnesses'
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the revelation. 191
doctrine should endatiger tlieir names, credits, and dignities, and so take
away tlicir kingdoms 1 Hercat the quarrel first began, and for that secret
cause hath all along been continued, though under other outward pretences.
Yea, this is the thing that shall provoke them to the ensnaring slaughter of
these witnesses, which now approacheth. They say within their hearts, ' Let
us kill ' these witnesses, ' and the vineyard will be ours.'
Now, upon all these grounds, how fairly probable does it seem that these
occurrences here mentioned, as those that shall attend the resurrection of
the witnesses, are to fall out in this tenth part of Europe, and in one or both
of these our kingdoms above-mentioned, more eminently than in any other
European state or kingdom ! And how just were it with God to give up
these names of men, who have been the enemies of his witnesses in all times
since the Reformation, to receive at last the number of the beast's name,
and under his name and power to become in the end the killers of these
witnesses, and his trained band, and leaders in this his last war ! And how
wonderful and wise a dispensation of God will it be towards his own in these
kingdoms, to have reserved the utter extirpation of these names of men,
though so long while contended for, unto such a time and occasion as this !
And that after they shaU. first have done this feat and exploit for the beast,
in killing the witnesses, they should then be sacrificed as Baal's priests were
by Elias ; even when these witnesses, whom they so persecuted, shall rise,
and die no more ; and so by this means, the ruin of these their enemies
should be made the witnesses' triumph, and the removing them out of the
way by this earthquake made the foundation of their ascension into heaven :
after which the work of measuring the temple, by these Samaritans inter-
rupted, shall go forward in the hands of Joshua and Zerubbabel ; and the
people, who before were afraid of these hinderers of the work, shall now begin
to cry, ' Grace, grace, unto it ;' and so the rearing of these purer churches
shall be upon the rubbish of this Samaritan mountain, the false church.
And if the fifth \dal be also aimed at in this earthquake, and the fall of
Rome, the seat of the beast, as ultimately I think it is, then how comely
will it be, and suitable with the long expectation of God's witnesses and holy
ones, that the ruin of these episcopal ' seas,' and seats of those that shall do
Antichrist such service, shoidd fall out vidth, or be a preparative unto, the
fall of that great bishop's see, as I said in expounding the fifth vial, and both
to go down together, as alike pertaining to the same building of man's, not
God's !
[5.] And lastly, if this prove the issue of God's dealings with these king-
doms, how gloriously shall God thereby acquit himself in the conclusion of all
his dispensations towards them ! For to see two such contrary streams
running so strongly one against another in the same channel, hath indeed
caused a wonderment in the godly-wise of this last age, what God means to
do, and what end he means to make with England. This is that which is
now the great expectation of the churches there, how equally God means to
proceed, both towards them that fear him therein, and also towards the op-
posite party that are and have been there. For it is strange, even to a
miracle, to see how G(.)d upholds in the same state two such contrary fac-
tions and parties : one, of his own people, rising higher and higher in spuitual
light, and in opposition to superstition, and breathing after further purity of
holiness and perfection of public worship ; and together with this, at the
same time, another strong party looking towards Rome, and increasing in
superstition, darkness, and an impudent outfacing the light of truth, and
that then when it shineth hottest and clearest on them. Now, for the all-
19'2 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
wise God, wlio professeth to have this art and skill, to ' preserve the right-
eous, and reserve the wicked unto punishment,' as Peter speaks ; for him now
at last to come off so gloriously, what more equal, and so more likely dis-
pensation, than to run this course chalked out here in this chapter, both
towards the one and the other party in that kingdom, and which, according
to the course of his dealings throughout the Scriptures, though this prophecy
had not been left us in this chapter concerning these very times, the godly-
wise might have hoped God most probably might intend to take ?
Section VII.
How this their resurrection and ascension is a forerunning shadow of the
restitution of all things at the coming of Christ's kingdom.
Now further ; concerning this great privilege and honour thus first befall-
ing some one tenth part of Europe, let me add this unto all that hath been
said of it, to make it appear yet the more glorious : That this resurrection of
the witnesses seems to be the beginning of the first great turn of things in
the church hastening to the New Jerusalem ; and so the very first dawning
of the kingdom of Christ approaching, and of the final restitution of the
church's liberty from under the yoke of Antichrist. When Christ arose, as
these witnesses here do, his disciples then asked him whether he would at
that time restore Israel. He denies not that it should be done ; only he
tells them it was not for them then to know the seasons. But now the time
of that restitution approaching, the rising of these witnesses, which beareth
the true resemblance of his, is here mentioned as the signal of that restitu-
tion which, chap, xx., is called ' the first resurrection;' of which, I say, this
is the forerunning shadow. And, indeed, thus have the writers of all ages
since Christ understood it. For when they speak of that day, and the signs
of it, you shall generally find it among the ancients that this killing of the
two witnesses and their rising, though indeed it hath by them been inter-
preted of Enoch and Elias, are made the forerunning signs of the approach
of that joyful day of Christ's kingdom, which they called the day of judg-
ment.
And, I confess, I have thought that the true reason why this particular
occurrence, though falling out but in a tenth part of Europe, is here made
mention of, rather than other occurrences which are like to fall out with it or
after it, as the ruin of Piome, which in itself is a greater one, is because that
this one passage should have more fitness to become a sign — which to give is
the scope of the Holy Ghost in this chapter — of the approaching of the New
Jerusalem, to come under the seventh trumpet, than any other occurrence ;
it being not only the first step of the restauration of the church after Anti-
christ's last scattering of it, — which shall for ever after go on and increase until
the full restitution of all things, — it is not only, I say, the first turn of the
stream after that last low ebb, the waters whereof shall rise and increase till
it be full sea and never ebb again, (these witnesses now rising, as Christ did,
never to die again, but to cast off their sackcloth for ever,) but further also,
in many particulars, the liveliest picture and model of that great restauration
of all things which is to come, above any other passage ; and so is singled
out as a forerunning type and resemblance of it.
This great restoring of all things, of which we speak, is to begin with the
seventh vial, — which, as was said, is all one with the seventh trumpet, — when
' old things are to be done away, and all to be made new.' Now, as then
there is said to be * a great earthquake,' and that ' such a one as never was
CilAP. VII.] AN EXPOSITION OF THE IlEVELATION. 193
since men were upon the earth,' chap. xvi. 18 ; so here there is said to be a
great earthquake also. And as the effect of that earthquake is the dividing
the remainder of Babylon into three parts, and tlie falling of the cities of
the nations, ver. 19 of that IGth chapter j so here the effect of this earthquake
is the falling of a tenth part of the cit}', and the slaying of these names of
men. And as that is ushered in with a resurrection, which, chap. xx. 5, 6,
is called ' the first resurrection,' — that is, the first physical rising of the
bodies of the saints, — so this also hath a resurrection (though not natural
and phj'sical, yet metaphorical) of dead witnesses unto a better life than ever
they had before. So wonderful a work and change is this to be, that it shall
be even as ' life from the dead,' as the apostle speaks of the conversion of
the Jews.
And again, as then after that resurrection there is a new heaven and a
new earth, so here there is an ascending into a heaven. So glorious shall
the condition of these witnesses be, in comparison of what it was before,
that it shall justly be counted a heaven, if compared with their former best
condition before their killing.
Thus among the Gentiles will God give one instance, as a small scheme,
type, and shadow of this liis kingdom, to confirm the faith of the saints in
it, and that, as is most probable, in those churches of Europe which he
means chiefly to make partakers afterwards of this his New Jerusalem under
the seventh trumpet.
Section VIII.
An interpretation of that clause, ver. 14, ' The second woe is past.*
— A reconciling some difficulties about it.
There remains nothing now in this chapter to be expounded, excepting
this clause which follows, ver. 14, 'The second woe is past; and, behold,
the third cometh quickly;' which is the close of the sixth trumpet. For
the three last trumpets being called three woes, chap. viii. 13, when the fifth
trumpet had done sounding, it is said, chap. ix. 1 2, ' One woe is past ; and,
behold, there come two woes more,' &c. And now when the sixth trampet's
time of ending comes, it is said, ' The second woe is past,' &c. ; which is all
one as to have said, The sixth trumpet, and the woe of it, do here determine,
or at least begin to determine and end.
Now, the sixth trumpet being the empire and tjTanny of the Turk, and
the sixth vial being that great and deadly blow that shall be given that
empire, to make way for the kingdom of the Jews, the ' kings of the east,'
mentioned in that vial, hence ]\Ir Mede interprets this passing away of the
second woe to be the very sixth vial, as this fall of the tenth part of the
city he makes to be the fifth vial. Which if it be so, the difficulty to me,
which I see not so clearly by him reconciled, is, that this passmg away of
the second woe, as it is here recorded, seemeth, for the time of it, to Ml out
together with this resurrection and earthquake, and with the ascension of the
witnesses and fall of the tenth part of the city, and all these to determine
and end, as it were, in one common period. For as soon as the Holy Ghost
had made the narration of all these, he concludes with this, ' The second
woe is past.' And then, he making the fifth vial to be the period of the
Pope's reign, and the witnesses' ceasing to prophesy in sackcloth to be at
their rising, and at the fall of the tenth part of the city ; how then can
the passing away of the second woe, if it be the sixth vial, be imagined to
fall out at the same time with these, seeing the vials, as well as the seals
and trumpets, do fall out successively each after other? And though
VOL. IIL N
194 AN EXPOSITION OP THE KEVELATION. [PaKT II.
not in equal or alike distances of time each, from other, as Napier would
have it, yet aU of them in some distance, as is most likely ; and it is certain
it hath held so in all the rest.
Now, to reconcile this difficulty : —
1. Either the fifth and sixth vial shall fall out altogether about the same
time ; and so the conversion of the Jews and rising of the European -witnesses
fall out together as preparations unto them both: which I confess unto me
seems not altogether improbable. For that passage in Dan. xii. 1, compared
with the last verse of chap, xi., would seem to imply as much. In which
last verse the angel had spoke of the end of the reign of Antichrist ; and in
the 1st verse of the following 12th chapter he speaks of the Jews being deli-
vered from their greatest time of trouble, which is to befall them from the
Turk upon their first conversion : and he seems there to make them both to
be at the same time, or at least so near each other that the distance is not
considerable. For he expressly says, ' At that time shall Michael stand up,
to deliver thy people;' so he calls the Jews by way of distinction from the
Gentile Christians, as being of Daniel's nation. Or else —
2. Whereas there are two things here mentioned concerning these wit-
nesses —
(1.) Their rising, accompanied with this earthquake; and —
(2.) Their ascension into heaven, which must needs fall out after their
resurrection : it may be, that as Christ's ascension was forty days after his
resurrection, so this their ascension, though mentioned immediately next
their resurrection, may be some space of years after, when their enemies are
removed, and all obstacles and impediments out of the way; then they have
a heaven granted them, and a voice calling them up thither. And so it may
come to pass that this ascension of theirs may not be until the sixth vial,
though their rising were before the fifth vial, and a preparation unto it.
But—
3. And lastly, to solve all these doubts : it may be, that the only scope
and drift of the angel in bringing in this clause, ' The second woe is past,'
here, ver. 14, was not so much thereby to denote the exact common period
or instant of time for all these occurrences mentioned, or to shew how the
sixth vial and the end of the sixth trumpet shall, for the time of them, be
together with this earthquake, &c. ; but rather, whereas the Turkish tyranny
was one part of the second woe upon the eastern Christians, spoken of chap,
ix., and the treading down the outward court of carnal Protestants by the
Papists, and kUling their witnesses, another second part of that second woe,
that therefore now, when he had related and put them both together, then
he comes in with this speech, ' The second woe is past ;' that is, I have now
fully declared what a woe God will bring both on the eastern Christians,
and also on the European and western Christians; and these two do com-
plete and perfect the story of the second woe, and do also belong unto the
story of the sixth trumpet. Which second woe, consisting of those two parts,
I have now fully done withal ; and so I pass from it to speak of the third
woe, which now ' cometh quickly,' &c. And so this passage seems to be in-
tended rather materially to shew what appertains to the sixth trumpet, than
chronologically to shew the expiring of it. And so this great punishment
from the Popish GentUes upon the Protestant party in the west for their
sins is fitly cast under the trumpets, and joined to that great plague and
punishment on the eastern Christians by the Turk, as a part of the sixth
trumpet, and severed from the vials as no part of them : they being to fall
only upon the enemies themselves of both these Christian companions —
Chap. VII. J an exposition of the revelation. 195
namely, upon the Pope and the Turk, Thus the Holy Ghost homogoncally
putteth together the punishment of carnal Christians, both eastern and
westei'n, under the woe of the trumpets ; and in like manner involveth those
other two grand enemies unto the Christian profession and reUgion wholly
under the punishments and plagues of the seven vials. And so that may be
the reason, both why the story of ' treading down the outward court ' and of
the 'killing of the witnesses' comes in here in chap, xi., though the matter
of them belongs unto the book-prophecy ; and why also the * treading the
wine-press,' chap. xiv. 20, which is part of the treading the outward court in
this 11th chapter, is reckoned as no part of the vials, it being to fall upon
the Protestant party. Yet so as with what in the trumpets, what in the
vials, God will be sure to meet with all sorts for their sins, and so, by a like
just and impartial rule, proceed both towards friends and enemies, without
any respect of persons.
But whether of these, or whether any of these, will reach the Holy
Ghost's meaning, I leave unto the reader to judge.
I shall, by and by, add a fourth interpretation of that clause, to me as
probable as any of these, when I have first cast in a few conjectures about
the times of the fulfilhng of these things, which I reserved to the last, as the
closure and coronis of this long discourse : because many things already de-
livered in this interpretation do fall in to strengthen the conjectures concern-
ing the precise time of the falling out of these so great occurrences.
Section IX.
Tlie conclusion of this discourse. — The conjectures of some about the time
when this hilling and rising of the witnesses shall he.
I find two periods of time more eminently pitched upon by writers of this
age, according to the diversity of men's conjectures, for great changes in the
churches of Christ.
The first is fixed some time between the years 1650 and 1656.
The other upon 1666. Both which periods are not far off to come.
Concerning both of which, as also any other that shall be made upon con-
jectures out of these prophecies, this general caution must be taken in : —
That in these computations a mistake of a few years may fall out, and the
event fall out sooner or later than the time conjectured, by reason that the
vulgar account of years from the birth of Christ is uncertainly kept, accord-
ing to the acknowledgment of chronologers themselves. So Arnobius, at
the writing of his Apology, speaks indefinitely of the reckoning of years, how
long it was from Christ unto his time : Tricenti sunt ferme anni, says he,
aliquid plus vel minus, a quo coejnmus esse Christiani. And therefore the
best chronologers (as Helvicus, &c.) reckon the true account to reach two
years further than the vulgar account doth, and so make the year 1650 with
us to be in truth 1652 ; and so of the rest. Others give a larger allowance,
namely, of four years. And this indeed is the true reason of that difference
about the first period mentioned, namely, between 1650 and 1656; some
saying it shall be in '51, some in '52, and some in '5Q : yet all making the
ground of their so fixing it one and the same, only varying about the precise
time by reason of several computations and accounts of the years since
Christ, as we shall see by and by. And for that second period of 1666,
which is made to termmate the date of Antichrist's reign, and is to that pur-
pose understood to be that number of QQQ made mention of in the last verse
of chap, xiii., the first that so interpreted that place was an unknown Eng-
IDG AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVELATION. [pAKT II.
lish. writer, anno 1589, wlio, in a little book dedicated to the church of
Rome, first gave this obscure hint of it : ' Yet,' saj'S he, ' two months, two
weeks, two days and a half, and thy number GG6 shall be fulfilled,' as writ-
ing to that church. Which casting up, from 1589, the year his book bare
date of, from the printing of it, I found him to aim at 1G66. Now, the
reason which they give for this interpretation, and why they reckon the be-
ginning of Antichrist's 1260 years, or forty-two months, from Pope Inno-
cent's time, anno 406, I have given upon chap. xiiL And I find Simpson,
the Scotch abbreviator of the church's story, to pitch the beginning of the
Pope's usurpation over churches in this man's time, who yet had no eye at
all unto this interpretation of GGQ. And, as I remember, ]\Ir Wood, now
with God, in his manuscript upon the Revelation, doth also incline to think
the year 1666 to be the time of the Pope's downfall; and so also do some
others.
That other first period of 1650, or '51, or '5Q, I find by some to be made
the time of the Jews' first call. And by others, that of 1656 to be the time
of the expiring of Antichrist's reign, and the fall of the city. The first that
I know of that ever pitched upon this term of years was that holy man Hil-
tenius, the great forerunner of Luther in Germany, and who foretold the
very year of Luther's rising after him, to teach the same doctrine that he
had done ; which Melancthon says he saw wiitten under his own hand.
Among other of whose sayings, you shaU find this as one of the last recorded
in his life, written among the lives of the German divines, by ]\Ielchior Ada-
mus : that the year after Christ 1651 shall be the time of the change of
this world, and so the beginning of that new world to come. Since him,
many others, though haply not from him, have fallen upon this period of
1650. So Finch, in his book of the Calling of the Jeivs, makes it the time
when God will leave off, as says he, to scatter his holy people, for then shall
the Turks' first declining come, &c.
And the Jews themselves have their eyes upon this very time ; for it was
a secret communicated to old Mr Forbes by a learned Jew, as Mr Forbes
himself related it, not long before his death, that the learnedest Ptabbi they
had had in the world of late years did pitch upon 1650, or thereabouts, as
the utmost time wherein they should expect their Messiah to reveal himself
unto their nation ; and how he had left this secret with some of his learned
friends that came about him when he was on his deathbed to know his
judgment about the Messiah.
I find also Mr Mede, in his Clavis, to pitch upon 1656, though tacitly and
implicitly, yet clearly enough, as the time he most inclined unto for the
expiration of Antichrist's kingdom. For in his Spiel ironisms, he makes the
first trumpet and the Pope's 1260 days to begin together ; and in his Com-
ment, he makes the beginning of the first trum2)et to be in the year 395. So
that, if the reign of Antichrist begins at the year of Christ 395, then his
1260 days or years will end in 1655. And thus there will be so many years
from Christ unto the beginning of the new world, as there was from the
beginnmg of the old world until the days of Noah, unto which Christ com-
pares his coming, even 1656 years.
Now the best ground for this opinion that ever I met with, and which I
suppose all or most of these have gone upon, is that computation of years
given to Daniel, chap. xii. 1 1 of his prophecy, by this very angel that gave
this little book here, and this 11th chapter, by word of mouth, unto John,
as was said before. Who there says, that ' from the time that the daily
saoiifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the kevelatio>. 1D7
up, there shaU be a thousand two hundred and ninety days,' or years. The
beginning of whicli account they fix, as I said before, in Julian's time, when
was the last time both of the ceasing of the daily sacrifice by him set up,
and of setting up heathenish idolatry in the world. Which years, if other-
wise they be reckoned from Vespasian and Titus his son's sacking of Jeru-
salem, were out almost three hundred years ago. This place and account
in Daniel, I suppose Hiltcnius, the first that pitched on it, had in Lis eye for
the ground of his conjecture. For he was a great studier of Daniel's pro-
phecies, and wrote notes upon them, as in his life you may read. And sure
I am that Mr Wood, Finch, and others, do make that the ground of their
opinions. And I suppose that most of all these Jews also do the like. And,
as was said before, the reason why some do so uncertainly pitch upon 1651,
others '52, others '55, and others '5G, is the variation and uncertainty of the
account of years since Julian's time, when and how long he reigned : some
pitching his reign in the year 361, some in 3C3, and others in 365.
Now I shall only shew how both these periods — namely, of 1650 or '5G,
and 1666 — may be reconciled, and how they both may stand tf)gethcr.
The fifth vial, as hath been said, had two gradual accomplishments of it ;
whereof the one is a preparation to the other. That vial is emptied, as also
are some of the others, by two several pourings forth of two several portions,
the one of the top, the other of the dregs of the wrath of God ; Avhereof
this 11th chapter mentions one, and the 16th chapter the other. The first
degree of it begins at the rising of the witnesses, with the fidl of the tenth
part of the city, as taking the word cifi/ for the extent of Rome's jurisdic-
tion ; which is completed by a second degree of it — namely, the ruin of the
city of Rome itself, which is now but a tenth part of the ancient material
city of Rome that once flourished : with the ruin of which city itself, the
time of Antichrist's reign and kingdom is reckoned to end ; it being the fuU
accomplishment and complete effusion of the fifth vial. Now, according to
their conjecture, the first of those forementioned periods (namely, 1650 or
'56) may prove the time of the first of these two occurrences; and the second
(namely, 1666) may be the time for the latter of them. That is, some
time between 1650 and 1656 may be the period of the witnesses' killing
and the time of their rising, and of the fall of the tenth part of the city,
and the earthquake, &c. ; and then 1666 may be the designed time for the
ruin of Rome itself, and for the witnesses' more glorious ascension into
heaven.
You heard, in the beginning of this discourse, that the angel who here
gave this 11th chapter is the very same whom we find to have uttered that
12th chapter of Daniel's prophecy, in which he speaks of the end and ruin
of Antichrist, chap. xi. 45, and how long his time should be, and his power
last to scatter the holy people ; and when he should accomphsh to scatter
them, and after that never hurt them more. This the angel declares, ver.
7 of chaj). xii., adding withal, that at or about that time the children of
Daniel's people (that is, the Jewish nation) should be called by Michael
their prince, (that is, Christ,) ver. 1, and they should be delivered out of the
greatest distress, also from the Turkish empire, that ever that nation was in ;
this you have ver. 1. After which ruin of Antichrist, and calling home of
the Jews, should foUow the resurrection of the saints, with 'which Christ's
kingdom begins, ver. 2, 3.
Now here, in tlois 11th chapter of the Revelation, he comes and explains
both what that time of Antichrist's reign is, — namely, 1260 years, — and also
what that last scattering the power of the holy people by him should b© ;
IDs AJN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaET IL
even this very killing the witnesses, the signal of its expiring. And then,
how the second woe should pass awajj-, — namely, the Turkish tyranny, — and
then, under the seventh trumpet, should come the glorious resurrection of
the saints and the kingdom of Christ, which Daniel and all the prophets
have so much sj^oken of Daniel being inquisitive after the times when
these things should thus be finished, the angel in ver. 11, 12 gives him two
periods, the bcginidng of the time of both whicli is to be counted from the
* ceasing of the daily sacrifice,' — that is, as was before said, from Julian's
time. Now the one of those periods is that of 1290 years, beginning from
that his time, and ending between 16-50 and 1G56. The other is that of 1335
years, beginning from that liis time also, and ending between 1690 and 1700.
Which two periods, as I understand them, are set as two posts, the one at
the beginning and the other at the ending of that whole stage of time which
is allotted for the despatch of those great things prophesied of to fall out
before the kingdom of Christ. The first (of 1290 years) is mentioned ver.
11, and shews when the first turning of the course of things for the accom-
plishment of all should begin. The other (of 1335 years) you have in ver.
12, shewing the time of the full and final end and complete accomplishment
of all that the angel had foretold. And so that space of time between these
two periods (which is forty-five years or thereabouts; for so many years
the latter account, ver. 12, adds to the former, ver. 11) is allotted as the
time wherein those things prophesied of by him to fall out in the last ages
of the world should, each in their order, be accomplished. And so, from
the first period, should begin the great turn towards the accomplishment of
them, and the immediate preparations thereunto. And in the interim of
that intermediate space of time between 1650 or '56 and 1700 shall follow
the orderly performance of those things which are to end and consummate
all before the glorious kingdom of Christ. As first, the ruin of Rome, and
so the end of Antichrist's reign ; and then the destruction of the Turkish
empire ; after which shall begin that great resurrection, even at that last
period of 1335, faUing out about 1700, which is the consummation of aU.
Now the question is, what that occurrence should be which the first period
of 1290 years, falling out between 1650 and 1656, doth point at, as then
either to begin or to be ended 1 \Yhether it be then that Antichri.st's time,
times, and a half, which the angel had spoken of, ver. 7, should expire ;
or what else it is that he would have our eyes especially upon in that first
period?
It seems unto me, that in the 7th verse of Dan. xii. the angel mentions
these two things as distinct, though he names them together. First, for
Antichrist's reign, that it shall be for a time, times, and half a time. And
then he adds this second thing also, as a note or sign of the expiring of that
his time, — Tsith which aU those things foretold besides should begin to be
accomplished, — namely, ' when he shall have accom^jlished to scatter the
power of the holy people,' as speaking of this very last and eminent killing
of the witnesses ; with which all their scattering should end, and for ever be
accomplished. TIie7i, namely from that time, shall these things begin in their
order to be finished, — namely. Antichrist's ruin, and the Turkish empire's
destruction, &c. For thus I understand those words, 'and when he shall
have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things
shall be finished,' — namely, these two things there prophesied of, even Anti-
christ's ruin and the Turk's; he mentioning this last scattering as the sign
or the beginning of the finishing of all. For it is hard to thmk that all these
things should together, and exactly at one time, be finished.
Chap. VII.] aw exposition of the revelation. 109
So that indeed, as it seems to me, the angel's scope in that first period of
1290 years, beginning from Julian's time, and ending between '50 and '5G,
is not so mucli to design out the end of Antichrist's time, times, and lialf a
time, as it is to point out the first turn of things preparing to the kingdoni
of Christ, which shall begin from this last scattering the holy people, which
is all one with this killing of the witnesses here. And so that some time
within these forty-five years that are to run out between that time and the
end, shall be the expiring of that his time.
And the reasons making me think that Daniel's first period of 1 290 days
do rather thus refer to the first turn of things towards the accomplishment
of all, which is to begin with this accomplishment of the scattering of the holy
people, or slaughter of the witnesses, and so that to be made the eminent
occurrence that does periodise these 1290 days, are these: —
1. The angel's fixing the latter period of 1335 years for the final end of
all, and his leaving forty-five years' space between, doth argue the former to
be the punctum that begins that time allotted for the accomplishment of these
things during that space. So that those forty-five years are indeed the space
of time for the fulfilLing those great things ; whereof Antichrist's ruin is one,
and a great one. And so the ending of those 1290 days is the beginning of
these forty-five years, and the expiring of those 1335 years is the ending of
these forty-five years, which brmg in the thousand years of Christ's kingdom.
For to what end should this space of forty-five years be thus set out and
measured, but as to be made famous by being designed for the fulfilling of
those things, — namely, the ruin of the Pope, and of the Jews' enemies, the
Turks, in the interun of it, — whereof Daniel had there prophesied 1
2. In the 10th verse, immediately before, he had again repeated, and a
second time mentioned, this last scattering the holy people; and this as a
preface to his answer about the time when it should be that all should be
finished. ' Many,' says he, 'shall be made white, and tried, and purified,' &c.,
namely, by this their last scattering; and then he subjoins, ver. 11, ' And from
the time that the daily sacrifice is taken away' — that is, from Julian's time —
'shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days;' namely, unto the end of
tliis last trial mentioned, even when this scattering the holy people, or killing
the witnesses, shall be accomplished. He mentions it thus, on purpose to shew
that he makes that killing the witnesses the terminus ad quevi of his account.
You heard before that Antiochus's three years and a half, spoken of chap. xiL
7, was the type of this three years and a half; and lo, he useth the very same
phrase here of this that he had there used of that trial, chap. xi. 35 : ' Many,'
says he, ' shall then fall, to try them, to purge them, and to make them white.'
Yea, further, I verily believe that one reason why he singleth out Julian's
time as the term or moment from which he reckons, unto this last scatter-
ing the witnesses, rather than any other time from which to begin this ac-
count, is because that, for the comfort of the church, he was to pitch ujjon
the end of the like scattering unto that of Julian's, when, as was before ob-
served. Popery should, after the Reformation, prevail again, and the power
of the beast make a scattering of the saints, before the final ruin of that
power; even as heathenism, after it was purged out of the empu'c, was then
again set up by Julian, with the killing the holy people, by the authority of
a heathen emperor, before its final overthrow and extirpation. And so that
scattering in Julian's time was chosen, rather than any other occurrence,
as that from which the computation of this time should begin; because,
through the likeness of it, it was most suitable to resemble the occurrences
about this killing the witnesses, with which this time was to have end.
200 AN EXPOSITION OF THE KEVELATION. [ParT IT.
Tills being just the like time of trial as that in Julian's days was ; and
therefore he thus pitcheth upon that. Whereas, had he intended to reckon
the Pope's time, times, and a half, and the exact ending of it, he might, and
surely rather would, have reckoned from some other more eminent mark
suitable unto it, that accompanied his first beginning and rise, rather than
this heterogeneal passage of Julian's persecution, which yet is homogeneal
with this last slaughter of the witnesses. And —
3. Unto the time of that latter period of 1335 days, vcr. 12, when it shall
come, he adds a ' Blessed is he that cometh,' &c. ; which to me sounds as if
the former period had some eminent blessedness also in the beginning or
dawnmg of it, but yet not to be compared with this other which is to
follow. And it is as if he had said, Blessed indeed is he that cometh to the
end of the 1290 days, when the scattering of the saints shall be accomplished,
and when they shall rise, to die no more. But blessed, and thrice blessed,
is he that cometh to the other time of forty-five years more; for then begins
that first and great resurrection that brings us to Christ's kingdom. And
therefore he tells Daniel, ' Thou shalt stand up in thy h)t,' &c., even thou
as well as others, and shalt enjoy the blessedness of those times. And this
speech is, in a manner, all one Avith that which John useth, when he speaks
of the beginning of these thousand years, chap. xx. 6 : ' Blessed is he that
hath part in the first resurrection.' So that in the first period of 1290 years
shall also begin blessed times in comparison of those foregoing ; for now the
scattering of the holy people by Antichrist is for ever accomplished.
Now then, the angel's scope here in this 11th chapter being to explain
that speech of his in Daniel, (for this 11 th chapter I take to be as a comment
upon that his speech there ;) and he, namely the same angel, there mention-
ing a scattering of the holy people, which should accomplish all, and so be the
last of their persections ; and making the ending of that scattering to be the
beginning of that famous and to be noticed time when is to be the finishing
of all those great things which are to be done ere Christ's kingdom begins
and the glorious resurrection, — namely, the ruin of the Pope and Turk, the
preparations unto which are to begin from the end of that scattering; —
hence it is that he doth so largely insist on this last and eminent killing of
the witnesses here in this chapter, and also upon this their resurrection.
For this is placed as the post, or terminus a quo, of the race or stadium of
those forty-five years wherein those other great things should in their order
be accomplished.
And this resurrection and ascension of the witnesses, from under this their
last scattering, (they being now to die no more, as Christ did not after he
arose,) bearing, as was said, a shadow and type of the resurrection and ne-W
heavens to come at the thousand years, and so being a glimpse and scheme
of the blessedness then, how fit, in this respect, was the time of this resur-
rection placed at the first turn of things, hastening to the bringing in that
new world, and made the first 2ninctmn or moment beginning that forty-five
years whose end shall be the great resurrection, and the thousand years of
Christ's kingdom ! So that (to conclude this) that interim of forty-five years
is a time which begins with a resurrection, and also ends with a resurrection,
and that an infinitely more glorious one ; and in the middle course of which
time the greatest things are accomplished, as preparations to that kingdom
of Christ, that ever were done upon the earth, even the ruin both of the
Pope and the Turk.
Yea, further, to make the harmony herein yet more full; this first period
CUAP. VII. j AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. 201
of 1290 days, ending between 1650 and 1656, is made by those who have
pitched upon it to be the time for the Jews' first recalling and conversion,
and so of the foundation of the declining of the Turkish empire, as I shewed
before. And their reason is, because the angel, in the 1st verse of this
chapter, makes mention of this their call, as one thing to be accomplished
also. But for this see Finch, Brightman, and others. And that may be
one reason why he pitcheth on the taking away the Jews' daily sacriiice in
Julian's time, as then become abominable unto God, as that eminent mark
and post, as it were, at which he would begin this account ; even because it was
a passage that would more conspicuously occur to the Jews as a mark, in a
way of oppositeness, answering that which was to fall out at the ending of
this time. For their setting up the daily sacrifice in Julian's time was their
last attempt to erect their temple-worship, unto which they, refusing the
]\Iessiah, unto this day do so cleave. Which attempt of theirs God from
heaven shewed his hand against, by an earthquake overthrowing the foun-
dation of the temple, then by them laid ; so more fully fulfilling that prophecy
of our Saviour, for not only above-ground, but even under-ground, was there
not so much as one stone left upon another. And therefore, when he would
hold forth unto them the time Avhcu they shall turn unto the Messiah, typi-
fied out by that temple and sacrifice, he reckons from the taking away that
their daily sacrifice, which was made so remarkable unto them. And be-
cause he mentioneth the beginning of a blessed time, blessed in its beginning,
both unto Jew and Gentile, of both whom the angel in that 12th of Daniel
doth speak, and of the ruin of the enemies of both, which is to be completed
by the New Jerusalem, as the accomplishment of all ; hence, therefore, this
period may also seem to respect the first call of these Jews, as being that
which is the preparation unto their kingdom.
And if these two should then at that time fall out together, — namely, this
famous resurrection of the European witnesses, and the conversion of the
Jews, — how would this reconcile all these opinions together, and shew a fur-
ther reason why that period of 1290 days was so eminently held forth unto
Daniel, as that which was to be made famous by two so glorious resurrec-
tions of Jews and Gentiles j^t once, when the Jews' long scattering, and the
witnesses among the Gentiles' last scattering, should both end together!
And how harmonious were it that in one day, as it were, the foundations of
the New Jerusalem to come, which is to be made up of both, should be thus
laid together, and in a glorious resurrection of them both ! For such is that
revival which these European witnesses here have, from this their death unto
life, and is so here reckoned. And such, and no less, shall be the conversion
of the Jews ; even no other than, as Paul speaks, Rom. xi. 1 5, a ' rising from
the dead.' And thus should the preparations to that glorious kingdom, con-
sisting of both, fall out together at the beginning of these forty-five years ;
during which interim and space of time the enemies of them both are to be
removed out of the world, who only do now stand in the way, and hinder
the revealing of Christ and his kingdom, as the Roman empire did the re-
vealing of Antichrist, that man of sin, and his kingdom. And so both these
typical resurrections are in the end to be swallowed up by a more real and
more glorious resurrection, which shall begin that New Jerusalem and king-
dom of Jesus Christ.
And thus may the resurrection of the European witnesses be, as was said,
the preparation to the complete pouring out of the fifth vial in the ruining
of Rome; even as, on the other side, the conversion of the Jews, which is
202 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaET IT.
their resurrection, is the preparation to the ruin of the Turk, which is the
sixth vial. And that the Jews shall be called before the pouring out of the
sixth vial, which is said to make way for the ' kings of the east,' chap, xvi., —
that is, for the Jews coming into their own land, — hath long since been the
opinion of j\Ir Brightman and others. And many also do hold, that that
call of theirs shall begin forty-five years before the complete erection of the
New Jerusalem ; and so those forty-five years after that first call of theirs,
ere they can obtain the full possession of their promised kingdom, do seem
to answer unto those forty-five years which they spent after their coming out
of Egypt, ere they got possession of their promised land of Canaan ; for so
long time it was ere they were settled in it, if you take their forty years in
the Avilderness, with the time wherein Joshua fought his battles, as himself
expressly counts it, Josh. xii. 10, Which forty- five years do begm at the
end of the 1290 years; and at the beginning of that time falls out the rising
of the witnesses, according to the interpretation formerly given.
And now to give that other interjjretation of that clause, ' The second woe
is past,' which follows upon this resurrection of the witnesses here, ver. 14,
which I before reserved unto this place. ' The second woe is past,' says
the angel; ' behold, the third woe cometh quickly.' May there not, in tliis
passage, be tacitly intimated, as the calling of the Jews still useth to be in
this book of the Revelation, which is chiefly written for the Gentiles, the
foundation of the Turks' ruin by the conversion of the Jews, as being that
which was now to fall out together with the resurrection of these witnesses ]
For the Turkish empire being the second woe or sixth trumpet, with whose
fundamental declining beginneth the Jews' call, as Finch and others write of
it ; why, then, may not the angel's meaning in that clause be, that now,
when he had in his narration brought us to the times of the rismg of the
witnesses, contemporary with which the Jews' calling is to be, which is the
first foundation of the second woe's declining, then to pronounce this, ' The
second woe is past,' &c., that is, the foundation of the Turks' passing away
and ruin is now laid, as is the ruin of Rome in the resurrection of the Euro-
pean witnesses 1 And surely, then, when the Jews are called, the woe of that
Turkish tyranny may be reckoned and accounted of as past, for that the
height and bitterness of it is past, although the*empire itself may for a while
still stand, the woe of it lying in its let and hhidrance of the Christian reli-
gion, which now among the Jews shall revive in his territories. Yea, in the
style of the prophets, and also of this book, when the foundation of the ruin
of any state first begins to be laid, when its empire and dominion is past the
meridian, and once begins to decline, it is said to be j^^si, as you heard be-
fore ; as when things begin but to be accomplished, they are then said to be
finished. Which was the learned observation of JMr Mede upon that passage
in chap, xiv., which also I have inserted in the exposition of that place there,
when the second angel cried, * Babylon is fallen,' when yet the first vial was
but then begun to be poured out, and the oj)en discovery of Antichrist made.
But because at that tin^e his declension and ruin began, he is therefore pro-
nounced as then already fallen, though again, afterwards, when his destruc-
tion is completed in the ruin of the city itself, his seat, chap, xviii., the same
phrase is used. Even as in the prophecy of Isaiah, (which instance Mr Mede
also doth there bring,) when the j\Iedes first revolted from the Babylonish
monarchy, which was done at the time that Isaiah uttered it, he having
many years before prophesied the ruin of it, yet because that revolt was the
foundation of Babel's ruin, which was by those Medes, when revolted from
Chap. VII.] an exposition of the revelation. 203
it, to be effected, therefore it is tlien said by tlie prophet, Isa. xxi. 9, * Baby-
lon is fallen,' &C. And so, say I, the meaning of the angel here is, to
pronounce the second woe, or the sixth trumpet, or (which is all one) the
Turkish empire, to be now past, then when the revolt of the Jews, in their
conversion unto Christ, doth first begin; this their revolt being the founda-
tion or preparation unto the passing away of this second woe, and that most
truly, in the style of the prophets, in that it now begins to pass, &c. And
so the angel goes on to give warning unto us of the third woe's approach,
adding, ' The third cometh quickly ; ' that is, the seventh trumpet, or the
New Jerusalem and kingdom of Christ. And both the ending of the beast's
reign now shortly follows, together with the ruin of Home, the foundation of
and preparation unto which ruin is laid in the resurrection of the wit-
nesses ; and also the sixth vial, or the breaking in jjieces the Turkish
empire, is after that to follow, the preparation unto which is the calling
of the Jews. And thus this 11th chapter of the Eevelation does indeed
become a complete comment on that 12th chapter of Daniel, and makes
mention of all those things that are therein mentioned, as was at first ob-
served.
Add unto all this, tliis small observation : —
I observed before, that God did use to fulfil prophecies, and the computa-
tions of them, over and over, in several degrees of accomplishment. For
instances whereof, I gave this of the 1290 days in Daniel, and this also of
these 1260 years of Antichrist's reign, as in like manner those three years
and a half of the witnesses' killing, and then their rising again : whereof
some gradual accomplishments are already past, at several times in Europe,
within the revolution of the century of years last past. And yet I have
withal proved that another far greater slaughter of them is yet to come.
Now, it may be that the observation of the revolution of time in the hun-
dred years last past, in which the former killings of the witnesses did fall
out, may indigitate and put some note upon the time when this great and
last slaughter in the revolution of this century of years now running on
(since 1600) may fall ou.t. That is, as those partial and smaller killings of
particular witnesses fell out in anno 1547 (as did that in Germany, which
ended in 1550) and in 1556, (as did that in England in the days of Queen
Mary,) so accordingly about the time of the revolution of the same term of
a hundred years, now running on in this next age after that, the time of this
last killing of the witnesses may also be.
I have long since observed it, though not first to this particular purpose, that
the revolution of a hundred years hath produced, especially in these latter
days, new motions and alterations in the church, like unto those that fell out a
hundred years before. To this purpose that of John Huss is remarkable, who
suffering martyrdom at a stake, anno 1417, or thereabouts. Post centum annos,
etc., — 'After a hundred years,' says he, 'you Papists shall be called to an
account.' A speech so memorable among the Bohemians, that they stamped
it upon their coins. And accordingly, a hundred years after, anno 1517, did
Luther arise, and with him the gospel in Germany. And then again, if we
descend to the revolution of the next hundred years, we shall find, and our
eyes have seen it, that a hundred years after Luther, about the year 1618,
began those notable changes and alterations in Germ.any which still go on
unto this day. From which year 1618 I reckon that the war of the beast
against the witnesses, and the Gentiles' treading down the outward court,
did begin, and shall still go on till it end in his great slaughter of those
204 AN EXPOSITION OF THE REVELATION. [PaRT II.
witnesses there. And this happened in an opposite correspondency to what
fell out a hundred years before. For as, anno 1517, began Luther's preach-
ing, and the workings towards that reformation that followed, so in anno
1618 began the like workings towards the deformation of the gospel, as I
may so call it, which hath gone on with as strange a hand against the church,
as that other was carried on with by God for the church. And to those
I could add many other instances. So that I confess that I am in like
manner susjjicious of the revolution of a hundred years from those former
mentioned killings of the witnesses in the century last past, lest about the
hundredth year from thence should be the time of this other great and last
killing of them, as yet to come, and whereof those were but gradual fore-
runners.
And it may be that, if England and Scotland, &c., be that tenth part of
the city wliich is to be the eminent stage of this their killing and rising
again, as hath been argued, then this period will fall upon the hundred
years after that former trial of England. And let me add this, that as upon
the rising of England and Scotland began that glorious harvest of blessed
times, which lasted till these German wars began; so in this revolution of
another hundred years after that time, according to the conjecture held forth,
are like to arise unto the church like times of far greater blessedness, if that
hold true, that then those forty-five years before spoken of do begin, which
are allotted for the accomplishment of all.
But to put a stop unto too much curiosity in these matters : all these
notions and conjectures, though as probable as any of this kind usually given,
I give up to further light and second considerations, knowing that such have
often failed and deceived others; and considering also that in fixing the
times and seasons for God's great works of wonder, there is the greatest
modesty that may be to be expressed. For if those seventy years' captivity
of the Jews in Babylon were so expressly designed out by God, and are now
long since expired, and yet when to begin the account of those seventy years
is not agreed upon by the learnedest chronologers unto this day ; how
much more difficult then must it needs be to pitch the certain time of any
period before the accomplishment of it 1
But, however, let an indefinite warning that these things are approaching,
and we within the reach of them, suffice for to move us to prepare for them,
which is the only use of knowing them. It may be said of the time of these
things, as it is said of the day of death, Latet hie dies, ut ohservetur omnis
dies ; — The day and year of the accomplishment of these great matters are hid
from us, that so each day and year we may be found ready, whenever they
shaU come uj^on us, as in this age wherein we live they are likely to do.
And although we may think this dismal and black hour of temptation not
likely to come so soon, seeing the clouds rise not fast enough so suddenly to
overcast the face of the sky with darkness, yet we are to consider that we
live now in the extremity of times, when motions and alterations, being so
near the centre, become quickest and speediest ; and we are at the verge,
and, as it were, within the whirl of that great mystery of Christ's kingdom,
which will, as a gulf, swallow up all time ; and so, the nearer we are unto
it, the greater and more sudden changes will Christ make, now hastening to
make a full end of all.
And for the Jews' call, wliich is conjunct with this killing and rising of
the witnesses : as it depends not upon ordinary means to effect it, so there
are like to be no preparations at all unto it until it comes, as there are not
Chap. VII.] an rxrosiTioN of thk hkvelation. 505
for tilings extraordinaiy ; but 'a nation shall bring forth in a day,' as tho
prophet speaks. And so, in the very year before it, there will be no more
outward appearances or probabilities of it than there are now, or than there
have been many hundred years since. And therefore our faith need not be
put off from this, by the .seeing as yet no stirrings or motions at all unto it
or towards it. And the truth is, both the killing and rising of the wit-
nesses, and also the calling of the Jews, may fall out sooner than we are
aware of.
BEIEF HISTOEY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHEIST.
EXTRACTED OUT OF THE BOOK OF THE REVELATION/
The Book of the Kevelation is a tragi-comical vision of the occurrences of
the world through all times and ages ; whereof this may truly be the title,
* The story of Christ's kingdom.'
Chap. iv. — The stage for this is set up in the 4th chapter ; there being a
representation of the universal church in all ages set forth, according to the
exact pattern of a church visible and instituted, into which all saints on
earth should be cast.
Chap. V. — Then the prologue follows in the 5th chapter, where is Christ's
taking on him the government and kingdom, by 'taking the sealed book,'
and thereby undertaking to be God's commissioner, to execute the decrees
contained in this book, and to give the vision of it unto John ; at which in-
stalment of him into the kingdom, there is a song of praise sung to the Lamb,
by the twenty-four elders and four beasts, who are the chorus in this show,
with a triumphing assurance and expectation of what will be the happy con-
clusion of all, that ' we shall reign on earth with him.'
The scene or place where all that was acted here in these verses is the
Roman empire, and the several dominions of it east and west, called oiKoufchrj,
or the whole world.
Then begins the stor?/ itself to be acted at the 6th chapter. The general
argument of which is : That whereas Christ's government was to be executed
and seen, (1.) in 'putting down all opposite rule and power' that stands in
his way, as Paul speaks, 1 Cor. vi. ; and then, (2.) in a visible taking the
kingdom to himself and his saints, which makes the fifth monarchy ; accord-
ingly here the story of this book Jirst shews how Christ puts down all the
opposite rule, and power, and dominion whatsoever, in the fourth and last
foregoing Roman monarchy, in the several successions and revolutions of it,
one after another, tUl that he hath worn them all out that were ordained to
stand up in it. And these many difficulties of his coming to and obtaining
* This tract is merely a S3rnopsis, or Table of Contents, of the Exposition of the Reve-
lation J and is therefore subjoined to it, although the two stand far apart in the originad
edition of the author's works. — Ed.
208 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CIIKIST.
his kingdom, do exceedingly serve to make the story of it appear glorious.
Then—
Secondly, It closeth and endeth in a glorious visible kingdom which Christ
on earth sets uj), and possesseth peaceably with his saints, as the catastrophe
of all.
More particularly, the story is this, according to the several contents of
each chapter : —
Chap, vi, — Christ, when he ascends up to heaven, finds the Eoman mon-
archy, whose room he was to possess, stretched over east and west, even over
all those parts of the world where he was to seat his church and kingdom ;
and this wholly in the hands, and under the government and power, of one
entire monarch or emperor, and under him altogether heathenish and idola-
trous, and subjected wholly to Satan, set up as 'the god of this world.'
Christ first sets upon the conquest of Satan's ministry and worship in it ;
and by the preaching the gospel, overturneth that vast empire as it was
heathenish, throws down Satan from his throne and height of glory in it,
and brings it into subjection and acknowledgment of him as king, chap, xii.,
and turns both it and emperors of it Christian in three hundred years. This
is the sum of the sixth chapter of the seal-prophecy, and the twelfth chapter
of the book-prophecy.
Chap. viii. — But this empire, though turned Christian in outward pro-
fession, yet having persecuted his church whilst idolatrous, and after it was
Christian, when Arian ; therefore, at the prayers of the martyrs slain, men-
tioned chap. vi. 11, and in vengeance of their blood, chap. viii. 4, he further
proceeds to ruin the civil imperial power of it, the empire itself, by the
trumpets in the 8th and 9 th chapters. And the empire then becoming
divided into two, the eastern and western empire, as they were commonly
called —
1. He ruins the imperial western state and power in Europe, by the four
first trumpets, the wars of the Goths, by four several steps in the 8th chap-
ter. Then—
2. Chap. is. — He destroys the imperial eastern state, which stood after the
other, by two degrees, — first, by the Saracens, then by the Turks, — who are
the fifth and sixth trumpets, who possessed all the eastern part to this day ;
and that is the contents of the 9th chapter. Only, chap, vii., ere ever these
trumpets bring these evils on the empire, he seals up a comi^any of a hundred
and forty-four thousand Christians in the eastern part, as chap. vii. 2, to be
preserved and continued in the true profession of his name, under these two,
the sorest and longest, and there caUed the woe-woe-trumpets, which were
to fall upon the eastern part of the empire, in which parts these servants of
his there sealed were to lie, as appears, chap. ix. 4. And this their sealing
is the sum of the 7th chapter.
Now then that old Roman empii'e being thus removed in both parts of it,
yet stiU look, as that eastern part of it is left possessed by the Turks, in the
9th chapter ; so the western part of it, in Europe, being broken into ten
kino'doms by the Goths, they consent to give their power to the beast, the
Pope, who &o becomes a successor to the western emperor, and possesseth
his seat and power, though under another title, and so heals that wound
given. And this beast the 13th chapter describes, and gives the vision of
his rise, power, time of his reign. And the 17th chapter doth expound
and interpret under whose antichristian tyranny — as great as that of Rome
heathenish, or of the Turks themselves to Christians — Christ yet preserves
another like company of a hundred and forty-four thousand, chap, xiv , even
A. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KlNGi OM OF CHRIST, 209
the like number of virgins who are sealed Christians in the west, as under
the tyranny of the Turks and Saracens he had done the like in the east ; so
himself keeping possession still by his church, preserved under both, of both
these parts of the empire, as his inheritance. And this opposite company ox
a hundred and forty-four thousand Christians, opposite to the whore, there
called virgins, and their separation from her and opposition to her, are re-
corded chap. xiv.
But now these two, the Pope and Turk, both enemies to Christ, thus suc-
ceeding in the empire, and sharing the two parts of it between them, Jesus
Christ, we see. is still as far off from his designed kingdom as he was before.
For Mohammedanism tyranniseth in the one, idolatry overspreads the other,
as heathenism had done the empire ; and so he hath a new business of it to
come unto his kingd(nii, as difficult as ever.
Chap. XV., xvi. — Therefore Christ hath seven vials, which contain the last
plagues, for he means to make this the last act of this long tragi-comedy, to
despatch the Pope and Turk, and root them out, even as the seals had done
heathenism, and the trumpets had done the empire itself And the plagues
of these vials are the contents of the 15th and 16th chapters.
The first five vials do dissolve and ruin the Pope's power by degrees in the
west ; then the sixth vial breaks the power of the Turk in the east ; so
making way for the Jews, whom he means to brmg into fellowship of his
kingdom in their own land.
But by these six vials their power and kingdom not being wholly ruined
and removed, both Turk and Popish party join, and putting to their utmost
forces, and together with them, all opposite kings of the whole world,
against the Christians, both east and west, who, whenas the Jews are come
in and converted, make up a mighty party in the world ; unto the help of
whom, against these and all opposite power whatsoever, Christ himself
comes, and makes but one work of it, and with his own hand from heaven
destroys them. And so ' it is done,' as the voice of the last vial is in the
16 th chapter.
Chap. xvii. — The 17th chapter is an interpretation who is the beast and
whore.
Chap, xviii. — The 18th chapter sings a funeral-song of triumph for this
wh(^re's ruin ; after which comes in Christ's kingdom, the New Jerusalem.
Chap. vii.-ix. — Which new kingdom of his shall be made up of, first,
eastern Christians that endured the bondage of the two woe-trumpets, the
Saracen and Turks, yet continuing to profess his name ; and therefore
unto those hundred and forty-four thousand in the 7th chapter, do succeed
an innumerable company with palms in their hands, who have the same
promises of the New Jerusalem made to them, (the very same that are found
mentioned in the 21st chapter,) which shews their interest therein. And —
Secondly, This kingdom of Christ shall be made up of western Christians
also, whose hundred and forty-four thousand in the 14th chapter do arise
in like manner to an innumerable company : who, after the rejection of the
whore, chap. xix. 1-9, are brought in singing in like triumph, decking them-
selves for the marriage in fine linen. But —
Thirdly, This kingdom of Christ shall be made np especially of Jews,
dispersed both east and west, and over all the world ; and therefore hath
the name from them, the New Jerusalem. With whom —
Fourthly, Come in as attendants of their joy other Gentiles with them,
that never had received Christ before : the 'glory of the Gentiles' is said to
be brought into it. ^
VOL. nx
210 . A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CUPvIST.
Chap, xx.-xxii. — And so both east and west, Jew and Gentile, and the
fulness of both, comes in, and becomes one fold for a thousand years, under
one shepherd, one kingdom under this ' root of Da\dd,' their king. King Jesus
the conqueror, even as it first was under one heathen idolatrous emperor, when
first Christ set himself to conquer it. And so is fulfilled that prophecy of
this his kingdom, Isa. lix. 19, where, after the final destruction of all Christ's
enemies, foretold ver. 18. 'then,' he says, 'they shall fear his name, from the
east unto the west, and the Redeemer shall come unto Sion.' Which words,
Kom. xi. 26, Paul interprets of the Jews' final call, and this restauration of
the world with them. ' Even so. Lord Jesus, come quickly.'
Chap. V. — In the 5th chapter we have an account of a book with seven
Beals, which none could open. In this strait comes Christ, and takes upon
him the opening and fulfillmg of the book, and the decrees therein. At this
the chorus fall down and worship.
Ver. 1. — First, What is this book? Many make it the Scriptures. But
It is plain it is a book containing the aff'airs of the world and the church,
and God's decrees about it. For upon the opening of every seal he sees a
vision containing the matter of the ensuing chapters, the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th ;
and when the seals were aU taken off, chap, x., John is bidden to eat the
book, that he might prophesy again the other part of this projjhecy. So as
it is this book of the Eevelation, and the government of the church and
world set forth therein, which Christ takes, and, by taking the book, under-
takes to manage and exercise that government, which agrees with what is
said at the beginning of this book. Rev. i. 1.
Ver. 2. — A strong angel proclaimeth, ' Who is worthy to loose the seals
thereof 1 ' See. The use of the seals is not simply to shew it cannot be known,
as Daniel's sealed book is to shew it could not be known till the end, Dan.
xii. 4, but for the further setting out the glory of Christ, who was only able
to take the book and to loose the seals. To take the book, first, God caus-
eth a general proclamation to be made to all creatures, as some kings have
done for a noble service, promising great reward, as Saul did, 1 Sam. xvii.
26, 27. Secondly, an angel makes it, to shew that none among angels
could, and a strong angel, that his voice may reach all creatures. The end
of this was, first, to stir up strong desires in John, and aU else, to search into
the meaning of this prophecy ; what he did in the 1st chapter of Revelation,
ver. 3, here he provokes unto the same by this proclamation. Secondly,
another end of it was to set out the weakness of the creature, that the
honour of Christ might appear that he only can do this. It is the manner of
God thus to endear mercies to us, as he endeared a wife to Adam. He first
brought aU creatures to him, that he might first see that there was not a
meet help for him among them. So in the work of salvation, he lets the
soul try all means first, to run to duties, and to aU helps, and then brings it
to Christ. So, 1 Cor. i., that the power of God might appear, he first lets
the world try their wisdom, and then sends the foolishness of preaching to
save them that believe, ver. 21, 25. It is a question among the school-men,
whether any mere creature could satisfy for sin ] Some say they could, and
some say it is a needless question. But it is a necessary thing to know that
a creature could not ; for it glorifies Christ the more, as in the present case
it doth that all creatures here were first challenged. And this here is an
argument for that also ; for if they could not oj)en the book, they could
much less have redeemed us, for that is made a greater thing, ver. 9, where
they sing that ' Christ was therefore worthy to open the book, because he
A BRIEF HISTOEY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 211
had redeemed us.' Heb. x., God was not pleased with the blood of bulls
and goats, ver. 5.
Use. — Hence learn we to renounce all kings, priests, and prophets, in com-
parison of Christ ; he is a priest to redeem, and a prophet to teach and re-
veal the mysteries of God, and he is the king to execute all God's decrees.
It is good to go over all the creatures, and to renounce them, and say, I
will be saved by none of you. Suppose the work of redemption was yet to
work, and Gcid sliould make this proclamation as here. Find me out a party-
able to redeem, I '11 speak to him ] call a council, seek one, (none would be
found ;) and how should we have howled and wept, as John did here, and
say we were undone 1 And then supi)0se God should have set out Christ at
last. But he would not put you to this plunge ; it is the more love shewn
by him to find out Christ, and to speak to him himself to die for us, and
do it to our hands.
Observe from those words, Who is worthy ? — It is not simply an act of
power to break open the seals, but to have authority by worth ; so that
which puts the value on Christ's satisfaction was the worth of his person,
and so in this act to open the book. A mere creature might have had as
much habitual grace, and performed as much duty, but who is worthy 1 It
is the personal worth which did it : ' Such a high priest became us, who is
higher than the heavens,' — that is, than the angels, — Heb. x. Secondly, None
was found worthy : the word is none ; it is not restrained to man, no man,
but never a reasonable creature, in the heavens angels, nor in earth men.
Neither to look thereon — that is, to look in it to understand it, for else
John could and did look on it, ver. 1 . Now, to loose the seals and open the
book is not simply to know God's mind in his decrees, but to make the
vision of them to John, and to execute and fulfil them in times ; it is an
allusion to those which take a commission, who take it not only to look on
it, but to fulfil it. It is a commission sealed, so as this proclamation is in
effect, Who shall be able to be God's commissioner to take this book,
and make the visions to John, and execute and produce them in their
time?
And this appears from chap. vi. 1. Still as the seals are opened by the
Lamb, there is a vision made to John of what should be done ; therefore the
Lamb is presented not simply as one that should take the book, but that
hath eyes and horns — eyes of providence, and horns of power to execute.
And this agrees with the allusion unto Gen. xlix. 9, 10, where Judah is
made a type of Christ, and called a lion's whelp, and the sceptre given him ;
and is called God's lawgiver, to take his laws from him and execute them,
for in that respect it is that Judah is called God's lawgiver. Gen. xlix. 1 1 :
not in respect of the giving the laws of God, but in respect of the executive
power to see them kept. So Christ liere ; and he so takes this book as to
deliver it to us to execute the decrees of it.
Ver. 4. And I ivept much. — John weeps. He was called up to heaven
to see visions ; and now there was a stop : it was to set off the mercy, and to
try his heart, and make the joy greater.
Obs. 1. — Our infirmities shall not hinder God's revealing himself, though
unbelief may say it will never be ; yet Christ wiU go on to reveal himself,
as here to John.
Ohs. 2. — God in greatest mercies may make greatest stops, enough to bring
to despair ; you shall see no hope ere he grants them, so to John here. So in
the first works of conversion many times ; and so in great works he caUa
212 A BEIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHEIST.
men to, he may make a stop. Jolin was called to see visions, yet a stop and
pause was in his view made.
06s. 3. — If by John's weeping were meant his praying to God in this stop
put, then you see the way to obtain revelations of God is by tears and pray-
ing ; so Daniel prayed and wept, Dan. x. 2, and then God revealed himself.
John is comforted by a stander-by, (1.) by something to uphold his heart;
(2.) by the sight of the Lamb, ver 6.
Ohs. 4. — The degrees God uses to comfort his people : — (1.) To let fall
something that gives hopes of Christ, to draw the soul to wait ; then, (2.) to
shew them Christ himself. God might have shewed John the Lamb at first,
but first he comforts him by a stander-by ; so Job first 'heard by the hear-
ing of the ear, and then his eye saw him.'
Ver. G. — Christ, the only opener of this book and giver of this prophecy,
is diversely expressed : —
1. He is called the 'root of Da\id,' out of Isa. xi. 10. Christ put this
riddle to the Pharisees, How David could call him Lord, if he were his son ?
So how could he be called the root, if he were Da\'id's son and a branch of
him % The truth is, he is the root of David, and of all the saints ; he was
the root of his ancestors, the father of his mother. The root of any family
in Scripture is put for the eldest son in it, who is as the root of the rest. So,
Isa. xiv. 30, 'I will kill thy root with famine,' — that is, thy first-born, the
root of thy house, — for in opposition he says, and ' the first-born of the poor
shall be fed.' So, Mai. iv. 1, that therefore Christ is the root of David, the
meaning is, that he is the 'first-born among all his brethren,' as, Rom. viii.,
he is called ; and, Ps. Ixxxix. 27, so God calls David in the type, but in-
tends Christ thereby, when he says, ' I will make him my first-born, higher
than the kings of the earth ; ' and, ver. 29, ' His seed shall endure for ever.'
This is to be the root of David. ' He is the first-born of every creature, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,' Eph. iii. 15.
2. He is called the ' lion of the tribe of Judah ; ' but why a lion of the
tribe of Judah? It is a manifest allusion to the prophecy. Gen. xlix. 9,
wherein Judah, as this place shews, is made a type of Christ ; and it warrants
the ajDplication of all there unto Christ.
Judah is called a lion —
(L) Because out of Judah came all the worthies and lion-like men, Joshua,
Othniel, David, all the shadows of Christ; therefore. Gen. xlix. 11, he is
called ' an old Hon,' as the word is, a courageous, hearty lion : so, 2 Sam. xvii.
10, valiant men are called lions; such was Christ, who 'durst engage his
heart to draw near to God,' Jer. xxx. 21.
(2.) Judah had that kingdom whereof a Hon is the emblem ; therefore
sceptre and lawgiver, ver. 10, are attributed to him, so that it is as much as
to say, Christ the king by inheritance, as Judah was, hath overcome.
(3.) Judah did take the prey, the land ; it was done by the worthies of
Judah — Joshua, David ; and when, as a lion, they had taken that prey, they
couched and had rest, as in Solomon's days, 1 Kings iv. 21, which was also
prophesied of. Num. xxui. 24, ' Behold, they rose up as a great Uon, and
shall not lie down till he eat the prey ;' and Gen. xlix. 9, ' He couched as an
old lion ; who shall raise him up ? ' So Christ, when he had led cajitivity
captive, sits down quietly in heaven, couching, as lying in wait till the day
of judgment, when he will appear like an old lion that coucheth as if asleep,
and then suddenly leaps on the prey. Especially in the latter days, when
the gatherings shall be to him, his kingdom shall be as of a lion among
beasts; so, Micah v. 8, he prophesies there of Christ's kingdom in the
A BRIEF niSTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CnRIST. L' i 3
calling the Jews, and of his birth, ver. 2. Now that kingdom is the scope
of this book.
Ver. 6, Aiid in the midst of the elders stood a lamb as it had been slain. —
John had lieard of Christ as a lion, but he sees him as a lamb. So many a
poor soul are afraid of him, but when you see him, and come to be acquainted
with him, you will find hmi to be a Lamb, and a lamb that hath eyes to run
to and fro through the earth for you, and seven horns, not to hurt you but
to butt his and your enemies. Wo have not all lion-like thoughts of Christ ;
as he hath the heart of a lion, so he hath the meekness of a lamb. You may
wonder at this mixture ; he is a lamb to you.
1. Why is he called a lamb ? It is in allu.sion to the sacrifices of the old
law, which were most of lambs ; the ordinary sacrifices were two lambs a
day. Num. xxviii. 3. Here he was to represent Christ as a priest ; as be-
fore, in being called a lion, he was represented as a king ; and therefore it
follows, * as it had been slain.'
2. In the midst of the throne, &c., stood a lamb. — The Lamb stood nearer
than the four beasts, between the throne and the elders, for he is a mediator
betwixt his church and God.
3. As it had been slain. — That is, first, as if he were newly slain, for his
blood is fresh continually, as if he were slain to-day ; thou seest thy sins, as
if they were committed yesterday, and God views Christ's blood as if he
were slain yesterday, Heb. ix. 12. Secondly, but 'as slain,' to shew he doth
not remain slain, but is alive : Chap. L 18, 'I was dead ; and, behold, I am
alive for evermore.'
4. Stood a lamb. — Standing, to shew he is ready to help. When Stephen
died, he saw Christ standing at God's right hand as ready to receive him.
It is also to shew his readiness to intercede.
5. Having seven horns. — Horns are put for power to push with; so, Eev.
xvii. 12, ' The ten horns are the ten kings.' The seven horns here, all kingly
power ; seven is a number of perfection, to shew Christ hath power to open
the seven seals ; and there are seven trumpets and seven vials, and Christ
hath seven horns, — that is, power to fulfil all these. Antichrist rises like
Christ, and comes with power, Rev. xiii. 1 1 ; but what discovers him ? He hath
but two horns ; the church needs not fear him. The Lamb hath horns to
vindicate himself of his enemies ; fear not kings, though ten kings, he is King
of kings ; and fear not the devil, who is a roaring Hon, for Christ the lion of
the tribe of Judah is stronger than he, and will bind him.
6. And seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the
earth. — The Spirit, not in hLs personal subsistence, is here meant, but in his
instrumental working in gifts and providence, and so is called seven spirits.
Before, in chap. iv. 5, the ' seven spirits before the throne' are gifts in the
church which are from Christ, for he is the fountain of spiritual gifts, and
hath the Spirit without measure ; but here, by the seven spirits in Christ is
not meant gifts poured out, but eyes of providence sent into the earth, by
which he knows and sees all things, in allusion to that, Zech. iv. 10; and it
implies the perfect knowledge and providence of Christ to order all affairs on
earth for his church ; so, 2 Chron. xvi. 9, as before in Zechariah, he did the
affairs of the Persian monarch for the building of his church.
Obs. — Christ as man hath both horns and eyes to guide and discern aU,
things here below ; his human nature is the instrument of all God's power,
all goes through his hands, and all the works of God's providence go aU
through his sight ; he knows all is done in the world.
The next thing is, why Christ should be presented here under these
214 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.
notions of a lion of the tribe of Judah, and a lamb, and the root of David,
rather than any other. He sj^eaks, (1.) In the language of the Old Testa-
ment, and of John Baptist, who was under the Old Testament, (who all
spake of Christ.) So Luke xxiv. 27, * Beginning at Moses and all the pro-
phets, he expounded unto them the things concerning himself.' Now Moses
called him a lion. Gen. xlix. 9 ; Isaiah calls him a lamb, chap. liii. 7, and the
root of Da\T.d, chap. xi. 10 ; and John Baptist calls him the ' Lamb of God
which bears the sins of the world.' Now as all other things in this book
are set forth in allusion to the Old Testament, so these descriptions of Christ
also. (2.) He gives him these titles in relation to the work of redemption,
of which mention is made ver. 9. Now to that two things are required : —
First, A price to God ; and so as a lamb ' thou hast redeemed us to God by
thy blood,' ver. 9. Secondly, Power to deliver us out of the hands of our
enemies ; so he is ' a lion that overcomes.' (3.) It hath relation especially
to the opening this book, and executing the affairs in it \ and so these titles
are most proper : for —
Fir&t, He needed to die for it, and so is presented as a lamb slain ; for
that price that salvation did cost, each revelation to us must cost as much
also. Not simply his being the Son of God, and so knowing the counsels of
God written in his decrees, was enough for him to make them known to us ;
but to reveal this counsel to us, as in a book to be opened to us, he must
die ; for our sins hindered, and therefore he must die. Hence it is said,
' Thou art worthy to open the book, for thou wast slain,' ver. 9. And so, as
a lamb, he is said to take sin away that hindered the revelation to us.
Secondly, As a lion he needed courage to approach God's wrath, break
through a consuming fire to his throne to take the book ; ' Wko hath en-
gaged his heart to draw near to me 1 ' No angel durst have presumed to
come so near.
Thirdly, As a lion he needed to overcome death, and rise to execute the
contents of this book. A lion, they say, sleeps at first three days when
brought forth, and then with the roaring of the old lion is roused, and sleeps
the least of any creatures ; so Christ rose by the power of his Father to sleep
no more.
Fourthly, Being risen, he is set forth, (1.) As a lion of Judah, for in that
prophecy. Gen. xlix. 11, as also Psalm Ix. 7, Judah, in respect of his kingly
ofiice, is called God's lawgiver, not simply in respect of giving the laws, —
that Moses, of the tribe of Levi, did, — but because Judah executed them ;
now because Christ did here take the book of God's decrees, and undertake
to execute and fulfil them as God's commissioner, therefore he is in this place
most properly in that respect the Hon of the tribe of Judah. (2.) He is here
set forth as a lamb with seven horns and eyes, in as fit and proper respect to
this as might be, as one not fit only to give this prophecy, but to effect the
tliino-s contained in it by his horns and eyes ; and seven horns and seven
eyes, to shew his full power to open the seven seals and the seven trumpets,
and to pour out the seven vials. Such a prophet never was, who is not
barely to reveal things, but to bring them to pass, and make them good. God
gave Christ the platform of the occurrences to come, and power and wisdom
to order the accomplishment of them.
He is set also forth under both, as a lamb and a lion, to shew his kingly
and priestly office : to shew how, by virtue of both, he makes ' us kings and
priests,' as they sing, ver. 10, and so they, having his kingdom in their eye,
are confirmed in the promise of it by a remembrance of him. As a lamb and
a lion thus strong and powerful ; as a lamb he purchaseth the revelation of
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 215
what concems the church ; as a lamb with horns and eyes, he effects the ac-
coniplishment of it. And the sum of this book being to shew how Christ
rules the world and his church, till he hath put down all rule, and how he
takes the kingdom himself, therefore he is described as a lamb in respect of
his quiet governing the affairs of the world and the church until that his
kingdom come; and then as a lion, by open force, takes the kingdom and
his church as a prey, out of the enemies' jaws, and that by the right of a
promised succession from Judah and David ; for which cases, those titles of
the root of David and lion of Judah do here come in. In a word —
First, This title of his being the root of David, is to shew his right and
title to that kingdom he is to receive, of which David and his kingdom was
but a type.
Secondly, His being a lamb slain, is to shew both the right and title to
that kingdom, and the price by which he purchased this his kingdom, even
his blood.
ThirJlij, His being a lion, is to shew th.e power by which he conquers and
obtains, and then possesses it. Therefore this heavenly chorus or company
here, when they do but see Christ, by taking this book to undertake the ac-
complishment of this prophecy, — the conclusion of which is his instalment
into his kingdom, — they, in the joy and faith of it, cry out beforehand, ' We
shall reign on earth,' as looking on all was to go before it as good as already
done, and overlooking it all, having this kingdom chiefly in their eye.
Now, from the 8th verse to the end is a doxology, or a giving praise for
the Lamb's taking the book, which consists of four parties or companies : —
First, Of twenty- four elders and the beasts; the church of men on earth.
They begin and raise the song, ver. 8.
Secondly, Angels; they join and sing after, ver. 11,
Thirdly, Then all creatures come in also, ver. 13.
Fourthly, The beasts, as the leaders, say in the end, Amen, and close it,
ver. 14.
Ohs. 1. — Observe, in the general, that the sons of men are the eminentest
praisers of God; they are the precentors in this heavenly choir, and they
conclude the song. The reason is, because the highest work God did is the
work of redemption, which concerns us, not the angels. For which, yet, the
angels praise him in the 2d of Luke, as also here; yea, all the creatures
rejoice in our redemption, ver. 13; but still we are the first-fruits, the top
leaders. The angels follow ; it is not said by them, ' Thou hast redeemed us
to God by thy blood :' that concerns us ; yet they sing praise.
Obs. 2. — Learn to bless God for his mercy and goodness to others ; so,
you see, the angels do for us. They cannot sing, as we, with an interest,
yet they praise God for it ; and this is their highest grace. Canst thou do
so ? Then comfort thyself, thou hast as good grace as any in the angels.
Ohs. 3. — Yet learn to bless God with a sense of thy interest ; that will
raise thy heart a degree higher, as the church of men are here raised, ver.
9, 10, in their song by their interest. The praisers of the sons of men are
described, (1.) having harps; (2.) golden vials. It is an allusion to the
Levitical service in the temple, where they had musical instruments, and
incense in bowls or vials, which, Zech. xiv, 20, are called 'the bowls of
the altar : ' not that musical instruments are to be in the worship of God
now, no more than incense; but as incense was the type of prayer and praise,
Ps. cxlL 2, ' Let my prayer come up before thee as incense,' so these harps
are of that spiritual melody, as the apostle calls it, which we make to God
in our hearts, even of spiritual songs in Christ, Eph. v. 19. Therefore John
216 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.
himself interprets the odours or iucense here to be the prayers of the saints :
their hearts are the golden vials, having faith purer than gold, as Peter
speaks, it being the spring of aU their praj^ers; and their harps also are
their hearts : corcla et chordae are near akin.
And every one is said to have harps ; for in public worship all should join :
the little strings go to make up a concert as well as the great. Though
thou hast but little grace, yet God's worship would not be complete without
thee.
And whereas John calls these odours the prayers of the saints, it makes
nothing for what the Papists would collect hence, that the saints in heaven
offer up the prayers of the saints on earth. For, first, this company are, as
we said before, the church of men on earth. Secondly, these here offer not
the prayers of others, but their own ; for both themselves make the song,
and it is a new one of their own making, and also the benefit they praise
God for in it is their own: 'Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.'
Those words therefore, ' the prayers of the saints,' are but the interpretation
which John adds, and imply but this, that these were saints, and their odours
were their prayers.
Ver. 9, And the]) sung a new song. — (1.) You shall find in the Psalms that
when David had a new occasion in a further degree to praise God, he says,
*I will sing a new song;' and here was a now occasion given. (2.) New, in
opposition to the old song under the Old Testament, as John xiii. 14, 'I
give you a new commandment;' that is, of the gospel, called new in opposi-
tion to the commands of the old law. In the 4th chapter of this book, these
elders had sung a song for the work of creation, ver. 1 1 ; but here they sing
for the work of redemption, as ver. 9, which is the eminent work of the New
Testament, as creation was of the Old, and therefore it is called a new song.
(3.) Here there is a more special reason why they should sing a new song, for
the New Jerusalem was in their eye, Christ's kingdom and their kingdom ;
' we shall reign on earth,' there all things shall be made new, and therefore
their song is new : a new song for the instalment of their new king ; thus
Ps. xcvi. 1, which is a psalm of this kingdom of Christ, as appears ver. 10,
13 ; that psahn therefore begins, ' smg to the Lord a new song.'
Ohs. 1. — Learn to frame new matter of praise and affections upon every
new occasion.
Ohs. 2. — We are to bless God for creation and redemption both; to take
in the mention of old blessings when we give thanks for new, as a good scribe
is said to bring forth of his treasure things new and old : so in thanksgiving
we are to sing the old song and the new,
The matter of the song is praise to the Lamb.
First, The person praised is the Lamb ; ' Thou art worthy.' In answer to
the proclamation, 'Who is worthy?' Thou, and thou alone; for to him, and
by him, and for him are all things. Col. i. 16.
Secondly, The things for which they praise him are, (1.) for his death, that
he died to redeem ; (2.) for his resurrection, intimated in this, ' Thou wast
slain :' the one making us priests, the other kings ; as follows, ver. 10. And
* to this end Christ died and rose, that he might be lord and king,' Rom.
xiv. 9. The word which is translated here redeemed, is in the original
bought.
Ver. 9, For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God hy thy blood
out of every kindred, and people, and tongue, and nation.
Obs. 1. — That the blood of Christ was paid as a price to God to purchase
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, 217
our redemption, 1 Cor. vi. 20, 'bought with a price;' and in 1 Tim. ii. he
callfi it a ransom.
Obs. 2. — That Christ hath not redeemed all men ; for it is not every nation
and tribe, but out of every nation, the elect only.
Obs. 3. — In that they say Christ is worthy to receive the book because ho
was slain, it argues this IBook of the Revelation is a special fruit of his
death, and so should be the more prizid by us ; before Christ's death, we
hear Christ himself say he knew not when the day of judgment should be.
but now he is slain, and hath taken this book, he doth, ver. 10.
Ver. 10, And hasi made lis unto our God kings and jyriests, and we
shall reiyii on the earth. — Christ was before set forth as a lion for a king, so
as a lamb for a priest; and both were mentioned to shew the grounds of our
being both kings and priests, who shall reign on earth.
Obs. 1. — That this comforted the saints of old, even the consideration of
Christ's kingdom on earth; and how peremptory are they, 'We sluill reign!'
They mention that, because that is the end and scope of the Picvelation, the
conclusion of this book, when the seals are off and the book finished, and so
they have it in their eye; and they seeing Christ undertaking the accom-
plishment of all iu this book, whereof this is the issue, are confirmed in the
faith of it.
Obs. 2. — That this kingdom of Christ on earth to come is a far more glo-
rious condition for the saints than what their souls have now in heaven ; for
these here overlook that condition which yet they were to run through, and
their thoughts fly to comfort themselves with this, ' AVe shall reign on earth.'
Ver. 11. — In this verse come in the other company of the angels singing;
who, first, for their number, are ten thousand times ten thousand, and thou-
sands of thousands. In the 7 th of Daniel, where the same throne and king-
dom of Christ is prophesied of, there is the same number of his guard of
angels mentioned.
Obs. 1. — God hath another world of rational creatures, which we see not;
and what a story then will the latter day produce !
Obs. 2. — What need we fear when there are so many for us ? as 2 Kings vi. 17.
For their station; they are behind the elders, &c., yet round about the
throne ; not so near as the elders, they are the guard of the queen of heaven,
the Lamb's wife, the church. Ps. xxxiv. 7, ' Angels encompass round about
them that fear him;' and are sent out for their good, Heb. i. 14.
Ver. 12. — The song follows, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to re-
ceive,' &c.
Obs. 1. — Christ, though he were worthy by inheritance, yet he was also
worthy by purchase, to receive aU these; so the words imply, 'that was
slain.'
Obs. 2. — As he hath seven horns and seven eyes, so he hath a sevenfold
praise.
Obs. 3. — And because they cannot praise him enough, they heap up words
to praise him with.
Qf)s, 4. — None is worthy to be the king of all the world but only Jesus
Christ; and indeed it were too much for any creature. The angels them-
selves were top-heavy of their glory, which made them reel out of heaven;
but Christ hath the Godhead to poise him. No beast is naturally a king of
beasts but the lion, says the philosopher ; nor none worthy to be king of all
creatures but this lion of the tribe of Judah.
The things which they attribute to him are —
218 A BRIEF HTSTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.
Fii'st, Power; that is, authority over all: so Christ says, John xvii. 2,
*To me all power is given.'
Secondbj, Eiches ; that is, possession of all creatures : ' aU things are his.'
and so ours. 2 Cor. viii. 9, ' Christ, who was rich, was made poor;' riches of
glory, knowledge, all are his.
Thirdly, Strength, joined with power and authority. Able he is to
work anything; not as other kings that have great power and authority, but
no more personal strength than other men : he hath therefore seven horns,
Fourtldy, Wisdom; and this as large as his power and dominions: he
knows aU God means to do, and sees aU with his own seven eyes; not other
men's, as other kings do.
Fifthly, Honour; that respects what all creatures bring in to him: they
all adore and bow the knee to him, Phil. ii.
Sixthly, Glory, both in his personal excellencies, and also what his
Father gives him ; he sits at God's right hand, and with his Father governs,
and shall come in his Father's glory, and in his person is the brightness of
his glory.
Seventhly, Blessing; which respects that glory which, for his special good-
ness to them, his saints do give him. Others give honour to Christ, — the
devils do, — but not blessing; that the saints only do, for that respects com-
munication of goodness : they only bless him whom he blesseth first.
Ohs. — Christ hath aU desirable excellencies in him : beauty, glory, honour,
esteem, riches, strength, wisdom.
Ver. 13, And every creature. — Every creature in its kind shall worship
Christ, Phil. ii. Every creature comes in here, because when Christ's kuag-
dom is set up, they shall be renewed, Rom. viii. 19, Ps. xcvi. 10, 11; both
creatures under the earth, bodies of saints departed, and precious stones, &c. ;
for all creatures shall be used in a glorious liberty.
The church of men began the song, and these continue it ; for it is this
mercy to them that is matter of the song, and the instauration of their king;
and therefore we are to be stirred up the more to do it in that we see even
all the creatures do it, whom it doth not so much concern.
Ver. 14, And the four beasts said, Amen; and the elders follow: the oflS.-
cers begin and end.
Amen seems to be an ordinance, a word to be used by officers first, and
then by the people ; as 1 Cor. xiv. 1 6.
A DISCOUESE OF CHEIST'S EEWAED ;
OB,
{)F THE GLOEY WHICH HE REOEIYES IN HEAVEN,
AS DUE TO THE EXCELLENCY OF lElS PERSON, AND AS THE KECOMPENSB
OP HIS "WORK OF REDEMPTION PERFORMED.*
Worthy is the Lamh that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom,
and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. — Eev. V. 12.
I DESIGN to give you a particular, as we use to call it, of that estate of glory
■whicli was Christ's due, and which our Lord of glory parted with and was
emptied of, and compare with each the particulars of his emptied, humbled
estate, contrary thereunto.
And for this I might refer unto those inherent gloiies that were his due,
to have broke forth from the first in him, as also those privileges and royal-
ties of his ; and so here, upon that argument, set by them his standing out
of all these, and emptying himself of them during his humbled estate.
I shall take that royal proclamation of his glories Avhich the holy and
blessed angels, his heralds, have made, and take what I find summed up in
one cluster, growing on one stalk, or in one verse. Rev. v. 1 2, ' Worthy is
the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and
strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.' That they speak it of him
as God-man is clear, in that he is called the Lamb.
But before I enter upon the merits of my design specified, I must remove
an objection, that my running over those particulars mentioned will not be
pertinent unto the ends and purpose which I even now proposed : for the
main argument is, the glories which were his due as God-man before his
redemption of us; and the laying down of that glory was the main ingre-
dient of that sacrifice he ofi'ered up for his redeeming of us. But the royal-
ties there ascribed as worthy to be given him are what, the angels say, he
was worthy of for having redeemed us ; for the account they give them
* This fragment — which appears to have been notes for what, in Presbyterian
churches, is called a ' table-service,' that is, an address to communicants before par-
taking of the Lord's Supper — is given in this place, because it is an exposition of a
passage in the Book of Revelation; although, so far as the matter of it is concerned, it
would more properly faU under another division of the Author's Works. This Dis-
course closes the Expositor* Dortion of Goodwia's Works. — Ec.
220 A discoue.se of Christ's reward. [TLev. V. 12.
hereupon is, as lie is tlie Lam^ slain, and not at all as God-man. For the
removal of which, sad slearini the aptness and meetness of the allegation o{
these, as suitable in the scor.'e and matter of them unto my forf^.nafiutioned
purpose, I 2)remise these answers : —
First, As to that, that the angels should proclaim him worthy of all these
because slain, and as the Lamb that was slain, as ver. 9 seems to carry it :
suppose that were the scope, yet it is but to declare a superadditional glory
of Christ's, consisting in this, that ne should merit by his death what was
otherwise naturally due to him in his person, who was slain ; and so a re-
doubled honour accrue to him upon several titles, that he who in himself,
and the dignity of his person, was worthy of all these, should moreover by
the merits of his death purchase thereby to be worthy of them also ; and so
that although he merited them by his being slain, yet it was but what was
his own. by another right before due to his person, but now moreover to his
actions and sufierings, and how that by them he deserved them also. And so
in that one description or character of him both dues are here both involved
at once. First, The Lamb, noting his person God-man ; and it is his title
given his person, now he is in glory, throughout this book. Second!}', The
Lamb that was slain. Both which, under the same terms in effect, Peter indi-
gitates, 1 Pet. i. 19, ' Ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot;' where the jDreciousness of
his blood is inferred from the preciousness of his person. (1.) He mentions
Christ, whom, in his person, he expressly calls elect and precious in the fol-
lowing chapter, (ii. 6,) and whom he sets forth in his person as a foundation to
our faith, and also unto his merit for us, which is the approximate ground of
our faith. Then, (2.) he speaks of this glorious person's being sacrificed to
death, for his blood there is said to be the j^rice, ' as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot,' alluding to the paschal lamb, his type : for, indeed, even
the value of that price by his death was founded on the innate worthiness of
his person, as to whom all these were due on the pure account thereof; for
his having been slain would not have made him worthy of all these, if his
person that was slain had not been worthy of all these before he was slain.
Yea, and the angels do mention his death, in this their doxology of j^raise,
chiefly as a description of his person in this sense : that he whose person was
the Lamb of God, (God-man,) and further, had been he that was slain, was
worthy, &c.; and of the two it is certain the worthiness of his person far ex-
ceeds the merits of his sufferings and actions.
Secondly, The like allegation may be made concerning the manifestative
glory of the other two Persons ; for that very glory which is personally due
to each Person as God, they are yet proclaimed worthy to receive upon occa-
sion of some special work done by them : and thus it is with Chiist here.
Thus God the Father, of whom the angels say, chap. vii. 12, ' Blessing, and
glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be
unto our God for ever and ever. Amen : ' all these are his due as he is
God ; and yet, chap. iv. 11, he — for of him it is spoken — is proclaimed ' wor-
thy' to receive glory, and honour, <fec., 'for thou hast created all things.'
Thus it is with Christ for having performed the work of redemption here.
Thirdly, It is true there is a glory given to Christ which wholly relates to
the work of re- Jemj^tion alone ; even as to God the Father also, for and upon
his work of creation; who, although he was God, and so almighty, able to
create, yet he could not have had the glory of creating or being a creator,
unless he had actually created, though in that he is able to create, he might
have been entitled to such a power. And so Christ hath tliis glory given
PiEV. V. 12.] A DISCOURSE OF CURIST's REWARD. 221
upon occasion of his being a Redeemer, and that he is a Redeemer ; for he
was slain, and without it he had not been a Redeemer ; yet still look, as God
receives in and upon the work of creation but the glory of his being God, —
the invisible things of God being manifested therein, * even his eternal power
and Godhead,' — so Christ, in receiving the glory of redemption, receives but
the acknowledgments of those portions due to him as God-man, now further
manifested in that work.
Fourthly, In that he is said 'to receive them' after his being slain, this
prejudiceth it not but that they were due to his person before. For not
only of God himself the same plirase is used, ' Worthy art thou to receive
glory,' — that is, as given from all thy creatures. Rev. iv. 11; it is spoken of
him that sits on the throne, ver. lU, — but also here, as it is used of Christ,
it refers to that actual possession he had taken of glory upon his ascension,
which is called his entering into glory after his sutferings : Luke xxiv. 26,
' Ought not Christ to have sutfered these things, and to enter into his glory %'
All which the angels after his ascension thus applaud, and cry Eiige to. And
in respect to this possession then given, and received by him, it is said he
was made both Lord and Christ : Acts ii. 34-36, ' The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool.
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ ;' which is
clearly spoken of his ascension, and yet he was Lord and Christ before.
And in the like manner doth the Revelation speak of his entering into pos-
session of the kingdoms of the world : Rev. xi. 17, 'Thou hast taken to thee
thy great power.' It was his before ; his power as his due, and yet as now but
the taker of it ; and therein takes but what is his right into his own hands.
And the phrase, takes to hhn, is usually spoken of one that hath newly taken
to him a right or due that was detained from him, or out of his own hands,
and exercised by others that kept it from him, yet belonging to him ; and
so here, when he is declared worthy to have received, tfec, and to receive
after his suffering, it is to be judged that he doth but take to him what
was his. And —
Lastly, That all these were his by inheritance, as being God's natural
eldest son, you have expressly, Heb. i. 4, 5, ' Being made so much bet-
ter than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent
name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time. Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten thee 1 And again, I will be to him a
Father, and he shall be to me a Son,' by inheritance, as being eldest son,
■>.nd jthe only-begotten of God. Yea, in his very conception, and the union of
God-man, he was the Son of God ; and therefore all this royalty or glory
was then his due by inheritance : Luke i. 35, ' The Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee : therefore
also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God ;' called, that is, shall have the name of being God's Son, and therewith
all that dignity, power, glory whatsoever, that were due to him that was the
only-begotten Son of God, John i And the angel shews that he should
have aU these in title as his right and due the first instant of his conception ;
all which he yet had not in full and actual possession until he, as now here,
was come to heaven.
And therefore that it is here said, ' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to
receive,' &c., imports not as if he received it only because he was slain ;
nor is it any way implied thereby, that it was not his right by personal in-
heritance, no more than that a king that is a while kept from his right, and
222 A DISCOURSE OF CHEIST's REWARD. [ReV. V. 12.
obtains the possession of it by conquest, may not yet be said to have it by
inheritance also , yea, and so as he holds that to be the surer and better title
also. lu that very chapter, where his kingly dignity is solemnised, there are
these three distinct titles proclaimed of him : — First, By inheritance, in that
he is called the ' Eoot of Jesse.' The eminentest and eldest in a family are
called the root, or the father of that family : so Isa. xiv. 30. Now, though
David was the youngest son, yet, Ps. Ixxxix. 27, God said of him, 'I will
make him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth ;' who as in that
right received the kingdom, to shew that Christ, as God's first-born, should
by inheritance receive it also ; which is the title I am now a-pleading.
Secondly, He is called the ' Lion of Judah,' who got the land by conquest ;
so Joshua, of that tribe, Christ's type. Thirdly, * A Lamb slain,' that bought
it with his blood.
This objection being thus removed, and the text thus adapted to my in-
,;ended purpose, I approach now unto my intended design, which is to set in
one view, in two opposite schemes or draughts, these personal excellencies
of Christ God-man as it were in one side or page, as in such cases we use
to place things opposite or parallel ; and the contrary humbled estate in the
form of a servant on the ojjposite page, as being avrisTor^iia, contrary one to
the other.
Concerning these his excellencies and royalties due to his person, I
premise but two things in general ere I enter upon the aforesaid particular
comparison : —
First, That these perfections he is celebrated for, are in number seven,
which is the number of perfection ; for they contain a fulness and complete-
ness of perfections, and those personally due to him.
The second is, that they are the good and holy angels, who behold his
face and the Father's, who do give him the eulogy and praise of them. And
the testimony of angels ought to have a mighty impression upon us. You
see what a weight is put upon but one angel's testimony that gave Eevelatioa
to John, and it is as the seal set to the whole book, Rev. xxii. 16, ' I Jesus
have sent mine angel to testify these tilings.' What then is the testimony
of all the holy angels, the whole choir of them 1 And so it is prefaced to
these words in the foregoing 11th verse, 'And I beheld, and I heard the
voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders :
and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thou-
sands of thousands, saying with a loud voice. Worthy,' &c. This witness of
theirs must therefore have an answerable reverential repute with us , for they
must needs be held the most faithful and able witness in this matter. . In-
deed, above all other creatures, we men redeemed do experimentally feel what
he is as he is a Redeemer, and know that, in that resjject, better than they.
And therefore there is that emphatical difference to be observed in the song
of the chorus of men, giving glory to him. Rev. v. 9, 10, 'Thou wast slain,
and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue,
and pet)ple, and nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests :
and we shall reign on the earth.' Oh, how feelingly do they enlarge upon
it ! But yet the angels, when they say, ' Worthy is the Lamb that was slain,'
though they go no further in their mention of it, yet they speak all this upon
their own knowledge, and that a knowledge of sight, and not of obscure faith,
as in a glass darkly ; for they see his person every day, — 1 Tim. iii. 16, ' taken
up into glory, seen of angels,' — and seen as now he is in glory, since his taking
up ; and so are to be valued for the most competent witnesses to this matter
of his personal glory, as also for the most faithful and impartial, in that he
Rev. V. 12.] a discourse of cheist's eeward. 223
is of anotlier nature from theirs : ' He took not the nature of angels.' But
yet they are so taken witli, and overcome witli this glory of his person now
it is in their eye, that not only they envy not at this his exaltation as man
60 far above them, as the evil angels of their own nature do, and for that
cause did, that you see on the contrary how they magnify and extol it. You
may well and worthily then receive their testimony, as next to that of God
himself, and say, in allusion to what John says of God's witness of Christ,
1 John V. 9, 'If ye receive the witness of men, the witness of angels 'ia
greater.'
And so I am more immediately arrived at that comparison I promised in
each particular of these glories set in opposition against every answerable
humiliation, not only emptying of them in Christ's humbled condition, but
the perfect contrary brought upon him ; and this the holy angels themselves
give us occasion, and invite us to do, by saying, ' Worthy is tlie Lamb that
was slain ; ' they considered, and took in both into the burden of their song.
Let us therefore, as I said before, turn that part of the optic glass that
renders the sun in its brightest strength and glory, and then turn the other
end that renders it as a small snuff, discoloured, and riding in darkness and
blackness ; and we may, among other, make this use of it, when you come to
the sacrament to celebrate the memory of Christ crucified, take a view of
Christ in both. First, see him as crowned with glory and honour, as the
Apostle speaks they saw him, Heb. ii., sitting on the throne of Majesty on
high; and the)i as crowned with thorns, naked, despised, hanging on a
tree. You have them both in sight in that one ver. 9 : ' We see Jesus, who
was made a little lower than the angels, by the suffering of deatli, crowned
with glory and honour.' And that (Bsol'/xj rt, a little lower, understand not
of his being, in that he was a man, therefore a little degree lower ; but it is
spoken of the shortness of the time in which he was made lower ; for other-
wise, as for the lowness itself of condition which he was brought unto, the
comparison unto the angels was not sufficiently expressive, it is too high to
set it forth ; for he was in that respect made lower than any man. ' I am a
worm, and no man,' said he, Ps. xxii., that before had said, ' My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' And as you consider any part of his de-
basement, mingle this thought with it. Thus glorious should my Jesus have
been at that time, but he gave himself, and all, away for me.
The first attribute is power ; that is, authority, huvaiMi;, which is here put
for J^ouff/a, as sometimes elsewhere ; for here it is distinguished from layjji,
strength, which is another of the particulars that follows. And it is a sure
rule in interpreting this place, that each of these seven are distinct from the
other, else they observed not the number seven, the number of perfection.
And to set out Christ's completeness thereby is his scope, John xvii. 2,
' Thou hast given him power over all flesh ; ' and, Matt, xxviii., ' All power
is given me both in heaven and earth,' even all that power executive, not
essential, which God himself means actually to exercise or put forth ; all this
power is committed to him ; as himself at another time saith, John v. 22,
' All judgment is committed to the Son.' And thus as in respect of actual
exercise of authority, God's and Christ's power as God-man may be said to
be of equal extent, — one God, one Lord, of both whom are all things that are,
— so by virtue of this he hath aU subject to him, 2 Pet. iii 22, * Angels, and
authorities, and powers being made subject to him ;' so as Christ, by virtue
of it, commands whatever is done in this and that other world. You have seen
him in his greatness in this respect.
See him now stript of all this: Matt. xx. 25 'Ye know that the princes
224 A DISCOUESE OF CHRIST'S REWAED. [EeV. V. 12,
of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise
authority upon them.' Then, ver. 28, he propounds his example, 'The Son
of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his hfe
a ransom for many.' It is as if he had said, The Son of man foretold by Daniel,
(as in chap. vii. we find it,) to whom was ' given dominion, and glory, and a
kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him : his
dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his
kingdom that which shall not be destroyed,' ver. 14. Though it was his.
right to exercise dominion on these petty constables, who, for such are kings
over the nations, yet under him ; instead of being over, says he, all these sorts
of attendants, I minister to all, and my whole life is a service devoided of
all authority but over devils and diseases ; but othervAdse it is a subjection to
all other ; and I am not only a servant unto God herein, but am subjected
to men. And what was his end in this but to make a price of redemption for
us thereof, together with his whole life, and ' to give his life a ransom for
many "2' He is subject not only to the lawful authority of the Roman em-
pire as then extant, but so he would have been of any state he might have
been supposed to live in, wliich he considered enough then ; the exactors of
tribute required it of him by Peter, to put him in mind of it. Matt. xvii. *
But he declared, in his answer to their demand, himself a king's son ; and
therefore he says, ver. 26, 'The children of kings are free.' And in those
words he speaks to this effect : To give thee, Peter, a demonstration of what
authority and dominion I have in this world, I will not pay it out of that
ready-money I have, or thou hast by thee, nor will I borrow it of any man,
but I will command a fish to pay me tribute, and with that do thou pay
Caesar. So as whilst he subjects himself to this authority, he shews a greater
authority himself had, which Csesar had not. This authority, power, and
dominion he gave away, and receded from it ; yea, further, he that had
authority to command all in heaven and earth, a far larger and superior
domuiion than Caesar's reached to, was often put to hide himself, and fly
from that authority that sought his life, as if he had not been able to have
commanded the preservation of it. Thus when a babe he was forced to go
into Egypt for fear of Herod ; when come back again, to go into Nazareth
for fear of Archelaus ; and when come to age, he was so divested and emptied
of all power as he was forced to retire into the borders of Canaan, at one
time, to hide and skulk, as we say. And again, John iv. 1, 3, ' When there-
fore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and bap-
tized more disciples than John, he left Judea, and departed again into
Galilee.' And another tune, John xi. 53, 54, ' Then from that day forth
they took counsel together for to put him to death. Jesus therefore walked
no more openly among the Jews ; but went thence into a country near to the
wilderness, into a city called Epliraim, and there continued with his disciples.'
Yea, then when he was to be apprehended by a band of men, he yet con-
siders enough what power and authority he had in heaven for his rescue :
Matt. xxvi. 53, 54, 'Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father,
and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels 1 But
how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be T Even then
he subjects and empties himself: If I should take this on me, how should
the Scriptures be fulfilled i which have said, I must die, and suffer, and
thus it must be. So at the bar he sufiers liimself to be arraigned by autho-
rity, and to be smitten by an imder-officer, as one that reviled the autho-
* It appears, however, to have been a tax imposed on the Jews by themselves, for the
maintenance of the temple-service, that Jesus paid on this occasion. — Ed.
KeV. V. 12.] A DISCOURSE OF CHRIST'S REWARD. 225
rity which the smiter of him judged he ought to have been subject to, yea,
thought much at it that so poor a wretch as he should presume not to do it :
John xviii. 22, ' And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which
stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the
high priest so ? ' As if he should say, Answerest thou, so vile, so mean a
wretcli as thou art, the high priest so 1 And he then also considers what
was his due, and declares it before them openly at the bar, when they con-
temned him, as being then, through his own willing emptying himself, in
their power. Thus, Matt. xxvi. 64, ' Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said :
nevertheless, I say unto you. Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting
on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven ; ' that is,
You have me now under, and this is your hour, and you think of me but as
of another man subject to you : neverthless, I say unto you. Hereafter shall
ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the
clouds of heaven. What need I say more as to this argument but this, that
he to whom all authority in heaven and earth is committed, was accused and
condemned, and the cause for which he was condemned was, that he was a
rebel and a traitor unto authority 1
The second particular glory of which Christ divested himself for us is
riches, which some refer to those riches of wisdom spoken of, CoL ii; but
wisdom we find, comes in after ; nor are they riches of glory, for they are in
like manner summed up in glory, which also follows. But these riches here
are attributed to Christ as a king, which is the subject of this chapter ; and
a kingdom consists, as in authority, so in riches, &c.; and so these riches do
import the right of possession unto all things whatsoever — the jus or domi-
nion over aU creatures, as being his proper goods and chattels. And to this
purpose it is said, ' All is yours, for you are Christ's;' so that all are his first
and originally, and our right is but a derivation from \\m\. We read that
Wisdom (that is, Christ) says, Prov. viii. 18, 'Kiches and honour are with
me.' The earth is full, as of his glory, Isa. vi., for that is spoken of Christ;
so of his riches, as Ps. civ. 24. And of Christ it is that it is said, Ps. xxiv.
1, 'The earth is his, and the fulness of it; the world, and they that dwell
therein;' it is spoken of Christ, ' that king of glory,' as ver. 8, 10, of whom
that psalm is made : for it is he to whom those everlasting doors did open
when he ascended, as in the close of that psalm. His riches lie not in
chattels only, but in persons also : ' the fuhiess of the earth, and the inhabi-
tants also,' as in that psalm. The angels here, you see, acknowledge that
aU riches are his, and therewithal that themselves possess not a foot of
ground in heaven but what is Christ's. And if they, the supremest rank of
God's creation, are his servants, as that angel acknowledgeth himself to be,
Piev. xix., and ministering spirits, Heb. i, — and servants and ministers about
a great king or great person are part of their riches, — then surely all things
else must be put into this inventory. Now see the grace, the love of Christ,
as the apostle speaks, 2 Cor. viii. 9, ' That though he w^as rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor.' He emptied himself of the possession of all, and left
not himself so much as a hole to hide his head in. He speaks in relation to
his outward possession of anything; for his scope in that place was to
exhort to giving to others. And this poverty was from his verj' birth. Con-
sider but how his mother did lie in, — you that are rich, fine dames, you will
soon be sensible of this more than others : she lies in in straw, as beasts at
best, not in a bed, no, not in a house, but a stable ; and the babe himself
was laid in a manger. His parents that brought him up from an infant
were poor, and such must his accommodations and breeding be. Witness
VOL. III. P
226 A DISCODKSE OF CHRIST. S rcKV.'AKD. [ReV. V. 12.
the offering they made at his bringing to the temple, Luke ii. 24. And
after in his life, the world was not amended with him. He lives upon the
charity of others, and had but merely wherewith to live. He is made de-
pendent upon women, who themselves have not to give, but out of that their
husbands allow them ; thus Luke viii. 3 ; and therein was made a servant ;
for so is the borrower to the lender, as Solomon speaks. And at his death
it continued still to be thus with him. He is fain to commend his mother
to another, to John, to keep her when he is gone, having notliing himself to
leave her. His clothes, though mean, were not his own to dispose of at that
time; but the guards and watchmen that waited him till death cast lots for
them before his fixce ; and himself considered it, and laid it to heart, as in
Ps. xli., (made of him, and expressing his heart, ver. 9.) It is strange that
in the midst of such tortures he then hung in, he should mind this circum-
stance, so small a one : but we are thereby taught that he considered every-
thing he suffered, as well as every sin of ours he suffered for; and was accord-
ingly afflicted that he that was so gi-eat, so rich a person, if he had had his
own in his right and due, should be brought to this, and stripped of all, and
should have those his mean and worthless clothes to be disposed of before
his eyes, in a way of sport, as well as otherwise. This wounded and pierced
his heart, as well as that they pierced his hands and his feet, and gave him
vinegar to drink, and wagged their heads in scorn ; and his poverty, and
emjDtiness of all comforts, and want of all supplies in those resjjects, he was
deeply sensible of. And the jDsalm begins with, ' Blessed is he that considers
the poor;' for he was such, and speaks it as glad that any did consider him
in that estate.
The third thing instanced in is ivisdom, which is as large as his authority.
He knows all things that are, or fall out within his dominion; which are all
things. Ivings see not with their own eyes, but the eyes of the Lord run
through the whole earth. He knew Paul, where he dwelt. Acts ix., as also
that church, Kev. ii. 13, 'I know where thou dwellest,' and so all parti-
culars also ; and else, he were not a merciful high priest as man, if he knew
not all our particular straits as men. He is the bisliop of souls, and
knows all his flock himself. As man he shall judge the world, and is ready
to do it now, as Peter speaks ; and therefore knows all that God hath done,
or will do, or all persons to be judged : ' All things are naked before him' —
and that him is Christ there — 'with whom we have to do.'"* And all these
things he knows, not by the hearsay of angels, that are his messengers sent
by him, not to bring him intelligence, but to execute his will ; them yet he
employs as ministers for liis business : but he knows them all in himself, as
he did that particular matter then in Mark v. 30.
Now let us see him in his weakness, and emptying himself for a time in
this respect. How ignorant was he of many things ! As of the day of
judgment, and of the fig-tree, &c. Yea, ignorant of letters and learning.
This they spake of him that had cause to know him, his kindred that lived
in the same place, and therefore name his condition and calling ; and they
that knew his sisters, Mark vi. 2, 3, spake thus of him, ' From whence hath
this man these things ? And what wisdom is this which is given to him 1
Is not this the carpenter,' that hath lived always at his trade, and wrought
for us, ' the son of ilary, the brother of James and Joses, and of Judas and
Simon 1 And are not his sisters here with us ? '
See Lapide in locum out of I\Iolina.
CERTAIN SELECT CASES RESOLVED:
SPECIALLY TENDTXG TO
THE COMFORT OF BELIEVERS IN THEIR CHIEF
AND HSIJAL TEMPTATIONS.
I. THE CASE OF DESERTION; OR, WALKING IN DARKNESS: THE CAUSE AND REMEDIES.
?. HOW TO DISCERN ANSWERS TO OUR PRATERS.
3. THE CASE RESOLYED, WHETHER AFTER SOUND REPENTAITCE A CHILD OF GOD MAY
FALL INTO THE SAME SIN ]
i. HOW IT IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD THAT EVERT BELIEVER BRINGETH FORTH ALL HIS
FRUIT m CHRIST.
6 HOW TO DISCERN OUR GROWTH IN GRACE.
HERETOFORE ALL PUBLISHED IN THREE TREATISES —
1. A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS.
2. RETURN OF PRATERS.
3. TRIAL OF GROWTH.
AN!) NOW REPRINTED, AND NEWLY PUT TOGETHEU,
WITH OTHER DIVINE TRACTATEa
A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAEINESS;
OR,
A TREATISE
THE CAUSES BY WHICH, THE CASES WHEREIN,
AND THE ENDS FOR WHICH, GOD LEAVES HIS CHILDREN TO
DISTRESS OF CONSCIENCE.
TOGETHER WITH
DIEECnONS HOW TO WALK SO AS TO COME FORTH OP
SUCH A CONDITION".
WITH OTHER OBSERVATIONS UPON ISAIAH L. 10, 11.
'When ue hideth his face, who can behold him?' — Job xxxiv. 29.
HONORATISSIMO DOMINO,
R B E 11 T 0,
DOMINO BROOKE, BAROXI BROOKE DE BEAUCHAMP COURT,
HEROI
eiimii acuminis, suilmi candoris, pietatis ac literarum cultokl,
fautorique, opellam hanc,
lauorantis conscienti^e consolatoriam, in perpetuie
observantijE testimonium :
DO. DICO. CONSECliO.
THOMAS GOODWIN.
rO MY MOST HONOUREB LORD,
ROBERT,
LORD BROOKE, BARON BROOKE OF BEAUCHAMF COURT,
A HERO,
OF RARE INTELLIGENCE, OF EXTREME CANDOUR,
A CULTIVATOR OF PIETY AND LEARNING HIMSELF, AND A P AVOURER
OP THEM IN OTHERS,
I GIVE, DEDICATE, DEVOTE THIS LITTLE WORK,
DESIGNED TO COMFORT DISTRESSED CONSCIENCES, IN TOKEN OF
UNENDING RESPECT.
THOMAS GOODWIN.
TO THE KEADER
That which drew these sermons from me, next to thy good, was to right
myself. They were first preached eight years since, and some notes thereof
were, to say no more, dispersed into the hands of many, to my prejudice.
They are here presented as they were preached, with little alteration or addi-
tion in method, style, and matter ; only, to make up the treatise more com-
plete, I entirely added, against the publishing thereof, that whole discourse
about Satan's part and hand in these desertions, beginning at Chap. VI. In
handling which, I trust I have not at all incurred that severe increpation of
the Apostle against curious speculations about angels, of * intruding into those
things which I have not seen' ground and warrant for in the word. Sure I
am, I have endeavoured to follow the school, in their labyrinths herein, no
further than I found a clue of Scripture and right reason clearly guiding and
warranting my way ; without which I account the ways of this old and wind-
ing serpent, in his communications to us, to be, as Solomon speaks, ' like the
way of a serpent upon a stone,' hidden, and past tracing or finding out. And
lest any of the weaker readers, especially those in distress, to whom more
speculative and doctrinal discourses, though about things practical, prove
usually tedious and unpleasing, should, in reading that piece, be discouraged
at the first, my advertisement is, that, if they find that part of the way craggy
or tiresome, which I hope they will not, they would divert out of it, and
come in again at Chap. XI. ; from whence to the end they shall find what is
more accommodate to their understanding and conditions, and more practi-
cally speaking to their distress. The blessing of Heaven go with it !
THO. GOODWIN.
A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS.
PART I.
Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant,
that walketh in darkness, and hath no light ? Let him tricst in the name
of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle afire,
that compass yourselves about with sparks : tvalk in the light of your
fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This ye shall have of mine
hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow. — IsA. L. 10, 11.
The words paraphrased.
We have in these words a true believer in his worst, and natural men in
their best condition, set forth together unto our view; and withal the
power of true faith, as it alone upholdeth him in the saddest hour of dark-
ness that can befaU him, opposed unto and compared with the falseness of
their presumptuous confidence, in their greatest security ; together with the
differing supports of either; the one in ver. 10, the other in ver. 11.
First, take a true believer, who hath had the least beam of the * light of
the glory of God, which shines in the face of Christ,' 2 Cor. iv. 6, let in
upon his soul, and his heart so taken with that sight as it became eternally
divorced from all things here below, and resolved to adventure all his future
hopes of comfort and happiness in the enjoyment of that light of God's
countenance alone : which that he may enjoy, he feareth to offend the Lord
more than hell, and endeavoureth as truly ' to obey the voice of his ser-
vants,' as ever he desires to attain unto that happiness. Think with your-
selves, what is the worst thing, next to the eternal loss of God, really and
indeed, that can be supposed to befaU this man. ^Vhat worse than to have
that cranny, through which he first espied that beam, to be as it were clean
shut up, the ' light of God's countenance' withdrawn ; yea, all light and ap-
pearance to him of his own graces withheld and overclouded ; the face of
heaven so overcast with darkness that neither sunlight nor starlight appeareth
to him, so as he hath no light ; yea, further, finds his soul beset and be-
sieged round with all the powers of hell and darkness, and the terrors of the
Almighty shot into his soul 1 And he, thus quite left, walking in this dark-
ness, is filled with strong fears and jealousies that God is not his God ; nay,
questioning whether he ever will be ; yea, apprehending, by the wrath he
23G A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
feels, God to be become his enemy, Psalm Ixxvii. 7. All this is set forth to
us here as the very estate of one who * feareth the Lord and obeys him ; '
and is comprehended in these words, ' that walketh in darkness, and hath no
light.' You see him at his worst.
In which forlorn condition, what is there to be found to relieve and sup-
port this man 1 But only one thing, which is here held forth to him, ' the
name of the Lord,' for him to trust and stay himself upon ; both that name
of God, Exod. xxxiv. 6, 'The Lord God, gracious and merciful,' &c., and
that name of Christ which is called, Jer. xxiii. 6, ' Jehovah our righteous-
ness.' Both or either of 'which, he, by the naked hand of faith laying hold
upon, may now make use of as of a staff, (as David compares it, Psalm xxiii.
4,) whilst he thus ' walks in darkness,' and ' through the valley of the sha-
dow of death,' safely to trust and stay himself upon, so as in the end to come
forth ' to see light in God's light for evermore,' Psalm xxxvi. 9. You see
likewise the prop of his soul in this condition.
On the contrary, let us behold, as all are here called to do, the best and
most secure of unregenerate men, encom[)assed about with all means and
supports of confidence and comfort, whether of legal righteousness of their
own, which these Jews made boast of, together with the addition of all
worldly and outward comforts , both which the prophet here compares to
fire and sparks, as preserving light and comfort in them. As, (L) Let theii
lives and natural dispositions abound with never so many sparks of legal
righteousness, which themselves have kindled • for so he compares all thost
several acts and performances of natural and acquired righteousness, struck
out and educed from the powers of natural principles improved, which make
a great blaze in a man's own opinion and esteem ; which yet, not proceeding
from the Holy Ghost baptizing them as with fire and renewing them, nor
from internal principles of regeneration, which Christ compares to fire, Mark
ix. 49, are all in God's account but as a sacrifice offered up with strange
fire, which was forbidden, and are here said to be of their own kindling.
And such were the sparks in the light of which these Jews walked, who
' went about to establish their own righteousness,' Bom. x. 3, and with con-
fidence trusted therein, and not on the name of the Lord. And further,
(2.) Let those men be surrounded and encompassed about with the greatest
splendour of worldly glory, and abound in all those good things this world
can afford them, — the comforts whereof, Solomon, Eccles. vii. 6, in like man-
ner compares to a fire of thorns, and the pleasures of it to the crackling of
thorns, as here to sparks, — and let them keep never so good fires to warm
and cheer themselves withal, lay on as much every day as shall even encom-
pass them about with sparks ; and in the light and confidence of both these
let them walk for many years, despising that other poor believer that feareth
to be found in his own righteousness, and refuseth to be comforted by any
of these : yet, let them know, says Christ, who is brought in as the speaker
here, that when they have thus walked presumptuously and securely, and
even w'alked themselves weary, as it is Isa. xl. 31, Aveary of all their own
ways and pleasures, as they will be one day ; and then at their deathbeds
think to lie down and rest them ; they shall lie down indeed, says Christ,
and their bed shall be of my making and providing, — ' This you shall have of
my hand ; you shall lie down,' — but ' in a bed of sorrow' and despair, in Avhioh
tliey shall lie down never to rise again.
Chap. l.J a child of light walkinu in darkness. Ii37
CHAPTER I.
The main proposition and subject of this discourse thence deduced : That a child
of God may ivalk in darkness. — That thereby distress of conscience, and
desertion in the want of assurance of justification, is meant, proved.
This to be the meaning of the words will more fully appear in opening the
several propositions to be delivered out of them, whereof the first and princi-
pally intended is this : That one who truly fears God, and is obedient to
him, may be in a condition of darkness, and have no light ; and he may walk
many days and years in that condition.
And herein, further to explain the text, and bottom this great point well
upon it, and more particularly to discover what the condition of a child of
God, thus in darkness, is, we will first inquire what is meant by walking in
darkness here in this place.
First, Walking in darkness is taken in 1 John i. 6, for living in sin
and ungodliness — in the commission of known sins or omission of known
duties, going on in the works of darkness. But so it is not to be taken
here; for Christ would not have encouraged such to trust in God, who is
light, and there can be no fellowship between him and such darkness, as the
Apostle tells us. Nay, the Holy Ghost reproves such as do ' lean on the
Lord' and yet transgress, Mic. iii. 11. And besides, the text speaks of such
who for their present condition fear God and are obedient to him, which if
they thus walked in darkness they could not be said to do. Neither —
Secondly, Is it to be meant of walking in ignorance, as, John xii. 35, it is
taken. For one that hath no light, in that sense, can never truly fear God
nor obey him : the ' heart that wanteth knowledge is not good,' says Solo-
mon, Prov. xix. 2 ; and so to walk in darkness is accompanied with walking
'in vanity of mind,' Eph. iv. 17. But —
Thirdly, He means it of discomfiture and sorrow, as often we find in
Scripture darkness to be taken, as Eccles. v. 17; as, on the contrary, light,
because it is so ' pleasant a thing to behold,' is put for comfort, Eccles. xi.
7. And that so it is taken here is evident by that which is opposed in the
next verse, ' Walk ye in your light, yet ye shall lie down in sorrow.' But —
Fourthly, Of what kind of sorrow, and for what 1 Whether from outward
aflBictions, or inward distress of mind and conscience ; or, to use Solomon's
distinction, whether by reason of man's ordinary infirmities, or of a wounded
spirit ? That is yet in question. And —
First, It is not to be restrained to outward afflictions only, which are called
man's infirmities, as being common to man ; which arise from things of this
world, or from the men of the world ; though to ivalk in darkness is so taken,
Isa. lix. 9, and I will not exclude it here. For, in them also, a man's best
support is to trust in God ; and it is the safest way to interpret Scriptures
in the largest sense Avhich the words and coherence will bear. But yet that
cannot be the only or principal meaning of it ; for besides what is further to
ii3S A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
be said to the contrary, lie adds withal, ' and hath no light,' that is, no com-
fort. Now, as philosophers say, non dantur puree tenebroe, there is no pure
darkness without some mixture of light ; so we may say, there is not mere
or utter darkness caused by outward afflictions : no outward affliction can so
universally en\iron the mind, as to shut up all the crannies of it, so that a
man should have no light. And besides, God's people, when they walk in
the gi-eatest outward darkness, may have, yea, often use to have, most light
in their spirits. But here is such an estate spoken of, such a darkness as
hath no light in it. Therefore —
Secondly, It is principally to be understood of the want of inward com-
fort in their spirits, from something that is between God and them ; and so
meant of that darkness and terrors which accompany the want of the sense
of God's favour. And so darkness is elsewhere taken for inward affliction of
spirit and mind, and want of light, in point of assurance, that God is a man's
God, and of the pardon of a man's sins ; so, Ps. Ixxxviii. 6, Heman useth
tliis word to express his distress. And the reasons why it is thus to be un-
derstood here are —
First, Because the remedy here prescribed is faith; to stay himself upon
God, and that as upon his God ; he puts in his God, emphatically, because
that is the point he is troubled about, and concerning which he is in dark-
ness, and of which he would have such a one to be persuaded. And that is it
which faith, which is propounded here as the remedy, doth in the first place
and principally look unto, as its primary aim and object.
Secondly, In the foregoing verses he had spoken of justification, whereby
God pardons our sins and accepts our persons; the prophet, or Christ in
the person of his elect, (as some,) having exj^ressed his assurance of this :
'God is near that justifies me, who shall condemn?' Which words the
Apostle, Rom. \Tii. 32, 33, doth allege in the point of justification, and to
express the triumphing assurance of it ; and applies them in the name and
person of true believers too. But because there might be some poor souls,
who, though truly fearing God, yet might want this assurance ; and upon the
hearing of this might be the more troubled, because not able to express that
confidence which he did ; therefore he adds, ' Who is among you that feareth
the Lord, and walketh in darkness ? ' &c. : as if he should have said to such,
Though you want the comfortable sense and assurance of this, yet be not
discouraged ; but do you exercise faith, go out of yourselves, rely upon Christ
and that mercy which is to be found in God : you may fear God and want
it, and you are to trust in God in the want of it.
Thirdly, These words have a relation also to the 4th verse, where he says,
as that God had given him this assurance of his own justification, for his
own particular comfort, in those immediately foregoing verses to the text,
so there, that God had also given him the ' tongue of the learned, to minis-
ter a word of comfort in season to him that is weary and heavy laden :' and
thereupon, in this ver.se, he accordingly shews the blessed condition of such
persons as are most weary through long walking in darkness ; and withal he
discovereth to them the way of getting out of this darkness, and recovering
comfort again. And in all the word of God there is not a more comfortable
and seasonable word to one in such a condition to be found. All which
argues it is spoken of inward darkness and trouble of spirit, and that in
point of applying justification, and God to be a man's God.
CilAl'. II, J A CHILD OF Lluar WALKING IN OAKKNfiSd. 239
CHAPTER II.
The particulars of the distress contained in these two phrases : walking in
darkness ; having no light.
The second thing to be inquired into is, What is the condition of such a one
who is thus in darkness, and who hath no light ? Which I will so far dis-
cover, as the phrases used here will give light into, by the help of other
Scriptures.
1. First, he is said to have no light. 'Light,' saith the Apostle, Eph. v.
13, 'is that whereby things are made manifest,' that is, to the sense of sight,
to Avhich light properly belongs ; and as light and faith are here severed,
as you see, so sight also is, in 2 Cor. v. 7, distinguished from faith, which
is the evidence of things absent and not seen, Heb. xi. 1. When, therefore,
here he says he hath no light, the meaning is, he wants all present sensible
testimonies of God's favour to him ; he sees nothing that may give sensible
present witness of it to him. God's favour, and his own graces, and all the
sensible tokens and evidences thereof, which are apprehended by spiritual
sight, are become all as absent things, as if they were not, or never had been ;
that light which ordinarily discovers these as present, he is clean deprived of
To understand this, we must know that God, to help our faith, which, as
I said before, is distinguished from sight, as we now speak of it, vouchsafeth
a threefold light to his people, to add assurance and joy to their faith ; which
is to faith as a back of steel to a bow, to strengthen it, and made to be taken
off or put on to it at God's good pleasure.
(1.) First, the immediate light of his countenance, which is a clear, evident
beam and revelation of God's favour, immediately testifying that we are his,
which is called the sealing of the Spirit, received after believing, Eph. i. 13 ;
which David desired, and rejoiced in more than in aU worldly things, Ps.
iv. 6, ' Lord, lift up the light of thy countenance ;' in which, more or less,
in some glimpses of it, some of God's people have the privilege to walk with
joy from day to day : Ps. Isxxix. 15, ' They shall walk in the light of thy
countenance ; in thy name shall they rejoice all day.' And this is here utterly
withdra-v\Ti ; and it may thus come to pass, that the soul, in regard of any sense
or sight of this, may be left in that case that Saul really was left in, 1 Sam.
xxviii. 15, 'God is departed from me, and answers me not, neither by pro-
phets nor by dreams ;' though with this difference, that God was really
departed from Saul, but to these but in their own apprehensions : yet so
as, for aught they can see of him, God is departed clean from them ; answers
them neither by prayer, nor by word, nor by conference ; they cannot get
one good look from him. Such was Jonah's case, chap. iL 4, ' I am cast out
of thy sight ;' that is, he could not get a sight of him, — not one smile, not one
glance or cast of his countenance, not a beam of comfort, — and so thought
himself cast out. And so he dealt with David often, and sometimes a long
time together : Ps. liii. 1, ' How long wilt thou hide thy face from me V and,
240 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IX DARKNESS. [PaRT L
Ps. Ixxxix. 46, ' How long,' &c. ; even so long <as David puts God in remem-
brance, and pleads how short a time in all he had to live, and complains how
in much of that time his face had been hid from him, ver. 47. And the like
was Heman's case, and this also long, even from his youth up, Ps. Ixxxviii.
14, 15. So from Job, chap. xiii. 24. Yea, and from Christ himself, ' My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me V
But concerning this you will ask. How can this dealing of his stand with
his everlasting love, continued notwithstanding to the soul, that he should
deal so with one he loves ; but especially how it may stand with the real
influence of his grace, powerfully enabling the soul all that while to go on
to fear and obey him 1
For the first ; it may stand with his everlasting love, and God may be his
God still, as the text tells us ; so, Isa. liv. 8, ' For a moment I have hid my
face, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee.' It is but
' hiding his face,' and concealing his love, as David concealed his love from
Absalom, when his bowels yearned towards him. And God takes the liberty
that other fathers have, to shut his children out of his presence when he is
angry. And it is but ' for a moment,' — that is, in comparison of eternity, —
though haply it should be thus with him during a man's whole life ; and he
therefore takes liberty to do it, because he hath such iin eternity of time to
reveal his kindness in ; time enough for kisses and embraces, and to pour
forth his love in.
And for the second ; the real gracious influences and efi'ects of his favour
may be continued, upholding, strengthening, and carrying on the soul still
to obey and fear him, whilst he yet conceals his favour. For, when Christ
complained, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken meV when as great
an eclipse in regard of the light of God's countenance was upon his spirit as
was upon the earth, yet he never more obeyed God, was never stronglier
supported, than at that time, for then he was obeying to the death. Like as
we see that when the sun is eclipsed, though the earth wants the light of it,
yet not the influence thereof; for the metals which are engendered in the
bottom of the earth are concocted by the sun ; so as though the light of the
sun comes not to them, yet the influence and virtue of it doth, and altereth
and changeth them. So doth God's favour visit men's hearts in the power,
heat, and vigorous influence of his grace, when the light and comfort of it
doth not, but is intercluded. Deus se comviunicat, vel qud beatus, vel qud
sancius; qud beatus, gaudium el gloriam ; qud sanctus, gratiam: utrumque
voluntarie, ideoque non utrumque simul nece>isario.
(2.) The second light which God vouchsafeth his people ordinarily to help
and eke out their faith, is the sight and comfort of their own graces, unto
which so many promises belong; as, of their love to his people, fear of his
name, desire to obey him. So that often when the sun is set, yet starlight
appears ; that is, though that other, the immediate j^rescnce and evidence of
his favour, shines not on the soul, yet his graces therein appear, as tokens of
that his love : so as the soul knows that there is a sun still, that gives light
to these stars, though it sees it not ; as in the night we know that there is
a sun in another horizon, because the stars, we see, have their light from it,
and we are sure that it will arise again to us.
Now a soul that hath true grace in it, and goes on to obey God, may also
want light to see these his graces, and look upon his own heart as empty of
all. And as they in the storm. Acts xxvii. 20, so he in temjjtation may
come to have 'neither sunlight nor starlight;' no light, as in the text.
Thus, Isa. Ixiii. 17, the church there complains that God had hardened them
CUAP. II.] A CHILD OF LIGHT "WALKING IN DARKNESS. 241
from liis fear : tliey were afraid, feeling their hearts so hard, that the fear
of God was wanting ; which yet was there, for they complaiu of the want
of it.
(3.) But yet, thirdly, though he want the present light of God's counte-
nance, and the sight of present grace, yet he may have a comfortable re-
memhrance of what once before he had still left, and so long is not utterly left in
darkness. Therefore further know, that the state of one that fears God and
obeys him may be such as he may have no comfortable light or remembrance
of what grace, &c., formerly he had, 2 Pet. i. 9. One that hath true grace
in him only lacks the exercise of it, — for I take it that place is to be under-
stood of a regenerate man, because he was ' purged from sin,' — and is now said
to lack grace because he doth not use it ; for idem est non habere, et non uti,
a man is said not to have that which he doth not use when he ought to use
it, especially in things whose worth lies wholly in use and employment, for
it is as good as if he had it not. Now, such a man may fall into such a
blindness that he ' cannot see afar off,' and so forgets his former assurance,
'that he was purged from his old sins ;' yea, it may be, calls all into question.
Thus David, in Ps. xxx. 6, 7, though his heart was but even now, a little
before, * full of joy ' and assurance of God's favour, yet God did but ' hide
his face,' and all was gone ; ' I was troubled,' says he. He was thus blind,
and could not see what was but a little past him, as it is with men in a
mist.
And the reason of these two last assertions is as evident as the experience
thereof. For graces in us shine but with a borrowed light, as the stars do,
with a light borrowed from the sun. So that unless God will shine secretly,
and give light to thy graces, and irradiate them, thy graces will not appear
to comfort thee, nor be at all a witness of God's favour to assure thee. For
our spirit, that is, our graces, never witness alone; but if God's Spirit joineth
not in testimony therewith, it is silent : 'The Spirit of God witnesseth with
our spirits,' Rom. viii. 16. Now therefore, when God hath withdrawn his
testimony, then the testimony of our hearts, and of our own graces, hath no
force in it.
But you wiU say, Can a man have the exercise of grace and not know it 1
fear God, &c., and not discern it ?
Yes ; and some graces may then be as much exercised in the heart as at
any other time. He may fear God as truly and as much as ever, and yet
this fear have no light in it to discover itself to him ; it may be in the heart,
in esse et operari, when not in cognosci, — it may have a being and a working
there, when not in thy apprehension.
The reason is, because, as the influence of God's favour may be really in
the heart, when the sense, sight, and light of it is withdrawn, as was said
before ; so the power of grace may in like manner be in the heart when the
light and comfort thereof is wanting. And although it is true that every
man having the power of reflecting upon his own actions, can discern what
thoughts are in him and what affections, and can tell, for the matter of
them, what he thinks on, that he puts his trust, and that he is grieved, &c. :
but yet so as he may still question whether those thoughts be acts of true
and unfeigned faith, and whether those affections of sorrow for sin, &c., be
sanctified affections, holy, and genuine, and spiritual affections ; and the
reason of the difference is, because though the natural ' spirit which is in a
man knows the things of a man,' as the apostle hath it, 1 Cor. ii. 1 1 (that
is, his own thoughts, &c., understanding them physically, as they are acts of
a man), yet what is the true goodness of them morally, in discerning this,
VOI. Ill Q
242 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaBT I.
the ' spirit of a man is deceitful, and cannot know it,' Jer. xvii. 9, without the
supernatural light of the Spirit of God, who as he is the giver and actor of that
grace in us, so ' is given of God that we might know the things which are
given us of God,' 1 Cor. ii. 12. ' Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for
the upright,' says the Psalmist. Grace, and the exercise of it, is the seed
which they continually scatter; but light and joy is the crop that is to be
reaped. The seed often lies hid long, though it will come up in the end.
Thus light or joy may be severed from grace ; and the comfort of it from
the power of it.
2. Secondly, let us further consider the other phrase, and what is inti-
mated thereby to be his condition, when, as it is said, he walks in darkness : —
(1.) First, to walk in darkness implies to be in doubt whither to go; so
John xii. 35, * He that walks in darkness knows not whither he goes.' And
thus the soul of one that fears God may be filled with doubts whether God
will ever be merciful to him, yea or no, and not know what God means to
do with him, whether he shall go to heaven or hell. Ps. Ixxvii. 7-9, ' WUl
the Lord be merciful?' which speeches are spoken doubtingly ; for, ver. 10,
he says, ' this was his infirmity,' to call this into question. So Heman, Ps.
Ixxxviii. 5, 6, 11, 12 : he thought himself as one that was in hell, 'free
among the dead,' that is, as one admitted free into the company of them
there, ver. 5 ; free of that company, as you use to say, and of the number of
those 'whom God no more remembered :' in such darkness was he, ver. G.
And to raise him out of that condition was a thing he doubted whether God
would ever do, ver. 10-12 : 'Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall
thy wonders be declared in the grave V that is. Did God ever shew mercy to
one that was in the same state that they in hell are in? which is my state
now ; yea, so as to be out of hope. So Lam. ui. 18, ' My hope is perished
from the Lord.'
(2.) Secondly, those in darkness are apt to stumble at everything. So
Isa. lix. 10 ; one effect of darkness, mentioned there, is to ' stumble at noon-
day.' So take a soul that is left in darkness, and it will stumble at all it
hears out of the word, either in conference or at sermons ; all it reads, all
promises it meets with, it is more discouraged by them. Oh, think they,
that there should be such glorious promises, and not belong to us ! Such a
one misapplies and misinterprets all God's dealings and the Scriptures against
himself, and ' refuseth comfort,' as Ps. Ixxvii. 2 ; yea, and, as at the 3d verse,
when he ' remembers God, he is troubled.'
(3.) Thirdly, darkness is exceeding terrible and full of horror. When
children are in the dark, they think they see fearful sights ; it is therefore
called the 'horror of darkness,' Gen. xv. 12. So his soul here may be filled
with fears and terrors from God's wrath, and of God's being an enemy to
him. Heman was almost distracted and out of his wits with terrors, Ps.
Ixxxviii. 15. So the church thought, Lam. iii. ; yea, and concluded it for
certain that God was her enemy : ' Surely he is turned against me/ ver. 3.
Chap. IILj a child of ught walking in daekness. 243
CHAPTER III.
The efficient causes of this distress. — First, the Spirit; whether he hath any
hand therein, and how far.
Having thus explicated and proved this, that this doth and may befall one
who truly fears the Lord, for the more full clearing of it I will further shew —
I. The efficient causes ;
II. The cases wherein;
III. The ends for which, God leaves his children in such distresses.
I. For the efficient causes of this so woeful, desperate, dark condition of
God's child; they are three which have a hand in it ; —
1. God's Spirit.
2. A man's own guilty and fearful heart.
3. Satan.
1. For God's Spirit. Although he hath a hand in some part of this dis-
quietness, yet we must take heed how we put upon him any of those doubts
and desperate fears and conclusions whereby the child of God calls hia
state into question. For the Spirit is not the direct efficient, or positive
cause of them.
And to this end we may consider that known place, Rom. viii. 15, * Ye
have not received the spirit of bondage to fear again, but the spirit of adop-
tion;' the right understanding of which will also prevent an objection. For
some have alleged this place, as if the child of God, after he had once the
Spirit, sealing adoption to him, could never after fall into apprehension of
bondage — that is, into fears of eternal damnation — any more, or of being
bound over for hell ; and that this can befall him but once, and that at his
first conversion.
But if we mark the words well, the Apostle affirmeth not that fears of
bondage can never befall God's child again, but his scope is to shew that the
Spirit which we have received, having been once become the spirit of adop-
tion, that Spirit is never after again the spirit of bondage to us, nor the
cause of such fears. Indeed, at first conversion, and before he did witness
adoption, he then revealed our estate to us to be an estate of bondage;
which he then doth in love, to drive us out of it; and then indeed he was a
' spirit of bondage :' to which he hath reference when he says, ' to fear again,'
because he was once such to them, and such the Holy Ghost then might be,
and then witness to them that their estates were damnable ; for then it was
a truth, in that they had hved in an estate of bondage, whereunto damnation
was immediately due ; and had they died in it, had certainly faUen upon
them. But when once, by making a man a son, he hath become the spirit of
adoption to him, then if ever he should put him into such apprehensions
md fears again, he should witness an untruth. Therefore, for the comfort
if them and all believers, he tells them that he never crosseth nor reverseth
ills testimony of adoption, but his office is to be ready as a witaess to seal
244 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaET I.
to it. But yet, though the judge doth not condemn anymore, yet the jailor
may trouble and affright us, and our own hearts may condemn us, 1 John
iii. 21. God may give Satan leave to cast us into prison, to clap bolts upon
us again, and to become a lying spirit of bondage to us, as he became a
lying spirit in the mouth of AhaKs prophets; and he may give up our hearts
to be fettered with ' the cords of our own sins,' Prov. v. 22, and to be en-
snared with its own inventions, and fears, and jealousies.
For a more distinct understanding of this, to manifest how it comes to
pass that all this befidls God's child, I will shew how far the Holy Ghost
proceedeth in it, and puts forth his hand towards it; and what Satan's work
is, where he strikes in, and our own hearts, to work further and deeper dis-
tress than the Holy Ghost by himself alone intended. For unto these three
several hands is the whole to be ascribed, and the works of God's Spirit, and
his concurrence therein, carefully to be severed from Satan's, as light from
darkness at the first.
Thus far, then, the Spirit of God may concur in this darkness that befalls
his child : —
(1.) Privatively. He may suspend his testimony, and the execution of
his office of witnessing adoption ; he may vsdthdraw his comfortable presence,
and hide liimself for a moment, and conceal his love, as other fathers will
sometimes do ; as David did, when yet his heart was towards Absalom. He
may not admit him to see his face, he may shut a son out of doors, when
yet he doth not cast him off. He may ' retain their sins,' as Christ's ex-
pression is, John XX. 23, — that is, call in the patent of his pardon which he
had passed under his hand and seal, 'in earth,' that is, in their own con-
sciences; take it out of their hands and custody, and call for it home again
into the pardon- office 'in heaven,' Matt, xviii. 18, and there keep it. And
also when Satan comes and gives in a false witness and evidence, and our
own hearts thereupon likewise condemn us, the Holy Ghost may stand by,
as it were, sUent, and say nothing to the contrary, but forbear to contradict
Satan by any loud testimony or secret rebuking him, as he doth at other
times; as Zech. iii. 1, 2. ■>
(2.) Positively. He may further proceed : —
[1.] To reveal and represent God as angry with his child for such and
such sins formerly committed, and make liim sensible thereof; not barely by
concealing his love, but by making impressions of his wrath upon his con-
science immediately, and not by outward crosses only. Thus, Isa. Ivii. 17,
18, God not only ' hid himself and was wroth,' — that is, expressed his wrath
by hiding himself, — biit ' I smote him and was wroth;' and ver. 16, he con-
tended and was wroth,' — that is, fought against him as an enemy, as Isa.
Ixiii. 10, and this with his wrath upon his spirit. For it follows that the
spirit was ready to fail, and the soul which he had made. So as it was the
spirit which was the wliite God shot at and wounded, and that so deep that
it was ready to fail and come to nothing : which Solomon calls by way of dis-
tinction ' a wounded spirit,' which who can bear 1 and differenceth it from aU.
other afflictions upon the outward man, which strike the spirit but through the
clothes of the body mediately ; for, says he, ' the spirit of a man will sustain
his infirmity ' — that is, all such outward afflictions wherein it suffers but by
way of sympathy and compassion. But when the spirit itself is laid bare
and naked, and wounded immediately by God's wrath, which only can reach
it and wound it, who can bear this 1 Thus towards Heman, God did not
only hide his face from him, Ps. Ixxxviii. 14, but 'his fierce wrath went over
him,' and ' thy terrors,' says he, ' cut me off,' ver 16 j not wounded him only,
Chap, III] a child of light walking in darkness. 245
but even cut him off And sucli impressions of immediate wratli, as expres-
sions and etlects of God's anger, tlie Holy Ghost may make upon the spirit
of his chiild. For it is a truth that God is angry and wrotli with them when
they sin ; which anger he may make known, not only by dumb signs in out-
ward crosses and effects, but by an immediate witnessing, and plain and
express speaking so much to their consciences, and making them to feel so
much, by scalding drops of his hot displeasure let fall thereon. And as other
fathers shew their anger by whipping the bodies of their children, upon this
ground, as says the apostle, because they are the * fathers of our flesh,' Hob.
xii. 9 ; so, for the like reason, may God shew his anger and chastise his
children by lashing their spirits : for he is the ' Father of our spirits,' as he
speaks in the same place. And likewise our spirits, and the very ' bones and
marrow' of them, do lie ' open and naked to him with whom we have to do ;'
and his word and Spirit being ' quick and jiowerful, and sharper than any
two-edged sword,' are able ' to divide,' and cut even to the ' bones and mar-
row,' as the same author speaks, Heb. iv. 12, 13. Yet withal, so as when
he expresseth his wrath thus upon their consciences, he doth not witness
that this is an eternal wrath which he hath conceived against them ; for it
is but a temporary displeasure, ' it is but for a moment,' as Isaiah speaks,
the indignation of a father; nor is it a wrath which revenging justice hath
stirred in him, but fatherly affection, Heb. xii. 6. And though the Spirit
tells them that God is displeased, yet never that they are accursed ; that is
a false collection made out of it. Yet —
[2.] The Holy Ghost may proceed yet further herein ; so far as to bring
forth, and shew him, and shake over him the rod of his eternal wrath, espe-
cially when he hath provoked Christ by presumptuous sins already, and to
prevent his going on frowardly in the way of his heart. And this, both by
presenting to them and setting on all those threatenings, which do hypotheti-
cally and conditionally threaten, even to believers, eternal damnation : such
as that which we find, Eom. viii. 13, 'If ye live after the flesh, ye,' even you
believers, ' shall die ;' for there is a truth in all such threatenings, so condi-
tionally propounded, which reacheth God's dearest children, under a condition,
and with relation to going on in sin. To stop him and prevent him in which,
when he is agoing on frowardly in the way of his heart, the Holy Spirit may
bring home such threatenings to him, with respect to such a course as he is
entering into, and accordingly stir up the fear of that damnation thus threat-
ened, if he should go on in those sins he hath begun to commit. But to
apply threatenings of eternal damnation simply to his person, as that thou
shalt die eternally, this the Holy Ghost doth not speak to the heart of a be-
liever, when he is a believer. And again also, the Holy Ghost may repre-
sent to him and mind him of all those examples of men in whom, for their
going on in sin, 'his soul hath had no pleasure,' Heb. x. 39 ; and of God'a
dealings with them, — as how he sware against many of the Israelites, for
their provocations of him, ' that they should never enter into his rest ; ' and
how he rejected Esau for the despisal of his birthright, — and all this with this
end, to startle and awaken him ; and with this intimation, that for such and
such sins God might in like manner deal with him. For these and the like
examples doth the Spii-it of God set before the believing Hebrews, Heb. iii.,
xii. ; and the believing Corinthians, 1 Cor. x. 5-13, to keep them in fearful-
ness to oft'end. But to apply any such examples absolutely unto them, so
as to say. Thus God intends to do with thee for such and such sins, and that
God will never be merciful, this the Holy Ghost doth not speak to a be
liever's heart.
216 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAIlKNESS, [PaRT L
CHAPTER IV.
How Satan and our hearts increase this darkness hy false ooncliisions from
the Spirit's work, illustrated hy the like in the illumination of lemr
poraries. — The Spirit's work in both compared.
And now the Spirit of God liaving proceeded thus far himself in causing
such darkness and terrors of conscience in them that fear him; Satan and
their own hearts, unto which he may and doth often further also leave them,
may take occasion from these dispensations of the Holy Ghost, which are
all holy, righteous, and true, to draw forth false and fearful conclusions
against themselves and their estates, and start amazing doubts and fears of
their utter want of grace, and lying under the curse and threatenings of eter-
nal wrath at the present, yea, and further, of eternal rejection for the future,
and that God mil never be merciful ; and so lay them lower, and cast them
into a further darkness and bondage than the Holy Ghost was cause of,
or intended : misinterpreting and perverting all these his righteous proceed-
ings, as interpreting that withdrawing his light and presence, and hiding
himself, to be a casting them otf, (thus Heman, Ps. Ixxxviii. 14;) so, like-
wise, misconstruing that temporary wrath, chastising and wounding their
spirits for the present, to be no other than the impressions and earnest of
God's eternal vengeance ; and arguing, from their being under wrath, them-
selves to be children of wrath ; and misapplying the application of all those
threatenings of eternal damnation made by the Spirit, but in relation and
under a condition of such and such courses for the future, to be absolute
against their persons, and to speak their present estate. And because such
examples of men cast off are presented to them, to shew them what advan-
tage God might take against them ; they, mistaking, think they read their
own destiny laid before them in them, and conclude tliat God will deal so
with them. And thus the Apostle says of sin, Piom. vii. 11, that 'sin taking
occasion by the commandment,' — he misunderstanding the scope of it when
a Pharisee, — ' it deceived him, and therefore slew him ; ' and yet ' the com-
mandment is holy, just, and good,' ver. 12. So Satan and our hearts, by
occasion of these dealings of the Spirit, which are righteous and true, as
himself is, who is the Spirit of truth and leads into truth, do deceive be-
lievers, and lay them in their apprehensions ' among the slain, whom God
remembereth no more,' as Heman speaks, Ps. Ixxxviii. 5.
And as in these, so in other works and dispensations of God's Spirit, it is
ordinary for Satan and our hearts to practise the like delusions and false
conclusions upon them. To instance in those more common and inferior
works of the Spirit on the hearts of men, not as yet savingly regenerated :
the Spirit enlightening them, together with impressions of joy, and a taste
of sweetness in the promises of the gospel, and of salvation revealed therein,
which, under a condition of true repentance and conversion, the Spirit of
Chap. IV.] a child of light walking in dakknkss. 217
God doth nicake the ofTer and tender of known unto their hearts. Thus he
wrought upon the stony ground, and in the Jews by John's ministry, John
V. 35 ; which light, and taste, and revehition of this conditional proffer, tending
in a way unto salvation, by alluring tlieir hearts to seek it, they often through
Satan's abuse of this good work, and the self-flattery of their own hearts, do
too hastily take to be that grace which accompanies salvation, (f^o'/xsi/a r^g
auTTiilag,) or which hath salvation annexed to it ; from which the Apostle, by
that very expression, Heb. vi. 9, doth difference those enlightenings men-
tioned ver. 4. They thus mistaking these works precursory to grace, even
as the Jews mistook John, that was sent but before to prepare the way foir
Christ, to be that very true Christ that was to come into the world, and
misunderstanding the intendment of God's most blessed Spirit in such hia
dealings, they make up too hasty a conclusion not meant by the Spirit ia
those premises.
And I instance in these the rather, because these his dispensations of de-
sertion, which we have in hand, towards them already regenerated, and tho8«
forementioned visitations towards such as often attain not to regeneration,
are in an opposite way of comparison exceeding parallel, and much alike ia
the dispensations themselves, — as well as in the differing false conclusion*
which are drawn from either, — and do therefore exceedingly illustrate the one
the other ; God withdrawing himself as much in their sense from those who
are in covenant with him, as he draws near unto and visits their hearts firom
on high who are as yet strangers to him. The needle of God's fovour and
love varying as much, that I may so allude, towards hell in their compass
who shall be saved, as it doth heavenward in the other, many of whom arrive
not thither. For as they are brought nigh to the kingdom of heaven, as
Christ told him. Matt. xii. 34 ; so of true believers it may be said, that their
souls do often draw near to hell in their own sense and apprehension, and
'the pains of hell do take hold upon them,' And as the other are enlight-
ened, as Balaam was, so they are left to walk in darkness and see no light ;
and do taste of that wrath which the law threatens, as those other taste the
goodness of that salvation the gospel offereth. God, out of a temporary
anger, chastising them for a moment, as with a temporary favour he shiueth
upon the other. That as they ' for a season rejoice in that light,' John v.
35, so God's dearest children ' may be for a season in much heaviness,' aa
the Apostle speaks, 1 Pet. i. 6, and ' walk in darkness.' And as the simili-
tude of the dealings themselves runs thus far along in a parallel line of com-
parison, so it holds in the false apprehensions which Satan and our hearts do
make out of both. Aad the cause of the mistake in each is also alike. For
God's dealings with those temporary believers being so like to those dealings
towards such as receive a state of adoption from him, they thence too hastily
conclude their acceptance unto life. And, on the contrary, God's dealings
with these temporary despairers, as I may so call them, being so like in
their sense to his proceedings with those he cuts off for ever, they, in like
manner, as hastily conclude (' I said in my haste,' says David) their eternal
rejection. Only in the issue they prove unlike : these desertions tending but
to the present discomfort of true believers through their frailty ; but in the
other, through their own willing neglect, their enlightenings turn to their
destruction.
So as, to conclude, we must warily sever the work of God's Spirit herein
from that of Satan and our own hearts, not attributing such desperate con-
clusions to the Spirit. Thus that depth of sorrow wherewith that humbled
2iS A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAIKNESS. [PaIIT L
Comthian was well-nigh ' swallowed up,' 2 Cor. ii. 7, is ascribed unto
Satan, when, ver. 11, it is made and termed one of his devices, which
word doth in part refer to the Corinthian's sorrow. Thus David also im-
putes that his questioning, Ps. Ixxvii., ' whether God would be merciful' to
him, ver. 7, unto his own heart ; 'this is my infirmity,' says he, ver. 10. So
as the blame herein is to be divided between Satan and our hearts. — To
speak more particularly of either.
CUAP, v.] A CHILD OF UOHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. 249
CHAPTER V.
How our own hearts are the causes of this darkness. — The principles therein,
which are the causes of it.
2. That our own hearts should be the causes and producers of such distress
and darkness, when the Holy Ghost thus deals with us, is at all no wonder;
because —
(1.) As we are creatures, there is such a weakness and infirmity in us, as
David speaks ; by reason of which, if God doth but hide himself and with-
draw his presence, which supporteth us in comfort, as in being, we are ready
presently to fall into these fears of ourselves. The Psalmist saith of all the
creatures, * Thou hidest thy face, and they are troubled,' Ps. civ. 29 ; and
this by reason of their weakness and dependence upon God. And no less,
but far greater, is the dependence of the new creature upon God's face and
presence ; that it cannot be alone and bear up itself, but it fails if God hide
himself, as Isaiah speak.s, chap. Ivii. Especially now in this life, during
the infancy thereof, whilst it is a child, as God speaks of Ephraim, Hos. xL
1 ; then it cannot stand or go alone, unless God ' bear it up in his arms, and
teach it to go,' as he speaks there, ver. 1-3. And then also, as children left
alone in the dark are afraid of bugbears, and they know not what, and are
apt to stumble and fall, which is by reason of their weakness ; so is it with
the new creature in its childhood here in this life. It was my infirmity,
says David ; and again, ' Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled,' Ps.
XXX. 7.
There is not only such a weakness in us as we are creatures ; but —
(2.) Also an innate darkness in our spirits as we are sinful creatures. Since
the fall, our hearts of themselves are nothing but darkness, and therefore no
wonder if when God but draws the curtains, and shuts up the Light from
us, that our hearts should engender and conceive such horrid fears and doubts.
Thus, in 2 Cor. iv. 6, the Apostle compareth this native darkness of our
hearts unto that chaos and lump of darkness which, at the first creation,
covered the face of the deep, when he says that ' God, who commanded Hght to
shine out of darkness,' — he referreth to the first creation, Gen. i. 1, 2, — ' hath
shined into our hearts,' even of us apostles, ' to give the light of the know-
ledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' So that no longer
than God continues to shine, either the light of comfort or of grace, no longer
do our hearts, even of us believers, retain light in them. And if at any
time he withhold that light of comfort in his face, when yet he continueth
an influence of grace, then so far do our hearts presently return to their for-
mer darkness ; and then doth that vast womb of darkness conceive and form
all those fears and doubts within itself. Considering withal that our hearts
are a great deep also, so deep in darkness and deceitfulness as no plummet
can fathom them ; ' deceitful above all things, who can know it V Jer. xvii 9.
Darkness covereth not the face of this deep only, but it is darkness to the
250 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS, [PaRT I
bottom, throughout darkness. No wonder then, if when the Spirit ceaseth
to move ujjon this deep with beams of light, it cast us into such deeps and
darkness as Heman, complaining, speaks of, Ps. Ixxxviii. 6, and frameth in
itself such hideous apprehensions and desperate conclusions of a man's own
estate.
(3.) Especially seeing there is so much strength of carnal and corrupt rea-
son in men, ready to forge and invent strong reasons and arguments to con-
firm those sad fears and darkened ajDprehensions ; and those drawn from those
dealings of God's Spirit mentioned. For as it is said of the Gentiles, that
when ' their foolish hearts were darkened,' — that is, when left and given over
to their own natural darkness, — ' they became vain in their imaginations,' or
(as the original hath it) in their reasonings, XoyiaiJM;, Rom. i. 21 ; and this
even in those things which God had clearly revealed in his works to the light
of nature, of which that place speaks : so may it be said even of those who
have been most enlightened, that their hearts are apt to become much more
vain in their reasonings about, and in the judging of their own estates before
God, out of his word and dealings with them, if God once leaves them unto
darkness. And this that great caveat given to professors, James L 22, gives to
ixnderstand, when they are exhorted to take heed that ' in hearing the word'
they be not found ' deceiving themselves by false reasonings.' So the origi-
nal, 'Ttaoakoyi^oixivoi iavTous, renders it ; which is as if we should say, false-
reasoning themselves : as we use to say, in a like phrase of speech, befooling
themselves. And this is spoken of judging of their own estates, concerning
which men are more apt, through the distempers and prejudices of self-love,
to make (to speak in that phrase of the Apostle) false syllogisms, and to
misconclude, than about any other spiritual truth whatever. And as men
that want true faith, the unsound hearers of the word, of whom the Apostle
there speaks, are thus apt, through carnal reason misapplying the word they
hear, to frame and draw from thence, as he insinuates, multitudes of false
reasons to uphold and maintain to themselves a good opinion of their estates :
so, on the contrary, in those who have true faith, all that carnal reason,
which remains in a great measure unsubdued in them, is as apt to raise and
forge as strong objections against the work of faith begun, and as peremp-
torily to conclude against their present estates by the like misapplication of
the word, but especially by misinterpreting God's dealings towards them.
And they being sometimes led by sense and reason, whilst they walk in dark-
ness, they are apt to misinterpret God's mind towards them rather by his
works and dispensations, which they see and feel, than by his word, which
they are to believe. This we see in Gideon, Judges vi., who, because God
wrought not miracles, as he had formerly for his people, but had delivered them
into their enemies' hands, from thence reasoneth against the message of the
angel, (Christ himself,) who had told him, ' The Lord is with thee,' ver. 12.
But he objects, ' Oh, my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this
befallen usl Where be all the miracles which our fathers told us of? But
now the Lord hath forsaken us,' &c. This we may also see in Asaph, or
what other holy penman of the 7 3d Psalm ; his heels were well-nigh tripped
up in the dark : ' My feet were almost gone,' says he, ver. 2, — that is, from
keeping his ' standing by faith,' as the apostle speaks, Rom. v., — and this by
an argument framed by carnal reason, from God's dispensation of outward
prosperity to wicked men, but, on the contrary, ' chastening of him every
morning,' with outward afflictions, as the opposition doth there import. And
how peremptory is he in his conclusion thence deduced 1 ' Verily, I have
cleansed my heart in vain,' ver. 13 ; and what reason hath he ? ' For all the
Chap. V.] a child of light walking in darkness. 251
day long I have been plagued,' &c., ver. 14. He thought his reason strong
and irrefragable, else he would not have been so concludent : ' Verily,' ttc.
But what would this man have said and thought if he had been in Heman's
condition, or in Job's or David's 1 If in those sliallows of outward troubles,
which are common to man, his foith could not find footing, but he was well-
nigh carried away with the common stream and error of wicked men, to
have condemned himself and the ' generation of the righteous,' ver. ] 5 ; how
would his faith have been overborne ' if all God's waves and billows had
gone over him 1 ' as David complains. Psalm xlii. 7. How would he have
sunk in Hcman's deeps, Psalm Ixxxviii. ? or in David's, Psalm Ixix 2, 'I
sink in the deep mire, where there is no standing : I ana come into deep
waters, where the floods overflow me?' speaking of such 'waters as came
in unto his soul,' ver. 1, even the floods of God's immediate wrath breiikirig
in upon his conscience, overflowing the inward man, and not the outward
only. How much more peremptorily would he have concluded against him-
self if this had been his condition 1 As indeed they, and many others of the
generation of God's children have done, when they have lain under and
walked in such distresses.
And the reason of all this is as evident as the experience of it : —
[1.] In general ; reason is of itself a busy principle, that wlLL be prying
into, and making false glosses upon all God's matters as well as our own,
and trying its skill in arguing upon all his dealings with us. Thus Jeremiah
must needs be reasoning with God about his dispensations towards wicked
men, chap. xii. 1, 2 ; and Job, of his dealings with himself, chap. xiii. 3.
And reason being likewise the supreme principle in us by nature, and our
highest difference as we are men, therefore no wonder if, when we are left to
ourselves to ' walk in darkness,' we ' walk as men,' as the Apostle speaks,
2 Cor. X. 3 ; and, to use Solomon's words, do lean to our own wisdom, Prov.
iii. 5, even because it is our own, and was brought up with us. It is our
great Ahithophel, and, as David says of him, ' our guide, with whom we
have taken so much sweet counsel' in aU our worldly and politic affairs.
In which only we should make use of its advice ; but we too often take it
into the sanctuary with us, and ' walk in company with it into the house of
God,' (to allude to what David says there, Psalm Iv. 13, 14;) that is, we
suffer it to meddle in matters that pertain to the sanctuary, and to debate
and conclude of our spiritual and eternal estates, as well as of our temporal.
And, which is worse, we are opinionative of its judgment therein ; ' I thought,'
says Asaph, in that forementioned psalm, 'to know this,' ver. 16, — that is,
he thought to have comprehended and reached God's mind, in those his di.s-
peusations, by the discussions of reason, and so to have concluded rightly
from them; whereas, 'after he had gone into the sanctuary,' ver. 17, with
faith alone, and thereby consulted with the word, he confcsscth his own wis-
dom and best reason to have been as ignorant of God's meaning, and of those
rules he proceedeth by, in those his dispensations towards his children, ' even
as a beast' (ver. 22) is of those principles which men walk by, or the inten-
tions they have in their ways. If reason then, when it is so utterly unskil-
ful and mistaken in the premises, will yet be exercising and trying its faculty
in reasoning from them, no wonder if the conclusions thence deduced be so
wide and wild ; and yet, with Asaph, we think we know this.
[2.] But more particularly; carnal reason is the most desperate enemy to
faith of all other principles in man. For until faith be wrought, it is the
most supreme principle ; but then faith deposeth and subjecteth it, and
afterwards doth often contradict it; yea, excludes it, as unskilful in its matters,
232 A CHILD OP LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT L
from being of its counsel. And so deep and desperate is this enmity against
faith, that look, what is the most especial work and business of faith, which
is to alter our estates before God, and put us into a state of justification and
to assure us of it, therein it shews a more peculiar enmity against faith, by
opposing it in that work of it more than in any other. This enmity shews it-
self both before and after faith is wrought, and the one illustrates the other.
For as before faith was wrought, carnal reason shews its opposition, by using
the utmost of its strength to persuade a man of the goodness of his estate,
though without faith ; thereby to prevent the entrance of faith and our
seeking after it at all, as not needful to change our estates or to justify us,
and thus would keep it wholly out ; and therefore, in the first working of
faith, the Holy Ghost brings faith in by force of open arms, as a conqueror
casting down all those strongholds and reasonings — Xo^/ff/x&i)?, as the word is,
2 Cor. X. 5 — which carnal reason had been long a-building and a-fortifying,
and so erecteth faith a throne upon the ruins of them all : thus, in like
manner, after faith is thus wrought, all that carnal reason which is left un-
subdued doth, out of a further revenge of such an overthrow, and with a
greater degree of enmity, oppose faith still ; only it diverts the war, now
mustering up new forces, and turneth all the great ordnance a clean contrary
wayj namely, to persuade a man, by all the objections it can raise, of the
badness of his estate now, as before of the goodness of it ; hereby to blas-
pheme the great work of faith in justifying of us. And also because that,
next to justifying us, the oflSce and errand of faith is to settle in our hearts
peace with God, and a persuasion of our being in his favour, as Rom. v. 1 ;
therefore doth carnal reason bend the utmost of its power and acumen to
persuade ujjon all occasions, by all the most specious and seeming arguments
it can start and suggest, that God is not at peace with us, nor as yet recon-
ciled to us; merely to contradict faith in what is the principal point it
would persuade us of
So that as in men, whilst unregenerate, carnal reason endeavours by false
reasonings to preserve a good opinion of their estates in them ; in like man-
ner, the very same principle of carnal reason, continuing its opposition to
faith, doth as much persuade to a bad opinion of their estates when they are
once regenerated.
[3.] And to conclude this; if in any condition that befalls God's child
carnal reason hath the advantage and upper ground of faith, it is now when
it is in ' the valley of the shadow of death,' as David speaks, when it walks
in darkness, and hath no Light. A condition that doth afi"ord a most com-
plete topic for carnal reason to frame objections out of; when, in respect of
God's dealings with him, there is a seeming conjunction of all bad aspects
threatening perdition and destruction; when faith is under so great an
eclipse, and is left to fight it out alone in darkness, and hath no second :
when, on the contrary, carnal reason and our dark hearts, which are led by
sense, are possessed with the sense, the dee^^est and most exquisite sense,
and impressions of (that which the heart is most jcidous of) God's sorest
wrath and displeasure, and that felt and argued, not mediately and afar off,
by consequence from outward afilictions, but immediately from God's own
hand. Thou always hast suspected, says carnal reason, that thou wert a child
of wrath, and that thou and God were enemies, but now thou findest it put
out of question, and that from God's own mouth, 'who s] eaketh' grievous
things ' against thee,' Jer. xxxi. 20 : thou hast it also under his own hand, for,
lo, ' he writeth bitter things against thee,' — that is, in thy conscience, — as Job
speaks, chap. xiiL 26, and 'holdeth thee for an enemy,' ver. 24; and whips
Chap V.] a child of light walking in darkness. 253
tliee -with the same rod of his immediate wrath and displeasure wherewith
he lasheth those that are cut from his hand, and whom he rcmembereth no
more, but are now in hell, as Heman speaks. ' A time also this is when this
present sense of wrath so distemiiers, and, to use Heman's words, distracts
the mind, that it cannot listen to faith, which speaks of nothing too but of
what it sees not; even as the people of Israel could not attend to Moses's
message of deliverance, through the anguish of their present bondage, Exod.
vi. 9. So as no wonder if then carnal reason be most busy, and takes this
advantage to frame and suggest the strongest objections to the soul whilst it
is in this distemper.
(4.) Add unto all this, that as there is such strength of corrupt reason
which is thus opposite to faith, so that there are many other principles of
corrupt affections in the heart which join and take part with carnal reason
in all this its opposition against faith, and which set it a-work and do back
it as much in persuading God's children that their estates are nought, as in
securing men unregenerate that their estates are good; and the hand of
self-love, which bribeth and biaseth carnal reason, especially in judging of
our estates, is found as deep in the one as in the other; — and this doth yet
give farther light to this point in hand. For look, as before faith is wrought,
self-flattery, which is one branch of self-love, bribeth and setteth carnal rea-
son a-work to plead the goodness of their estates to men unregenerate, and
causeth all such false reasons to take with them which tend to persuade thera
to think well of themselves : so when once faith is wrought, jealousy, and
suspiciousness, and incredulity, — which are other as great sprigs of pride and
self-love in us as the former, which do begin to sprout and shew themselves
when that other is lopped off, and which do grow up together with the work
of faith, — these do edge and sharpen the wit of carnal reason to argue and
wrangle against the work of faith and grace begun; and all such objections
as carnal reason doth "find out against it are pleasing and plausible to these
corrupt prmciples, for they are thereby nourished and strengthened.
And the reason why such jealousies and suspicions, &c., — which are such
contrary dispositions unto self-flattery, which swayed our opinions of our
estates before, — should thus arise and be started up in the heart upon the
work of faith, and be apt rather to p)revail now after faith, is, [1.] because that
in the work of humiliation, which prepares for faith, all those strongholds of
carnal reason being demolished which upheld self-flattery, and that false good
opinion of a man's estate, and those mountainous thoughts of presumption
as then laid low, a man is for ever put out of conceit witli himself, as of
himself. At which time also, [2.] he was so thoroughly and feelingly con-
vinced of the heinousness of sin, which before he slighted, and of the great-
ness and multitude of his sins, that he is apt now, instead of presuming as
before, to be jealous of God, lest he might have been so provoked as never
to pardon him ; and is accordingly apt to draw a misinterpretation of all God's
dealings with him to strengthen that conceit. And, [3 ] having through the
same conviction, the infinite error and deceitfulness of his heart before, in
flattering him and judging his estate good when it is most accursed, so clearly
discovered and discerned, he thereby becomes exceeding jealous, and afraid
of erring on that hand still, and so is afit to lend an ear to any doubt and
scrapie that is suggested. Especially, [4.] he being withal made apprehensive
both of that infinite danger to his eternal salvation there may be in nourish-
ing a false opinion of the goodness of his estate, if it should prove otherwise ;
because such a false conceit keeps a man from saving faith, whereas to cherish
the contrary error in judging his estate bad, when it is in truth good, tends
254 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT L
but to liis present discomfort : so as he thinks it safer to err on that hand
than the other. And, [5.] being also sensible of what transcendent concern-
ment his eternal salvation is of, which he before slighted, this rouseth suspicion,
■which in all matters of great consequence and moment is always doubting
and inquisitive, and also keeps it waking, which before lay asleep. And all
these being now startled and stirred up, do not only provoke carnal reason
unsatisfiedly to pry into all things that may seem to argue God's disfavour,
or the unsoundness of our hearts, but also do give entertainment to, and
applaud all such objections as are found out, and makes up too hastily false
conclusions from them.
(5.) Last of all, as there are these corrupt principles of carnal reason and
suspiciousness in us, to raise and foment these doubts and fears from God's
dealing towards us ; so there is an abundance of guilt within us, of our false
dealings towards him. And we have consciences, which remain in part de-
filed, which may further join with all these, and increase our fears and
doubtings ; and as we are dark and weak creatures, so guilty creatures also.
And this guilt, like the waves of the sea, or the swellings of Jordan, does
begin upon these terrible storms from God to rise, and swell, and overflow
in our consciences. As in David, Ps. xxxviii., when God's wrath was sore
upon him, ver. 1, 2, then also he complains, ' mine iniquities are gone over my
head,' ver. 4. There is much guile and falseness of heart, which in those
distempers, when our consciences do boil within us, and are stirred and
heated to the bottom, doth, like the scum, come up and float aloft. Thus
in David, when he was under the rod for his sin of murder, as the guilt of
his sin, so the guile of his s])int came up, and he calls for ' truth in the in-
ward parts,' Ps. IL 6. For as his sin, ver. 2, so his falseness of heart was
ever before him; and with an eye to this he spake that speech, Ps. xxxii..
Oh, ' blessed is that man in whose spirit is no guile, and to whom the Lord
imputeth no sin.' Thus he spake when God had charged upon him the guUt
of his sin, and discovered to him the guile of his spirit, ver. 4, 5. And this
guile doth oftentimes so appear, that our consciences can hardly discern any-
thing else to be in us ; it lies uppermost, and covers our graces from our
view : and like as the chaff, when the wheat is tossed in the fan, comes up to
the top, so in these commotions and winnowings of spirit do our corrup-
tions float in our consciences, whilst the graces that are in us lie covered
under tliem out of sight ; and the dark side of our hearts, as of the cloud,
is turned towards us, and the light side from us. And indeed there are in
the best of us humours enough, which if they be stirred and congregated in
our consciences, may alone cast us into these burning fits of trouble and dis-
tress ; so as whilst God's Spirit shall withhold from us the light of our own
graces, and our own consciences represent to us the guile and corruptions
that are in our best performances, our hearts may conclude ourselves hypo-
crites, as Mr Bradford in some of liis letters doth of himself, and others of
the saints have done. Yea, so as even our own consciences — which are the
only principle now left in us which should take part with and encourage
faith, and witness to us, as the ofiice of it is, the goodness of our estates — in
this may join with the former corruptions against us, and bring in a false
evidence, and pronounce a false judgment. Even conscience itself, which is
ordained, as the urine of the body, to shew the estate of the whole, and there-
fore is accordingly called good or evil as the man s state is, this is apt in such
distempers to change and turn colour, and look to a man's own view as foul
as the state of a very hypocrite.
And the reason of this is also as evident as is the experience of it. Even
ClIAP. v.] A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. 255
because conscience remains in part defiled in a man that is regenerate ; and
though Ave are ' sprinkled from an evil conscience ' in part, yet not wholly ;
so as though our persons are fully discharged from the guilt of our sins,
through the sprinkling of Christ's blood, before God ; yet the sprinkling of that
blood upon our consciences, whereby we apprehend this, is imperfect. And
the reason is, because this very siirinkling of conscience, whereby it testifies
the sprinkling of Christ's blood, and our justification thereby, is but part of
the sanctification of conscience, as it is a faculty, whose office and duty is to
testify and witness our estates ; and therefore, as the sanctification of all
other faculties is imperfect, so of conscience also herein. And hence it is
that when God's Spirit forbeareth to witness with conscience the goodness
of our estates, and ceaseth to embolden and encourage conscience by his
presence, and the sprinkling of Christ's blood upon it against the remainuig
defilement, that then our consciences are as apt to fall into fears, and doubts,
and self-condemnings, even as much as, when he withdraws the assistance of
his grace, those other faculties are to fall into any other sin. And therefore,
as the law of sin in the other members may be up in arms and prevail so far
as to lead us captive unto sin ; so may the guilt of sin in our consciences
remaining in part defiled, by the same reason prevail against us, and get the
upper hand, and lead us captive to fears and doubtings, and cast us into
bondage.
256 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT L
CHAPTEE VI.
The third efficient cause, Satan. — His special malice in this temptation, com-
mission. — Access to, and advantage over us in this temptation, by reason
of the darkness in us.
Thus far our own hearts, upon the Holy Ghost's deserting, become authors
unto us of this darkness.
3. But herein believers wrestle not alone with flesh and blood, and the dark-
ness thereof; but do further conflict also with those spiritual wickednesses,
the princes of darkness, Eph. vi. 12, about their interest in those heavenly-
privileges, as the phrase there used, sv ro7g s'^rovoavloic, may be well inter-
preted ; even with Satan and his angels, whom the Apostle compares to ' a
roaring lion, that seeks whom he may devour,' 1 Peter v. 8. And like as
when ' God makes his natural darkness, and it is night, then the young lions
creep forth, and roar after their prey,' as the Psalmist says, Ps. civ. 20, 21 :
so do these roaring lions, when God hath withdrawn the light of his counte-
nance, and night comes on, and those damps and fogs of jealousies and guilt
begin to arise out of a man's own heart ; then come these forth, and say, as
David's enemies said in his distress, ' Come let us now take him, for God
hath fors<aken him ;' let us now devour him, and swallow him up with sorrow
and despair. And as God says of those enemies of his church, Zech. i. 15,
* I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction ;' so
when God is angry with his child, and but a little, and doth hide his face
but for a moment, yet Satan watcheth that hour of darkness, as Christ calls
it, Luke xxii. 53, and joins his power of darkness to this our natural dark-
ness, to cause, if possible, blackness of darkness, even utter despair, in us.
Now, concerning Satan's working herein, we will, as in the former, more
distinctly treat thereof by way of explication of it, (1.) more generally ; (2.)
more particularly : —
First, in general; (1.) Satan, he hath a special inclination, and a more pecu-
liar malicious desire, to vex and molest the saints with this sort of tempta-
tions, of doubts and disquietness that God is not their God ; so as all his
other temptations unto sin are but as the laying in and barrelling up the
gunpowder, and making of the train, for this great plot of blowing up ali. He
tempteth Peter to deny his Master, — ' Satan desires to winnow you,' — but he
hath a further reach, a design upon his faith, which Christ foresaw, and
therefore did mainly bend his prayer against it ; ' but I have prayed that
thy faith fail not.' Satan hoped by that gross sin to have drawn him into
despair. We may likewise observe how he did place this temptation in the
forefront of those three assaults which he made upon Christ ; who as in his
obedience, so in his temptations, is made a complete example unto us ; for
he was tempted in all things, that is, with all sorts of temptations, and also
like us for the manner, only without sin, Heb. iv. 15. Now he tempted him
not only to vain hopes, when he shewed him the glory of the whole world,
ChaP. VI.] A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. 257
and to presuniption, to throw himself down lic.adlong from an unwarrantable
ground ; but first and primarily, to jealousies and distrusts between him and
bis Father, and between his human nature and the divine. For when Christ
Lad newly received that testimony from all the three Persons, — the Father
proclaiming him to be his Son from heaven ; the Spirit descending on him at
his baptism, it being the special grace and institution of that ordinance to seal
up adoption and regeneration, — then comes Satan and tempts him to question
that voice, that it might be but a delusion. And Christ's human nature never
having done any outward miracle as yet, as appears John ii. 11, he would now
have had him take this occasion, in the extreiiiity of his hunger, by command-
ing stones to become bread, to make trial whether he was the Son of God or
no, and hypostatically united to the second Person ; which if God should not
do for him, then to question his sonship, and think all this to be but a de-
lusion. This was the meaning of it, ' If thou be the Son of God, command
these stones to be made bread,' etc. ; withal insinuating that God, leaving him
even destitute of daily bread, which parents that are evil give unto their children,
and not a stone instead of bread, might seem to occasion an if whether he
was the Son of God or no. The reasons of this are —
[1.] Above all graces in us, he is the greatest enemy to faith; therefore,
1 Thess. iii. 5, the apostle was jealous of Satan in nothing more than in this,
lest he had been dealing and tampering with, and perverting their faith : ' I
sent to know of your faith, lest by some means the tempter hath tempted
you ;' for faith in God is the greatest enemy unto Satan, it ' quencheth aU
his darts,' Eph. vi. 16. By ' standing stedfast in which' we 'resist him, so
that he flies from us,' 1 Pet. v. 9. As therefore faith is that rh 'i^yov, that
work of God and the master-grace, John vi. 29 ; so despair and doubting is
the masterpiece of Satan. And in faith he is envious especially at the joy
of our faith, Rom. xv. 13. And as comfort is the most proper work of the
Spirit, and most pleasing work to him, so is discomfort and distress the proper
work of this evil spirit. And again —
[2.] As he is most opposite to the Holy Spirit, so he delights to blaspheme
his work in our hearts to us, by persuading us that all is counterfeit.
[3.] He is called iyjohg, that envious one, and the main object and mark
of his envy is this, that G;xl should be our God, who hath cast off him ;
and therefore, when he sees he cannot separate between God and us really,
he will endeavour to cast and raise up jealousies that he is not our God in
our apprehensions. He endeavoured to raise jealousies between God and our
first parents, — 'God knows ye shall be gods,' &c., — as if God had forbidden
them that fruit out of envy towards them of a better condition. And the
like he endeavoured between Christ's human nature and the divine, though
hypostatically united. And likewise —
[4.] That God hath given us eternal life, and that life is in his Son.
This being that great truth of the gospel, so as a Christian that believes it
not makes God a liar, 1 John v. 10, 11 ; therefore Satan, being that great liar,
opposeth this great truth and our faith therein above all other. His envy at
the advancement of our nature in Christ, according to that truth, is thought
by some to have been his fall and ruin, so understanding that in John viii.
44, ' He abode not in the truth.' However, he doth now delight to make
God a liar to us in our apprehensions, by questioning his promises, and
especially to enforce the persuasion thereof out of God's own dealing with,
us, ' perverting his righteous ways.'
(2.) And secondly, as Satan hath such a desire, so God may give his child
lip into Satan's hand for a while thus to afflict and terrify his spirit. His
VOL. III. E
268 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT L
last commission over Job seemeth to extend thus fjxr, for his life only was
excepted, Job ii. 6, ' He is in thy hand, only save his life : ' and therefore,
after that leave given, we hear Job, although never brought to question his
estate, yet crying out of terrors, and of the sins of his youth ; for Satan
then, as he smote his body Math boils, so buffeted his spirit. And though
Satan hath wiU of himself, and a desire to it, and power physical enough,
and abilities, to inflict this at all times, yet he must further have power
moral, or leave and commission from God. And God sometimes gives to
Satan power over the sons and daughters of Abraham, Luke xiii. 16, even
as well as others ; and as their bodies to be vexed by him, so their spirits ;
and as to provoke them unto sin, so much more to terrify for sin, there
being more of punishment than of sin in that. Thus he left David to Satan,
to provoke him unto sin, as well as Judas. Therefore that provocation to
number the people, as it is imputed to Satan and his malice, 1 Chron. xxi. 1 ;
so also to God and his anger, in giving leave first to Satan, 2 Sam. xxi v. 1.
And as an ' evil spirit from the Lord' troubled Saul's mind, 1 Sam. xvi. 14;
so a ' messenger of Satan was sent to buffet' Paul's spirit, 2 Cor. xii. 7.
Wherein yet God doth no way help Satan with any further power than what
as an angel he furnished him with at his creation ; nor with any assist-
ance or information of our secret sins against us, to enable him the more
to assault us, — this I find not in Scripture, — but permissive power only.
Which is either —
[1.] Obtamed and given at Satan's motion and request first made ; so that
phrase, Luke xxii. 31, ' Satan hath requested and petitioned to winnow you,'
as that also. Job ii. 3, ' Thou movedst me against him,' doth imply ; and as
it may seem by singling out and calhng forth some one for this combat ; as
he did him more especially, to whom therefore Christ addresseth that pre-
monition, and the word s^riT/jgccro implies as much. So also Job was smgled
out for this duel both by God and Satan. Or else —
[2.] Tlids is done through the ordinance of excommunication and censures
of the church duly administered, clave non en-ante, for gross and scandalous
sins. The proper inward effect that accompanies that ordinance which casts
men out of the church, being inward affliction and distress of conscience by
Satan, — which of all afflictions is the greatest punishment, £T/r/^/a, as the
Apostle calls it, 2 Cor. ii. 6, — thereby to bring a man to repentance. Even
as, on the contrary, the special work of baptism, to such as were fideles adulti
and believers already, was by joy in the Holy Ghost to seal up their adop-
tion and regeneration unto him ; as to the eunuch. Acts viii. 39. This we
may see in the excommunication of the incestuous Corinthian ; whose excom-
munication is therefore expressed to be ' a delivering him up unto Satan, in
the name of the Lord Jesus,' 1 Cor. v. 4, 5 ; that is, he Avas to be cast out
by a commission from Christ, which going forth in his name, when they
published it on earth, he signed it in heaven. Upon which, rightly admi-
nistered, doth ensue, first, that as the church doth cut them off from com-
munion with them, so God cuts them off from communion with himself, and
hides and withdraws the light of his countenance, the witness of his Spirit,
and his comfortable presence. And not only so, but ' delivereth them up to
Satan,' that being the consequent of it ; which therefore, because it implies
the former, is put to express the whole proceeding. Which delivery of him
unto Satan was not a giving him a commission to carry him on to more sin, —
though that often be indeed the effect of it in hypocrites, as in Alexander,
1 Tim. L 19, — for the end propounded by the Apostle was to 'destroy the
flesh/ that is, corruption and the body of sin j and that ' the spirit might be
Chap. VI.] a child of light WALKiNa in darkness, 259
saved,' ver. 5, tliat is, that contrary principle of grace which yet remained,
but was ready to die, as it is Ilev. iii. 2, might be saved and kept from death
and destruction : but it was t^f terrify and afflict his conscience, and to stir
up in him the guilt of his sin, with terrors for it, which God sanctifieth to
humble and to mortify the flesh. And thus, when that Corinthian was ex-
communicated, did Satan accordingly deal with him ; for in the next epistle,
2 Cor. ii. 7, we find him well-nigh ' swallowed up of sorrow,' which was
Satan's doing ; for, ver. 11, ' We are not ignorant,' saith the Apostle, in refer-
ence partly to this, ' of his devices.' And thus Satan continued still to
handle him, even now when he began to be truly humbled, and was a fit
subject to receive forgiveness and comfort, ver. 7 ; when, though he feared
God and obeyed him, yet he walked in darkness till the church received him.
Or else —
[3.] When this ordinance is not in the case of such sins administered, then
God himself, who works without an ordinance sometimes the same effects
that with it, doth excommunicate men's spirits from his presence, and gives
them up to Satan, by terrors to whip them home to himself So that God
gives him leave to exercise power over both godly men and wicked men, only
with this difference : wicked men God gives up unto him as unto t. ruler
and their head ; they are therefore called the ' rulers of the darkness of this
world,' Eph. vi. 12, who therefore 'work effectually in the children of dis-
obedience,' Eph. ii. 2 ; or else as captives to a prince, he taking them
'captive at his will,' 2 Tim. ii. 26, so as they are captived and ' led away,' 1
Cor. xii. 2. But his own, God gives up to him but as prisoners to a jailor,
as a magistrate may do his child, to commit him ; who hath not a power over
his prisoner to do anything with him, but only by appointment for a time,
with a limited commission, and therefore cannot put him on the rack or into
the dungeon, but when and how far God pleaseth : even as when Satan is
said to have ' cast them into prison,' Rev. ii. 10, his commission was but for
ten days, and then God rebukes him.
(3.) Satan having thus obtained leave, now to shew how able and powei-ful
he is to work darkness in us, I need not much insist on. His physical and
natural power to work upon our spirits, by his creation as he is an angel, is
exceeding great. We are a middle sort of creatures between them and beasts ;
beasts being merely corporeal, they merely spiritual, man between both.
' He made us a little inferior to the angels,' Heb. ii. ; though but a little, yet
inferior ; and in respect of that inferiority, we are exposed to their working
and crafty wiles. The great advantage they have hereby over us, the Apostle
insinuates when he says, ' We have not to do with flesh and blood, but spiri-
tual wickednesses,' Eph. vi. 1 2 ; that is, with spirits, in abilities transcending
the power of the flesh and blood ; for flesh is used to express weakness when
it is thus compared, as here, with spirit : so Isa. xxxi. 3. Therefore they
are there also called, as prmclpaUti.es for their authority, so poivers for their
natural abilities ; and that to work upon us, for it is spoken in that relation.
All which power, how great soever in him at his first creation, is now be-
come the power of darkness ; and so called because most powerful that way ;
namely, to cause and work darkness in us. And though he can for a need
* transform himself into an angel of light,' by deluding his deceived enthu-
siasts with false joys, yet therein he doth but act a part, it is but forced.
But to shew himself an angel of darkness, by terrifying and afi"righting weak
consciences, this is natural now to him ; his power lies most in this. There-
fore his title further is the ' ruler of darkness ; ' and also he is called ' that
strong man,' — strong, as to keep peace, Luke xi. 21, in those he deceives with
2 GO A CHILB OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
a false peace, so to make war and commotions in us when he is cast out.
We are bidden, therefore, to stand upon our guard, and to look that ' we
have on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against his
wiles,' Eph. vi. 11.
(4.) Only, in the fourth place, though Satan hath never so much power, yet
the advantage and exercise of this his power to work those disquietments in
us is by reason of that sinful darkness which is in us. We may say, that as
unless he had power from above, — that is, from God, — so nor unless he had
furtherance from beneath, even from those principles of guilt and darkness
in us before-mentioned, he could not disquiet us. ' Satan cometh,' saith
Christ, 'but hath nothing in me.' A commission he had, and therefore
came ; but he had nothing of his image, or of the guilt of any of his works,
to work upon in Christ ; and therefore could effect nothing at all upon his
spirit. That, therefore, which gives him privilege, scope, and matter to work
thus upon us is something within us ; there being, even in the best, something
which doth belong to his jurisdiction, which maketh their spirits fit subjects
for his temptations to take upon. In Eph. vi. 1 2, they are called the ' rulers
of the darkness of this world ; ' and, Col. i. 12, 13, their power is called ' the
power of darkness ; ' so as darkness is his territories, dominion, and jurisdic-
tion : for it is his work and his image, without which he could have no power
at all with us.
(5.) But by reason of this remaining darkness he hath a double advantage
over us : —
[1.] An advantage of more near, intimate, and immediate access to our
spirits, to close with them, to suggest unto them, and to work upon them;
and to tempt not only, as one man tempts another, by the outward senses,
but by the inward also, which is an exceeding great advantage. And though
it is true that, as he is an angel, he hath naturally by creation ability thus
to do ; yet as he is now a devil and an unclean spirit, were we but perfectly
holy, as in innocency, he should be debarred all such near communication to
us. To this jmrpose it may be observed, that in that his temptation of Adam
in innocency, he was not permitted, in his first assault, till he had sinned,
to come within him to work upon his fancy and affections indiscernibly ; but
only mediately and externally, by an audible voice in the body of a serpent.
And likewise, as touching the second Adam, we read not that he had access
to his inward senses and spirit ; but only by an external suggestion by voice,
and by visible representations ; as when he shewed Mm the glory of the world
in visible landscapes of his own making, which were represented to the eye.
What else was the reason why he took the advantage of a mountain 1 If it
had been by working on his inward senses, any place would have served for
that. But the devil then appeared in a visible shape, and so tempted him, for
he would have had him fall down to worship him. Cceterum mains ille ex-
trinsfcus, ac non per cogitationes, Christum adortus est, quemadmodum et
Ad(nmim. Nam ne ilium quidem per immissas cogitationes, sed per serpentem,
impetivif.* Another time we find him crept into one of his apostles, to assault
our Saviour by him. Matt. xvi. 23, ' Master, spare thyself,' says he ; when
therefore Christ says to him, ' Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art an offence
to me,' So as still Satan was kept at a distance, and could come no nearer.
And that he should yet come thus near to him, made Christ also, in that
great temptation in the wilderness, with so much vehemency and indignation
at last say to him, 'Avoid, Satan,' Matt. iv. 10, as loathing the nearness of so
foul a spirit. For what fellowship, — that is, such thus near, — should light
* Damasc. Ortho. Fidei, lib. iii., cap. 20.
Chap. VI.] a cniLD of light walking in darkness. 261
have with this angel of darkness ? Nor should he have such more near and
inward access to our spirits, but for that darkness in us, by reason of which
he thus comes witliin us ; and as darkness mingleth with darkness, so ho
with our spirits. So that as the light of grace in us begun doth fit us for
God's drawing nigh to us, so this darkness, remaining in part unexpelled, ex-
poseth us to Satan's drawing nigh so near as to mingle with our spirits, and,
as it were, to become one S[)irit with us.
[2.] As hereby he hath this advantage of access to get within us, so this
darkness in us is also as fit fuel and as tinder to his fiery temptations, that
presently enkindleth and inflamcth. So as aU those effects of the principles
of darkness mentioned he can both increase and augment, and so add black-
ness to that darkness in us. And darkness being his dominion, therefore so
much darkness as is in us, so great a party he hath in us to work upon.
Hence, therefore, all the effects that he worketh in unregenerate men, who are
nothing but darkness, he may work in regenerate men, according to the pro-
portion of the remainder of darkness in them, to a certain degree, and for a
limited season ; as to delude their reason, falsely accuse and terrify their
consciences, &c. Only final despair and revenge against God, which is that
sin unto death, this the Apostle excepteth ; for having occasionally mentioned
that sin, 1 John v. 16, he adds, ver. 18, that ' he that is bom of God sinneth
not,' that is, not that sin ; and he subjoineth, ' but keeps himself that that
evil one touch him not,' that is, not with the least infusion of the venom of
that "sin which is properly his sin, John viiL 44, and which he toucheth their
spirits with who become the serpent's seed. And therefore all such instances
as we find, that shew how he hath wrought on the spirits of carnal men by
reason of their total darkness, may be alleged to shew in a proportion what
he may also work on regenerate men for a season by reason of their dark-
ness in part remaining : all things happening alike to ail. — Thus in generaL
262 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAEKNESS. [PaET I.
CHAPTEE VII.
More partimlarly, how Satan works upon those three principles in us:
first, on carnal reason.
Seeing therefore the exercise of Ms power lies in that darkness which is in
us, let us more particularly see how able and powerful he is to work upon
those several principles of carnal reason, guilt of conscience, jealousies and
fears.
First, on carnal reason; on which he chiefly worketh in this sort of tempta-
tions, the strength whereof lies in false reasonings, wherein, if in anything,
he hath the advantage.
1. First, his abilities to forge and invent false reasonings and arguments
to overthrow our faith, are, as they must needs be conceived to be, exceed-
ing great: who for this knowledge is called dal/ji^uv; as well as Satan for his
malice ; and for his subtlety in outreaching us, a serpent : who when young,
outwitted our first parents; 'he beguiled Eve through his subtlety,' says
the Apostle, 2 Cor. xi. 3, then when their reason was not depraved ; but
now he is grown 'that old serpent,' Rev. xii. 9: and we are become 'chU-
dn )t to be tossed to and fro,' Eph. iv. 14. He hath had time enough to
improve his knowledge in ; a student he is of five thousand years' standing, that
hath lost no time, but as he is said to 'accuse day and night,' Rev. xii. 10,
BO is able to study both day and night ; and he hath made it his chief, if
not whole study, to enable himself to tempt, and plead against us. It is his
trade. Therefore as men are called lawyers or divines from their callings,
so he the tempter and the accuser from his employment. And by this his
long experience and observation he hath his iio7j,u.ara, 2 Cor. ii. 11, his set
and composed machinations; Ms /u^sdodziac, Eph. vi. 11, his methods of temp-
tations, which are studied and artificially moulded and ordered ; even such
systems and methods of them as tutors and professors of arts and sciences
have, and do read over again and again to their auditors. The Apostle calls
them ' darts,' ver. 16, — and he hath a whole shop and armoury of them ready
made and forged, — which, for the acuteness and subtle sophistry that is in
them, are called ' depths of Satan,' Rev. ii. 24 ; which depths, if in any point,
are most to be found in this : for he is more especially versed in this great
question and dispute. Whether a man be the child of God or no 1 more than
in any other. All other controversies he hath had to deal in but in particu-
lar ages, as occasionally they were started; but this hath been the standing
controversy of all ages, since God hath had any children on earth : with
every one of whom, more or less, he hath at one time or another had solemn
disputes about it ; so as he knows all the advantages, windings, and turmngs
in this debate, all the objections and answers, and discussions in it.
And as other controversies, the longer they are on foot, and the further
they have been carried along, the more they are enlarged, improved, and
grow more subtle; so must this needs also, especially in this latter knowinij
Chap. VII.] a child of light walking in darkness. 2G3
age of the world, and by reason also of tliat seeming near similitude which
hypocrisy holds nnto the truth and ])owcr of grace, which hath fazzled * and
entangled this controversy. The objections and difficulties which a believer
meets \\'ith in beating out a right judgment of his estate, are greater than in
any controversy the world ever knew, and afford stranger knots, and require
as acute distinctions to dissolve them as the school knows any ; and
indeed such as, did not the Holy Ghost sometimes cut, sometimes untie
them for believers, by witnessing with our spirits that we are the sons of
God, bare reason alone could never determine in it. Now Satan, through
long experience and observation, hath all these at his fingers' ends, and hath
reduced them all to commonplaces long since. He hath still observed and
laid up what answers have relieved the spirits of behevers in such and such
a doubt cast in by him, and then studies a further reply against the next
time, or for the next believer he shall have to do -vAith.
2. Secondly, as he hath thus thoroughly studied this controversy, and
knows all the windings and false reasonings in it ; so withal, by his daily study-
ing and considering men, he knows how best to suit and make use of those
reasonings, both to persons and seasons. It is the sole business of those evil
spirits to study men ; for this end they ' go up and down the earth.' And
he hath commonplaces of men, and their several frames and temper of spirit,
as well as of temptations ; he knows all the several ranks and classes of men
in the state of grace ; and according to their ranks, with what sort of temiJ-
tations to encounter them. For men's temptations are ' various and mani-
fold,' 1 Pet. i. 6 ; even as the gifts and operations of the Spirit are, 1 Cor. xii.
4, 5. Now, he having beaten out this controversy with all sorts, knows
how to lay the dispute, how to order, and marshal, and ajiply objections,
and wield his blows with most success and advantage. That as physicians,
having observed the several workings of medicines of all sorts, upon several
ages and constitutions, and what several issues and effects they have had, do
therefore accordhigly prescribe and apply several medicines according to the
several and differing conditions of their patients, though sick of the same
disease. Thus Satan, he by observation finding the hearts of some men ' an-
swering' to some others, ' as face to face in water,' as Solomon says ; and
withal remembering what reasonings have always taken most with such a
sort or strain of Christians, whose corruptions and whose graces were much
alike unto those in this or that man he hath now to deal with ; accordingly
he makes use and application of these reasonings again. The tempers of
men's spuits we know are diverse, and so are capable of diversity of sugges-
tions. And again, the operations of grace, as of sin, are various in those
several tempers. And God's dealings with and workings upon his children
are as various as either. Some he humbleth much, some are led on with com-
fort ; some he works on wdth a sudden and marvellous light, as if the sun
should rise on the sudden at midnight, and on others insensibly and by
degrees, as when the dawning steals upon the day ; some have had a false
and counterfeit work before, some were never enlightened until savingly;
and this variety affords rise and occasion for several temptations. So as
what kind of work any other Christian hath had is apt to be made an excep-
tion to another that wants it. I was never thus humbled, says one ; nor I thus
comforted, says another; I had a sudden violent work indeed, which came
in Uke a spring-tide, but now the tide is fallen, and my first love abated,
says a third; I had some workings and enlightenings heretofore, says an-
other, and I was deceived then, and I may be so now also : and so he hath
* Embarrassed — Ed.
264 A CHILD OF LIGUT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaET I.
that vast task set him, to compare a counterfeit work with a true. Thus
every several way of working lies open to several exceptions; and as we say
that every calling earthly hath its several and j)roper temptations, so the
several ways and manners of effecting this calling heavenly have their several
veins and currents of temptations. All which Satan knows, and hath often
traced; and accordmgly knows how to fit them to men, and to prosecute
them the most advantageous wa}-.
So in like manner he takes the compass of every man's knowledge, notions,
and apprehensions; according unto which, as our knowledge is more or less,
we are also capable of several temptations. Many reasonings and objections,
which, Uke small hail-shot, could not reach or make any dint at all upon men
of parts and knowledge, both because they by reason of their knowledge do
soar high out of the gun-shot of them, and have also on the ' whole armour
of God,' as the apostle speaks, Eph. vi. — that is, are in complete armour,
abounding in all faith and knowledge, — yet such reasonings may be fittest to
level with at such as are more ignorant, and fly low, and have but some few
broken pieces of that armour to defend some parts with. But on the con-
trary, those other of his great-shot, which he dischargeth on men of know-
ledge, they would clean fly over the others' heads, and not come near
such smaller vessels. All in Thyatira knew not Satan's depths, nor were
capable of them. Rev. ii. 24. Thus the ignorance and the want of know-
ledge of the meaning of the Scriptures, and of the ways of grace chalked
forth therein, how doth Satan abuse, to the clisquietment of many poor
and good souls that want much knowledge, by putting false glosses upon
them ! How many weak soids do stick in shallows, and are sometimes a
long while terrified with gross mistakes, and like small birds are held long
under with limed straws of frivolous objections, which great ones fly away
with ! That great apostle, being a man of knowledge, was not easily taken
with such chaff. ' We are not ignorant of his devices,' says he, 2 Cor. ii. 11 ;
and therefore Satan takes another course with him, and comes with down-
right blows, and falls a-buffeting him, 2 Cor. xii. 7. Thus doth Satan take
measure of the bore, as I may so speak, of every man's understanding, and
fits them with objections proportionable, in several sizes. And as the Apostle
in his semions prepared milk for babes, but strong meat for strong men, so
doth Satan in his temptations apply and suit them to men's notions and appre-
hensions, still framing objections according to their reading.
3. Thirdly, he is able undiscernibly to communicate all his false reason-
ings, though never so spiritual, which he doth forge and invent, and that in
such a manner as to deceive us by them, and to make them take with us.
(1.) First, he is able not only to put into the heart suggestions and soli-
citations unto sensual and worldly objects; such as that into Judas's heart, to
betray his Master for money, John xiii. 2, and to tempt married couj^les
severed to incontinency, 1 Cor. vii. 5 ; but also the most subtle and abstracted
reasonings concerning things spiritual, which are utterly remote from sense,
he can insinuate and impart according to the measure and cajDacity of
men's apprehensions. Therefore we are said to wrestle with them about
things heavenly, and our interest therein is often made the matter of con-
tention and the subject of the question. So that phrase, Eph. vi. 12, iv roTg
i'TTD'j^a.iioi;, when it is said, ' We wrestle with spiritual wickednesses in hea-
veidy,' is rather to be understood of heavenly things than of heavenly places ;
the word signifying rather supercelestial, in the highest heavens, whither, if
rendered of places, the devils never came since their fall. And it being used
elsewhere for heavenly things, as Heb. viii. 5, and the preposition h, or in,
Chap. VII.] a c;;ild op light walking in darkness. 2Go
being likewise sometimes put to express the object-matter about wliicli a
tbing is conversant, as Matt. xi. 6, 'Blessed is be that is not ofieuded in me,'
— that is, with or about me, and for my sake, — it may congruously be so here
meant, as noting to us, that the price, the stake, about wldch we wrestle with
Satan are not things worldl}^, as honours, riches, and the like, but things
heavenly, which concern our souls and estates hereafter.
Now the contention being about heavenly things and spiritual blessings, it
cannot be transacted but by reasonings suitable ; that is, spkitual false rea-
sonings, abstracted from sense and fancy. And in this respect they are
termed spiritual wickednesses, because in such wickednesses they deal and
trade in especially, or as much as in those that are sensual ; as tempting to
unbelief, despair, blasphemy against God, of which sort are all those tempta-
tions we have now in hand. And that he is able to convey and suggest such
spiritual thoughts and reasonings of what sort soever, appeareth many ways :
as by injecting blasphemous thoughts against God, such as do sometimes
transcend the wit and cajiacity of the receiver of them ; and is manifest like-
wise by Saul's prophesying even from the immediate dictating and suggestion
of an evil spirit, as is expressly said, I Sam. xviii. 10 ; in the like manner to
which haply the Sibyls also prophesied.
But more evident it is in all those damnable heresies which have been
broached in all ages, as in the primitive times among the Romans, the
broachers whereof are made the emissaries of Satan ; therefore, Bom. xvi.
18, he having branded them, unto the Bomans, that taught false doctrines
among them, and having instructed them against them, he gives this en-
couragement about them, ver. 20, ' that God should tread down Satan under
theu- feet shortly,' having respect to Satan's work in those errors mentioned,
ver. 18, Satan being the main author of them. Thus in the church of
Thyatira, those cursed heretics who applauded themselves, and were admired
by their followers for the depths and profoundness of their learning, shewn in
those heresies they broached : ' depths, as they speak,' Bev. ii. 24. But if
they caU them depths, says the Apostle, I wUl caU them depths of Satan, —
* depths of Satan, as they speak,' — for the devil was the master and the
author and suggester of them. So, in after-times, aj^ostasy is ascribed to
spirits of error, — that is, devils, which he foretcUeth men should give heed
unto, 1 Tim. iv. 1, — and to the working of Satan, 2 Thess. ii. 9. It was he
that sharpened their wits and pens. Now then, by the same reason, there 13
no reasoning about our estates, though never so spiritual, but he can suggest
it, as well as he did those depths of the heresies to the broachers of them.
So as Satan can not only make those false reasonings, which our own hearts
forge, more specious and probable, and suggest further confirmations of them,
which are enough to add unto this darkness ; but he is also able to put in
new, which himself invents, of what kind soever they be.
(2.) Secondly, he is not simply able to suggest them, but to insinuate
them in such a manner as to take with us and deceive us ; yea, and often to
set them on with a deep impression. Therefore, in those places forementioned,
it is not simply said that there should be spirits which shall suggest errors,
but so suggest them as that ' men should give heed unto them.' Thus,
1 Tim. iv. 1, and 2 Thess. ii., where the working of those very same spirits
is set forth, ver. 9, it is not only said that they were sent as from God to
delude, but with ' strong delusions ; ' siich as should have a strength put into
them to prevail, so as that men should believe them. So also, that lying
spirit which God sent, and who persuaded Ahab by a lie in the mouths of
lus false prophets, commission was not simply given to him to suggest a lie.
2CG A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
but SO as it should prevail witli Ahab ; so 3 Cliron. xviii. 21, * And the
Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail.' And as he
is thus able, when God gives leave, to delude wicked men's understandings
■with false reasonings in matters of heresy and false doctrine, by reason of
that total darkness that Is in them : so he is able, if God give leave, as some-
times he doth, to bring strong delusions upon the minds of God's children
also, through false reasonings about their own estates, by reason of that
darkness which in part remains in them ; by means of which he may work
the same effects for a time, and in a certain degree, in a godly man, which in
another, as was before observed. Thus the believing Galatians, especially
some of them, were so far ' bewitched,' as his word is, as for a time to assent
to that great error in point of justification ; and this by reason of that foUy
and darkness which remained in them, as he intimates, when he says, ' O
ye foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey
the truth?' Gal. iii 1. And if in the very doctrine of justification itself
believers were thus for a time deluded, which is rare, then much more may
they, and ordinarily are they, misled in the application of faith, in the believ-
ing their own personal justification, which is the point in hand.
Only this is to be added here for caution's sake : that it is true that Satan
cannot enforce an act of assent to any falsehood upon the understanding of
any man. For how then should they ' all have been damned for believing
that lie?' 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12; which should not have been unless it were
their own sin ; which is as true of aU other temptations as that. Though
Satan put the thcjught into Judas's heart, John xiii. 2, yet his own conscience
owns it wholly as his own act, Matt, xxvii. 4, * I have sinned,' &c.
Neither yet doth he so immediately concur to produce such an act of
assent in us, as God doth when he worketh faith in us ; for then God's
power and assistance in working good should be no more than Satan's in
working evil. Tentationis potest esse causa efficax, at non peccati; potest
necessitare homines ad sentiendum tentationem, non ad conseniiendum.
And yet the Scripture phrases go far in ascribing unto Satan herein, when
it says of those that believed not the gospel, that ' the god of this world
hath blinded their minds that believe not,' 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; which notes out a
superadded working of blindness unto their own natural blindness. As also
when h'd says that ' the prince of the air is ivBfy:^v, that works effectually,' &c.,
Eph. ii. 2. And also that of the Corinthians whilst unregenerate, who as
then are said to be ' carried and led away after dumb idols,' 1 Cor. xiL 2.
All which phrases would seem to argue, not only a further power of working
upon mens judgments than when one man doth endeavour to corrupt and
persuade another man in a moral way, (because he suggesteth indiscernibly,
and with more frequency and importunity, and holdeth the mind more to the
object, and presenteth an army of confirmations at once, and is able so to
marshal them as the mind can scarce resist ; and puts all these upon the spirit
with a violent and imperious affirmation,) but further, also, they would seem
to imply some kind of physical working, though not immediately on the
spring of the clock, yet upon the wheels and weights of it — I mean the
I)assions in the body and the images in the fancy, though not upon the un-
derstanding immediately ; all which, what influence they have to sway the
judgment and pervert it, experience shews.
4. Fourthly, he is further able to follow and continue his reasonings as
occasion is, and to keep up the dispute, and hold out arguments with us,
and out-reason us, by putting in new replies to our answers, and so to main-
tain and manage and carry along the dispute, and to come up with fresh
Chap. VII.] a child of light walking in darkness. 2G7
supplies : wliicli in this respect is called wrestling, Eph. vi. 1 2, ' We wrestle
not with flesh and blood, but principalities and powers ; ' it being, as the
bodily wrestling, transacted by reiterated assaults, and attempts to overcome
and get the victory ; he, as it were, going about to strike up our heels, as
wrestlers do — that is, to take away from under us those reasonings which
supported us, by cavilling objections; which kind of spiritual wrestlings how
often have we experience of in spiritual agonies ! In tlic hour of temptation
believers find conflicts and bandyings of disputes, rationally carried along,
and pertinent objections brought in against those answers which they secretly
meditate of In which cause, therefore, divines bid men not to dispute
with that cunning so[)hi.ster. Thus many, when death hath approached, have
found that they have had their reasonings for their estates, and those evi-
dences they have had recourse unto, taken away and confuted as fast as they
have thought of them.
And that Satan hath this dexterity and skill thus to manage such kind of
disputes with us, is further evident in the framing of heresies, wherein he
assists the contrivers of them with pertinent considerations to back and con-
firm their notions, in their private meditations, studies, and contrivements.
And indeed, if Satan were not able and skilful thus to oppose and reply,
these kind of temptations which consist in disputes could not be managed ;
for otherwise in them Satan disputed with us but as if one of us should
reason with a dumb man that can hear, but his answers cannot be known,
and so he knows no way what reply to make. Therefore surely Satan hath
often some way, more or less, a guess and inkling what may be the answers
of the heart again : which, were it otherwise, the glory also which God hath
by the victory gotten over Satan in these temptations were much obscured,
and Satan's confusion less ; for the victory of our faith in these disputes, and
the resistance it makes, lies chiefly in those replies which are made, whereby
it quencheth all his darts : whereof the devil, when he is once sensible and
perceives it, he is confounded; for then, when he is once sensible and appre-
hensive that he is resisted, doth he fly from us, as the Apostle speaks, James
iv. 7, and that of his own accord, as the expression there imports ; even as a
foiled and disgraced soldier. And this we may see in his carriage in those
his temptations of Christ, which were managed by mutual disputes, and
wherein the foiling of Satan was by the answers out of Scripture which
Christ gave ; by which being confounded, ' he left him,' as the text says, Matt.
iv. 11, as out of pride, ashamed that he was foiled. So that Satan, some
way or other, is able to guess at, and discerns the replies in our hearts to
his objections, as well as to make and cast in objections.
268 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS, [PaKT I
CHAPTER VIII
That Satan is able to work upon that other corrupt principle in us : guilt of
conscience. — Both how many ways Satan is able to know matter hy us to
object against us; as also, to set it on, and work upon the guilt and
erroneousness of the conscience.
Thus we see how able Satan is to join with and assist carnal reason in
us against ourselves. We will now further consider what power and work-
ing he may exercise upon that other prmciple in us, our consciences ; in
joining with the filth and defilement thereof, in accusing us and lajing par-
ticulars to our charge ; in which consisteth the greatest of his strength, even
in an army of accusations of us to ourselves, which in this warfare he mus-
ters up against us. This sort of temptations we have in hand consists either
of false majors or false minors, which are like the two wings of an army.
His false majors, they are such as, misapprehensions of the ways and of the
work of grace, or misunderstanding of sayings of Scripture, &c., which by
reason of that darkness of ignorance that is in us, he puts upon us wrested
and perverted. As, that to relapse into the same sin again and again is
not compatible with grace ; and many the like. For the opinions whereby
some do measure what strictness is essential to the being in the state of grace
are often too severe and rigid ; as in others, too loose. The measure of som^
is too scant, not giving allowance to failings ; as of others, too large, taking
in such gross corruptions, and the constant practice of them, as cannot stand
with grace. And Satan deceives with both : as the one sort, of profane men,
to flatter themselves to be in a good condition when they are not, so the
other, of weak and tender consciences, that they are not in a good estate
when they are. And in like manner places of Scripture misunderstood do
oft prove matter of great temptation to many ; as that Heb. vi., unto one
who, having fallen from his first love, concluded he could never be saved, be-
cause it is there said, that ' they which are once enlightened, if they fall
away, it is impossible they should be renewed to repentance;' whereas it is
only to be understood of a revengeful lotal apostasy. Thus, as Elymas ' per-
verted the right ways of the Lord,' Acts xiii. 10, so doth Satan also ; Elymas
being therefore there called ' child of the devil,' because he did the work of
bis father therein.
Now, all such false reasonings as are founded upon such mistakes of the
things, and of the rule itself whereby we should judge of our estates — false
majors — do properly belong to the former head of carnal reason. But he hath
another wing of forces to join to these ; and they are false accusations of a
man to himself, from the guilt of his own heart and ways, misconceits of a
man's self, and misapplications to a man's self : another sort of arguments,
wherein the minors are false. So, although a man be full of knowledge, and
through the light thereof hath a right judgment both of the Scriptures and
of the ways of the work of grace by which men's estates are to be judged,
Chap. VIIL] a child of light walking in DARKKiiSs. 2C9
and so therein Satan cannot be too hard for him with all his soj^histry ; yet
by misroi)rosentiiig a man to himself, and by perverting his own ways to
him, making that which is straight seem crooked, and all in him to bo
hypocrisy, a man is brought to puss a false sentence upon himself So as if
tliis subtle pleader cannot deceive the judge, as I may so speak, with falso
rules and mistakes in the law itself, tlicn he endeavours it by misrepresent-
ing the case of the party, and puts in a false bill of accusation, so ordered
and coloured as to procure a judgment against him ; laying before the eyes
of men's consciences their by-ends, deadness, and hardness of heart, and false-
ness in such and such turnings of their lives ; excepting against what is good
in them, aggravating what is evil, and all to enforce from thence a false con-
clusion. To instance in some one false reasoning of this latter sort, Satan
oft argueth and chargeth the conscience of one distressed in this or the like
manner : —
' Those in whom any sin reigneth, or in whose hearts hypocrisy and self-
love is the predominant i)rinciple, are not in the state of grace.'
' But such a one art thou,' &c. For the proof of wjiich rainor he mus-
ters up and sets in order, in the view of conscience, a multitude of instances
of sins committed, thus heinously, thus oft ; of duties omitted, and if per-
formed, yet with such and such pride of heart, self-aims, &c. In which sort
of reasoning the major and first proposition is true ; but the minor, the as-
sumption, such a one art thou, that is most false. And although there be
a ti-uth in the instances alleged to prove it, that such sins have been com-
mitted, and that in performance of duties such particular by-ends, &c., do
arise and are found in the heart ; yet not in that manner as he would lay the
charge, not as reigning, not as the swaying and prevailing principle in a man's
whole coiirse. That hypocrisy is there cannot be denied ; but that hypoc-
risy rules there and is predominant, and that nothing but hypocrisy, is false,
which yet Satan amazeth the conscience with, to bring forth this conclusion
out of all, ' Therefore thou art a hypocrite ' Which conclusion likewise, how
able he is to set on with terrors and affrightments, we shall shew anon.
That which we have now in hand is to shew how able he is for those kind
of false reasonings, the deceit of which lies chiefly in the assumption and
viinor proposition ; that is, in misapplications to a man's self. In which he
hath principally to deal wdth conscience ; for the guilt of a man's particular
ways, actions, and corruj^tions, the seat whereof is the conscience, is made
the matter of the evidence and the proofs of those minors; and the defile-
ment and erroneousness of the conscience is that principle in us which he
works upon when he enforceth such a misapprehension from those evidences.
Wherein, by the way, we may take notice of a difference between the Holy
Ghost's dealing with a believer, when at any time he comes with the word,
and searcheth and tries his heart, and discovers corruptions to us, — to wit,
such a searching as David prayed for, ' Examine me, Lord, and try my
heart,' &c., Ps. xxvi. 2, cxxxix. 23, — convincing and reproving us, and that
sometimes with some sharpness, for our by-ends, hypocrisies, &c. ; when also
he 'bores the ear, and shews wherein we have exceeded,' as Elihu speaks,
Job xxxvi. 9, 10 ; — and between these other siftings and winnowings of Satan,
as Christ's phrase is, Luke xxii. 31. The difference is, that the Holy Ghost
dealeth sweetly herein, but as a father that rebukes and convinceth his child
of his misdemeanours ; but without putting in any such sting in the conclu-
sion, that therefore we are hypocrites ; nor to any such meaning or purpose
thence inferred, that therefore sin reigns in us, &c. : but in these of Satan,
that is the issue he mainly drives all to, and it is made the foot, the burdeu
270 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
of all those his accusations, and is as the scope and argument that nins
through the whole of that his charge against us.
And in respect to this his misrepresenting our estates, and false aggra-
vations of our sins unto us, he is called, as the tempter, which is in a general
relation to all sorts of temptations, so the accuser, xaTriyoQiig, Rev. xii. 10,
or irapleader against us ; and as the accuser of us to God, in God's court,
and before his tribunal, (for to accuse in a court the word may seem to im-
port,) so in the court of our own consciences. And as he tempts us unto
sin, so also for sin and by sin, — that is, the guilt of it, — to draw us to despair.
He that accused Job unto God, would sure accuse Job unto himself much
more.
And though it may be truly affirmed that neither Satan nor our own con-
sciences can ever aggravate unto us too much the intrinsical sinfulness, the
teinousness and vileness of our sins in their due and proper colours, and true
aggravations of them, which we can never come to see enough, as not to hate
lor loathe and mourn for as we ought ; yet Satan and our own consciences
may, in the representation of our sins, put such false apprehensions and such
aggravations upon them as may make us apprehend too much about them ;
as when it is suggested that they are such as are not compatible with the
state of grace, or that they are utterly unpardonable. He may likewise use
them as inductions to prove a false conclusion. And also, although our sins,
if truly, can never be enough represented, if it be in oi'der to drive a man
more to God's grace and unto Christ : yet to present them singly and alone,
and to hold the mind and intention of it so to them as to cause us to forget
our own mercies, and in such a manner as thereby God's mercies and aU
comforts are hidden and concealed from us ; this is that is Satan's practice,
and is the cause of this deep bondage we thus here speak of And in this
respect that name, -/.arriyoooc, the accuser, is given this evil spirit in a direct
and full opposition to that special name and office of the Holy Ghost, -^ra^a-
xT^rirog, the comforter or pleader for us : because as the Holy Ghost maketh
intercession in our own hearts unto God for us, and upon true repentance
helpeth us to make 'apologies' for ourselves, as the word is, 2 Cor. vii. 11,
and coraforteth us by discovering ' our graces given us of God,' as 1 Cor. ii.
12, and by pleading our evidences, and witnessing with our spirits that we^'
are the sons of God ; so on the contrary, Satan is -^arriyosoi, an accuser, by*
laying to our charge the guilt of our sins, by impleading our evidences, mis-
representing our estates, thereby to deject us and 'swallow us up with
sorrow,' as 2 Cor. ii. 7.
And further ; because in these accusations his scope is to misrepresent our
estates to us, and falsely to disquiet us, therefore he is yet more especially
called did^oKos, a slanderer, as one that falsely and lyingly calumniateth and
slandereth all our graces, all God's dealings towards us, all our dealings
towards him ; slandering our persons, our estates to us, charging us to be
hypocrites, unsound, and carnal, and counterfeit Christians, still misconstru-
ing all unto the worst. Which false calumnies and charges of his, I take
most properly to be those 'darts' mentioned Eph. vi. 11, which are there
said more especially to oppose our faith ; and therefore faith is there said to
quench them. From which trade of his forging darts of calumnies, he hath
his name didSoXog, a slanderer, from dia(3r/.X}.ot} ; a metaphor it is, from cast-
ing darts, (for the slanderous calumnies of the tongue are ' as a maul, and
a sword, and a shar}) arrow,' as Solomon speaks, Prov. xxv. 1 8 ; their teeth
spears and arrows, Ps. Ivii. 4 ;) and such are these kind of Satan's temptations
and accusations against us, even as darts and arrows that wound and pierce.
Chap. VIII.] a child op light walking in daekness. 271
and run through the passions and affections, that strike the soul through
and through with fears. His name, 'rtwA^m, the tempter, is from cra/jw, to
I)iorce ; because such are his darts, so sharpened, and flung with that force,
as tliey are fitted to pierce, and enabled to run through. And besides the
sharpness of the darts themselves, they are said to be fiery, as making double
way for themselves ; for a piece of iron, though blunt, yet if fired red-hot, it
runs through without resistance.
Satan, he is that great general of the whole powers of darkness in us ;
and therefore even the forces of the guilt of sin, the proper seat of which is
the conscience, he hath some command over, as well as of the power of sin
in other members : and therefore as he can muster up and set on fleshly
lusts which fight against the soul, and provoke and back them in their as-
saults upon us, so he can clap on the chains of guilt and bondage upon our
consciences.
And as he can stir up that guilt that is in us, so also work upon that in-
judiciousness and erroneous defilement that is in the conscience, to judge of
a man's own estate ; this Satan works upon and abuseth. For as he hath a
power to work upon the corruption in the rest of the faculties, so also over
the defilement and pollution of the conscience; misleading it in its verdict
of our estates, as cunning pleaders do a silly jury. The wards of conscience
are of themselves loose, and naturally misplaced, but he with his false keys
wrings and perverts them much more ; it naturally gives an uncertain sound,
but he by his false alarms and panic fears cast in doth much more con-
found the testimony of it. And how easy is it to trouble a soul disquieted
already, and to work upon jealousies which are raised ! We see how far a
cunning man can insinuate with jealous natures, to increase suspicions and
' surmises. When a humoirr is stirred, how easily is it wrought on ! And
thus often when the Spirit hath already read us a sharp lecture, and ex-
amined our consciences, then Satan he strikes in, and descants upon it aU
to deeper terrors and distress.
But the more full and distinct explication of Satan's work of accusa-
tion of us herein requires a further search and incpiry, and a larger demon-
stration : how Satan should come, and how far, to know matter by us thus
to accuse us of For if he doth accuse, he must, as is said Acts xxviii.,
' have aught against us whereof to accuse ;' else it were in vain. And there
is this difierence between these kinds of temptations wherein we are exer-
cised about the guilt of sin, and those other unto sin : that the object-matter
of other temptations is what is without ourselves ; but in these, that which
is in us and from us, and hath been committed by us, is made matter of ob-
jection against, and disquietment unto us. That which is from within the
man disquiets the man.
But ere I enter upon this inquiry I must premise a general caution, to set
limits to our discourse therein.
And the caution is this : That we are to reserve and maintain this, both as
an undoubted truth and as God's sole and royal prerogative, that he can
alone both search and know the heart and conscience. As in Like manner. That
he can only by his wrath immediately make those deep and killing wounds
and gashes with which men's souls are often here and hereafter externally
wounded : (of which by way of caution also in the next chapter.) Which
two glorious and incommunicable attributes of his, that eulogium of the word
of God, Heb. iv. 12, 13, seems fully to hold forth unto us : where, as at the
gate of Paradise was set a cherubim with a flamuig sword to keep our
fallen parents from ever entering in again, so there Christ is represented as
272 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAEKNESS. [PaRT L
that supreme judge with, whom, as at the 13th verse, we are eternally to
have to do, (or, as the original, rrfo; ov TiimTh 6 Aoyo;, to whom we are to give
an account, for so }Jyo; is, Rom. xiv. 12, and elsewhere, taken ;) and he
there stands with that dreadful sword of his word ready drawn and bran-
dished, — that word by wliich he will judge men at the latter day, John xiL
48, and which therefore is called zpiri/iog, ver. 12, a judger of the thoughts.
&c., — and this to the end that by the awful terror thereof he might
compel and drive those that hear the gospel to ' enter into that rest,' to
which he had exhorted, ver. 11, which is set open by him for men now
fallen to coine into.
AVhich sword, as it hath a double edge, as there, so in his hand, who
alone can -udeld it, it serves to a double use. That whereas in a judge two
things are requisite to the complete performance of his office, — (1.) skill and
knowledge to find out and examine the fact ; (2.) power to execute and tor-
ture the malefactor when found guilty, — he shews how both these do transcen-
dently and solely meet in him, by relating what power is found to be in his
ivord, (which is the ensign of his justice and instrument of his power in judg-
ing,) which is said to be a ' discemer of the thoughts,' and a sword that
pierceth and woundeth the soul and spirit vnih unutterable anguish. Which
wounding power of the word is distinctly set forth (as some) from the be-
ginning of the 12th verse to those last words, 'and is a discemer of the
thoughts ;' from whence, to the end of the 13th verse, that other, the search-
ing and all-judging property of God and his word, is laid forth to us : but
rather, as I conceive, the Apostle, in one continued metaphor, carries along
the expression of both throughout the Avhole, though more eminently the
one in that former part of the words, and the other in the latter ; yet so
as both are alike made the royalty of God, which is the thing we have in
hand.
Neither needs it stumble any that this is there attributed only to the
word of God, of which he only seems to speak, for that is all one as to ascribe
it unto God ; for as ' where the word of a king is, there is power,' says
Solomon, Eccles. viiL 4, so, where the word of God is, there is the power of
God, and so is it here to be understood : and therefore, as in other scrip-
tures, his word is said to create, and by it the heavens to be established, &c.,
and also. Gal. iii. 8, in the like phrase of siDeech, the Scripture is said to fore-
see, that is, God foresaw, who writ the Scripture, so also here, to know
and wound the heart. Which to be the Apostle's express intention here
appears by the connexion of the 1 2th and 1 3th verses. For whereas, ver.
12, he begins with attributing this power unto the word, yet in the end
he closeth his speech with transferring all that was said thereof upon God
himself, ver. 13, 'with whom we have to do.'
To open the words a little more largely, so as to clear this assertion out of
them, which it is necessary to premise. The words are, ' For the word of
God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and
is a discemer of the thoughts and intents of the heart : neither is there any
creature that is not manifest in his sight ; but all things are naked and opened
to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.'
And, first, of that sole searching power of the soul in this chapter, and of
that other, the sole wounding power of the conscience, in the next chapter,
we shall have the like occasion to premise.
For the present ; that searching, examining, and judging power of the word
now in hand, he expresseth by an alJUiion to the anatomy of bodies; which
Chap. VIII. ] a child of light walking in darkness. 273
then, though not so frequently as now, was yet in use ; or else to the cutting
up of the sacrifices, whether those of the Jews or as it was used among the
lieathen, especially by the soothsayers, who curiously searched into every in-
ward part, as we find in the prophet Ezokicl, chap. xxi. 21 : and his similitude
stands then, that look, what the entrails are to a sharp sword, or sacrificer's
knife, or the like instruments of anatomy in a strong and skilful hand, such
are all the most inward and secret parts of the heart, even those which are
most difficult to be divided, unto this sword in God's hand, when he is
pleased to use it to search heart and reins, and to discover and bring forth
to judgment the secrets thereof He can use this sword not only to unrip
and strip off the outward clothes of outward and formal actions, and so pre-
sent the soul naked, as his expression is, ver. 13 ; nor only to flay off all the
skin, to excoriate, and so to see what lies under it, as the next word there,
7i7^a-)(r^Xinij,i\,a., which is translated ' opened,' doth sometimes signify ; but,
further, to cleave and cut up to the back-bone, for even so deep doth the
signification of that word reach, that so all the inwards may appear, and
this so curiously divided and laid asunder, as to see and view apart what is
in each. ' It pierceth to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.' By which,
grace and corruption are not so properly here to be understood, for then he
would have rather said flesh and spirit ; and besides, the persons he speaks
this of are principally those who shall be found secret unbelievers, who have
not spirit in that sense at all in them ; but they are here used to express
those two main powers of the heart : the soul, — that is, the inferior part, that
more sensual part, wherein the afi'ections are, as 1 Thess. v. 23 it is also
used, — which it divides by discovering how close and inordinately all those
affections cleave to sin ; and then of the spirit, — that is, the superior part, of
the understanding, conscience, &c , — which it rips up by discovering how
these plot and contrive the accomplishment of sin. ' Dividing ;' that is, dis-
covering apart, with difference, how things are carried severally in each :
and withal, what correspondency and intercourse there is between these ; how
sin and all our actions pass through them from the one to the other, even as
blood and spirits do through the veins and arteries, in all the parts from
each to other. And as in the body there are several regions, as anatomists
call them, divided by partitions : the vital parts in the upper loft next
the neck, in Avhich are lodged the heart and lungs; the natural parts
in that lower, and these divided by the midriff, as by a floor between them :
so in the soul — to which haply Solomon alludes, when he calls the several
powers of it ' the chambers of the belly,' Prov, xviii. 8, as some read it —
there is the sensual part of the affections, the soul, &c., which is, as it were,
in a distinct room from that more sublime and spiritual part, the spirit.
And as the ' spirit of man ' — that is, the conscience and understanding of a
man — ' searcheth all those chambers,' as it is there, (that is, ' knows what
is in man,' as the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. ii. 11; which yet when it doth so
it is not by an innate light, but with God's candle, as Solomon's expression
there is ; that is, by the word and the light thereof set up by him in it :) so
here, the word, under another similitude, — namely, of a sword, — is said to
cut up and to discover all within those several regions. And in the spirit
it is said to discover what can be imagined, most retired and withdrawn, and
so locked up as no eye could find it out, which he expresseth by mentioning
such parts as are most inwardly seated of all other : the marrow, which we
know is enclosed within the bones ; and the joints, or ligaments by which
the joints are knit and move ; these it unbares and discovers also. Both
which he interprets in the next words, ' and is a discoverer of the thoughts
VOL. IIJ- 8
274 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT 1
and intentions of the lieart,' which are a more plain interpretation of what
he had expressed by those two metaphors. The utmost intention and end,
in all our actions, that is as the marrow; because as the marrow gives mois-
ture to the bones, so by these our ends, all our jjurposes and resolutions, by
which we are supported in all our actions, are strengthened and confirmed.
And then our devising thoughts or plottings, our contrivements and machi-
nations, those by which we artificially do connect and hang together many
joints of means to accomplish and bring to pass our intentions, — which
thoughts of all others we strive to hide and conceal, — these are as the joints,
or (as the word aoiLui rather implies) as the ligaments, and the sinews, and
the tendons by which the joints do move; so these are they upon which our
designs do move and turn : even aU those cogitationes compaginatoe, plotting
thoughts, the word it discovers and cuts up, and also judgeth and examineth,
and passeth sentence upon them ; yea, and that so exactly, as not the small-
est fault can pass imcensured by it. It is as a curious critic in this review :
x^irr/.oc, it judgeth exactly, as critics use to do. So as by this anatomy
which the word makes, all things in man, every creature, even the least Jibra,
the smallest sting in the heart, which would escape the sight of the most.
exact anatomist, are all ' naked and opened,' and cut up, ' before the eyes of
him with whom we have to do.'
The reasons why God hath reserved this to himself are : —
1. It was for the glory of God that he should have one private cabinet
among the creatures, which he alone should know and keep the key of,
which might argue his omniscience; as also one place to be sanctified in,
whither no creature's eye could pierce : that so the greatness of his glory
might appear, namely, in this, that he is not worshipped outwardly only, as
great ones are, but inwardly, 'in spirit and truth;' and that his glory is
such as commands the inward parts, which no eye seeth but his own : so as
a man will respect God so much as to sanctify him in secret when no crea-
ture looks upon him.
2. That God alone might be the judge and rewarder of men's ways, and
so looked at by them, to whom alone men must give an account; which
would draw the creature's eye alone upon him, when the strength and first-
born of all our actions are his subjects alone, and do come under his eye
and view. Therefore it is said that he ' rewards men according to their
works, whose heart he knows.' It was fit that he only should take upon
him to reward who only could know the principles of all actions ; in which
the chief of the good or ewll in the action lies. This is the great glory of
God and Christ at the day of judgment, that 'they will discover the secrets
of aU hearts,' 1 Cor. iv. 5. It is not said so much of men's actions, that
they shall be then discovered, as that the secrets of their hearts ; for therein
lies God's glory, which he will not give to any other.
This premised as a most necessary caution, I come to the disquisition of
that query mentioned : How, and how far, Satan may come to know so much
matter against us whereof to accuse us 1
1. In general, it may be considered —
(1.) That he knows what ends, and intentions, and thoughts, and lusts
such corrupt hearts as ours usually produce and bring forth in aU men ; and
therefore can imagine what by-ends, &c., may be stirring in such and such
actions, and so lay them to our charge ; and so often hit right therein, and
speak a man's heart thus at random. For our natures are apt to bring forth
' aU concupiscence,' as the apostle says, Rom. viL 8. Therefore if there were
no more than he knows all temptations common to man's nature, he might
Chap. Vlli.J a child of ligut walking in daukness. 27o
go far in accusing every man ; he having keys of all sorts, sorted to all men's
spirits, tries with every one which will enter. And as David's elder brother
charged David, when he came into the wars, * This is the pride and the
naughtiness of thy heart,' guessing at his by-ends in it, so doth Satan ; he
often in like manner charges us by guess. Thus he did Job ; ' Doth Job
serve God for nought 1 ' He knew such by-ends were in mens hearts, and
so ventures to lay them to Job's charge also.
(2.) Though he should know very little of us, yet he may from some one
particular which he doth know or suspect, cast in a suspicious thought about
a man's estate ; and so set the jealous heart a- work itself to search out
more matter against itself. As in case of treason, the least hint given by
some one sets the state a-work to examine the bottom of the business, and
so to get all out. So as Satan often gives and casts in but a scruple, which
proves as a theme for the heart itself to dilate upon, and the conscience upon
inquiry finds matter against itself to prove and increase that surmise. — Thus
in general. But —
2. He may more particularly know much against us to accuse us of, and
so frame bills against us out of what he knows, and this first supposing he
had no access to our inward parts, and that he had no further way of know-
ing of us than men hare one of another, it being made the limits of man's
knowledge, by God to Samuel, to 'judge by outward appearance;' yet all
those advantages which men have to know one another by, he hath over us,
more than any man can have, and all more eminently. For —
(1.) Those spirits can discern all corporeal actions, though not of all men
at once, — for then why should Satan travel up and down the earth to review
all in it '? — yet in that distance is proportioned unto them. They understand
not only by innate inbred species, but some things per species acceptas a rebus.
They learn daily. Thus ' by the church,' the good angels are said to ' learn
what they never knew before of the mysteries of the gospel, Eph. iii. 10.
And though those species in them, and their manner of knowing corporeal
things differs from ours, yet they are analogical with ours, and we no more
know the manner how they should receive species a rebus corporeis, the
images of all things done by bodily substances, than a blind man can ima-
gine how men that see should receive in colours. Yet this we may be sure
of, that all that the senses or mind of man can know, that they can also, for
natural things are all clebita objecta, clue objects made for them : for they
were therefore made to be discerned by intelligent creatures ; and if by any,
then by the most supreme and intellectual natures.
(2.) They make it their business to study men ; it is their trade to go up
and down and consider men : ' Hast thou not considered,' says God to Satan,
* my servant Job r Satan useth to consider and study men; and as the
Apostle exhorts to ' consider one another to provoke to love,' so Satan con-
siders men to provoke to sin, and to tempt for sin unto despair.
(3.) He may be privy to our vocal confessions of sins to God or men ; unto
our laying open our own hearts to God in private prayers, or to others in
trouble of conscience : therefore so much of the heart as is this way disco-
vered he can and doth know. And why may not God permit him, and give
him the liberty and advantage to accuse us, even of that which he comes to
know by this means % It being for the trial of his servants, especially in
case they have returned again to those sins which they confessed, and yet
have not forsaken ; it is just that then as the guUt of former sins returns upon
us in such a case, so that Satan should be permitted afresh to charge us with
them ; and that, in this case, a man should lose the privilege of sigillum
276 4 CHILD OP LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaUT I.
confessionis, of the secresy and seal of confession, as I may so speak. And
if God may permit a man to whom we have confessed, according to God's
own ordinance, yet to tell things confessed, and to cast them in our teeth, as
sometimes it hath fallen out ; why may not Satan, the accuser of the bre-
thren, sometimes be permitted to lay that to our charge which he only knew
this way 1
(4.) He is and can be present at all our more retired actions, and is privy
to them, being with us at bed, board, in all companies. By means of this
he can accuse us —
[1.] Of all gross actions done that are obvious to sense ; which, indeed, are
usually the greatest matter of accusation, and do lie upon us most heavily
in such temptations, as David's murder and adultery did on him. ' My sin,'
says he, * is ever before me.' And these having pulled a man down, and put
him into prison and clapped him up, our own consciences then may come in,
with all our more privy corruptions, as lesser creditors use to do. And when
once the soul hath, by means of the accusing of one foul act, given way to
doubting, then all other privy corruptions join and oifer themselves to accuse
us also ; for they ' lie at the door,' as God told Cain, ready for such an
occasion.
[2.] Also he may by this be able to accuse us of all deadness, and drowsi-
ness, and neglect in the performance of holy duties, as want of attention and
quickness in them, for these are easily discerned by any one that is obser-
vant ; and of the want of stirring aifections, and also of neglect of holy con-
ference in all companies, and the like. If a godly man were to follow a man
up and down in all companies, how much might he know of a man and be
able to accuse him of !
[3.] By such observations he may know a man's bosom sins. So he knew
and observed Judas's bosom sin to be covetousness, and accordingly sorted
his temptation to it.
(5.) By what he sees outwardly of our actions, he can many ways guess at
inward corruptions, which are the principles of them. He hath all the ways
which a wise discerning man hath, who should always watch a man, and se\
himself to study a man, and that hath opportunity to suggest when he
pleaseth, on purpose for trial and discovery ; all the ways such a man hath
to know the heart Satan hath. And that which Solomon says of a wise
man, that though ' the heart of man be deep, yet a man of understanding
will fetch it out,' Prov. xx. 5, holds true of Satan much more. As, [1.] by
comparing one action with another, one speech with another ; so wise men
guess at men's ends in things, and their respects that move them. [2.] By
gestures. By a cast of a man's countenance and behaviour, men are often
discerned ; by the like may Satan see into us. Thus Joab discerned David's
pride in his command for numbering the people, so as it was loathsome in
his eyes. And if Joab discerned this by the outward carriage of the matter,
how much more might Satan, that put in the motives to persuade him to it !
The Jesuits bid those of their followers who are to deal with men, when they
talk with any whose minds they would discern, still to observe their eyes, to
see what alterations are in their countenances, as through which the mind is
transparent ; now Satan he is a good physiognomist, and he eyes a man.
[3.] Further, he himself suggesting many motives and reasons in businesses,
this way and that way, casting in many by-ends and motives to be considered
by us, he observes how the heart comes off at such and such suggestions, or
where it stuck, and what suggestion it was that turned a man this way or
that way, and fetched him off The Jews might see what moved Pilate to
Chap. VIII.] a child of ught walking in DARKNKSftf. 277
crucify Christ, because at that saying, as the text notes, that * else he was an
enemy to Ciesar,' he gave sentence. So Satan, when he stirred up David by
proud arguments to number the people, he must needs know what pride was
in his heart. Now —
(6.) Besides all this, how far he may have an insight into the fancy and the
images therein, which follow and imitate the inward thoughts of the mind,
as the shadow doth the body ; and also into the passions, which are but the
flowing and reflowing of corporal spirits, and in which the affections of
the will discover themselves ; this I leave to others to determine. For the
present, this is certain, that although all the powers of the reasonable soul be
fast locked up from him, as we shall shew, and the immediate acts which are
immanent in the soul itself utterly hidden from him ; and that, take the soul
as it is the immediate subject and root of them, so intuitive no devil can
discern them, no more than one angel can discern the thoughts of another ;
yet arguitive, and as they do transire, and appear, and are put forth in the
body and corporal organs, outwardly in actions, or inwardly in the images
of the fancy or the passions, and so, quasi in alios, and mediately, they may
be very far discerned and looked into by angels. Which yet will nothing at
all prejudge that prerogative which is given to God, when he is said alone
to know and search the heart, but give its full allowance ; nor that privilege
which is given to the soul itself to enjoy, namely, that ' none should know
the things of a man, but the spirit that is in man,' 1 Cor. ii. 11; as we shall
have occasion to shew in the Appendix to this discourse.
Besides, therefore, these advantages and ways of knowledge, somewhat
common to us men, each of other, t^ey have a further and more near way
of knowing the acts of the reasonable powers, the understanding and will,
than we men can have ; even as they have also a way of communicating their
thoughts to us in a mort intimate, close, secret manner, yet still such as falls
short of an intuitive knowledge of them. They can go into a room further
then we ; and into a room which is next the privy chamber, which yet re-
mains fast locked up unto them. As their power in all other things reacheth
a degree higher than ours, so in this also. To open this a little : —
Those reasonable powers and faculties in us, the understanding and the
will, the immediate immanent acts of which are thus in themselves fast locked
up, being yet in this life drenched in the body and bodily organs, upon which
their working doth depend : as, the understanding is joined to the fancy,
which makes parhelii, and resemblances, and shadows of those thoughts the
mind secretly conceives and forms, so as scarce any thoughts do stir but the
fancy imitates them, and acts them as far as it is able ; and the will also is
conjoined with the affections, which are drenched and shew themselves in
bodily organs and spirits, so as not any motion of the will puts itself forth,
but more or less some affections of the body do stir with it ; and therefore
affections are as well defined by their motion in the body as by their seat in
the will itself. As when anger is defined, ira est ehullitio sanguinis circa
cor, a boiling of blood about the heart ; and affections are but the Sowings
and reflowings of spirits to and from the heart.
Now both these, both phantasms and passions, aU divines do grant that the
devils may know, and that to know them they have a nearer access to us
than men can have each to other ; yea, and that they may discern them in-
tuitive, as we do things which are present before us : how else should they
work upon fancy ? And otherwise, there were no diabolical dreams ; nor
angelical neither, caused by good angels. But we find that a good angel
dictated to Joseph a great article of faith — Christ's divinity and nativity.
278 A OHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
It was done in a dream, and therefore to his fancy. So they inspired the
Sibyls, and dictated prophecies, as was said. And so the evil angels prompted
Saul's fancy. And this they do, not by creating new species and images,
but evocando, calling forth the images there already. For the images of
things in the fancy being corporal species, they can no more beget a new
corporal image than they can make a body anew. And therefore, all the
power of the angels cannot cause a blind man to dream of colours.
And therefore, their way in communicating their suggestions to us herein
must be by discerning the species, to \Ai, of all words heard or read that lie
in the fancy already ; and so by ordering and composing them, even as a
compositor in printing doth his letters that lie confused before him, into
words and sentences, to represent to the reader's eye what he would have
read by him : so he to the understanding, which doth naturally print off and
take the impression off from the fancy of whatever is in it as fast as he doth
set them. And by the like reason, that he can call these phantasms forth,
and so view the species and images laid up there already, to set them thus
as he pleaseth ; by the same reason it must be supposed that he is as able to
discern any of them in the fancy at any time, then when reason itself calls
upon any of them, and maketh use of them, as it doth whenever it sets itself
to think or muse. And these and all other operations of the sensitive
powers they may view and see as truly, for aught I know, and as intuitively
even, as we see colours and species of things in the eye of a man. So as
these evil angels may, when God permits, get into the head, and see all the
images and species in the fancy, and those that are in direct conjunction with
the understanding, which it is then thiiiking and musing of ; even as a mar
doth what images are in the apple of the eye of another man ; and so by dis-
cerning those phantasms, which the understanding actually then vieweth and
maketh use of, he may then judge what the mind is musing of And again —
2. As we discern men's passions when they dye and affect the outward
parts, as if shame dyes the face red, or fear paints it white ; so may the
angels more secretly discern the motion of them within us, which is the
cause of this alteration without. They can go further than we men can;
they can see the inward commotion of the spirits in our inward parts, even
in their channels and springs, as in that boddy heart we carry within us,
and in the veins and arteries, and so know Avhat affections are stirring. And
this is evident by this, in that they are able to work upon the passions
also. Now, their power of working upon these affections ariseth from their
knowing them, and skill to move and stir those spirits and humours elec-
tively, wherein these passions are seated. And herein their power of dis-
cerning us exceeds that in us men in discerning other men, as that of
communicating their minds to us also doth. For as they can communicate
secretly by fancy itself, we but by outward words and signs to the outward
senses of others, so they can discern more secretly what is in the fancy, and
not only what appears in the outward parts, which is yet but a room further
that they get into, which we men cannot come to. So in like manner their
power over our passions doth exceed also. They can see into the passions
and discern the least rising of the tide, the least turn of the stream of affec-
tions in our veins, and in the corporal heart. Satan can discern those lesser
aguish fits of passion that accompany any act of the will which men discern
not. As also, they can stir those passions by working upon the humours
and spirits they float in, which men cannot come to do. But of this great
and necessary query, as also how by means of this he conmiunicates all his
temptations to us, more largely in an Appendix to be annexed to this treatise.
Chap. IX.] a child of IiIoht walking in darkness. 279
CHAPTER IX.
How able Satan is to work upon that third principle, the passions and
corrupt affections, and bring home his false conclusions with terrors.
Thus we have seen how able Satan is to work upon those two forementioned
principles, of carnal reason, and abuse it with false majors; and also upon
conscience, in laying our sins to our charge, with misrepresentations of our
estates. It remains now only, that we shew how he can stir and work upon
the passions and corrupt affections in us, and make use of them ; and so set
on all those folse conclusions — that we are hypocrites — thence deduced, with
hideous and horrid lears and terrors.
1. And in respect to these terrors, as he is called a serpent, as was said,
for sleights, and cunning reasonings, and wiles ; so likewise a lion, of all
beasts the strongest, Isa. xxxviii. 13.* A roaring lion, of all the terriblest,
and most terrible in his roaring; whose roaring is therefore often in Scrip-
ture put to express the working of dreadfulness and horror ; ' The lion roars,
who will not tremble V Amos iii. 8. And, as some have observed, and the
Psalmist seems to intimate it, Ps. civ. 21, by his roaring he strikes such
horror and amazement into all other beasts, as they stand still as exanimated,
and so he seizeth and preys upon them as he pleaseth. And in this respect
also of his working on the passions is it thr,t those darts beforementioned
are principally called fiery; namely, for that dolour, and anguish, and in-
flammation, and combustion they cause through the distempering the affec-
tions. Those fears which our own hearts engendered within us were but as
smoke; these darts of his put a fire into them, and do cause them to flame
and blaze. The allusion is to the poisoned darts which the Scythians of old,
and other nations now, use in war, dipped in the blood and gall of asps and
vipers ; the venomous heat of which, like a fire in their flesh, killed the
wounded by them, with torments the likest hell of any other. Which Job
also alludes to, chap, vi, 4, ' The arrows of the Almighty are within me : the
poison,' or, as others read it, the heat and fervour ; we may use both, and
read, ' the hot poison thereof drinks up my spirit,' even as fire preying upon
moisture. And what were those arrows he speaks of there but terrors?
So it follows, ' the terrors of God,' &c. In the same phrase of which that
Corinthian is said to have been in danger to have been drunk up — -/.aravodf —
as the word signifies, with over-much sorrow, when Satan had to do with
him, 2 Cor. ii. 7 ; and the same word is again used of the devil, 1 Pet. v. 8,
'seeking whom to drink up.' So that as Satan inflames other members, and
the inordinate lusts in them, with a superadded natural vehemency and
violence ; as the tongue, which, though of itself full of poison, is said to be ' set
on fire from hell,' James iii. 1 G, that is, from Satan, (who is called hell, as in
that speech, 'the gates of hell;' as the good angels, the noblest creatures, are
• It seems clearly to be not Satan, but God himself, that is so designated in thia
pa.ssiijife. — Ed.
280 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaUT I.
called heavens, Heb. vii. 26,) he inflaming men's tongues with an overplu?
of venom and malice, to wound men's names with ; even as on the contrary
the Holy Ghost did set on fire the apostles' tongues with zeal. As, I say,
he doth thus inflame other members, so in like manner he can and doth put
fire into those darts he wounds the conscience with; and thereby augments
our fears and griefs, and causeth such disquietments and pangs, as that hell-
fire, as it were, begins to flame in a man's conscience. As Christ is that
' brazen serpent,' so Satan is that ' fiery serpent ' that can sting us by the
guilt of sin.
And here I must bring in the like caution as I used in the former chapter ;
namely, that he works not these terrors by immediate impressions upon
the conscience, which in that respect is subject to God's stroke alone, as to
his knowledge alone. Which, as I intimated, I take to be that other prin-
cipal part of the drift of those words, Heb. iv. 11, 12, 'The word of God
is quick and powerful,' &c. For there he sets forth Christ to us, as was
shewed, as a judge completely enabled for vengeance against us, not only in
respect of an omnisciency to iind us out in all our shiftings, but also, because
a judge would not be much feared if he had only skill and knowledge, though
never so much, to search and find out the guile and guilt of malefactors, if
he were not armed with power to avenge and torture them ; therefore withal,
the Apostle's scope is to strike terror into their hearts in respect of that ven-
geance he can execute. And therefore his aim is to exhort them not to dally
with God, or with his word ; in which he had sworn, of those that believed
not, ' they should not enter into his rest,' in the former verse. So as the
purport of the words must necessarily also be supposed to be to shew the
dreadful power of God, and of his word, in avenging itself upon the con-
temners of him and it, and not merely to describe his conscience, and know-
ing of the heart, but as joined also with power to pierce as deep in wounding
of the soul as in knowing of it. Yea, and that so large an illustration of his
knowledge is brought in but as a clearer demonstration of his power to pun-
ish, who can dive so deep into our hearts. As from whence we might argue
and fear the stroke of that sword in his hand whose eyes are so piercing.
And accordingly to set forth the dreadfulness of this his power, all those his
expressions there used do as fully tend, as to set forth the other ; and he like-
wise useth such a comparison as, both in the nature of the things and accord-
ing to the more usual phrase of Scripture, doth more proj)erly and abun-
dantly intimate this slaying and wounding of men's souls that should be dis-
obedient, by this his sword, than that other of searching the soul and spirit.
As—
(1.) This word, says he, is quick and lively ; so called not in respect of dura-
tion only, as abiding ever, but in respect to working and execution. Things
that are exceeding operative, though inanimate, we call quick ; so quick-
silver, which runs through a man's bowels like hail-shot : and so oppositely,
drugs and drinks that have lost their virtue, and are ineflfectual, we call dead.
And in respect to this energy and power to work upon men's hearts, is that
in John vi. 63 to be understood. 'The words I speak,' says Christ, 'are
spirit and life :' that is, are full of an operative principle. For an active
working principle we use to call the spirit, as the spirit of wdne, &c. In
that therefore he says the word is quick, he notes out that that word is in-
spired with a principle, most quick, spiritual, and active, and fit to work aa
occasion is ; that is, even with the Holy Spirit, who is as the internal form of
it. And therefore —
(2.) Having thus intimated this internal form of working, he adds evipyr,;,
Chap. IX.] a child of light walking in darkness. 281
powerful and miglity in operation, as noting out that power which flows
from thence — that ability to produce strange effects upon the soul. These
expressions carry report of more than of a skill and dexterity to search and
know the heart only. And then —
(3.) He further instanceth in such operations of it, as the effects of that
power, which are most dreadful, as the comparisons he useth do import :
' more piercing than any two-edged sword.' Now, as elsewhere the word is
compared to an armoury of all sorts of weapons, and engines for war and
vengeance, — 'The weapons of our warfare are mighty,' &c., 2 Cor. x. 4, — in
like manner here he moi'e particularly resembles it to a sword, the most
usual and most terrible of all the instruments of death which were then in
use ; the brandishing of which strikes paleness and horror into a man ere
the stroke comes at him ; which is usually put in Scripture to express ven-
geance, and more especially in the prophecy of Ezekiel. And also Ps. vii.
13, 'If he turn not, God hath whet his sword, and prepared his instruments
of death;' that is, to inflict torments, and eternal torments also, as Deut.
xxxii. 42. And indeed, whatsoever doth torment, or cause dolour and
anguish, is in Scripture called a sword ; and the ' piercing with a sword ' is
used to express the most exquisite dolours : as Luke ii. 35, ' Yea, a sword
shall pierce through thy soul also ;' speaking to the blessed mother of Christ,
and of that her anguish and grief, wherewith she should be cut even to the
heart, when she should behold her Son upon the cross. Of whose dolours
upon the cross likewise, the same expression is used, Ps. xxiL 20, when he
prays, 'Dehver my soul from the sword.' And in this respect the word in
Christ's hand is still, when he is spoken of as a judge, compared to a sword,
Ps. xlv. 3 ; Rev. xix. 15; Isa. xlix. 2, and so here.
And we may further observe, how, thus to strike the more terror into their
hearts in respect of the wounds and torments it inflicts, he goes further on
to exaggerate the dread thereof. He says not only that it is as sharp, but
more sharp, not than a sword of one edge, but than a two-edged sword ; not
than some, but than any two-edged sword. And further, to shew that he
speaks it in relation unto wounding, and anguish, and torment it causeth in
the soul, he mentioneth the division of such parts as are not only most hid
and inward, in relation to discovery, — for such the marrow is, being covered
with the bones, and the ligaments covered with flesh, — but which are also of
most exquisite sense, and the wounding of which causeth the greatest dolour.
He saith, it pierceth to the dividing the marrow, and therefore cuts through
the bones; for so it must needs be supposed to do, when it is said to reach
unto the marrow. Now the ' breaking of the bones ' is still put to express
those exquisite and unsupportable terrors and dolours of conscience, and
woundings of the spirit, which a man cannot bear or sustain ; for when the
bones are broken, a man cannot stand nor support himself. And the like is
also the cutting of the ligaments, the nerves, sinews, and arteries,* those
d5,ao/ that knit the joints, which are the organs of sense and motion. Again,
he says, it divideth not only the soul, — that is, the sensual part, the passions
of the mind, as wounding them, — but n xai 'Trvsu/xarog, that is, the spirit also,
which is with an emphasis expressed ; and his meaning is not so much that
it divideth the soul from the spirit, as some have understood it, but the soul
and spirit also. It is a two-edged sword, and can at one blow strike through
both ; this ' axe strikes at the root,' at the spirit, which, when ' wounded,
who can bearl' says Solomon. And then he concludes, ver. 13, that, as
* It can scarcely be necessary to point out, that the author's deficiency of anatomicaJ
knowledge in no way vitiates his argument. — Ed.
282 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAEKNESS. [PaKT I.
' before him all things are naked ;' so also nr^ayjiXigixha, that is, they lie
with their throats cut, if he but strike them dead and speechless at his feet,
as Theodoret expounds that word, which is translated * opened.' Now thus
far — that is, to this spirit in man — no created sword can reach ; they turn
edge at it : but even this the word reacheth, and that alone. So as the sum-
mary drift of all herein is the same which Christ expressed elsewhere in other
words, to exhort them to fear that God, whose sword and powerful word is
able thus alone to wound ; and ' not to fear those who can only ' wound and
* kill the body,' and but reach to the sensual soul that is drenched in it, but
cannot wound or kill the spirit, which God alone can do, and no mere crea-
ture whatsoever. And therefore, in all our thoughts and fears of Satan's
power of knowing our sins, or troubling or disquieting our spirits, as also
throughout this discourse, we are to set such bounds as that this incom-
municable royalty of God, and of his word, may be reserved unentrenched
upon ; namely, that he alone knows, and can immediately wound the spirit
and conscience. Both which at once this place held out unto us, which
made me the largelier to insist upon the opening of it.
2. But yet although Satan cannot immediately wound the conscience, and
make impressions of God's wrath upon it ; for as no creature can shed abroad
God's love, and cause the creature to taste the sweetness of it, so nor the
bitterness of his wrath, but God is his own reporter of both ; yet —
(1.) When the Holy Ghost hath lashed and whipped the conscience, and
made it tender once and fetched off the skin, Satan then may fret it more
and more, and be still rubbing upon the sore, by his horrid suggestions and
false fears cast in. And —
(2.) He can, by renewing the experimental remembrance of those lashes
which the soul hath had from the Spirit, amaze the soul with fears of an
infinitely sorer vengeance yet to come ; and flash representations of hell-fire
in their consciences, from those real glimpses they have already felt, in such
a manner as to wilder the soul into vast and unthought-of horrors. And
then —
(3.) He can bring home all the threatenings that are thundered forth in
the word against hypocrites and men unregenerate, and discharge them all
with much violence and noise upon a poor doubting soul. He can and doth
present and shew his prisoners those terrible chains, and racks, and other
'instruments of death,' as the Psalmist calls them, Ps. viL 13, which God
hath prepared against sinners, and hath stored up in that great armoury of
his word, which he ' hath in a readiness to revenge all disobedience,' 2 Cor,
x. 6. With the rattling of which chains, <fec., Satan can make a noise in the
conscience of a poor sinner, to affright him. Which he is the more enabled
to do, out of experience of such terrors in himself; 'being bound up in
chains everlasting, under darkness, to the judgment of the great day,' Jude
6. And as a son of consolation and child of light is enabled ' to comfort
others the more, by the comfort wherewith he hath been comforted of God ;'
so this prince of darkness is the more powerful to terrify weak consciences
that are ensnared with the cords of their own sins, by reason of the terrors
which he hath received from the Lord. And therefore in Scripture, as a
power in sin is attributed to him, so the 'power of death,' as Heb. ii. 14;
where by death is meant not so much that bodily as that eternal death, to
which, as the proper punishment of sin, the guilt of it doth bind us over.
Which power of his is not that of the judge in sentencing to death, or cast-
ing men to hell, which is a special flower of Christ's crown ; who. Rev. i. 18,
' hath the keys of hvll and death' at his girdle ; and of God's, who is there-
Chap. IX.] a cuild of light walking in darkness. 26o
fore only to be feared, because ' he only can cast body and soul into hell.'
Nor is it as if he were the main tormentor and executioner of men's souls,
after that great day, seeing that they are to be tormented by that fire which
in common ' was prepared for the devils ' themselves. And who is it that
doth torment them? It is therefore principally meant, [1.] of that power
and advantage he obtained over sinners when he had seduced them ; so as
to come boldly as a pleader against them, enabled with authority to urge
God's righteous law and word, and to call upon, and to provoke his justice
to condemn poor sinners, and adjudge them unto death : until Christ, that
righteous advocate, despoiled him of those his pleas and power, by that satis-
faction of his, which before the law had put into his hands ; and so he
* destroyed him that had the power of death,' enervating all his pleas and
teiTors. And, [2.] the meaning is, that as he hath this power in God's court
over the sentence of death upon poor sinners, so also in our consciences, to
urge the law upon us, and to plead all that the law says against them that
are under the law, and to put us into the fears of that death threatened
therein ; and to increase in us the fears of that death, by presenting to us
the terrors of the law, unto which, in respect of natural conscience, men of
themselves are subject all their life long. And unto this latter power hath
that ' power of death ' there especial reference ; for those words, ' and deliver
them who through fear of death were subject to bondage all their life long,'
follow in the next verse, ver. 15. And because the children of God, whilst in
this life, as they ' know but in part,' so they love but in part, and so far as
love remains imperfect, so far ' fear, which hath torment,' keeps possession ;
for it is 'perfect love only that casts out all fear,' 1 John iv. 18: hence
therefore, so far as slavish fear remains, so far they may be subject to be
terrified by him that hath power of death ; and that over all those that are in
any degree subject to the fear of it whilst in this life. And —
(4.) He can immediately, by his own power, stir the passions of fear
and grief, tkc, excite them beyond nature, as the winds can raise the bUlows
in the sea, and make the floods to make a noise ; so can he a tumult in the
affections, and put all the soul into a hurry and violent perturbation. He is
the prince of the airy part of the little world in man, as weU as of that ele-
mentary region in the great world ; and so can raise unnatural storms and
vapours that shall darken reason, and cause such thunders and lightnings as
shall hurl all into a black confusion, such as if hell and the soul would pre-
sently come together. And though it is true that he cannot turn the stream
and current of our affections back, — God only can turn this Jordan back, —
yet he can drive them faster, and cause them to swell above their natural
channels ; that as a man possessed hath the strength of ten men in him, (as
that man, Luke viiL 29,) so shall the affections have that are blown up by
him, as we may see in David. What a strong mind do we find in him, so
needlessly to number the people, 2 Sam. xxiv., against all reason as well as
religion, and the persuasion, yea, opposition, not of Joab only, but others
also of his counsellors, ' the captains of the host !' A man would wonder that
a man so holy and wise should be so transported to do an act so fooUsh, as
himself saw afterwards : ' I have done very foolishly,' says he, ver. 10 ; yea,
and so grossly sinful, as that it was abominable in the eyes of Joab, 1 Chron.
xxL 6, one that seemeth by his other carriages to have had but nature in
him. But the devU was in it ; so ver. 1, ' Satan provoked David to num-
ber the people,' by raising up such an affection and inclination in him.
The like appears in the affection of love ; which how strongly hath Satan
drawn forth in some, even to madness, towards such as before, and also after
284 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
his fascination was overpast, they have loathed and hated above all others,
is evident in stories by many instances. And as he can raise up other pas-
sions in us, so also fears and terrors, jealousies and distrusts ; to ' fear where
no fear is.' And thus he handled Saul, when God left him to him : ' An
evil spirit from the Lord troubled him,' or, as most read it, and our margin
varies it, ' terrified him,' 1 Sam. xvi. 15. And in the raising up of these
affections of fear, and the like, he works more than simply morally, — that is,
than by bare propounding such objects as shall move them, which men can
only do, — but, further also, physically, by stirring such humours in the body,
which such passions do act and stir in. And so those humours in the body,
which shall put a man into a timorous and trembling disposition, he can
electively work upon as he pleaseth.
And then also, he can disturb the phantasms in the head, the organs of
the understanding ; as in him, Luke viii. 35, who, through Satan's working,
is intimated not to have been ' in his right mind.' And when he hath thus
distempered and disordered all in a man, and put a man to such dispositions,
to fears, (fee, then he comes with his suggestions, and speaks nothing but of
wrath and terrors, and of the threatenings, and of the heinousness of a man's
sins, the fearfulncss of God's wrath, unto that conscience that is troubled.
And then look, as when a man's choler is up, every small thing provokes
him ; so now, when fear and melancholy are excited, every suggestion, every
surmise doth strike the soul through and through with horrid fears and
jealousies. And thus, though not immediately, yet through the means of
these mists and vapours, and fogs raised, which environ and darken this sun,
he works upon the conscience ; and therefore we see, by experience, that he
prevails most in this sort of temptations vdth melancholy tempers, whom,
dwelling in dark shops, he much deceives with false colours and glosses.
And when once affections are up and do cloud the mind, then multitudes of
troublesome thoughts arise, and every suggestion suitable to that jjassion
takes and prevails with a man's spirit ; as appears by that speech of Christ,
Luke xxiv. 38, ' Why are ye troubled,' or afraid, ' and why do thoughts arise
in your hearts 1 ' Passions, like to heavy weights hung upon a clock, do not
only make the wheels, the thoughts, move faster, but also pervert them and
wrest them the wrong way ; so as to a heart thus distempered all things
come to be presented amiss, even as to a bloodshot eye all things seem red.
In a word, as he deludes his enthusiasts by setting on and backing their
false opinions and illusions with joys and ravishments of spirits* which differ
as much from the joys of the Holy Ghost, which are unspeakable and glori-
ous, as heaven from earth ; so he can and doth back his false reasonings and
accusations to holy men about their estates with abundance of terror and
disturbance, which also differs as much from the impressions of God's vvTath
made immediately by the Spirit upon the conscience, as those joys are found
♦« do.
Chap. X.] a child of ught walking in darkness. 285
CHAPTER X.
The conclusion of this discourse about Satan. — Seven advantages, in common,
Satan hath over us in all those forementioned dealings.
And for a general conclusion to this, and all the rest of this discourse about
Satan's working on us, I will but only mention some of those great and many
advantages he hath in all these his false reasonings and accusations over us,
for to set them on, and to f isten his slanders and false conclusions thence de-
duced, and to persuade the mind of them. Which I therefore bring in here,
as being common to all those particulars which have been related.
1. It is no small advantage that he can familiarly and frequently suggest
them again and again unto us. The frequency of any thought that comes in
again and again, that lies by us and haunts us, hath secretly the force of an
argument to persuade us to think it is so. We use to say, I have thought
so again and again. A cunning flatterer, that is continually suggesting, and
taking all hints and occasions so to do, may at last put hard to work out
a near and a dear friend, and to make one jealous of him. As the judge
yielded to her importunity, Luke xviii. 5, so is the mind apt to yield to a
suggestion that haunts it, and importunately presents itself, yea, though it
be to pass a false sentence against a man's self And —
2. He can also, and doth, represent a multitude of reasonings and con-
siderations together at once, aU tending to confirm the same persuasion. He
will sometimes bring in a cloud of witnesses and instances to prove us hypo-
crites, and environ the mind round about with them, that, look which way it
will, it sees nothing else. As he represented to Christ ' all the glory of the
world in the twinkling of an eye,' so he can do a man's sins, &c. ; that a man
shall have a general prospect of them, and see nothing else, look which way
he will. And what force this must needs have to prevail with the mind and
judgment to assent, experience shews. As when a man doubting of a truth
in a thing controverted, reads an opposite party, presenting aU that can be
said for the other side alone, it often staggers him, and for the present wins
and gains his opinion to that side, tUl he reads and considers what is said to
the contrary ; yea, though a man is confirmed and settled in the truth, yet
sometimes a man shall have an army of arguments on the other side come
in upon him, so ranked and ordered as for the present shall shake and stagger
him. And so it must needs be in the agitation of this great controversy about
a man's estate, when Satan shall muster and marshal up an army of objec-
tions at once together, and not scatteredly ; as he is able to do.
3. He is able to hold the intention of the mind so to them, as to keep off
all that which should any way comfort : he can turn down that column in
the leaves of our heart wherein grace or anything that may comfort is writ-
ten, and turn over only, and hold our eyes fixed to read nothing but that
other wherein our errata and sins are written ; so as to cause a man's soul
to 'forget all good,' — as, Lam. iii. 17, the church in desertion is said to do,
286 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT L
— and to ' forget his own mercies,' as Jonah speaks. He can multiply sugges-
tions so fast, and come in with such a tempest, that as Job complains, chap.
ix. 18, he will not ' suffer them to take breath.' And therefore the Apostle
calls them the ' buffeting of Satan,' 2 Cor. xii. 7 ; because, like unto buffet-
inga they come in thick and threefold upon a man's spirit, so as a man's
spirit cannot take breath. He rains down temptations sometimes, not by
drops, as in ordinary rains, but by spouts, as mariners call them, when a
cloud melts, as in hot countries, suddenly, and falls by wholesale, and often
sinks a ship. ' He breaks me with a tempest,' says Job, in the place fore-
mentioned. He speaks it of God, but such like tempests Satan also raiseth.
4. He adds weight to his lying accusations and false reasonings by an im-
perious and obstreperous affirmation that so it is ; he suggests not reasons
only that are fitted to persuade, but sets them on with words of affirmation
therewithal suggested. And so, like as in reasoning a weak spirit is often-
times borne down by a stronger, not by force of argument so much as by
strength and violence of spirit ; for many, when the ' iron is blunt,' and their
arguments ' want edge, put to the more strength,' (as Solomon speaks, Eccles.
X. 10,) and so prevail; and so doth Satan, he being a spirit of greater
strength than ours by creation, and guUt also further weakening us in
arguing with him. Cunning pleaders may so argue the case, with such vio-
lence and confidence, that as Socrates said when his accusers had done, that
if he had not been very innocent he should have suspected himself guilty ;
how much more, when the accusation shall fall upon persons that are so
guilty, as we all are, and the thing also impleaded be that which we aro
already suspicious of 1 What a man already fears he easily believes, as what a
man hopes, quod metuunt, facile credunt. We see that there falls out often in
opinions a preconceit which exceedingly sways the mind, a giving of mind
that such a thing is so or so ; and in such a case Satan can strike in exceed-
ingly to strengthen such a conceit. This I take to be implied in that phrase,
2 Thess. ii. 2, where the Apostle gives warning they should not be troubled
* neither hy spirit nor by word, to think the day of judgment was at hand.'
By spirit he means a pretence and opinion of some revelation, concerning
something which a man's own private conceit and imagination inclined him
so to think; thus, 1 Jolm iv. 1, spirit is also taken. And thus oftentimes
when Satan perceives the mind inclined to think so or so, he adds weight
unto the balance ; and so a man is given up to the efficacy of delusion. As
we see in those false prophets which the Apostle there speaks of, when he
says, * Believe not every spirit, because many false prophets are gone out into
the world.' Thus likewise those false prophets in Micah became confident
of the truth of their prophecies, ' that walk in the spirit and in falsehood,'
says the prophet, chap. ii. 11. They took up such conceits, and the devil he
joined therewith and confirmed them in them. Now, as Satan by false reve-
lations confirms enthusiasts in their opinions and conceits, so he joins with
the jealousies of believers and puts weight into the balance, strongly swaying
them to judge amiss of their estates.
5. In that he, as was said, backeth his false conclusions thence deduced
with terrors, &c., this becomes an argument to sense ; and such arguments
do exceedingly carry on the judgment in our opinion of things. A conceit
that comes in with joy, we are apt to conclude is true ; and so in like man-
ner what comes in with terror. Such impressions are as it were a seal to what
is suggested to confirm it. And as the Holy Ghost ' sealeth his instructions,'
Job xxxiii. 16, with impressions of joy, &c., so doth Satan his temptations
with impressions of fear and disquietnicnt. If a man hath a dream with any
Cll.vr. X] A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKINO IN DARKNK--S. 287
strong improsrficMi, a man is apt to give heed to it, to think there is some-
thing in it : that wliich made Nebuchadnezzar think tliere must needs be
something in tliat of his, Dan. ii., iv., when yet he had forgot what it was,
was that it made ' him afraid, and his thoughts troubled liini,' ver. 5.
G. A sixtli advantage is, that he suggests and works all these impressions
undiscerned at all by us to be from him, so as we know not but that they are
our own thoughts, yea, sometimes think that they be from the Holy Ghost,
working as the spirit of bondage in us. This is also an exceeding great ad-
vantage ; as it would be to an enemy to have gotten the opposites own
watchword, their own colours. This causeth us readily to yield and open the
gates to him. And though when the temptation is over we perceive his delu-
sion in it, yet still, because we cannot discern his suggestions from our own
thoughts when upon us, when we are in the mist and eclipse, therefore he
can come again and again with the same temptation, to-day, and to-morrow,
and the next day, and we perceive it not : which if we did, we should not
listen to it, no more than we would to one who had formerly deceived us.
Thus Ahab's prophets knew not that Satan was a lying spirit in them, for
says one of them to Micaiah, ' When went the Spirit of God from me to you 1 '
Those ' strong delusions,' 2 Thess. ii. 11, could not have prevailed upon their
minds to have ' believed a lie,' had it been discerned by them that Satan had
suggested them. Peter knew not that Satan did by him tempt his Master
to spare himself: which yet Christ perceived, and therefore caUed him
Satan.
7. Last of all, a man can no way avoid his suggestions, nor subduce him-
self from them ; neither can any take Satan off from a man but God. He
must rebuke him, none else can. A poor soul fights with Satan in this
darkness like unto a man that is assaulted by one that carries a dark lan-
tern, who can see the assaulted, and how to buffet him, and follows him
wherever he goes ; whereas the poor man cannot see him, nor who it is that
strikes him, nor be aware how to ward the blow. Therefore the Apostle,
when buffeted by Satan, 1 Cor. xii., knew not what to do, but only to have
recourse to God by prayer : for he could no more avoid or run away from
those suggestions than from himself. Nor could all the saints on earth any
other way have freed him : none, till God should cause him to depart.
288 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT I.
CHAPTER XL
The second general head : The cases wherein God leaves his unto this dark-
ness. — First, three cases extraordinary.
II. Having de.spatclied the eflBcient causes of this darkness, — the causes phy-
sical, — I now proceed to the cases wherein, and ends for which, God leaves his
children to such a condition : the causes moral. The cases, they were the
second general head I propounded to be handled ; and they are either extra-
ordinary or ordinary.
1. Extraordinary; as —
(1.) Out of his prerogative.
(2.) In case he means to make a man eminently wise, and able to comfort
others.
(3.) In case of extraordinary comforts and revelations.
(1.) "What if God will use his absoluteness and prerogative in this his dealing
with his children, and proceed therein according to no ruled case or prece-
dent ? This he may do, and, as it is thought, in Job's case he did ; who is
thought by some to be set up as a type, among the Gentiles, of Christ at his
crucifying, who was to be left by his apostles, forsaken of God, &c. And
though Job's desertion began but with his estate, children, and body, yet it
pierced further in the end, and seized upon his spirit ; this we read nowhere
of him, yet it was seen in God's withdrawing himself in the comfort of his
presence, and in Satan's making him a butt to spend his arrows on. And
yet, although the Lord had cause enough against him, yet no cause, as I
remember, is pleaded. But it is resolved into an extraordinary dealing,
wherein God took a liberty to glorify himself, by singhng out one of his
stoutest, valiantest champions, and settmg him hand to hand to wTestle with
the powers of darkness. And because Satan was, as it were, not hard enough
for him, he turned enemy himself, Job xiii. 24. None more just than he
before ; the Lord, you know, glories in him : none ever led a stricter life,
read chap, xxxi : no man kept more in awe, and that by fearing such a
desertion aforehand ; which was the only way to prevent it, for what a man
fears he prays much against ; which he expresses when, complaining, he
says, chap. iii. 25, that ' though he feared it, yet it came,' implying that it
was not ordinary; nor indeed is it so. And although Job justifies himself
too far, yet this was it which made him so stoutly to plead his own cause, that
he could find no precedent, no ruled case of the like proceeding. And
therefore Elihu, who took both God's part and Job's, and stepped up as a
moderator, and as one ' in God's stead' to decide the matter, resolves it most
of all into God's prerogative, though not without Job's desert ; yet not such
as according to which God ordinarily proceedeth, not so severely with others,
as appears by the 34th cha^jter. And to that end he set forth God's great-
ness in the 3Gth and 37th chapters. And thus also God himself, when he
Chap. XL] a oiIild of ligut walking in darkness. 28!)
camo to plead with Job about it, and to shew him a reason of it, he only
tells hiia how great a God he was, and tliercfore might do as he pleased ; and
useth no other arguments in the 38th, 39tli, 40th, and 41st chapters.
God indeed never wants a cause, nor doth deal thus where sin is not; yet,
as is said of the young man, that he was blind, ' not for his sin, nor his
parents',' yet not without it, ' but for the glor}' of God,' it was an act of God's
prerogative : so here. God hath higher ends of glorifying himself in the
patience, the victory, and the conquest of such a champion as Job was ; and
of confuting the devil, who accused him of not ' serving God for nought;' the
falseness of which to demonstrate, God tries conclusions vdih him : as also
to confute the opinions which in those days were generally received, as may
seem by his friends' arguings, and also by the 73d Psalm, that godly men
did prosjicr and flourish outwardly, according to their godliness. For these
and the like reasons God did it. However, Elilm gives Job this good and
seasonable counsel, to make this use of it, to ' search into his sins,' chap, xxxiv,
31, 32. And God might well take liberty to deal thus with Job, because
he could make him amends, as afterward ho did, in restoring double to him ;
and indeed it was but the concealmg a while of his love, as many parents
love to do by their children, and yet to shew it the more in real effects, as
God even then did, in making him more than a conqueror.
(2.) A second case extraordinary is, when he intends to make a man a
wise, able, skilful, and a strong Christian ; wise, namely, in this, which is the
greatest learning and wisdom in the world, experimentally to comfort others.
This may seem to be the reason of this his dealing with Heman. Heman
was brought up in this school of temptation, and kept in this form from a
youth, Ps. Ixxxviii. 15. He was put soon to it; and so deep lessons had he
set him, as he had like to have lost bis wits, as he says there. Yet in the
end, when God raised him up again, this Heman, who lived about David
and Solomon's time, is reckoned among the wisest of his time, and one of
the four that were next to Solomon for wisdom, 1 Kings iv. 31. So that
great Apostle was a man exposed to the same combats that others were ; he
was buffeted by Satan, 2 Cor. xii., filled with inward terrors, as well as those
without. What was this for ? Not so much for any personal cause of his
own, as to make him able to comfort others, 2 Cor. i. 4, 5. For that com-
fort which answereth a temptation in one man's heart will answer the same
in another's : when temptations have the same wards, that key which un-
locked one man's bolts will serve and answer to another's.
It is not every word that will comfort a weary soul, but only ' a word in
season,' ver. 4 of this 50th of Isaiah ; that is, which is fitted to the party's
case. Now, who are they who are furnished with such apt, and fit, and
seasonable considerations to comfort such, but those who have had the same
temptations, and have been in the like distresses'? This art of speaking peace
and words of comfort in season is the greatest wisdom in the world, and is not
learned but in Heman's school. Temptation was one of Luther's masters.
And therefore of all abilities of the ministry, Christ in this chapter instanceth
in this, ver. 4, and calleth the tongue of him that is able to speak season-
ably to weary souls, 'the tongue of the learned;' and therefore. Job xxxui.
23, to raise up one ' whose soul draws nigh to the grave,' is said to be the
work of ' one of a thousand.' Which is easily granted, if you consider the
danger of such a distress. In Scripture it is called the ' breaking the bones,'
Ps. li., because the strength of a man's spirit that should uphold it, as the
bones the body, sinks within him. Now, to be a bone-setter is not every
VOL. TIL T
290 A (JIIILD OF LIGHT WALKING IX DAUKXKSS. [PaRT L
man's skill; he must have special art and cunning, and v.'itlial a lady's hand,
as "we use to say, that is, meekness and pity; which also are never kindly
but when we have tasted the like, or may fear the like. The Apostle com-
mands them to set such a one in joint again, Gah vi. 1, xarasr/'^erE, as the
word signifies, ' lest thou also be tempted;' and it is the work of one that is
spiritual, ' You that are spiritual restore such a one.' It requires skill to
get out every shiver, to meet with every scruple, and set all straight again.
It is also called the wounding of the spirit ; so Solomon, ' A wounded spirit
who can bear ] ' Prov. xviii. 1 -1. As the power of sin wounds, so the guilt
also ; and the one as incurably as the other : and it being the spirit of a man
which is wounded, that which must heal it must be something dropped into
the heart, that may come at the spirit. And there are to be peculiar elective
plasters to heal these wounds, because these wounds are often differing.
Some objections there are that often the learnedest men never met with in
books; and Satan hath ' de\ised methods,' Eph. vi., of tempting souls de-
serted, which he useth again and again : and a man shall not know those
depths, and fathom them, unless he hath been ' in the depths' himself, as
Ileman speaks; and then he shall see such wonders of God in those deeps
which none else ever saw, and thereby gain such wisdom as to be able to
encourage others, by his example, to trust in God and call on him ; so David,
Ps. xxxii. 5, 6.
(3.) The third case extraordinary; God doth desert, in case a man hath had,
or is to have, from God an abundance of revelations and comforts.
[1.] First, in case he hAth already had abundant revelations from God. As
after that glorious testimony given to Christ at his baptism, ' This is my be-
loved Son,' &c., Matt. iii. 17 ; ' then was Jesus led aside to be tempted,' Matt,
iv. 1. He points out the time to this very purpose. In like manner doth God
often deal with the members of Christ for the season and time of their deser-
tions and temptations. This was also that great Apostle's case, 2 Cor. xti. 7,
' Lest I should be exalted above measure, through abundance of revelations,
a messenger of Satan was sent to buffet me.' That which he calls there ' the
thorn in the flesh,' that pricked him, is meant rather I think of a desertion,
and leaving hini to distress of spirit, than of a lust. For his scope is, ' to
glory in his afFiictions,' ver. 9, 10. Now if it had been a lust, it had not been a
tMng to have been gloried in. Again, it was a 'messenger of Satan,' which
imports something external ; and it buffeted him, he was as a mere patient
in it, as a man buffeted is. In the exercise of lusts our sjiirits are active.
And besides, he prayed it might depart ; which phrase would seem to note
out something external. God had took him aside into heaven, and spoke
wonderful things to him, and when he comes down again, Satan must take
him to task and batter him ; the flesh would have grown proud if it had not
been thus beaten black and blue. He had been in heaven, and heard the
langTiage of angels and saints, ' things not to be uttered;' and now he must
hear by devils the language of helL l^his buffeting, I take it, was by Satani-
cal injections.
[2.] Secondly, before God doth dispense great revelations and comforts, he
doth sometimes desert. And as before great distresses, which he means to
lead his children into, he fills their hearts with joy unspeakable and glorious,
to strengthen them against the approaching conflict, (thus God, to hearten
his Son against that great agony in the garden and combat on the cross,
transfigureth him on the mount first ;) so, on the contrary, sometimes before
great revelations and comforts, to make them sweet and the more welcome,
CilAP. XL] A CHILD OK LIGHT WALKING IN DAUKNKS3. ' 291
God usetli to withdraw liiinself then most ; thereby preparing the heart for
them, as physicians do the body for cordials. The greatest spring-tide of
comfort comes in upon the lowest ebb of distress. Distress enlargeth the
heart, and makes it thirst after comfort the more, whereby it is made more
capable of consolation ; for that rule holds usually true, 2 Cor. I 5, that ' aa
Bufferings abound, so comforts shall abound also.'
292 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [i'AUT L
CHAPTER XII.
The cases ordinary wherein God doth leave his in darkness.
2. Now, secondly, we come to the more ordinary cases wherein God dis-
penseth this darkness. Ere I name particulars, I will premise concerning
them this general rule : We shall find that God goes not constantly by the
same rule in the dispensation of them, — so as no man can say that in such
and such cases God will and doth desert men, or that he always doth so, — but
is various in his dealings herein. For some men he leaves for a while in
darkness, in and upon and immediately after their conversion ; their sun
riseth in an eclipse, and continueth so till noon, yea, till their night. On
the contrary, towards others sometimes he never shines in more comforts on
them than at their first conversion. Again, some he deserts upon a gross
sin committed ; to others he never reveals himself more at any time than
after a gross sin humbled for and repented of, thereby to shew the frecness
of his grace. So likewise, some that have less grace and have lived more
loosely, he fills their sails at death, and they have ' abundant entrance,' with
fall sail, into the ' kingdom of Christ.' Others that have walked more
strictly with God, and whose ends you would expect should be most glori-
ous, he leaves to fears and doubts, and their sun doth set in a cloud.
And the reasons why God is thus various in these his dealings is both
because spiritual comforts tend not simply ad esse, but bejie esse; not to the
absolute being of a Christian, but his comfortable well-being : and also be-
cause in respect of their dispensation they are to be reckoned in the rank of
temporal rewards ; and though light and assurance is not an earthly but a
heavenly blessing, yet it is but a temporary blessing. And therefore, as the
promises of other temporal good things are not absolute, no more are the
promises to give assurance to a believer absolute, as those to give him heaven
and salvation are. Therefore likewise, on the contrary, darkness and distress
of conscience is but a temporal chastisement, as outward crosses are, differing
from them only in the matter of them ; the one being conversant about things
of the outward man ; this of the inward, namely, a man's spiritual estate.
Hence, therefore, in the dispensation of both, though God always goes by
some rule, as in all other dealings of his, yet so as he varies and deals diffe-
rently with his children therein ; as he doth in dispensing outward prosperity
and adversity, ' setting the one against the other, to the end that man should
find nothing after him,' as Solomon says, Eccles. vii. 1 4, that is, gives such
cross and contrary opposite instances in both kinds, that men might not
' find him out ' in these way.s, or ' trace ' him, as the phrase is, Rom. xi. 33,
not so as to say certainly and infallibly what he means to do in such and such
cases. Indeed, in the world to come, he makes even with all the world, how
differing soever his dispensations of rewards or punishments have been here ;
and what is behindhand to any one, he then pays with respect to what they
have received. Thus in matter of spiritual joy and assurance, God may
Chap. XII.] a child of huiit walking in darkness. 293
vouchsafe it to one that hath not feared and obeyed him so much as one that
walks in darkness ; but then if anjti one hath received more earnest-pennies
beforeliand, and hath not walked answerably, God considers it as an aggra-
vation of his sin, as he did in Solomon, whose sin is aggravated by this,
1 Kings xi. 9, 10, that he sinned against God, who 'had appeared to him
twice.' Otherwise, if these comforts make a man, in any proportion to such
cost, more fruitful than others are, I see not but that God, who crowns his
own graces, will reward them the more ; this being one means sanctified to
some to work more grace, as afliictions are to others. Thus it is in like
manner in desertings and distress of mind ; they being a temporal punish-
ment, God is as various in them. So as one of more grace, or whom Goil
intends more grace uuto, shall be afflicted and forsaken, when one of less
shall ' reign as king,' as it is said of the Corinthians, 1 Cor. iv. 8, in case of
worldly prosperity. So he shall have peace and liberty of mind, triumph
over Satan, and hell, and discomfort ; when apostles in comparison — that is,
men eminent in grace — are, in respect of spiritual conflicts, made ' spectacles
to angels and men.'
This rule premised, the ordinary cases follow : —
(1.) First, in case of carnal confidence. Thus, Ps. xxx., David had been in
great distress of mind for a while, as appears by what is said, ver. 3, 5, that
'though heaviness be over-night, yet joy cometh in the morning;' and in this
sunshine David looks about him, and sees never a cloud appear in view that
might again eclipse his comfort. Then he grew confident, upon no other
ground but present sense, thinking it would always be so with him, and so
trusted in that comfort he had at present, as if now he could never have
been troubled so again, as in such cases good souls are apt to think : ' Now
I shall never be removed,' says David. This was carnal confidence, and
God, to confound it, hides himself again, ver. 7.
Now, carnal confidence is either —
[1.] First, when we trust to false signs shuffled in among true; which is
incident even to believers that are in the state of grace, and have good e\i-
dences to shew for it ; who yet, together with those sound evidences, do
often rake together many other signs that are but probable, yea, and which
are deceitful, and but common to hypocrites. This we are apt to do, to take
many things as infallible signs which are not. As many are said in Daniel to
cleave to the better side by flattery ; so in a man's heart, many false signs
^\-iU come in, and flatter a man, and give their testimony, and speak the same
thing true evidences do. Now God, to discover which are false, and w^hich
are not, leaves a man ; and then he will find all his false signs to leave him,
as flatterers use to do ; and to be but as broken teeth among those which
are sound and whole, to fad and disquiet him ; like reeds that break when
any stress is jDut to them, and so to run into his hand. Or —
[2.] Secondly, when we put too much of our confidence upon signs,
though true, and trust too much to comforts and former revelations, and
witnesses of God's Spirit, and to our graces, which are all but creatures, acts
of God upon us and in us. When, therefore, we let all the weight of our sup-
port to hang on these, God in this case often leaves us, ' that no flesh should
rejoice in his presence.' Or —
[3.] Thirdly, when w^e think graces and comforts are so rooted in our-
selves, that we neglect God and Christ, for the upholding, increase, and
exercise of them ; then God withdraws the light of these, that we may have
recourse to the spring and well-head. As too much confidence in the power
of inherent grace caused Christ to leave Peter to the power of sin, so the like
294 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [pART I.
confidence also in the power of grace, causeth. God to leave us to the guilt
of, and terrors that come by, sin.
(2.) The second case : for neglecting such precious opportunities of com-
forts and refreshings as God hath vouchsafed ; as for the neglect of holy
duties, wherein God did offer to draw nigh to us, the sacraments, prayer,
&c. So, Cant. v. 4-7, Christ stood at the door and knocked ; that is, moved
the heart of the church there to pay or perform the like duty in which he
useth to come into the heart and visit it ; he offered to assist her, and began
to enlarge and prepare her heart, but she made excuses. Upon this, Christ
went presently away ; only he left behind him an impression, a scent of
himself in her heart, ver. 4-6, enough to stir her up to seek him, in the sense
of the want of him ; as in desertion God useth to do.
(3.) Thirdly, in case of not exercising the graces which a man hath, not
stirring them up, &c. ; when Christians are, as it were, between sleeping and
waking, which was the church's condition in that Cant. v. 2 ; then also Christ
deserts. To perform duties with the inward man half awake, as it were, and
half asleep ; to pray as if we prayed not, (as, on the contrary, we are ' to
use the world as if we used it not ;) thus to do the work of the Lord negli-
gently, this provoketh God to absent himself; as he did there. Cant, v, 2.
And so, 2 Peter i. 9, ' He that lacketh these things,' that is, useth them
not, neglecting to ' add grace to grace,' (as the former words expound that
phrase ; and it agrees with the like elsewhere used ; as. Matt. xxv. 29, he
that useth not his talent, is said not to have it, ' To him that hath shall be
given, and from him that hath not,' &c.,) a blindness soon falls on such a
man, and he forgetteth all that ever he had, as was opened before. And,
indeed, there is no reason that a man should have present comfort of future
grace, when he neglects the use of present grace. Isa. Ixiv. 7, God com-
plains that there was ' none that stirred up himself ;' and for this ' God was
wroth.' Whereas otherwise, ver. 5, ' God meets with him that worketh
righteousness,' and rejoiceth in him that rejoiceth to work righteousness ;
God meets such^ and rejoiceth with, and draws nigh unto them. But others,
that stir not up themselves, God rouseth and stirs them up by terrors : ' He
that walketh according to this rule, peace be on him,' Gal. vi. 1 G ; not else.
Though comfort is not always the present necessary fruit of righteousness,
yet it is never without it.
(4.) Fourthly, in case of some gross sin committed against light, unhumbled
for, or proving scandalous, or of old sins long forgotten. I will give instances
of each particular : —
[1.] First, for some gross sin committed against light. An instance for this
is David ; who, though he was a man after God's heart, yet we meet Avith him
often complaining, as one that was frequently in these desertions. Amongst
other times, once in the 119th Psalm, verse 25, 28, where 'his soul cleaveth
unto the dust,' and is even at death's door, for he says, ' quicken me :' he means
it in regard of the sense of God's ' favour, which is better than life ; ' which
also is the meaning of that phrase, that his ' soul did cleave unto the dust, —
that is, was brought to the apprehension of death ; therefore, Ps. xxii. 15,
Christ upon the cross, of whom the psalm is made, cries out that ' God had
forsaken him, and brought his soul to the dust of death.' And David says
here also, that ' his soul melted, and was dissolved ; ' even all the powers of
it were loosened and failed within him at the sense of God's wrath, even as
wax melts before the fire. Ordinarily we find in Scripture no such eminent
desertion, but we find the cause of it not far off, if we read on ; so here, in
the 29th verse, 'Pteraove from me,' says David, ' the way of lying.' He points
CllAP. XI I.] A ClilLV OF LICiHT WALKING IK DARKNJiSS. 29.5
to the sore of his heart, and wherem liis grief lay. David, among other cor-
ruptions, had a lying spirit. In 1 Sam. xxi. 2, David very roundly telleth
two or three lies together, when he fled from Saul and came to Ahimelech,
who, fearing to harbour him because of Saul, asked him why he was alone ;
it being a suspicious thing that he, so great a man, should have no greater
train to atteiul him ; and did argue that he fled as a proscribed person, and
then it would be dangerous to foster him. To this he answers roundly,
' that the king had commanded him a business,' — there is one lie ; and that
' the king had commanded him secresy in it,' — there is another ; and because
'my servants should not know it, I have sent them away' to several places,
— there is a third. And again, at the 8th verse, ' I have not brought my
sword, because the king's business required haste,' — there is a fourth lie.
David went on here in a way of lying ; they were all made and deliberate
lies. Other such like speeches of his — as that, 1 Sam, xxvii. 8, 10, where he
told Achish, ' that he went against the south of Judah, and against the south
of the Kenites,' ver. 10, whenas he went against 'the Geshurites and the
Amalekites,' ver. 8 — some excuse, because those nations bordered over
against the south of Judah and the south of the Kenites, and so make out a
truth in that his speech ; but yet the last verse, that says Achish believed
David, implies that as he understood it, so David indeed meant it, as if he
had gone up against his own countrymen ; and then it can no way be excused.
These, therefore, being gross sins, sins against light, as of all sins lying
must needs be supposed to be, because it is against that truth which riseth
up in the mind, and is a sin wherein a man's mind shews art, cunning, and
Avit, and a sin which, when the truth is discovered, proves exceeding shame-
ful and scandalous ; therefore this sin, especially when it had been some
while gone on in by him, which therefore he calls a ' way of lying,' lay
heavy on him long after. Therefore he entreats God to take the load of it
ofl^ ' Remove from me the way of lying.' It was the load hereof which did
lie so heavy on him, as it pressed his soul to the dust of death, as he had
before complained.
[2.] So for the second particular, in case a sin be not thoroughly humbled
for and confessed ; or if when we committed it, we had shifts to keep us from
thinking it to be sin, or not so heinous, or were doubtful whether it were a
sin or no, and so were loath to acknowledge it to be a sin, and to burden
ourselves with it in our confessions ; but our hearts stood out rather to clear
ourselves in it, as it is likely Da\id did in the case of his murder of Uriah.
He had done it so cunningly as he thought he could clear himself and wash
his hands of it ; or it was but the chance of war, says he, that did cut him
off — ' The sword devoureth one as well as another,' — and so he excuseth it, 2
Sam, xi. 25. God in this case brings him to the rack, Ps. xxxii. It is
thought that psalm was made, as well as the 51st Psalm, upon that occasion
of this nmrder ; and indeed it may seem so, they are tuned so near together,
as might be shewn in many particulars. These sins being known and be-
come scandalous, David was to confess publicly ; as in the end he did, when,
in making the 51st Psalm, he stood to do penance in a white sheet, that I
may so speak. Now David was loath to come to this ; that murder being
done so cunningly, he could hardly be brought to confess it so much as in
secret, much less publicly. God in this case lays his hand so sorely on him
that his 'natural moisture was dried up,' as that psalm tells us ; for in men
troubled in conscience, their trouble of mind casts their bodies often into as
great heats as men that are in burning fevers. So, Ps. cii. 3, in the like fit, he
says, ' his bones were burnt like a hearth,' and this was without intermis-
236 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PAUT I.
sion, * day and night ; ' and thus he lay ' roaring,' (so he expresseth his carriage
in his torture,) like a malefactor on the rack ; though hajjly he cried out for
mercy to God, yet because not with a broken heart, God therefore accounted
it but as roaring, — that is, the voice of a beast, as it were, rather than the
voice of a man humbled for his sin. And why was David put to the rack
thus ? He would not confess and humble himself for his sin ; ' I was silent,
and yet roared,' ver. 3 ; a still, broken-hearted confession might have saved
all this torment. But when in the end ' I said I would confess my sin,'
ver. 5, and in his heart he resolved once to lay open all that sin of murder
and adultery in the circumstances of them, then God pardoned him, as you
know he did ; for Nathan coming to him, told him, as soon as but a word of
confession began to fall from him, ' that his sins were pardoned.' And yet
after that, as appears in the 51st Psalm, God did not yet 'restore comfort'
and ' the joy of his salvation ' to him, for there he prays for it in the sense
of the want of it ; not untU he had publicly confessed it also, and thoroughly
humbled himself ; it having caused ' the enemies of God to blaspheme,' God
would have a public satisfaction given.
So when the incestuous person had committed that sin, 1 Cor. v. 1, 9, for
which, as then he was not humbled, (for afterwards, in 2 Cor. ii. 7, when he
was humbled indeed, he bids them comfort him,) yet till that his humiliation
was apparent, he bids them to ' deliver such a one to Satan,' to the jailer,
to the tormentor, to the prince of darkness, to terrify him and afflict his
spirit. Now, the meaning of that delivering him up to Satan was, that he
should be solemnly excommunicated ; which, when it is performed as it ought
to be, ' in the name of the Lord Jesus,' and ■with the power of the Lord
Jesus, then, as the church cuts them off from communion with them, so
God from communion with himself, and he withdraws all fellowship with
their spirits, as was before declared, and so leaves them alone in darkness
and to desertions. And not only so, but 'delivereth them up to Satan,' not
with a commission to carry them on to more sin, — for the end propounded by
the Apostle was thereby to ' destroy the flesh,' ver. 5, not to nourish it by
provoking him to more sin, — but to terrify and afflict his conscience, and to
stir up therein the guilt of sin, and terrors for it, which God sanctifies to
humble man and to mortify the flesh. And thus when that Corinthian was
excommunicated, and given up to him, did Satan deal with him ; for, 2 Cor.
ii 7, he was nigh being ' swallowed up of too much sorrow,' and this occa-
sioned by Satan, ' whose devices we are not ignorant of,' says the Apostle,
ver. IL Now, as every ordinance hath a proper peculiar work it is appointed
for, an inward effect to accompany it in a man's spirit, so this ; and that
proper effect and inward working and event of this great ordinance of excom-
munication is terror, and surrow, and desertion of spirit, thereby to humble
a man ; even as it is the proper effect of sacraments to convey comfort and
assurance, and to convey the ' seal of the Spirit.' And when this ordinance
is neglected or omitted, when j^et gross and scandalous sins require it ; then
A man belonging to God, God himself often works thus, and inflicts tliis on
him without that ordinance. Thus he dealt with David and others after
gross sins. God inwardly excommunicates and casts them out of his pre-
sence, and from all comforts in his ordinances, although they are not refused
by men to come to them ; dealing herein as a father that is a public magis-
trate, with an unruly child, after some great misdemeanour, though he cast
him not off, yet he may send him to the jail, to be for example's sake im-
prisoned : for the jailer to take him, and to clap irons on him, to have him
down into the dungeon, where he sees no light, and into the little ease, where
Chap. XII. ] a ciiilu uk ugut walking in darkness. 207
he is in so strait a condition as he can neither sit, nor stand, nor lie, as Elihu
expresseth it. Job xxxvi. 1 6 ; he calleth it ' bringing into a strait place,' and
' binding them in fetters and cords of affliction ; and then he shews them their
transgression, and Avherein they have exceeded,' ver. 8, 9.
[3.] Yea, and thirdly, this God doth not only presently after the sins were
committed, but sometimes a long while after, and that when they have been
often confessed. Yea, and after that God hath pardoned them also in our
consciences, as well as in heaven, yet the guilt may return again and leave
us in darkness. Thus, Job xiii. 26, for ' the sins of his youth,' which ques-
tionless he had humbled himself for, and had assurance of the pardon of, yet
God did ' write bitter thmgs against him ' for them many years after, and
' made him possess them,' as himself speaks. God gave him over to the
jailer, and put him into the little-ease in prison : ' Thou puttest my feet
into the stocks,' says he, ver. 27. For as the power of sin and the law of
sin is but in part done away in our members, so in our consciences the guilt
of sin is likewise but in part done away, in regard of our apprehensions of
the pardon of it ; and therefore as those lusts we had thought dead, and
that they would never have risen again, do sometimes revive and trouble us
afresh, coming with new assaults, so m like manner may the guilt of those
sins revive which Ave thought long before had been pardoned ; and after the
commission of some new act, or forgetfulness of the old, and security about
them, God may let them loose upon us afresh, that we shall look upon them,
as if they never had been pardoned.
Now the reason of all these particulars, both why gross sins, especially if
against light, w^hen not confessed thoroughly, should yet after many years
cast us into such fits of desertion, is —
Because therein we rebel against God's Spirit ; and that Spirit, ita nos
tractat, ut a nobis tractatur, doth deal with us as we with him. If you
grieve him, he grieves you ; if you rebel against him, he fights against you
as an enemy. So, Isa. Ixiii. 10, ' They rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit ;
therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.'
Now to sin against light is called rebellion ; so Job xxiv. 13. When men go
about to extinguish and darken the light of direction which God had set up
in their hearts to guide their paths by, God puts out the light of comfort,
and so leaves them to darkness. But especially then when our hearts are so
fuU of guile, as we plead that they are no sins, or extenuate them, as David
in all likelihood did, Ps. xxxii. ; in reference to which he says, in ver. 2 of
that psalm, that 'that man is a blessed man in whom is no guUe ;' and in
the 51st Psalm, ver. 6, 'Thou desirest truth in the inward parts.' David
had dealt guilefully and deceitfully in that sin. If man keeps a sin under
his tongue, and will not be convinced of it, nor bring it forth by confession,
God in that case brings him to the rack, as they do traitors, to confess ; and
if it be that any of our old sins revive and cause these terrors, it is because
we began to look on them as past and gone, and thought we needed not go
on to humble ourselves any more for them, making account they are so
buried as that they will never rise again, whenas the remembrance of them
should keep us low and liumble us all our days. It is laid to the charge of
them in Ezek. xvi. 22, ' that they remembered not that they lay in their
blood.' We are apt to think that time wears out the guilt of sins ; but to
God they are as fresh as if they had been committed yesterday, and there-
fore nothing wears them out but repentance. Great sins forgiven must not
be forgotten.
(5.) Fifthly, in case of a stubborn, stiff spirit, under outward afflictions; w],en
£98 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT 1.
we will not mend nor stoop to God. This may be part of the case mentioned
Isa. Ivii., where God alleging the reason why he contended with a poor
soul of his, he gives an accoimt of it. Ver. 1 7, you shall see v/here the quarrel
began : ' For the iniquity of his covetousness I was \AToth ;' that is, for some
inordinate affection, which we call concupiscence ; he mentioneth not a gross
act of sin committed, so much as some lust harboured : for vrhich God began
to be angry, and to shew the effects of that his anger in smiting him, haply
with some outward cross first, ' I was wroth and smote him :' and when that
did no good, God began to be more angry, and to hide himself, ' I hid my
face;' and this he speaks of inward affliction, which he also calleth, ver. 16,
' contending with the soul,' and so far leaving it as that the ' spirit was
ready to fail.' It came to inward affliction in the end. And he further
intimates the cause of all this, ' He went on frowardly in the way of his
heart.' When lighter and outward strokes will not take us off, God leaves
and deserts our spirits, and wounds them. And the reason is, for in this
case what course else should God take 1 For either he must give him up to
hardness of heart, and leave him to his stubbornness, and so he should have
lost his child ; but that God is resolved he will not do : ' I wUl heal him,'
saith he, ver. 18. When, therefore, the heart remains stubborn under other
strokes, he hath no way left, in his ordinary course and progress in the way
of means, but to lay strokes upon his spirit, and wound that. And this yoke
is like to break and tame him, if any ; for this he cannot bear. Other out-
ward afflictions man's natural spirit, stoutness, and stubbornness, may bear,
and hath borne, even in heathen men ; they have endured anything rather
than be put out of their way — ' The spirit of man will sustain its infirmities ;'
but in this 'the spirit faUs in them,' ver. 16. Other afflictions are but par-
ticular — but as taking some stars of comfort out of the firmament, when
others are still left to shine to them. But when God's countenance is hid,
the sun itself, the fountain of light, is darkened, and so a general darkness
befalls them. And therefore then the heart is driven to God, and broke off
from all things else ; and then God delights to restore and to comfort a man
again, ' I will restore comfort to him,' ver. 18.
(6.) Sixthly, in case of deserting his truth, and not professing it and ap-
pearing for it when he calls us to do it. In this case he left many of the
martyrs ; many of whom, especially until those in Queen Mary's days, (when
with the gospel's increase, and the light of it, God gave more strength also ;)
and some then also did desert the truth for a while, and then God in respect
of comfort deserted them ; and then they recovering God's favour again upon
repentance, and a new resolution taken to stick to the profession of the truth
whatever came of it, that their desertion made them the more bold and reso-
lute. And this was in part Jonah's case, who having a commission sealed
him to go to Nineveh with a message from God, he withdrew himself, and
went another way ; and God in the midst of his security cast him into a
whale's beUy : and when he was there, God withdraws himself from him, as
if he meant never to own him more, insomuch that Jonah says, chap. ii. 4,
' Then I said, I am cast out of thy presence.' And there is this equity in
this dealing of God thus with us : that as when we are ashamed of Christ,
the punishment fitted to it is, that Christ wUl be ashamed of us ; so when
we will not witness for God, there is no reason his Spirit should witness to
us. And so, when we seem to evade persecution for the cross of Christ, then
it is meet God should meet with us, and take us in hand himself, which is
far worse.
(7.) Seventhly, in case of unthankfulness, and too common an esteem had
Chap. XII. J a child of light walking in darknjsss. 291)
of assurance, and light of God's countenance, and of freedom from those
terrors and doubtings which others are in ; which is a sin Christians are apt
to run into. For as the light of the sun, because it is ordinary, is nut re-
garded, none mind it or look at the sun, but, as he said, when it is in the
eclipse ; so a continual sunshine of God's favour enjoyed occasioneth but a
common esteem of it. And in this case God withdraws those comforts and
assurance, because they are the greatest and sweetest comforts of all other ;
and which to abuse or not to value, of all other provokes most ; therefore in
this case God takes them away. For, as Hos. ii. 9, in case of being unthank-
ful in outward mercies, God ' took them away,' and restored them not again,
till they esteemed them better, and acknowledged whence they had them ;
so also in spiritual assurance, light, and comfort, doth God in like manner
deal.
300 A CIIILU OF LIGHT WAI.KIJSG IN DAKKNKSS. [PaKT I
CHAPTER XIII.
The third general head : The ends for ivhich God leaveth his children unto
this darhiess. — First, such as are drawn from God, and his faith-
fulness, &c.
III. Now let us come to those ends which God may have in this his dealing
with one that fears and obeys him ; which are many and holy ones.
1. First, to shew his power and faithfulness, in upholding, raising up, and
healing such a spirit again as hath been long and deadly wounded with in-
ward terrors ; which is as great an evidence of his power as any other ; and
therefore saith Heman, Ps. Ixxxviii. 10, 11, ' Wilt thou shew wonders to the
dead 1 shall thy fixithfulness be declared in destruction V That is, in raising
my soul up again to joy and comfort, which is as much as to raise up a dead
man ; nay more, as much as to raise up a soul already in hell ; for the same
terrors, says he, that destroy them do in like manner seize on me. In Eph.
i. 19, it is said, that the exceeding greatness of God's power was seen in
raising Christ from death to life ; and wherein lay principally the demonstra-
tion of that power ? JSTot simply in raising his body up again ; that was no
more than he did to others. But in Acts ii. 24, the power is said to be shewn
in this, that he having ' loosed the pains of death, wherewith it was impos-
sible he should be held, he was raised uj? again.' His soul was heavy unto
death with terrors : and those pains in themselves were deadly, though not
to him, in that he being God as well as man, it was impossible for him to
sink under them. Now therefore to raise up and glorify that his soul, that
was so bruised, wounded, and pierced through and through, herein lay the
wonder ; and such a wonder God shewed in recovering Heman. And to
shew the greatness of this work, let us consider a little the depth and deadli-
ness of this kind of distress. It is compared to the ' bruising of a reed ;'
which when it is bruised, who can make it stand upright again 1 It is called
' the wounding of the spirit,' Prov. xxviii. ; which no creature knows how to
come at to heal, none but God, who is the Father of spirits, who made them,
and knows how to mend them. It is not only called the sickness of the
spirit, — as Isa. xxxiii. 24, where the want of the assurance of the forgiveness
of sins makes poor souls to say, 'I am sick;' which to heal is made the
prerogative of ' the Sun of righteousness, arising with healing in his wings,'
j\Ial. iv. 2, — but also it is called ' death and destruction ;' for so in that SSth
Psalm, Heman calls that distress that he was in. And the reason is, God'a
' favour is our life,' by which we live and are upheld ; which therefore being
■withdrawn, the soul is ready to fail and faint, and to come to nothing, and
sink into destruction, Isa. Ivii. 16. And again, the })ains of those terrors
are more violent, and more powerful to hold us under, than are the pangs of
death ; the wounds of the guilt of sin being as deadly, and as strong, as the
lusts of the power of it : and it requires as great a power to dissolve and
OUAP. XIII.] A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN I ARKNESS. 301
scatter them. Fur all the strength that the law and God's justice hath, sin
also hath to back it ; ' for the strength of .sin is the law,' 1 Cor. xv. 5G.
2. Secondly, :is to know the power of Christ's resurrection, ' so the fel-
lowsliip of his sufferings;' that thereby the soul may be made more 'con-
formable to him,' as it is, Phil. iiL 10. As there are the suforings for
Christ, so the sufferings of Christ : and God makes liis partakers of both —
persecutions without, and terrors within ; Anth which Christ's soul was filled
then whcnas the text says, ' He was heard in what he feared ; ' and ' his
soul was heavy to death ; ' and ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me ? ' and so, Isa. liii., * it pleased God to bruise and wound him.' Now
then, to conform us to his hnage, we that are his brethren, and are the per-
sons guilty, must suffer somewhat in spirit as well as he, and have a portion
therein also. And therefore, as Christ did suffer both inwardly and out-
wardly, so do many of his members : ' If you have suffered with him, ye
shall also be glorified with him.' The sons of Zebedee would have been
glorified in Christ's kingdom more than the rest of the apostles ; but says
Christ, Matt. xx. 22, ' Are ye able to drink of thejcup whereof I shall drink'?'
— he means that cup delivered to him at his crucifying ; * Let this cup pass,'
the bitter cup of God's anger, — ' and are j'e able to be baptized with the
baptism I am baptized with '] ' namely, outward afflictions and persecutions
for the name of God ; which are called baptisms, because they set God's
mark on us that we are God's, as baptism doth seal to us that we are his ;
and because then the church owns us, and takes notice of us as sincere, when
we have believed and suffered, as at baptism the church receives us. And
of this baptism Christ speaks in the present tense, because that he was al-
ready baptized with outward persecutions ; but the cup, which was iaward
affliction of his spirit, this he was to drink of at his agony — ' which I shall
drink of,' in the future ; which cup cast him into that sweat, ere he came
to the bottom. This, though no creature was able to drink off to the bot-
tom, yet taste they might; and he tells them they should, ver. 23, 'Ye shall
drink of it,' &c., that is, taste of inward affliction and desertion, as well as
of outward persecution, — terrors within and without, — and all to make us
conformable to him, and so come to know in part what he endured for us.
3. Thirdly, to put the greater difference between the estate of God's chil-
dren here, and that hereafter in heaven ; to which very purpose is that speech
of the Apostle, 2 Cor. v. 7, that here ' we walk by faith, not by sight.' He
had said before, that the estate of believers in this life is an estate of ' absence
from the Lord,' wherein we want his presence, and so enjoy not the sight of
him ; and therefore are to exercise faith the more, which is peculiar to this
estate, and a grace given of purpose for us to walk by, whilst we Kve here.
And though sometimes we have some light, and glimpses of him and his
presence, yet we walk not by sight always ; for we walk by faith, not by
sight. We shall have enough of the sight of God hereafter, when ' we shall
see him, as we are seen, face to face,' and be ' evermore with the Lord,'
' when in his light we shall see light, and be satisfied with his image.' We
may therefore be content to want it here sometimes. You may well endure
over-cloudings here, and sometimes that all sight should be taken away ; for
in the world to come there will not be one cloud to all eternity. ' Your in-
heritance is light,' Col. i 12, 13. Light is your portion, but now is the
seed-time ; and ' light is sown,' Ps. xcvii. 11, 'for the righteous.' You must
be content to let it lie under-ground ; the longer it doth so, the greater crop
and harvest will come up in the end. You must endure the vicissitude of
302 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [l^ART I.
day and night here, ' sorrow overnight, and joy in the morning ; ' for here-
after you shall have continual day and no night. This difference there is put
between earth and heaven, to make heaven sweeter, and to exercise faith :
the estate in heaven is as a state of perfect and continual health ; which that
we may prize, we are ever and anon sick here, and qualms come over our
consciences, fears our sins are not forgiven ; but when we come thither, ' The
inhabitants there shaU be no more sick, but their sins shaU be forgiven them.'
Isa. xxxiii. 24.
4. The fourth end is, to let us see whence spiritual comforts and refresh-
ings come : that God alone keeps the keys of that cupboard, and alone dis-
penseth them how and when he pleaseth. That we may know (as it is Isa,
xlv. 6, 7) that it is ' the Lord that formed the light and creates darkness,
evil and peace ; ' and that as ' affliction riseth not out of the dust,' as Job
speaks, si) nor comfort out of our hearts. Whereas if continually we en-
joyed comfort, we should be apt so to think. God will let us see that our
hearts are nothing but darkness ; and that to cause any spiritual comfort is
as much as to create light at first : therefore he says, ' I create the fruit of
the lips ; Peace,' Isa. hdi. 19, and that he it is that doth ' command light to
shine into our hearts, who con:manded light at first to shhie out of darkness,'
2 Cor. iv. G ; which can no way more fuUy be manifested than by withdraw-
ing that light sometimes, and leaving us to darkness. As why doth he
sometimes assist us in prayer, and fill the sails, and again at some times
leaves our heart empty 1 Is it not that we may learn that lesson, Rom, viii.
26, that it is ' the Spirit that helpeth our infirmities,' and that we of our-
selves ' know not what nor how to ask ? ' Which lesson, although he some-
times straitens us, yet we are difficult in learning, nor are easily brought to
acknowledge our dependence on him for his assistance. In like manner, for
the same end doth he sometimes hide, and then again sometimes reveal him-
self, to shew that he is the immediate fountain of comfort, — ' The God of all
comforts,' 2 Cor. i. 3, — that so we might know whom to thank, whom to
depend on, whom to go to for comfort : it being as difficult a thing for us to
go out of ourselves, and from the creatures, for comfort, to God alone, as to
go out of ourselves to Christ alone for righteousness. Hereby also we see,
that though we have never so many outward comforts, that yet the comforts
of our spirits do depend on God alone ; for if he in the midst of them with-
draw himself, they all prove but miserable comforters.
C^xlAT. Xi\'. I A CHILD OF LIGHT AVALKINO IN DARKNESS. 303
CHAPTER XIV.
A second sort of ends for the trial and discovery of graces ; especially of faith.
5. Other ends God hath, to make trial of our graces and a discovery of
them. Tlie same end that God had in leading his people through ' the great
wlderness, where no water was,' where ' scorpions stung them,' Deut. viii.
1 6, which was to prove them, &c. ; the same ends hath God in suffering his
people to go through this desert, barrenness, and darkness, where no light is,
and where terrors of the law do sting them, — for all those his dealings then
were types of God's dealings with his people now, — even to prove them, and
to make trial of their hearts. For the same ends as he left Hezekiah to the
power of sin in the point of sanctiiication, — namely, ' to know what was in his
heart,' — doth he also leave others of his children to the guilt of sin in the
point of justification, to discover also what is in their hearts. This is con-
ceived to have been his end in deserting Job, to shew what strong patience,
unconquered faith was in him. There be many gracious dispositions which
actually have not opportunity to discover themselves but in case of this kind
of desertion. Some of those which are the highest acts of grace and purest
fruits of it, and which are the surest evidences of the truth of grace, would
never appear but in case of such desertion. For instance, then it is known
whether a man love God for himself, and for those excellences of wisdom,
holiness, and goodness that are in him, when yet he knows not whether he
himself shall be ever the better for them, yea or no. Then also it is mani-
fested to be pure, sincere, and unfeigned obedience. Then it is seen his
repentance is true, when he repents not of it, then when he is out of hopes
of any reward for it. Then it is seen his sorrow is godly sorrow, when,
though .the sentence of condemnation is read to him in his own apprehension
and conscience, and he verily thinks he is taking his leave of God for ever,
and going to execution, yet he can down upon his knees, and ask him fi^r-
giveness, and mourneth that ever he wronged him ; is angry and disjjleased
with himself that a God so good, so just, should have so just cause to be
angry and displeased with him ; and he finds that he could have some rest
and contentment that God is glorified upon one who hath so much dishon-
oured him. Such dispositions as these would never see the light, if it were
not for this darkness. But as natura vexata j)rodit seipsam ; nature, when
conclusions are tried upon it, and it is put out of its course, then it discovers
itself, (even as anger discovers itself when a man is vexed,) as, if you would
know the properties that are in herbs, you must try conclusions with them ;
so also here doth God with a man's graces, and then they discover their
most occult and hidden properties.
It were needless to go over all particular graces ; I will but more dis-
tinctly instance in that glorious grace oi faith. Which in this trial deserves
more than all graces else, and though in all the varieties of conditions we
pass through it stands us in stead, yet in desertions it alone doth wonders ;
30+ A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESsi. [pART i.
standing like Samson, encountering and conquering alone, when there is
none to help. Because likewise, it is that grace which is called for in the
text, ' Let him trust in the name of the Lord,' as being that grace which God
principally tries, to discover the truth, and magnify the power thereof in such
desertions.
(L) First, this is certain, there is no grace God tries more than this grace
of faith. Therefore, 1 Pet. i. 6, 7, ' Ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations : that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of
gold which perisheth, being tried in the fire, might be found to glory, praise,
and honour ; ' that is, both to the honour of God who is believed in, and also
of faith itself, which is the most glorious grace a Christian hath ; which God
loves to try, to that end the glory of it may appear. In the 5th verse he
having said, that ' we are kept by the power of God to salvation,' if any now
should ask. Wherein is that power of keeping us most shewn 1 he answers,
In and through faith, ' Ye are kept by the power of God through faith.'
And if you ask, When and wherein is the power of God through faith seen
most 1 he instanceth in ' manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith,'
&c.
Now then, as of all graces God would have faith tried; so —
(2.) Of all temptations none try it more than desertion of God's counte-
nance, this of darkness and of terrors. Other temptations strike but obliquely
at faith, but these lay direct battery to our faith, for they strike at that
which is the immediate aim and object of it ; namely, that God is a man's
God. These speak the direct contrary to what faith endeavours to appre-
hend, and that directly, and not by consequence only. Again, other temp-
tations are easily borne and answered, whilst the assurance of God's favour
remains unshaken. It answers them all, and shakes them oflf, as he the viper
oif his hand ; but when that shall begin to be questioned, as in this case it
is, who is able to stand 1 And what is able to strengthen a man then but
the power of faith ? As Solomon says of the spirit of a man, that it will
bear all kinds of infirmities, if itself be whole ; but if it be wounded, who
can bear it 1 — so I say of assurance : if it be weakened and battered, the
rery foundations thereby are shaken ; a man's freehold touched, the root
struck. Now, in such a case, it is faith's pecuHar office to stand a man in
stead, when nothing else can. Therefore he says, ' Let him trust,' &c.,
because it helps thus at this dead lift.
(3.) Again, thirdly, in these conflicts of faith with desertions, consisteth
the height of our Christian warfare. This is the highest pitched battle, the
greatest, and, as it were, the last brunt, upon which all is either won or lost;
for in these a man encounters with God himself, apprehended as an enemy.
God called out Job to try him by fighting a single combat with Satan, and
he became, as I may so say, too hard for Satan alone ; and God joins against
him also. Now then, to bear the brunt and shock of his wrath, and yet to
stand upon a man's feet ; this, to the utmost, argueth the strength of faith.
Hos. xii. 3, it is said of Jacob that ' by strength he had power with God ;'
it argued strength indeed : and this is done by faith, by the power whereof,
God's power rather supporting it, a man rehes on God, when all his
dealings would argue he had forsaken a man ; that though God put on never
so angry a countenance, look never so sternly, yet faith is not dashed out
of countenance, but can read love in his angry looks, and trust God beyond
what he sees, it being the ' e\ddence of things not seen.' Then, faith goes
wholly out of itself, as seeing nothing in itself but barely a capacity of mercy
and plenteous redemption, which it knows to be in God. This faith is a.
CU<VP. Xi\'.J A 01111,1^ vf LW.llV WALKING IN UARKNKSS. 3U5
miracle of miracles, for it is founded, as the earth, upon mere nothing in itself,
and yet bears the weight and stress of sins, devil, yea, of God himself And
tliis is the faith ye are converted by, in believing then ' on him that justifies
the ungodly,' Rom. iv. 5 ; and that which we must live by when all comforts
fail : and this is that faith which must stand you in stead at death, when
the king of fears comes and besiegeth you : and this is the faith ' that is to
honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.'
30G A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IS DARKNESS. [PaRT L
CHAPTER XV.
Six ends more, for the increasing of several graces, and destroying
coiruptions.
6. Sixthly, as it makes for the trial and discovery of graces, so it is a
means sanctified to increase them, and to eat out corruptions : —
(1.) First, it is a means to destroy the flesh. The incestuous Corinthian
was to be delivered to Satan, — that is, to be terrified, — to destroy the flesh.
As corrosives eat out dead flesh, so these terrors the dead corruptions ; and
the reviving of the guilt of old sins doth Idll the seeds of those that remain
in the heart. For if an outward affliction, which crosseth but the satisfaction
of a lust, is a means sanctified by God to kill a lust ; then much more the
inward terror which the conscience feels, and which ariseth immediately from
the guUt of a sin, must needs be a means much more.
(2.) Secondly, it is a means to humble. So, Dent. viii. 16, the end of the
biting of the Israelites by scorpions — which were the types of these stings
and terrors — was, as to prove, so to humble them ; and for this end was
that buffeting by Satan we have so often mentioned, 2 Cor. xii. 7, to keep
down being exalted above measure. So also, 1 Pet. v. 6, ' Humble your-
selves under the mighty hand of God ;' and if in any other affliction his
mighty hand lays hardest on, surely in these.
(3.) Thirdly, it is a means to bring you in more assurance and establish-
ment, 1 Pet. V. 10, 'The God of all grace, after you have suffered a while,
stabhsh and strengthen you.' He knew they could not be settled till they
had suffered in this or some other kind. The tree roots itself the more, the
more it is shaken. ' Comforts abound the more that sufferings do abound.'
That light is clearest and strongest that ariseth out of darkness, because God
creates it. Those things which men doubt of most, God gives the greatest
evidence of in the end.
(4.) Fourthly, it trains you up to fear God more, and to obey him. There-
fore, in the text, these are added as the concomitant dispositions of the soul
in such a case. For of all other, these of fearing God and obeying him do
most eminently and sensibly appear in that estate : Heb. v. 8, ' Christ him-
self learned obedience by what he suffered.' The yoke tames the wanton
wildness in beasts, and makes them serviceable, breaks them ; and so do
these the stubbornness of a man's spirit.
(5 ) Fifthly, to set believers' hearts a-work to pray more and more ear-
nestly. So the Apostle's buffeting.s, 2 Cor. xii., made him pray thrice, —
that is, often. So Christ, Luke xxii. 44, ' being in an agony, he prayed more
earnestly;' and being in fear, he did lift up strong cries, Heb. v. 7. So
Heman, by reason of his terrors, was a man much in prayers, Ps. IxxxviiL
1, ' I have cried day and night befjre thee.' Christians that enjoy not com-
munion with God, yet if they think they have not lost him, they are secure
and lazy in prayers ; but if they apprehend once that their • beloved is gone,'
CUAP. XV.] A CHILI) ()!'' LUiilT WALKINC. IN DARKNKSS. .307
or that they are in danger to lose him, then they will seek him all the world
over but they will find him, Cant. v. G-8 ; and make hue and cry after him,
as the church did there.
(G.) Sixthly, it causeth them to prize the light of Gods countenance the
more when they again obtain it, and so set a higher i>rice upon it, and to
endeavour by close walking with God, as children of light, to keep it ; to
prize it ' more than corn and oil.' Cant. iii. 2, ' she loseth him ;' but at the
4th verse ' she finds him again,' and then ' she holds him,' and will not let
him go
308 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT IL
PAUT II.
Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that oheyeth the voice of his servant,
that walketh in darkness, and hath no light 1 — Isa. L. 10.
Use I.
If those that fear God and obey him are exposed to such a condition as
hath been described ; then, ' Who is among you that feareth not the Lord,
nor obeys the voice of his servants?' You that live in known sins, and in
omission of known duties, which God's servants, your ministers, tell you you
ought to perfoim ; that pray not with your families ; who make not con-
science of your speeches nor dealings, &c., — ' where shall you appear, if the
righteous be thus scarcely saved ?' If they whom God hath loved with a love
as great and unchangeable as himself, yet suffer his terrors here; what shall
you do whom he hath set himself to hate, and to shew the power of his
wrath upon, without repentance ? ' If these things be done to the green tree,
what shall be done to the dry?' Luke xxiii. 31, which is fitted for wrath
and the fire, even as ' stubble fully dry,' Nahum i. 10, as the prophet speaketh.
If such an estate of darkness and horror befall them that are children of
light, whose inheritance is light, Col. i. 12; then what is reserved for you
that are darkness, and ' love darkness more than light V And if this befalls
them for not stirrmg up the grace which they already have ; what to you
tliat are utterly devoid of it ; and not only so, but despise and scoff it %
If this befalls them for not humbling themselves for old sins, though long
since committed; what wiU befall you for going on to add new to the old with
greediness % If to them for neglecting the ojijportunities of drawing nigher
to God ; what to you for neglecting the offer of grace, and tramjjlmg under
foot the blood of Christ % All you that think there is no hell, or if there
be, that it is not so dark as it is usually painted, look upon Heman ready to
run distracted through terrors, and to give up the ghost every moment, Psalm
Ixxxviii., when yet his body was strong and outward estate whole. Look
upon David Ijing upon the wheel, and the Spirit of God ' breaking his bones,'
Psalm IL, whenas otherwise, he being a king, had all outward things at wDl.
Look upon holy Job, chap, vi., ' Oh that my grief were weighed ! it is heavier
than the sand ; and my words are swallowed up ;" — that is, I am not able to
express and utter my grief ; — ' the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the
poison thereof drinketh uj) my spirit ; the terrors of God do set themselves
in battle array against me,' ver. 4. Insomuch, that at the 8th verse he
wisheth ' God would cut him off" ; ' and, ' Is my strength the strength of
stones,' says he. ' or my flesh brass,' as he complains, that he should be able
to hold out against such fierce encounters ? My brethren, God's people find
Use II.] A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKINU IN DARKNESS. 309
pains beyond those of tlie stone, gout, and toothache ; the falling of God's
Nvratli on the conscience is more than the dropping a little scalding rheum on
a tooth ; and yet these, which Job and David felt, are but a taste of that
cup which you that obey not must drink off to the bottom ; and it is eter-
nity to the bottom. Psalm Ixxv. 8, ' There is a cup in the hand of the
Lord, and it is full of mixture,' — that is, all the bitter ingredients in the
world are in it, the quintessence of evils are strained into it ; and here in-
deed God ' pours out of the same,' as it follows there, — that is, in this life some
few sprinklings of it fall from the top of the cup, which his own do taste
and drink of; but the bottom, ' the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the
earth shall drink, and wring them out,' — that is, leave none behind ; but the
vials of it, which will never be emptied, shall be poured forth, even to the
utmost drop. And if God's people do begin to taste of it, — as Christ himself
did, it ' could not pass him,' and Zebedee's sons were to pledge him, as was
observed, — then, as God says by Jeremiah, chap. xxv. 27-29, ' If my people
have drunk of it,' and begun to you, ' and I have brought evil upon the city
that is called by my name ; then certainly you shall drink of it, and be drunk,
and spue, and fall and never rise again.' If God's people be thus shut up
in darkness, what darkness is reserved for you % Even as Jude says, ver. 13,
' blackness of darkness ;' ' darkness where is weeping and gnashing of teeth,*
Matt. xxii. 13. Blackness of darkness, because there is not a cranny of light,
nor one beam of comfort that shines in to all eternity. And this is not for
a moment, or a few years, but for ever. You ' that live many days in plea-
sure here, and rejoice in them all ; remember the days of darkness, for they
are many,' says Solomon, Eccles. xi. 8. Many indeed ! Days ! An eternal
night that shall know no end, which no day shall follow.
Use II.
Who is among you that fears the Lord and is translated out of the state
of darkness, and yet never was in this darkness of desertion which I have
described unto you 1 You that have been free from those terrors of con-
science, which are beyond all the miseries the world hath, — for as the joy of
the Holy Ghost is unspeakable and glorious, so these terrors are unutterable
and unsupportably grievous, — which yet souls that fear God and have obeyed
him more than you, have been made the anvils of; you that have been
dandled, cockered, and fed with sweetmeats, had into the wine cellar, and
have had all the Trinity to sup with you, John xiv. 23, Eev. iii. 20, when
others have eaten 'gall and wormwood,' as it is. Lam. iii. 19; and likewise
you who, though you enjoy not much ravishing joy, and ' peace which passeth
understanding,' yet, 'being justified by faith, you have' a solid 'peace with
God,' Rom. v. 1 ; and so w^alk in freedom of spirit, in the use of God's or-
dinances, and in the performance of holy duties ; — let me out of this doctrine
give all such this great instruction : To take notice that such kind of
troubles there are that do befidl God's people beyond what they have expe-
rience of jNIany there are that think not so ; Job's friends did not, and there-
fore censured him. And this is a necessary instruction : —
1. For this very knowledge of it doth prepare men for such a condition,
if it should befall them ; and therefore, beforehand to prepare them he wrote
to, for afflictions, the Apostle bids them ' not think it strange concerning the
fiery trial,' 1 Pet. iv. 12. For if they be strange to any, then if they befall
them at any time, they are the more grievous. As if some strange disease
befall a man which he had never heard of before, no physician hath skill in,
310 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PAUT 11.
it amazeth a man, and makes him desperate ; but if he hath heard that such
and such have had it, as well as himself, and have been recovered, this
something helps to assuage the bitterness of it to him. Job's trial was a
strange trial to his friends, and therefore you see how unskilfolly they go
about to heal it, and so left the sore worse than they found it. So that to
prepare you for it, it is good to take notice that such a condition there is.
In like manner also, in 1 Cor. x. 13, for the same end, the Apostle says of
other kind of trials, that ' nothing had befallen them but what is common
to man.' There is a great relief in that, that it is common, and others have
been in the like.
2. Secondly, also, take notice of it, that you may be kept more in depend-
ence upon God, and that you may fear hun more whilst you live in this
world. Lien that know not any afflictions in this life beyond what they see
with their eyes and feel in the outward man, nothing beyond loss of friends
and credit, these do often fear God less, though truly ; and when they come
to part with any of these for God, are less willing, — as when they must en-
dure a cross rather than sin, are apter to choose sin rather than affliction,* as
Job says, — but when they shall hear and know that God's wrath is beyond
Pharaoh's wrath, as Moses knew it, who yet in the vast apprehension of the
greatness of it, cries out, Ps. xc, ' Who hath known the power of thy wrath?'
then they will obey God and fear him more than they would all the kings
of the earth, as Moses did; ' not fearing the wrath of Pharaoh,' Heb. xL 27.
When men enjoy a confluence of all carnal worldly comforts, and think their
mountain strong, well buUt, with wife, children, about them, and riches,
health, and honours, they think they are then more out of God's danger
than other men, and are apt to say, ' Soul, thou hast goods for many years;'
but know, that God, without taking either thy goods away or thy soul away,
can in this Hfe put thy spu'it into such a condition of darkness as thou
wouldest give all the world to have a moment's ease, when aU other comforts
shall be to thee but as the white of an egg, as Job says. As he hath joys
the world gives not, so he hath afflictions the world inflicts not. Therefore
fear him more than the loss of all, obey him rather than to keep all; for
God can meet with thee in the midst of all : so he met with David, though
a king, and then all his wives and kingdom could not comfort him, till God
would ' heal the bones that he had broken.'
3. Thirdly, take notice there are such troubles, and learn not to censure
others when they are in this condition. Thou walkest in the light, and thou
seest another in the dungeon ; he may be dearer to God than thou. It was
Job's friends' fault, who, having not had experience of such a condition in
themselves, concluded that he was a hypocrite. If you thus judge, then, as
Asaph says, 'you condemn the generation of the just,' Ps. Ixxiii. 13, 14.
And herein Satan also is gratified, the strict ways of grace scandalised. If
God use his children thus, ' Curse God and die,' says Job's wife ; and so the
foolish men and women of this world.
4. I'ourthly, ' pass your sojourning here in fear, and serve him with fear,'
1 Pet. i. 17; for even ' our God is a consuming fire,' Heb. xii. 29. Keep
the heart in awe with the knowledge of such an estate. This kept Job in
awe, and made him so strict a man all his days. Read the thirty-first
chapter throughout, and you shall see what a righteous man he was, and
then see the reason of all : ver. 23, ' Destruction from the Lord was a terror
* In the original edition it is ' affliction rather than sin.' The sense seems to require
tlie change which I )iare ventured to make. Besides, this is really what Job says, chap.
XXX vi. 21. — Ed.
Use III.] A CHILD of light walking in darkness. 311
to me. And to the same purpose also, chap. iii. 25, 2G, he says that * he had
always feared that which now had befallen him,' whereof the distress of his
spirit was the greatest evil ; this he feared might befall him when he had
most assurance.
5. Lastly, be thankfiil that God spares thee. Haply thy body is weak ;
and he knows that thou art but flesh, and so stirs not up all his wrath : if
he should fall on thee as on others, it would destroy thee. But consider
that thou hadst a stone in thy heart as well as any other. God hath cured
it by gentle draughts, and so dissolved it and carried it away ; whenas he
hath cut others, and bound them, and put them to much pain in taking of
it out. Oh, be thankful ! You that are healthful and have strong bodies,
are you not thankful when you see others sick, and lie bedrid, roaring of the
stone, toothache, gout, whereof you are free 1 And ought you not to be
much more for the healthfulness of your spirits, (cheerfulness being the
marrow of them,) whenas others are sick, as the expression is, Isa. xxxiii. 24,
for want of assurance that their sins are forgiven 1 Others roar all day as
on a rack, and are distressed almost out of their wits, and even themselves
are a burden to themselves. Oh, be thankful that it is not so with you !
Use III.
Who is among you that feareth the Lord, and hath been in darkness, but
now is out of that eclipse, and walks in the light again ? You who have
been in the dungeon, and have been set free again ; who have had the wounds
of your spirit healed, your souls raised from the nethermost hell, when they
' drew nigh to the gi'ave, and have found a ransom,' Job xxxiii. ; learn your
duty also : —
1. First, to be thankful to God and Jesus Christ, and to love the more ;
for you know and have tasted what he did for you. You know how bitter
a few sips of the cup was which he drank off and took down, and therefore
must needs love him more. You also have more experience of God's power
and faithfulness, and what a miracle God hath wrought in raising you up
again : he hath ' shewn you wonders among the dead,' as Heman speaks ;
be thankful Thus David, in Ps. cxvi. 3, 4, compared with ver. 1, 'I love
the Lord.' And why ? ' The sorrows of death compassed me, the pains of
hell gat hold upon me; I found trouble and sorrow; I was brought low, and
he helped me.'
2. Secondly, learn to pity others in that condition. Who can do it better
than you, that have experience of the like ] If you hear of any soul in dis-
tress, it is expected of you to pray for him more than of another. Christ
learned to pity us in all our iiifirmities the more, by bearing our infirmities
himself, Heb. iv. 15. To that end God raised you up, that you might be
able to comfort others with ' the comforts you have received,' 2 Cor. i. 4,
and might pray for them. Therefore, Isa. Ivii. 18, when any poor soul is
smitten, God, as it is there said, is moved to restore him again, for his
mourners' sakes as well as his own.
3. Thirdly, declare what God hath done for you. You have been in hell :
give warning to others from coming there. ' We, knowing the terror of the
Lord, persuade men.' If the rich man had come from hell, what stories
would he have told to have scared all his brethren ! Tell you the like. You
have seen ' the wonders of God in the deep ;' now you are ashore, tell men of
the rocks, and shelves, and storms they are like to meet with in such and
such courses, of uncleanness, worldliness, &c. David says, when he would
312 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [ PaET II.
have once his bones that were broken healed again, that * then he would teach
sinners God's ways,' Ps. li.
4. Fourthly, take heed of what may prove the fuel of such a condition.
The devil may come and cast you into your old fits if he find the same ma-
terials to work upon, such as gross sins, acts of uncleanness, lying, unjust
dealing, &c. You know what brought David to his broken bones. And
likewise take heed of performing duties formally, coldly, and in hypocrisy,
and of resting in them; which are but as a hollow tooth (as Solomon speaks,
Prov. XXV. 1 9) that is broken, better out of the head than in ; these may
cause the toothache again. Take heed of sinning against light ; if the devil
found no such things in you, he should not trouble you. So also, get small
straggling doubts answered, let them not lie neglected ; they may come in
together one day and make an army ; though, several and apart, as they now
rise in your consciences scattered, you can despise and neglect them.
Use IV.
The fourth and main use, to such as fear God and walk in darkness.
Then, who is among you walking in darkness, that yet fears to offend
God as much as hell, and endeavoureth and desires to obey him in all things
as much as to go to heaven 1 Such, when they find God withdraw, and
their hearts left comfortless, their spirits dead and hard, do call God's love
and their own estates into question ; especially if they were in the sunshine
before, but now sit ' in the valley of the shadow of death.' If dandled in
God's lap before and kissed, now to be lashed with terrors and his sharpest
rods, and on the tenderest place, the conscience ; to have their songs in the
night turned into writing bitter things against them ; how bitter is it to
them ! Once, they say, they could never come to the throne of grace but
their hearts were welcomed, their heads stroked, and they went seldom away
without a ' white stone,' an earnest-penny put into their hands ] but now
God is a terror to them, and when they arise from prayer or the like duty,
their hearts condemn them more than when they began. Once they never
looked to heaven but they had a smile ; now they may cry day and night
and not get a good look from him. Once, say they, they never hoist up sail
to any duty, but they had a fair and good wind, God went along with them ;
but now they have both wind and tide, God and the deadness of their own
hearts, against them. In a word, God is gone, light is gone : God answers
them neither by vision nor by prophets ; neither in praying nor in hearing ;
and therefore hath forsaken them, cast them ofl', yea, will never be merciful.
Oh, woe to us, say they, we are undone !
You err, poor souls, not knoioing the Scriptures, and the manner of your
God, and of his deahngs with his people, to think that his mind is changed
when his countenance is, and so to run away from him, as Jacob did from
Laban ; to think he hath cast you off, when he is but ' returning to his place,'
that you may ' seek him more earnestly,' Hos. v. 15. Like children, when
their mother is gone aside a little, you fall a-crying as if you were undone.
So it is that you are always in the extremes : if he shines on you, then ' your
mountain shall never be removed ;' if he hides his face, then ' he will never
be merciful.' This, as it is a fond and childish fault, so it is beastly and
brutish also, thus to judge. I term it so because you are led therein by
sense, and, like beasts, believe nothing but what you feel and see, and
measure God's love by his looks and outward carriage ; which when Asaph
did in other afflictions, as you in this, he cries out he was ' igum-aut, and a3
Use IV.l A CHILD OV I.KJIIT WALKING IN DARKNESS. 313
a beast,' Ps. Ixxiii. 22. What ! will you trust God no further than you see
him 1 It will shame you one day to think what a groat deal of trouble your
childishness put the Spirit of God unto. As what trouble is it to a wise
man, to have a fond and foolish wife, who if he be but abroad, and about
necessary business, haply for her maintenance, yet then she complains he
regards her not, but leaves her ; if he chides her for any fault, then she says
he hates her, and is so much distempered by it as a whole day's kindness
cannot quiet her again ? Thus deal you with God, and though he hath given
you never so many fair and clear evidences of his love, and these never so
often reiterated and renewed, yet still you are jealous, never quiet, always
doubting, questioning all upon the least frown ; that either God must undo
you, by lettuig you go on in your sinful dispositions, without ever rebuking
of you, or else lose the acknowledgment of all his love formerly shewn, and
have it called in question by your peevish, jealous misconstructions, upon
every small expression of his anger towards you. Some of you that are less
troubled, and thus ' wanton against Christ,' I would chide out of it.
But you that are more deeply and lastingly distressed, I pity you, I blame
you not for being troubled ; for when ' he hides his face, the creatures all
are troubled,' Ps. civ. 29. God would have you lay it to heart when he is
angry, Isa. Ivii. 17. God there took it ill that 'when he smote him, he
went on stubbornly.' If you should not thus lay it to heart, it were a sign
you had no grace; that you made not him your portion, if you could bear his
absence and not mourn. Carnal men, having other comforts, can bear the
want and absence of him well enough ; but not you, that have made him
your portion, and your exceeding great reward. But yet though you are to
lay it to heart, so as to mourn under it; yet not to be discouraged, to call
all into question. For though you change, yet not God, Mai. iii. 6, James
i. 7 ; nor his love, for his love is himself, 1 John iv. 8-10. We may change
in our apprehensions and opinions, and God's outward carriages and dispen-
sations may be changed towards us, but not his rooted love. We are not
the same to-day that yesterday we were ; but ' Christ is the same to-day,
yesterday, and for ever,' Heb. xiii. 8. To say that he hath cast you off because
he hath hid his face, is a fallacy fetched out of the devil's topics, and injuri-
ous to him ; for, Isa. liv. 8, ' In a little wrath have I hid my face for a mo-
ment ; but with everlasting kindness will I remember thee.' I have but ' hid
my fiice,' not cast thee out of mind ; and though in ' anger,' yet but a ' little'
anger ; and not long neither, but ' for a moment.' And all that while I am
not unmindful of thee, ' I remember thee,' &c. ; and this with ' kindness from
everlasting to everlasting.' When the sun is eclipsed, (which eclipse is rather
of the earth than of the sun, which shines as it did,) foolish people think it
will never recover light, but wise men know it will.
Obj. — But you will say, If this desertion were but for a moment, it were
something ; but mine hath been for many years.
Ans. — How many years? This life is but a moment; and God hath
eternity of time to shew his love in; time enough to make amends for a
few frowns ; ' everlasting kindnesses.' Remember the text says, one that
fears God may tvalk hi darkness ; not for a step or two, but many wearisome
turns in it. Heman was afflicted from his youth ; David so long, that, Ps.
Ixxvii., he thought God had forgotten mercy. And doth his promise fail
for ever? Eemember what he said in another case, Luke xviii. 8, that
though he bears long, yet he comes speedily ; that is, though long in our
eyes, yet speedily in his own, who hath all time before him, and knows how
nuicli time is behind to be spent in embraces with you.
3U A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaIIT II.
Obj. — Yea, but you will say, It is not only hiding his face ; but I suffer
terrors : he is wroth ; he is turned enemy ; he fights against me ; and there-
fore I am a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction.
Ans. — So it was with Job, chap. xiiL 24, ' Wherefore hidest thou thy face,
and boldest me for thine enemy V So Isa. Lxiii. 10 ; Ps. Ixxxviii. 16. All
these are but the efi"ects of a temporal wrath. There is a wide difference
between a child under wrath, and a child of wrath. Thou mayest be a child
under wrath, when not a chUd of wrath. God, as he may afflict you in your
estates and bodies, so your spirits, as a father; for, Heb. xii 9. he is 'tlie
Father of spirits,'
DlKECT. I. I A (.UIJ.U Ul' LlUUr WALKING IN DAUKNhiiSi. 315
TEN DIKECTIONS
FOR THOSE WHO ARE MORK DEEPLY TROUBLED ; AND MEANS TO BE USED HOW
TO RECOVER LIGHT AND COMFORT.
Fob their sakes who are thus more deeply troubled, I will prescribe some
directions how they are to behave themselves in such a condition, so as to
come more comfortably and the more speedily out of it. For it is in these
long and great sicknesses of the soul as in those of the body ; men are kept
the longer in them, and under them, for want of right directions and pre-
scriptions, as we see in long agues and fevers, and the Hke diseases.
Deeection I.
First, Take heed of rash, desperate, impatient, and unbelieving speeches
and wishes ; such you will be forced to recall again with son'ow. As David,
when he was in fears, uttered a desperate speech, namely, that Samuel's pro-
phecy concerning him, and message to him from God, that he should be
king, would prove false ; and he says not only, that ' one day he should
perish by the hand of Saul,' 1 Sam. xxvii. 1 ; — the ground of which speech
was, that he finding himself every day in some danger or other of his life,
and so, though God had preserved him again and again, yet he thought that
some of those many arrows which were shot against him so continually, and
which still so narrowly missed him, might, at one time or other, hit and
speed him, it were a wonder else ; — but he says further, Ps. cxvi. 11, ' I said
in my haste, that all men are liars,' the prophet Samuel and aU ; that it was
but a promise of a vain man. But he soon recalls himself, and adds, ' I said
*his in my haste.' So likewise, Ps. xxxi. 22, ' I said in my haste, I am cut
>ff.' They were rash speeches, as he confesses, spoken in haste. Even so
doth many a poor soul break forth and say, after they have had strong hopes,
at first conversion, that a kingdom is theirs, that heaven is theirs, and that
it is reserved for them ; and they kept for it also through the power of God :
yet the devil being let loose to persecute them, as Saul did him, and God
hiding his face, and the arrows of the ALmighty flying thick about their ears,
the sorrows of heU encompassing them, and weU-nigh every moment cutting
them off ; they, although upheld again and again, yet are apt to say that, one
day or other, they shaU in aU likelihood be cut off by God's hand, swal-
lowed up of Satan, and everlastingly destroyed. And when they are told of
the hopes they had at their first conversion, and the promises that are made
to them, they are apt to say that their graces by which they should now
claim those promises are all a He, false and counterfeit, and but in hypocrisy.
This they say in their haste too often. So at another time, when David was
in doubt about that other promise of an eternal kingdom, made to him in
Ps. Ixxvii, he says, ' God will never be merciful.' What a desperate weak
speech was this, that what a man sees not at present, he should conclude
316 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT IL
would never be ! But he acknowledged his error in it : 'It was my infir-
mity,' ver. 10, thus to speak. So the church, Lam. iii. 17-19 : 'I said. My
hope is perished from the Lord.' What a desperate speech was this ! But
she eats her words again with grief, ver. 21, ' This I recall to mind, therefore
have I hope.' Job, though for a while, at the beginning of the storm, he was
somewhat calm and quiet in his spirit, and it was his commendation ; and
therefore, in chap. i. 22, it is said that 'in all this' — that is, so long and
thitherto — ' he had not charged God foolishly : ' but this held but to the
first and second chapter, for when he began to be wet to the skin once, and
the drops of God's wrath began to soak into his soul, then he falls a-roaring,
chap, iii., and ' curseth the day of his birth;' and, chap. vi. 8, 9, wisheth God
would cut him off; and, chap. vii. 15, says, 'his soul did choose strangling
rather than life.' For which speeches God in the end steps out, as it were,
from behind the hangings, overhearing him, taking him up for them : chap,
xxxviii. 2, ' Who is this,' says he, ' that talks thus I ' How now ?
But, good souls, you that are in trouble ; oh, take heed of such impatient
wishes or speeches as these or the like, that all which you have had is but
in hypocrisy ; and, Oh that God would cut me off ! that I were in hell,
and knew the worst ! Take heed, I say. When a man is sick and raves,
whereas otherwise the physician and those that stand about him would in
pity use him gently, they are forced to hold and bind him. Tmpatiens
(jegrotus crudelem medicum facit, — an impatient patient makes a physician
more cruel than otherwise he would be. So would God deal more gently
with thee but for such impatiences. And know that this is taking God's
name in vain in a high degree. You must know that the graces of God
written in your hearts are a part of God's name, as whereby his love is ma-
nifested to you. Now for you to call the truth of these in question, and say
they are counterfeit, is as if you should say of the king's hand and seal, when
it comes down to you, that it were counterfeit, and deny it ; which is crimen
Icesce majestatis. So if a special friend, or your father, had given you some
old precious pieces of gold or jewels, &c., as tokens of their love and remem-
brances of them, for you to say in a distempered fit of jealousy, all these are
but counters and but alchemy, you should exceedingly wrong and abuse their
love. Thus is it if you deny God's handwriting in your own hearts, when
he hath written therein by his Spirit, joy, fear, love, zeal, &c., and shoidd
say it is not like his hand. So if you deny the seal of the Spirit, after he
hath sealed you up unto the day of redemption, and say that all the earnest-
pennies of heaven are but counters, and alchemy, and nothing worth, in so
doing you take his name, his love, his mercy, and all in vain ; yea, you lie
against the Holy Ghost, as the Apostle said in another case. Thus though
God give you full leave to try and examine all his graces in you and dealings
with ycu ; yet not desperately, at the first blush and view, upon tlie least mis-
take or flaw, to say they are no graces, and that he will never be merciful.
You abuse him when you do so ; take heed of it.
Direction IL
Secondly, Let the troubled soul make diligent search. Let an inquisition
be set up in thy heart, So, Ps. Ixxvii. 6, David, in case of desertion, is said
to do : 'I communed with mine own heart, and made diligent search.'
Now in this search make inquiry into two things : —
First, What miuht be the true cause which provokes God thus to leave
thee, and hide himself from thee %
DlRKCr. 11 1 A ClllLU OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAUKNESS. 317
Secondly, What in thine own heart is the main doubt and objection, rca-
sonint; and apprehension, which causeth thee to fear, and thus to call all into
cpu'stion ']
These are two distinct things. For though God hath just cause and rea-
son to leave us to this trouble, yet often the thing that troubles and disquiets
us is a mere mistake, a misapprehension ; even as a father sees good reason
often to scare the child, but yet the thing he suffers him to be affrighted
with is but a mere bugbear. It is necessary to inquire into both.
First, Examine what might be the true cause that provokes God tlius to
leave thee. So Lam. iii. -iO, 'Let us search and try our ways;' it was
spoken by the church in desertion, as appears by the former part of the
chapter. And to help yourselves in this, go over all the cases which have
been propounded. Hast thou not been carnally confident in false signs?
or rested too much on true, to the neglect of Christ and God's free grace ?
Didst thou not before neglect to stir up thy own graces ? &c. Go over all those
cases mentioned ; something or other will be found to be the cause. This
is necessary, for till the cause be known, the heart submits not ; neither will
it sanctify God's name, nor will the trouble cease, till that which provokes
God to lay it on be confessed and forsaken. And if it be a particular sin
that God aims at, then usually God useth the horror for, and the guilt of,
that very sin to afiiict thee with : and then that sin itself is made the cause
of thy trouble in thy ovm apprehension. So as then it is easily found out ;
thou -ttolt find thy sin to be the thorn in thy foot, the stone in thy shoe,
that did grate, gall, and vex thee. David easUy knew, in Ps. li., what it
was for wMcb God broke his bones ; for his very sin was the iron mace, the
instrumental cause itself, of God's executing it upon him : the horror of that
murder God used as the hammer to break him withal, and as the rod to whip
him with : ver. 3, 'My sin,' says he, 'is ever before me ;' it was ever in his
eye. Indeed, in outward afilictions it is more difiicult to find out the cause
why God aMcts a man ; unless sometimes you may, through God's wise-
disposing hand, find and read the sin in the punishment, they so resemble
one another : so as a man may say, This cross lay in the womb of such a
sin, they are so like, — in quo peccamus in eodem ijlectimiw. But in those in-
ward distresses of conscience, that sin which is the true cause, and that
moveth God to afllict, God often useth even the guUt of that very sin to
terrify thee ; to cast a man into the distress, and to keep him in it ; it is both
the procatarctical cause and executioner also.
But in case thou canst not find out the cause, as Job, it seems, did not ;
and Elihu did suppose he might not, therefore gives him tliis counsel, (which
do thou also follow till God shew thee the cause,) Job xxxiv. 31, 32, 'to say
unto God,' as he adviseth there, ' That which I see not, teach thou me, and I
wall not offend any more ;' and if thou findest it, say also, as ver. 31, ' I have
borne chastisement' for such a sin ; 'I wiU never offend any more.' Till then
God will not let thee down.
The second thing to be searched into is. What is the chief and main rea-
soning in thy heart which makes thee call aU into question whether God be
thy God ] What is the reason why thou thinkest so, what makes thee con-
clude so 1
For this you must consider, that although God for some sin committed
doth hide himself from thee, terrifies and lasheth thy conscience, yet that which
causeth in thee and worketh in thee tliis apprehension, that God hath cast
thee off, is usually some false reasoning or misapprehension, some mere mis-
take, some device and sophistry of Satan. When the Corinthian was ex-
?>\H A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT II.
commuuicated for his sin, Satan had leave to terrify his conscience for it ;
but Satan went further, he would have ' swallowed him up of sorrow,' by
persuading him that such a sin was unpardonable, and that God would
never own him again. Now the reasoning Satan used to bring this upon him
was a false one, some trick and device, 2 Cor. ii. 7, compared with ver. 1 1 ;
whereof if a man be ignorant, he may go mourning a long while as a cast-
away. Therefore take thy soul aside, and seriously ask it, and examine it,
why it is thus troubled ; what reason, what gTound thou hast to think
that God is not thy God ; and then examine it whether it be a true
ground, yea or no. As the Apostle, 1 Pet. iii. 15, bids us 'give a reason of
our faith, so ask thou of thy soul the reason of its doubting.
Thus David, Ps. xlii. 5, ' Why art thou cast down, O my soul 1 ' And be-
cause doubts arise again and again, therefore he asketh the reason again,
ver. 11, 'Why art thou cast down V David knew the way to dissolve them
was to search into and examine the reason of them ; for still, when he had
thoroughly exammed them, he found them needless and causeless to put
him into such desperate fears. The child of God is ■ often cast into prison,
into fears and bondage, and after he hath lain long in them, and begins to
read over the writ and mittimus, he finds it to be false imprisonment, a
mere trick of Satan, his jailer. For as carnal men, when they think their
estate good, and that they are in the favour of God, it is some delusion, some
false reasoning that is stiU the ground of such their opinion ; as because
they prosper in the world, therefore God loves them, because they perform
some duties, have some good motions, which grounds they cannot endure to
have examined : so contrarily, one that fears God, the ground of his appre-
hension that he is out of the favour of God is likewise some false reasoning,
which, when examined, appears to be such, and when it appears the soul is
freed out of its fears and doubts. Heman thought and said that Gcd had
cast him off ; and what was the reason persuaded him to think so 1 Ps.
Ixxxviii. 14, 'because God had hidden his face.' It doth not follow, He-
man. A father may hide his face from his son, and yet not cast him off.
So David also reasoneth, Ps. Ixxvii. 2, 3, ' I have sought God,' prayed, and
used the means, and ' yet I am troubled,' and yet God reveals not himself;
and what doth he conclude from this 1 Ver. 7, ' Will the Lord cast off for
ever t ' He thought. If God had loved me, he would presently have heard
me ; he thought his soul would not have been worse after praying. This
was a false reasoning ; for, Ps. Ixxx. 4, sometimes ' God shuts out his people's
prayers.' A father may sometimes seem so angry that he may throw away
his child's petition, and yet resolve to be his father still.
It were infinite to reckon up aU the false reasonings that souls in distress
have sometimes, from a place of Scripture misunderstood and misapphed.
Some who, bemg annoyed with blasphemous thoughts against God and
Christ, and his Spirit, though they be their greatest affliction, yet have
thought they have sinned against the Holy Ghost, upon the misapplying that
place. Matt. xii. 31, that 'blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall never be
forgiven ;' whereas that place is meant only but of some one kind of blas-
phemy, which indeed is wilful blaspheming of God and the work of his
Spirit, out of revenge, Heb. x. 29. So some, because thej^ have sinned after
enlightening and tasting, and fallen into some gross sin, think they shall
never be renewed, by reason of that place, Heb. vi. 4 ; whereas he speaks of
A wUful and revengeful falling away, with such a revenge as they would, if
they could, 'crucify Christ again,' ver. G. For otherwise David had not
been renewed, for he sinned presumptuously, and 'despised the command-
DlltKCT. III. J A CHILI) OF LIOHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. 319
nient.' 2 Sam. xii. 9. So some, if they hear but of some fearful example,
and of God's severe dealing with others, how he cast them oflf upon such a
sin, as he did Saul, tliey think and conclude that upon the commission of
the like that God liath cast them off also. But there is no certain ground
for such a thought ; for ' secret things belong to GoiJ.' So because some
hear there is a time after which God sometimes otters grace no more, but
swears against some men, therefore that their time is also past ; which they
can have no ground for : for though it be true God doth so with many
that hear the gospel, yet the word gives us no certain rules to judge he hath
done so by any of us. It is good to fear lest thou shouldst provoke him to
it, but thou hast no sign to fear he hath done so with thee. And indeed
herein lies the main and first business to be done in raising up a troubled
soul, even to find out the ground of their doubting, and to examine the truth
of it, and confute it. If a man be falsely imprisoned or cast in a suit at
law, what doth he to remedy it 1 He seeks to find out the error in the
writ. So do thou search out the ground of thy trouble ; go to some spiritual
lawyer skilled in soul-work: keep not the devil's counsel; he opposeth
nothing more than making your doubts known.
Direction III.
The third direction I give to such is, that they keep and lend one ear, as
well to hear and consider what makes for their comfort, as unto what may
make against them.
This direction meets with a great infirmity of such as are in distress, who
through Satan's temptations have their hearts so deeply possessed with pre-
judicial conceits of the misery of their estates, that, as the people of God in
Exod. vi. 9, ' through the anguish of their hearts,' were so far distempered
that they listened not to the good message which Moses brought them, nor
believed that so good news could be true of them : so are the souls of many
that are in distress so filled with anguish and sense of misery, and so strongly
prepossessed with desperate opinions, and so far put out of hopes, that they
reject all that is spoken for their comfort ; so as they will not so much as
be brought to cast an eye or a thought upon anything that may be an occa-
sion of comfort to them. Like some prisoners at the bar, through extremity
of fear they cannot read that in their hearts and in the word which might
save them. Tell them of what God hath wrought for them and in them, as
evidences of his love ; and as they cannot, so often they will not, read them
over ; or if they do, they read them over but as a man doth a book he means
to confute : they pick quarrels, and make objections at everything that is said,
as if they were hired as lawj-ers to plead against themselves, and to find
flaws in their evidences. I have observed some who have set all their wits
a-work to strengthen all arguments and objections against themselves, and
who have been glad if they could object anything which might puzzle those
who have come to comfort them ; if they could hold argument against them-
selves; as if they were disputing for the victory only. And thus through
much poring upon, and considering only what might make against them,
they have had the bolts of their hearts so far shot into despair, and fixed in
desperate sorrow, and the true wards of sound evidences so far wrung and
wrested by false keys, that when the skilfulest and strongest comforters have
come with true keys to shoot back the bolt, they would not turn about ;
nay, could scarce get entrance.
This was David's infirmity, as at the 10th verse of the 77th Psalm, com-
320 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT II.
pared with the 2d verse, ' My soul refuseth to be comforted.' He spilt all
tlie cordials and physic that were brought him : he was not only void of
comfort, but refused it. What ! bring me jjromises to comfort me ! — will
such a one .say, — you may as well carry them to one in hell, or give physic
to a man past recovery ; and so will take down nothing that is given them.
So also the church, in the 3d of the Lamentations, ver. 17, 18; her heart
was deeply possessed with a desperate apprehension : ' My hope,' says she,
' is perished from the Lord.' And what was it that shot her sou] into so
fixed despair ? Ver. 17,' she forgot all good : ' she forgot, — that is, she would
not so much as take into consideration and remembrance anything that had
been comfortable to her. All good, — so the original, — that is, all God's
former good and gracious dealings with her, all the good things wrought in
her, and for her, whence she might have comfort. And in stead thereof,
what did her thoughts feed and chew upon? Only wormwood and gall, her
bitterness and distress, poring only on what might make against her : ' I
said my hope was perished from the Lord, calUng to mind my affliction and
my misery, my wormwood and gall.' These she could revolve and roll up
and down in her mind, though they were bitter, and would entertain thoughts
of nothing else. But when, on the contrary, she began to take into considera-
tion God's gracious and faithful supporting her in that very desertion, ' in
faithfulness renewing his mercies every morning,' ver. 1^, 23, and that still
he maintained in her heart a longing and lingering after him, and a secret
cleaving to him, and that God did enable her to choose him as her portion,
ver. 24:, — Hliis I recall to mind,' says she, ver. 21, (which speech hath refer-
ence to those words fore-cited, which follow there,) ' therefore have I hope,' —
she spits out her wormwood, and eats her own words. And now that her
heart began to listen to what might comfort her, presently she began to have
hope. This sullen, peevish, desperate obstinacy is a thing you ought to take
heed of; for hereby you take Satan's part, and that against those you ought
to love so dearly, even your own souls. But as they said, ' Let Baal plead
for himself;' so let Satan plead his own cause, do not you. Hereby also
you ' forsake your owm mercies,' as it is said, Jonah ii. 8 ; you give up your
own right, and are so far befooled as to plead against your own title, your
own interest in the best things you can have interest in — God's mercies,
made yours by an everlasting covenant ; you give up your portion bequeathed
you in your Father's wiE, which you ought to maintain; and you trust to
lying vanities, the soothsayings and fortune-tellings, as I may caU them, of
Satan and of your own hearts. Hereby also 'ye become judges of evil
thoughts,' James ii. 4 ; for he is an ill hearer of a cause who will hear but
one party speak.
Direction TV.
The fourth direction is, to make diligent search into, and to call to remem-
brance what formerly hath been between God and you. The remembrance of
former things doth often uphold, when present sense fails. This David prac-
tised in the like case. Psalm Ixxvii. 5, G, when his soul had refused comfort,
as I told you, ver. 2 ; yet in the end he began not only to be willing to
Hsten to what might make for him, but set himself a-work to recall to mind,
to ' consider the days of old, to make diligent search,' namely, into the re-
cords and register of God's dealings, ver. 11, to see if there were never a
record extant which might help him, now the de\'il pleaded against his titlet
Even as if your houses and lands were called into question, you would search
over old writings and deeds ; so do you in this. ' I considered,' says Iia
DiRKCT. IV.] A CniLD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. 321
' the songs in the night,' — that is, that joyful communion he had enjoyed
with God, when God and he sang songs together, — and * I communed with
mine own heart, and made diligent search ;' I tossed and tumbled over my
heart, to see if no grace formerly had been there, and if no grace at present
were there. He searched into what miglit comfort him, as well as into the
causes might provoke God thus to deal with him ; for I take it both may be
meant.
And so Job did, when he was thus stricken and forsaken of God : he
views over every part of his life ; he seeks what dry land he could find to
get footing upon in the midst of seas of temptations ; recounts what a holy
life he had lived, with what fear and strictness he had served God, chap,
xxix. and chap, xxx., and chap. xxxi. throughout, and tells them plainly,
chap, xxvii. 5, 6, that let them plead and argue what they could against him,
and go about to prove him a hypocrite, ' till I die,' says he, ' I will not
remove mine integrity from me, nor let go my righteousness :' I will never
give up mine interest in God's mercies, nor the evidences I have to shew for
them. And, says he, chap. xix. 27, 28, ' Though my reins be at present con-
sumed, yet the root of the matter is in me,' — that is, though God deals thus
hardly with me, as you see, yea, though the exercise of grace is much ob-
scured, the sunshine of God's favour withdrawn, his face hidden from me,
and the joyful fruits of righteousness, and comfortable fresh green speeches,
and leaves you have known to grow upon this now withered stock fallen off;
yet there is the root of the matter still in me — a root of faith that decays
not, a constant frame of grace that still remains, which hateth sin, loveth
God ; and you shall all never beat me from it. And canst thou call nothing to
remembrance betwixt God and thee, which argues infallibly his love 1 What !
nothing 1 Look again. Did God never speak peace unto thy heart, and
shed his love abroad in it 1 Hast thou at no time found in thine heart pure
strains of true love and good-will to him, some pure drops of godly sorrow
for offending him, and found some dispositions of pure self-denial, wherein
thou didst simply aim at his glory more than thine own good ? Hast thou
never an old tried evidence which hath been acknowledged and confirmed
again and again in open court 1 What ! not one 1 And if thou canst now
call to mind but one, if in truth, it may support thee. For if one promise
do belong to thee, then all do, for every one conveys whole Christ, in whom
:ill the promises are made, and who is the matter of them. As in the sacra-
ments, the bread conveys whole Christ, and the wine also whole Christ : so
in the word every promise conveys whole Christ. And if thou canst say, aa
the church of Ephesus, Rev. ii. 6, ' This thing I have, that I hate sin,' and
every sin, as God hates it, and because he hates it : as Christ owned them for
this one grace, and thoiigh they had many sins and many fadings, yet, says
he, this thou hast, &c. If Christ will acknowledge thee to be his for one
ear-mark, or if he sees but one ' spot of his child' upon thee, Deut. xxxii.
5, thou mayest well plead it, even any one, to him. Yea, though it be but
in a lesser degree, in truth and sincerity. For God brings not a pair of
scales to weigh your graces, and if they be too light refuseth them : but he
brings a touchstone to try them ; and if they be true gold, though never so
little of it, it will pass current with him ; though it be but smoke, not flame,
though it be but as a wick in the socket, Matt. xii. 20, (as it is there in the
original,) likelier to die and go out than to continue, which we use to throw
away ; yet he will not quench it, but accept it. Yea, and though at present thou
findest in thy sense no grace stirring in thee, nothing but hardness, deadness,
&c., yet if thou canst remember, Yea, but this once I had ; as a woman with
VOL. in. X
322 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS, [PaRT II.
cliild, though after her first quickening she doth not always find the child to
stir, yet because she did feel it stir, she still conceives hopes and thinks she
is with child ; so think thou of the new creature formed within thee.
These things you are to recall and consider in time of distress : to remem-
ber former graces and spiritual dispositions in you ; and God's gracious deal-
ings with you. God remembers them to have mercy on you ; and why should
you not remember them to comfort you? Therefore, Heb. vi. 9, 10, 'We
hope,' sa3's he, ' better things of you ; for God is not unrighteous to forget
your labour of love;' namely, to reward you And therefore he calls apon
them in like manner, Heb. x. 31, ' to call to remembrance the former days' to
comfort them ; how they held out when their hearts were tried to the
bottom ; when shipwreck was made of their goods, good names, and all for
Christ, — yet they made not shipwreck of a good conscience. And if thou
dost thus call to remembrance things of old, and yet canst find no comfort
at first from them, — as often ye may not, as was David's case. Psalm Ixxvii.,
for after his ' remembrance of his songs in the night,' still his soul was left
in doubt, and he goes on to say, ' Will God ever be merciful 1 ' — yet have
recourse to them again, and then again, for though they comfort not at one
time, yet they may at another ; that it may be seen that God comforts by
them, and not they alone of themselves. Hast thou found a promise (which
is a 'breast of consolation,' Isa. Ixvi 11) milkless ? Yet again suck; com-
fort may come in the end. If after thou hast empanelled a jury and grand
inquest to search, and their first verdict condemns thee, or they bring in an
ignoravius ; yet do as wise judges often do, send them about it again, they
may find it the next time. Jonah looked once, it seems, and found no com-
fort, chajx ii. 4, for he said, ' I will look again towards thine holy temple.'
A man's heart is like those two-faced pictures : if you look one way towards
one side of them, you shall see nothing but some horrid shape of a devil, or
the like ; but go to the other side and look again, and you shall see the picture
of an angel or of some beautiful woman, &c. So some have looked over
their hearts by signs at one time, and have to their thinking found nothing
but hypocrisy, unbelief, hardness, self-seeking ; but not long after, examining
their hearts again by the same signs, they have espied the image of God
drawn fairly upon the table of their hearts.
Direction V.
But now if former signs remembered bring thee no comfort in, but the
waves that come over thy soul prove so deep that thou canst find no bottom
to cast anchor on, the storm and stress so great that no cable will hold, but
they snap all asimder, as is often the case of many a poor soul : —
Then take and put in practice this fifth direction, renew thy faith and
repentance, set thy heart a-w^ork to believe and repent afresh as if thou hadst
never yet begun. Spend not all the time in casting out of anchors, but fall
a-pumping ; leave ofl:' and cease a while to reason about the goodness of thy
former faith and repentance, and set upon the work of believing and repent-
ing anew. Say, Well, suppose I have not hitherto been in the state of grace,
yet I am not incapable of it for time to come, I may obtain grace yet. Sup-
pose my faith and repentance hath not been true hitherto, I will therefore
now begin to endeavour after such as is true. And to that end make this
use of whatsoever flaws the devil finds in either, to direct thee what to mend
and rectify for time to come ; begin to make up the breaches and unsound-
ness which is discovered, endeavour after a supply of all those wants he
DlKECT, v.] A CHILD OF UCHT WALKING IN DAKKNESS. 323
t)bjects to be in either : mend all the holes he picks. Say, Lord, I cast my
soul on all thy mercies afresh ; I desire now to make my heart perfect with
thee for time to come, to part with every sin, to submit to every duty, to
curse every by-end to hell, and to set up God and Christ as my mark, pole-
star, and aim in all. And when thou hast done this, let the devil say his
worst. This of all the former directions I commend to you, as a special
means to dissolve and put these temptations about assurance to an end. I
set a probation est upon it ; take it, practise it, it is a tried one ; and it is
that which at the last the church in desertion comes to : Lam. iii. 40, ' Come,
let us try our ways, and turn to the Lord / that is the last way and course
she takes. Now when the water is at the lowest, and the tide of assurance
ebbed, mend up your bank.s, as you use to do at low waters. Now when
nothing but hypocrisy, and unbelief, and falseness of heart appear to thee
to be in thy heart, do thou groan, sigh, endeavour after the contrary since-
rity ; and let Satan say his worst. And this direction I now in the next
place prescribe you, becau.sc in time of temptation about assurance, it is the
usual course of some troubled souls to spend all their thoughts upon what
formerly they have had, as if they must have comfort only from the former
work, or no way ; laying out all their time and cost in new suits and new
trials about their former title ; and when they have been cast again and again,
yet still to do nothing but read over old evidences again and again, and
bring in and study new proofs.
But know, tliat though this is to be done, and not to be neglected, and ia
found often comfortable, therefore in the former direction I exhorted to it :
yet you are not only to take that course, nor to look back so much to your
former faith and repentance as to forget to practise new ; but being to
practise new acts of faith and repentance, this is the rightest way, the short-
est cut, and requires as little pains. Thou mayest with as little charge get a
new lease renewed, as prove good the old one ; it will require many terms to
examine over all thy evidences again and again, which also haply are blotted
and blurred. Thou mayest cut the knot and dissolve the temptations sooner
by new faith, than untie it by reasonings and disputings. And the truth is,
in the end thou must come to this ; for God's great end in deserting is to
put you upon renewing your faith and repentance. ' Except ye be con-
verted,' as Christ says to his apostles, converted as it were anew. He will
not deliver thee out of the dungeon, till thou enterest into new bonds and
bail for thy good behaviour. Therefore begin to do it soon. And whereas
thou thinkest that by this thou mayest prejudice thy former title, that is not
my meaning, as if thou shouldest utterly give up thy old faith and repent-
ance as counterfeit ; ' I will keep my integrity,' says Job : only my advice
is to forbear, and to cease pleading of it for a time, and to begin to renew it
rather, that is it I exhort unto. And then the comfort of thy old repentance
will come in. As the apostle says of the law, so I of thy former title, ' it ia
not destroyed, but established ' rather by this. And as Christ says, John
vii. 17, 'If any man vnll do his will, he shall know of the doctrine that it is
of God ;' so as the best way to know the truth is not to spend all the time
in disputing about it, but to practise it, which puts an end to controversies
in men's hearts : so say I, to know the truth of, and so to come to have the
comfort of former grace, is to add to these reasonings about it, the practice
of believing and repenting anew. This baffles the devil exceedingly, and
gets the advantage of him ; for by this the suit is removed, all his old pleas
dashed, this puts him upon a new reply, diverts the war, and indeed non-
plusseth him ; for what can he say to it 1 He must now prove thou art
324 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. rPAET 11.
incapable of grace, that tliou slialt never repent, which all the world and
de\'ils in hell cannot prove. And yet if in this case he tells thee, as usually
he doth, that all will be in vain for time to come, as well as it hath been
for time past : —
Direction VI.
Then, sixthly, stand not now disputing it, but be peremptory and resolute
in thy faith and turning to God, let the issue be what it will be. Faith is
never nonplussed. Job vows ' he will trust him though he kills him,' chap,
xiii. 15. So do thou; whether he will damn or save thee, do what he will
with thee, leave not to cast thyself upon him for mercy, nor to serve and
love him. Go thou on to use the means diligently and constantly ; and be
so much the more diligent, fear and hate sin still, pray day and night : as
Heman did when he thought himself cut off, Ps. Ixxxviii. 1, 'I have cried
day and night, though I be as one thou rememberest no more,' ver. 4, 5 ; and
so at the 9th verse, 'I have called daily.' Thoiigh, ver. 10-12, he thought
himself in hell, and thought it a miracle ever to be raised up again, yet says
he, ver. 13, 'but I have cried to thee.' That hut seems to come in as an ex-
pression of his resolution hitherto, that though these were his apprehensions
of his condition, yet howsoever, he had, and accordingly would go on to seek
the Lord. Suppose thou findest no relish in the ordinances, j^et use them ;
though thou art desperately sick, yet eat still, take all is brought thee, some
strength comes of it. Say, Be I damned or saved, hypocrite or not hypocrite,
I resolve to go on. And there is good reason for it ; for if thou shonldest
leave off to serv^e the Lord, and resolve never to look after him more, then thou
art sure to be damned. If there be ' an evil heart in thee to depart from
the living God,' thou art undone. But this other way of seeking him, thou
mayest in the end prevail ; 'Who knows but God may be merciful V In the
3d of the Lamentations, ver. 29, this counsel is given to a soul being yoked and
deserted, ' to put his mouth in the dust ; and it waiteth,' saj's he, suffers, and
doth anything, not only if he hath hope, but ' if there may be hope,' if there
be but such a thought it may prove so, he will make a venture ; and so do
thou. See what Esther did in the like desperate case : thought she. If I hold
my tongue, (and so Mordecai told her,) God will destroy me. And better it
was to make a venture upon the king to speak, and so to ckxxj her life in
her hand ; and therefore she says, ' If I perish, I perish.' And so the lepers,
see how they reasoned in a desperate case : 2 Kings vii. 3, 4, ' If we go into
the city, we are sure to die, for the famine is there ; if we sit still, we die
also. Come, let us fall into tlie hands of the Assyi'ians : if they save us alive,
so ; if they kill us, we shall,' however, ' but die.' And there were many
strong arguments to move them to think they would kill tbem, for they were
Jews, and so of the enemy's side, and might be suspected for spies ; if not,
they were lepers, that might infect the camp, who were fit for no service,
for nothing but to be knocked on the head. Yet in this desperate case they
took the surer and more probable part, ventured to fall to the Assyrians' side,
and the success is known to you aU. So reason thou : If I give over my
believing, humbling myself, praying, attending on the means, I shall certainly
perish, there is no help fur it ; I will therefore rather go on to do all these
as sincerely as I can to the utmost, and if God saves me, a sinner, a leper, an
enemy, so ; if not, I can be but damned.
But let me tell thee, such a resolution can never go to hell with thee ;
yea, if any have a room in heaven, such a soul shall : for this puts not the
devil only to it ; — fox in this case, what can the devil himself say to thee 1
DlKEOT. VII.J A CniLD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. 325
for if thou wilt venture thy soul, service, and all upon God, let the issue be
what it will, in this resolute yet safe way ; if thou wilt in a pure trust refer
it unto Clod with contentedncss and subnii-ssion, what is that to him 1 — but
it puts God to it also, w-ho cannot find in his heart to damn such a one who
shall go on to do thus. When thou thus freely servest him, choosest him,
venturest and leavest thyself and all the issue of thy ways to him ; thou, by
this one act in such a case, shalt win more upon him and his love, than haply
by all thy obedience all thy life before. Thy salvation, and the assurance
of it, that is God's work, leave it to him, try his faithfulness ; it is self-love
makes us too much to be troubled about it. Go thou on to believe, repent,
mourn for sin, hate, forsake it; to use the means, &c.; that is thy work j and
so doinsr, thou canst not be damned.
Direction VII.
Let him trust in the name of the Lord.
If you ask what ground a soul in this case may have to venture thus
upon —
I answer. His name; which will make up a seventh direction.
Being thus resolved to turn to God, and to go on to fear and obey him,
thou mayest safely and confidently trust in and stay upon the name of God,
when thou hast nothing else to rest upon. This, you see, is the direction
which the text gives ; and I had thought therefore to have made a distinct
point of it; but I will somewhat more largely open and explain it, only as it
is a direction, and means of support and comfort in this distress, and so take
it as it riseth out of the text. Thus —
That to one wlio resolves to fear God and obey him, the name of God is
an all-sufficient prop and stay for his faith to rest on, when he sees nothing
in himself, or in any promise in the world belonging unto him.
The name of God alone is here opposed to all other means and props
which faith hath to rest on. It is opposed to all comfortable sense of God's
love, to all sight of any grace in a man's self to which any promise is made.
So that when the soul shall look into itself wdth one eye, and glance over aU
the word of God with another ; and yet shall see not any one grace in the
one, nor promise in the other made to any grace within itself which it may
rest upon ; yet the soul then looking upon God, and considering what a God
lie is, and what he says of himself, of his mercy and kindness, and free grace
towards sinful men, even the sole consideration of what merely it knows to
be in God, as he is revealed in the covenant of grace, may support him. This
it is to stay upon his name.
Now, to explain this further to you. By tlie name of God two things are
meant : —
First, Those glorious attributes, especially of grace and mercy, whereby
God hath expressed .himself, and made himself known to us.
Secondly/, Jesus Christ, as he is made and set forth to be righteousness to
the sons of men.
For the Jirst, in Exod. xxxiv. 4-7, the Lord proclaimed his name, ' The
Lord God, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and
win by no means clear the impenitent.'
For the second, I refer to that place, Jer. xxiii 6, speaking of Christ,
* This is the name wherewith he shall be called,' or made known to us, ' The
326 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaET IL
Lord our Righteousness ; ' that is, that Jesus Christ, who is God, hath
righteousness in him for us, which may be made ours.
So that when a poor soul in distress is not able to say, I see such or such
signs, or any evidence in myself, whereby I can say God is my God, or that
Christ is mine ; yet because I see free grace enough in God, and righteousness
in Christ, which I, being a sinful man, and not a devil, may therefore be
capable of, and may come to have an intei^st in them, though I know no-
thing in myself whereby I can challenge any present interest ; and because
Grace and Mercy is his name, and Our Righteousness his Son's name, there-
fore I do cast myself upon both for pardon and favour, and thereupon my
soul leans, stays, and abides, and from these it will not be driven. So that
these two apprehensions meeting in the heart in truth, help to make up this
resting upon his name here spoken of : namely, first, that there is such free
grace, good-wiU, and mercy, &,c., in God, and that Jesus Christ is appointed
and made to be our righteousness ; and, secondly, that I am cajjable of, and
may come to have an interest in both these, and that though there be no-
thing in me which may challenge an interest in them, yet there is nothing
that excludes me ; whereui3on I cast myself upon God for both, and there
rest ; 3'ea, though I cannot yet say that ever I shall obtain them. And this,
where it is truth, and accompanied with that firm resolution of turning to
God in all things before-mentioned, is as good faith as any of you have in
your hearts.
And so I come to the proof of this : namely, that when the name of God
and Christ are thus simply and alone apprehended, they may be sufficient
ground for faith to rest upon ; than which nothing can be more comfortable
to a poor distressed beUever. Num. xiv., when God's wrath waxed hot
against his people, as sometimes in like manner it doth against a poor soul,
that God began to say, 'How long shall they provoke me?' ver. 11, and
speaks of destroying them, and of making Moses a great nation ; what hath
Moses's faith recourse unto, but to that proclamation of his name you heard
of before ? and urgeth that, ver. 17, 18, ' Let the power of my Lord be great,
according as thou hast spoken. The Lord is long-sufiering, and of great
mercy, forgi-^ing iniquity, transgression, and sin.' And he desires him to
shew his power in pardoning, because as much power is seen in overcoming
his wrath as in making a world. ' Let thy power be great ; ' it was his name,
you see, that was alleged by ]^Ioses, and prevailed with God for mercy. So
also for his Son's sake, ' The Lord our righteousness : ' Elihu says. Job
xxxiii., when a man's soul is in deepest distress, as in ver. 19-22 he describes
it, yet says he, ver. 23, ' If there be a messenger to shew a man his upright-
ness,' — that is, that righteousness that is laid up for men in the Lord Jesus,
— ' then God is gracious to him, and says, Deliver him ; ' and, he resting
thereupon, ' his flesh returns to him again,' becoming a means to stay him
and restore him. I mention these jilaces of the Old Testament rather than
of the New; out of which you see God's name and his Son's name are all-
sufficient to uphold and support a soul. So the penman of that psalm, whe-
ther David or whoever, Ps. cxxx., when he was 'in his depths,' as ver. 1, 2,
plunged over head and ears in sorrow and discomfiture, what hath his faith
recourse unto 1 ver. 4, ' to God's name,' to nothing that was in himself, but
simply to what his faith apprehended to be in God. ' Mercy is with thee ;'
he says no more : in him, and with him, it is to be had. And he confirms
his faith in that by this argument, because else ' none woidd fear him ;' and,
* if thou wert extreme to mark what were amiss, no man could stand,' or
■would be saved. Therefore, ' surely,' says he, ' mercy is with thee,' and,
Direct. VII.] a child of light walking tn darkness. 327
* therefore let Israel hope in the Lord,' ver. 7. And why ? Wliat ! because
Israel sees he hath grace in himself I No, but because ' mercy is with him
and plenteous redemption,' ver. 7 ; which word redemption hath relation to
his Son's name. There is enough in him, else he will have none ; and Israel
is mentioned in his will as capable of it ; and therefore, says he, ' I ^^^J1 wait
and hope in the Lord,' ver. 5. And though he could not say that God had
forgiven him, yet 'forgiveness was with him,' and there he pitcheth and
resteth his soul ; as a beggar at a great man's door, when there is none else
in the country able or willing to relieve him, there he lies, though, he knows
not whether he shall have anything or no, ' In my father's house there is
bread enough,' says the prodigal ; there it is to be had, and nowhere else ;
and there is enough. And crumbs will serve me, says the woman of Canaan.
Thou art the Mediator, thought she, and it is thy business to save ; and
though I am a dog, yet I am capable of having crumbs. ' Woman,' says
Christ, ' great is thy faith ; ' not such faith among aU my disciples. These
trusted in his name, and nothing in themselves. So Ps. Ixii., David says, at
ver. 5, ' he trusted in God for salvation and mercy,' and exhorts throughout
the whole, ' trust in God fully, and at all times, and in no creature,' ver.
8, 9. And what was it he rested upon 1 Simply two attributes of his, viz.,
mercy and power : ' God hath spoken once,' (that is, irrevocably ; as Ps.
Ixxxviii. 35, 'Once have I sworn,' &c.,) 'and twice I have heard this,' — that
is, often met with it in the word, and thought of it, — says he, ' that with.
God is power,' ver. 11, so as he is able to save in the greatest distress ; and
I have heard that ' to him belongeth mercy also,' ver. 12, and therefore he
may be willing to help ; and because these are in him, though I have nothing
in myself, yet these I rest upon, and these alone. Many such instances more
might be brought.
The reasons why the name of God, and what is in God, is prop sufficient
for faith to rest upon, are —
Reason 1. — Because the name of God, that is, God's attributes, and
Christ's righteousness, do sufficiently, and adequately, and fully answer all
w^ants and doubts, aU objections and distresses we can have, or can be in.
Whatsoever our want or temptations be, he hath a name to make supply.
For example, to take that his name in pieces, mentioned Exod. xxxiv. 5, 6,
consider every letter in that his name, and every letter answers to some
temptation may be made by us.
Art thou in misery and great distress % He is merciful ; ' The Lord mer-
ciful.' The Lord, therefore able to help thee ; and merciful, therefore ivillmg.
Yea, but thou wilt say, I am unworthy ; I have nothing in me to move
him to it. Well, therefore, he is gracious ; now grace is to shew mercy
freely. Yea, but I have sinned against him long, for many years ; if I had
come in when I was young, mercy might have been shewn me. To this he
says, ' I am long-suffering.' Yea, but my sins every way abound in number,
and it is impossible to reckon them up, and they abound in heinousness ; I
have committed the same sins again and again ; I have been false to him,
broke promise with him again and again. His name also answers this objec-
tion, he is abundant in goodness ; he abounds more in grace than thou in
sinning. And though thou hast been false again and again to him, and broke
all covenants, yet he is abundant in truth ; also better than his word, for
he cannot to our capacities express all that mercy that is in him for us.
Yea, but I have committed great sios, aggravated with many and great cir-
cumstances, against knowledge, wilfully, &c. He forgives i7iiquity, trains-
gression, and sin; sins of aU sorts. Yea, but there is mercy thus in him but
328 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaUT IT.
for a few, and I may be none of tlie number. Yes, there is mercy for thou-
sands. And lie keeps it ; treasures of it lie by him, and are kept, if men
would come and take them.
Object what thou canst, his name will answer thee. Needest thou com-
fort as well as pardon ? He is both ' Father of mercies ' and ' God of all
comforts ; ' that is his name, 2 Cor. i. 3. Needest thou peace of conscience,
being filled with terrors ? He is the •' God of peace,' 1 Thess. v. 23. Yea,
but I have a heart emjity of grace and holiness, and full of corruptions.
He is the ' God of all grace ' to heal thee, as well as of peace to pardon thee.
Needest thou wisdom and direction ? He is the ' Father of lights,' as the
A.pustle says. Is thy heart inconstant and full of double-mindedness ? He
'.s ' unchangeable ' also, as he speaks there, James i. Thus all objections that
can be made may be answered out of his name. Therefore it is all-suffi-
cient for faith to rest upon.
The Like may be fully shewed in his Son's name ; in whom God hath
made himself strong to shew mercy and bestow all good things. Whose
name is adequate to God's name ; that is, is of as large extent in worth and
merit, as God's heart is in his purposes of shewing and bestowing mercies,
to purchase all that God meant to bestow. Whose name hath likewise an
all-sufficiency in it to supply all our wants and desires, and satisfy all
scruples. For example, that his name mentioned by the projjhet, Isa. ix. 6,
which he here directs to, compared with 1 Cor. i. 30. For, would we havo
peace of conscience, and the guilt of sins removed ? He is the ' Prince of
Peace,' and is made 'righteousness' to us. Are we in depths of distress,
terrors within, terrors without, out of which we see no redemption ? He is
the ' mighty God ; ' ' able to save to the utmost,' being made ' redemption ' to
us. Want we grace and his image to be renewed and increased in us 1 He
is 'the everlasting Father ;' s, father to beget his likeness in us, and everlast-
ing to maintain it ever, when it is begun once ; he is made ' sanctification '
to us. Want we wisdom to guide us 1 He is the ' Counsellor,' and is made
wisdom to us. All we want he hath ; even as all he hath we want. And
further, although we not only want all these, but never so much of all these,
his name is also 'Wonderful.' For such he is in all these ; able to do be-
yond all our expectations, to wonderment.
Or if the soul desires more distinct and particular satisfaction in point of
justification, which consists in the pardon of sins and acceptation to the
favour of God, it being the jjoint which in this state of desertion is ques-
tioned, and wherein the soul desires satisfiiction ; that other name of his,
' The Lord our righteousness,' Jer. xxiii. 6, will answer all objections and
doubts that our hearts can make, if we had but skill to spell all the letter^
in it. For if that righteousness of his satisfied God, who, in condemning us,
is greater than our hearts, 1 John iii. 20, then it may satisfy our hearts much
more. The righteousness of his Ufe and death is not only rhriXuT^ov, an
adequate sufficient ransom, 1 Tim. ii. 6, but there is ' plenteous redemption '
in it, Ps. cxxx, yea, to superfluity, as the Apostle's phrase implies : ute^-
i'jrXsovaai, 1 Tim. i. 14, that is, over-full, more than would serve the turn, and
that to pardon his sins, who, ver. 15, was 'the chief of sinners.' He else-
where challengeth all the wit and powers of sin and hell and darkness to
appear in this dispute, and undertakes to answer them all out of this one
position, which he lays as a bottom truth, ' Christ hath died,' Kom. viii. 34,
which is in effect the same with this, ' The Lord our righteousness ;' ' Who
therefore,' says he, ' shall condemn V What can be alleged, either in the
heinousness of sin in general, or in any of thy sins in particular, unto which
Direct. VII.] a child of light walking in darkness. 329
an answer may not hence be fetched from the righteousness of his death and
life '? Is it that sin is an offence against the great God — ' Against thee,
against thee,' ifec., as David speaks 1 And is not this his righteousness, the
righteousness of Jehovah — Jehovah our righteousness, who is the mighty
God ? Is the glory of this great God, and all his excellencies, debased by us in
sinning ? And will not the emptying of his glory, Phil. ii. 7, whose name is
' the brightness of his Father's glory,' Heb. i. 3, in performing this righteous-
ness for us, satisfy and make amends 1 Are our sins the transgression of the
holy and righteous law in every part of it 1 And did not Jehovah, who gave
and made that law, to make himself our righteousness, ' make himself under
the law, ' Gal. iv. 4, and, to make up a full righteousness, fulfil every part
of it ] Horn. viii. 3, 4. Is it thy continuance in sin, and the number and the
iteration of them, that amazeth thee 1 ' All fulness dwells in him ' who is
bi\T righteousness, Col. i. 19, and hath dwelt in him longer than sin in thee ;
and the righteousness of our Messiah is ' everlasting righteousness,' Dan. ix.
24 ; the merit of which an eternity of sinning could not expend or make
void. And is all this righteousness laid up for himself only, or for any other
sort of creatures, so as thou mightest never come to have an interest in it ?
No; the top of our comfort is, that 'our righteousness ' is one letter of his
Dame, and that our names are put into his. For us it is, and ows it is or-
dained to be : as much ours, to save us, trusting upon it, as his own to glorify
him. Ours, not for himself; he had no need of it, being God blessed for
ever. Ours, not the angels' ; neither the good, for they are justified by their
own; nor the bad, they are put out of God's will for ever. But ours,
who are the sons of men ; and among them, theirs especially who are ' broken,
lost, whose souls draw near to the grave, and their lives to the destroyers,'
and that come and pray unto God, and stay themselves upon it : unto them
God cannot deny it, for it is theirs. For he will ' render to man his righte-
ousness,' Job xxxiii. 22, 26. So as his Son's name also is all-suflficient to
answer all objections for faith to rest upon : ' So as they that know his name
will trust in him,' Ps. ix. 10.
Reason 2. — A second reason why his name is sufficient, though you have
and see nothing in you, nor any promise made to any grace in you to rest
upon, is, because even all those promises made to conditions in us, which we
ordinarily look unto, are 'yea and amen' only in this his name and his
Son's name. That is the original of them all, the root, the seed of them aU ;
his name is the materia prima, the first matter of all those secondary pro-
mises, ex quo Jiunt, et in quod resolvuniur ; his name gives being to them
all. If it were not for the mercy, grace, truth, kindness in him, and the
righteousness which is in his Son, all the promises which are made, what
were they worth 1 As the worth of bonds depends upon the sufficiency of
the man who makes them, so all these promises upon his name. Therefore
now, when you rely upon his name, having as yet no promise made to any
thing in you to rely upon, you then rely upon that which is the foundation
of all those promises ; you then have recourse to the original, which is more
authentical than extract copies ; you rely on that which aU those other are
resolved into, and therefore is sufficient, though aU the rest fail you in your
apprehension.
Reason 3. — Thirdly, his mere name is support enough for faith, and may
be so ; because it is for his name's sake, and his Son's name's sake, he doth
aU he doth; and for nothing in us, but merely for what is in himself. So Isa.
xlviii. 9, 10, 'For my name's sake,' &c.; so also Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 32, 'For
my name's sake, and not your sake;' and Isa. xliii 25, 'I am he that blot-
330 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaET II.
teth out thy transgression for my own sake, and will not remember thy
sins.' For it lie blotteth out transgression, and pardoneth. And if it be
for his name's sake he doth all he doth, and fulfiUeth aU promises made to
us, and to what is in us, then when thou seest nothuig in thyself to which
any promise is made, nothing which may appear to be any argument or
motive that he will pardon thee, then trust thou in that his name ; that
because he is God, and hath mercy in him, that therefore he will do it.
For that thing which is the only or main motive to God himself to do any-
thing for us, must needs be, when apprehended and believed, the strongest
and surest ground for our faith also, to persuade the heart that he will do
it. As it is in knowledge, the knowledge of the cause of things causeth the
surest knowledge; so in fiiith, the knowledge of the main motive to God
the cause of all, causeth the greatest certainty of persuasion.
This then may direct poor souls in distress what to venture aU upon ; upon
what ground to hazard souls, labours, endeavours, faith, repentance, obe-
dience, and all, upon his name, when they see nothing in themselves to
which any promise belongs. As David says, Ps. Ixxiii. 26, ' My heart may
fail, and my flesh may fail, but God will never fail : ' so I may say, your
comforts in prayers, in hearing, your joys, your earnest-pennies you have
laid up, may be all spent in a dearth, your own graces, and all promises
made to them ; your own hearts may faU, and being creatures they use to
fad again and again; but God's name and his Son's name, rested on, will
never fail you. Lean on these, not by halves, in distress, but trust perfectly,
as the Apostle says, on that mercy you hear is in God, upon that grace re-
vealed, 1 Pet. i. 13, — that is, throw and cast your whole souls, your whole
weight upon it. He only 'hath perfect peace whose muid is stayed on
thee,' Isa. xxvi. 3. Have not half thy soul on that ' rock which is higher
than thou,' Ps. Ixi. 2, but creep up and get aU upon it ; and when aU fail,
renew thy faith on his name. Thereon rest, there die. To this purpose may
that of Solomon serve, Pro v. xviii. 10 : ' His name,' says he, ' is a strong
to-n-er, and the righteous fly to it, and are safe.' Now what end is there and
use of a tower in a city, but when all outworks are taken, the walls scaled,
all fortifications forsaken, houses left 1 then a tower holds out last, and is a
refuge to flee to. So also when the devU and God's -wrath beleaguers thee
round, and encompasseth thy soul, and the comfort of every grace in thee is
taken from thee, and thou art driven from, and art forced to forsake all other
thy holds and grounds of comfort, then fly to the name of the Lord as thy
city of refuge ; as, Heb. vi. 18, it is compared. Say, There is mercy in thee.
Lord, and that is thy name ; and there is righteousness in thy Son, and that
is his name : and I am directed to trust in thy name in time of need. And
here rest, and catch hold as on the horns of the altar ; and if thou diest, die
there.
Direction VIII.
The eighth direction is, to wait upon God, thus trusting in his name, in the
constant use of all ordinances and means of comfort. Waiting is indeed but
an act of faith further stretched out. As an allegory is but a continued
metaphor, so waiting is but a continuing to beheve on God, and to look for
help from hun with submission, though he stays long ere he comes. Wait-
ing is an act of faith resting on God ; and an act of hope expecting help from
him ; an act of patience, the mind quietly contenting itself till God doth
come ; and of submission if he should not come. Therefore, says the church,
being in this very case, Lam. iii 26, ' It is good to hope, and quietly to wait
Direct. VIII.] a child of light walking ix daekness. 331
for the salvation of the Lord.' It is good indeed to do so : for God will
afflict you less, ease you the sooner, cunifort you the more when he doth
come ; and in the meanwhile it makes you to ' possess your souls,' and to be
yourselves, and upholds them. And to do otherwise, to be impatient, and to
' give over looking for the Lord,' as Ahaz did, is the greatest folly that can
be; for, as Job says, chap. xii. 14, 'If he shut up, there is no opening ;' all
the world cannot let you out ; he keeps the keys of the dungeon, and you
must stay his leisure. And he stays but for a fit time to let you out, Isa. xxx.
18, ' He will wait to be gracious to you, for he is a God of judgment,' a wise
and judicious God, and knows the fittest times and seasons. And that he
stays so long is not out of want of mercy, for he waits and longs to be gracious,
but he doth it out of judgment, and his wisdom sees not a fit time ; he is
grieved as wcU as you that you are not yet fit for mercy, that his mercy
should not yet be exalted, if he would shew it, till you further see your misery ;
and therefore, says he, ' Blessed are all they that wait for him.' And as he
now waiteth but to be the more gracious to thee, so he did heretofore a long
while wait for thee, that thou shouldest begin to turn to him and say,
' When will it once be 1 ' Jer. xiii. 27. Thou madest him stay thy leisure
in turning from thy sin ; why may he not make thee stay his for the pardon
of it ] And indeed the escaping hell in the end is so great a mercy, that it
is worth the waiting for all thy days, though thou endure a hell here, and
gettest not a good look till the very last gasp and moment of living ] there-
fore ' put thy mouth in the dust, and wait quietly, if there may be hope' at
last. Lam. iii. 20.
And waiting thus, go on to use all the means of grace more diligently,
more constantly, though thou findest a long while no good by them. Omit
no ordinance God hath appointed for thy comfort and recovery. As in a long
sickness, you still use means though many have failed ; as the woman who
had the bloody issue spent all upon physicians, in the use of means for her re-
covery. That trouble of mind doth only hurt you that drives you from the
means. Therefore the devil endeavours nothing more than to keep such
souls from the word, from good company, from the sacraments, from prayer,
by objecting their unprofitableness unto them, and that all is in vain, and
that you do but increase your condemnation.
But, first, if thou learnest no other lesson in the use of the means but that
thou art of thyself most unprofitable, and that unless God teacheth thee to
profit no good is done, and so learnest to depend upon God in the ordinance ;
this is a great degree of profiting.
And, secondly, as when men are sick and eat, and cast up again, you use
to say, yet take something dowTi, for some strength is gotten, something
remains in the stomach which keeps life and soul together : so I say here,
though thou shouldest forget in a manner all thou hearest, seemest to reap
no benefit by it, yet hear, for some secret strength is gotten by it. And aa
for increasing thy condemnation, know that utterly to neglect and despise
the means is greater condemnation ; and that to use the means would lessen
thy condemnation. Therefore read, pray, meditate, hear, confer, receive the
sacraments, forbear not these your appointed meals. Indeed when the body
is sick ye use to forbear your appointed food, but when the soul is sick there
is more need of them than ever. All these are both meat and medicine,
food, physic, cordials, and all. Use reading the word ; the Scriptures were
written for our consolation, therefore read them much ; attend on preaching,
for ' God creates the fruit of the lips. Peace,' Isa. Ivii. 19. So receive the
sacrament often •, those days are sealing days ; go thou and confess thy sins,
332 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT IL
write over thy pardon, put in all thou knowest by thyself, bring it to Christ
to set his seal to it.
Only take this caution, that thou trust not to the use of the means, but
unto God in the means. To think, Oh, I shall have comfort by such a man,
or at such a time, in such an ordinance; this often dasheth all. So believe
in God as if you used no means, and yet as diligently use the means, even
as if your confidence were to be in them.
Direction IX.
To pray : fleas to he used to God in prayer for recovery out of this
condition.
And, ninthly, above all things pray ; and get others also to pray for thee,
for God often ' restores comfort ' unto such at the request of mourners for
them, Isa. Ivii. 18. But yet especially be earnest and fervent in pouring
forth thy complaint thj'self ; for though the speaking of friends may some-
what further thy suit, yet, as between two wooers, so it must be wrought
out between God and thee alone in private; and his good- will must be ob-
tained by wooing him in secret. This counsel the Apostle gives you, James
v. 13, 'Is any man afflicted'? let him pray.' And because of all afflictions
else, this of darkness in a man's sj)irit needeth prayer the most ; therefore
David pens a psalm on purpose, not for his own private use only, but for
the benefit and use of all other in the like distress, as, by the title of it, doth
appear, Ps. cii. : ' A prayer for the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and
poureth out his complaint before the Lord.' And this, says David, is my
constant practice, ' when my soul is overwhelmed, I pour out my prayer unto
thee,' Ps. Ixi. 2. And it was Christ's also, for in his agony ' he prayed yet
more earnestly,' Luke xxii. 44.
When at any time, therefore, thy sins and God's wrath, meeting in thy
conscience, make thee deadly sick, as Isaiah speaks, then pour forth thy soul,
lay open and confess thy sin ; and as it will ease thee, as vomiting useth to
do, so also it will move God to pity, and to give thee cordials and comforts
to restore thee again. Thus David, Ps. xxxviii. 18, (being in great distress,
ver. 2-5,) ' I will declare mine iniquity, and be sorry for my sin ;' and he
makes it an argument to God to pardon him, when his bones were broken,
Ps. li., ' Cleanse me from my sin,' ver. 2, ' for I acknowledge my trans-
gressions,' ver. 3 ; and when he had confessed, ver. 4-6, then he cries,
'Make me to hear of joy and gladness,' ver. 8; and 'restore unto me the joy
of thy salvation,' ver. 1 2. And what was the chief ingredient, the main and
principal motive, which wrought most kindly with him to confess and mourn,
and brought up all? 'Against thee, thee only :' he puts in twice as much
of the consideration thereof as of any other ingredient, to make his heart
mourn; that chiefly, if not only, melted, dissolved him. And in these thy
confessions, let the same also maiiily work vpith thee. Against thee, thee,
have I sinned, thus oft, thus grievously, thus presumptuously ; against thee,
a God so great, and yet withal so good, so kind, so willing to receive and
pardon, if my heart (say) were but as willing to turn unto thee. And when
thy case is as Job's was, chap. x. 15-17, that 'thou art full of confusion,' as
he speaks there ; so full as thou thinkest thy heart could hold no more ;
and yet ' it increaseth,' as it is there, and he fills thee fuller yet ; — then do
thou pour out thy complaints to him, as he pours in confusion into thee ;
and when he ' hunts ' thee, as Job there comj^lains, * like a fierce lion,' fall
thou dovra and humble thyself like a poor and silly lamb; if thou diest, die at
Direct, IX.] a child of light walking in darkness. 333
his feet, mourning, bleeding out thy soul in tears. And when he hunts thee
up and d()».-n, and pursues thee with blow after blow, 'follow thou hard after
hun' wherever he goes, Vs. Ixiii. 8, with complaint after complaint. And
when yet he leaves thee not, but again and again returns, as some read it,
after some intermission, and shews himself terrible to thee day after day,
night after night, yet do thou look in like manner ' again and again towards
his holy temple,' as Jonah did, chap. ii. 4. And when he begins to bring
in new sins, new indictments against thee, as it is in the 17th verse, ' Thou
rcncwest thy witnesses ;' and when thou thoughtest he had done with thee,
he fetcheth new rods forth, and enters into new quarrels and reckonings
long since past and forgotten, as it is in the same verse, ' changes and war
against me,' vicissitudes and armies of disquietments ; and when one army is
overcome, new appear in the field ; — then fall thou down upon thy knees, and
say as Job at last doth, chap. vii. 20, 'I have sinned,' I have sinned, 'what shall
I do unto theef what shall I do unto thee? ' thou preserver' — and not the
destroyer — ' of men :' these and these abominations I have done, and I cannot
now undo them ; and what shall I do to obtain thy favour 1 Alas ! nothing
that can satisfy him ; only ' confess thy sins, accept thy punishment,' Lev.
xxvi. 41. Go and strip thyself therefore, and with all submission present a
naked back to him ; and though every stroke fetcheth not blood only, but
well-nigh thy soul away, yet complain thou not one whit of him; 'put thy
mouth in the dust,' Lam. iii. 29, 30. Be still, not a word ; but only such
as whereby thou utterest thy complaints, and dost acknowledge thine own
deservedness of ten thousand times more ; and say, as Mic. vii. 9, ' I will
bear thine indignation patiently, for I have sinned against thee.' Bear wit-
ness still to every stroke, that it is not only just, but also ' less than thou hast
deserved,' Ezra ix. 13; and that it is 'his mercy thou art not consumed' and
cut off by every blow ; and the heavier he lays on, struggle thou not, he will
let thee down the sooner. The higher he lifts up his hand to strike, the
lower let thy soul fall down : 'humble yourselves under his mighty hand;'
and still kiss the rod when he hath done.
And then ' take up words ' of pleading for thyself, — it is for thy life, —
desiring him to remember what he hath been ever thinking of, even from ever-
la,sting, ' thoughts of peace ' and mercy to us-ward, and ' the number of them
cannot be told,' as David says, Ps. xl. 5 ; which he hath been ever thinking
of, and with the greatest of delights, as one that was in his bosom, and was
his counsellor, (his Son,) tells us, Prov. viii. 3L And plead thou as David
and other saints of God have done. What are now become of all these thy
thoughts of mercy? Are they restrained? Isa. Ixiii. 16. What! are all
now on the sudden forgotten, Ps. Ixxvii. 9, laid aside, which thou hast been
thinking on so long ? Hast thou forgotten thine old and ancient delights ?
Ask him if he hath forgotten his own name, — to be gracious and abundant
in kindness, — it is his name. Say, Did the very intent of shewing mercy
so infinitely beforehand j^ossess thee with delights, and now, when thou
shouldst come to put it in execution, and hast so fair an opportunity of doing
it, to a soul as full of misery, the object of mercy, as ever, hast thou now no
heart, no mind to it ? And withal, say that thou hast notice given thee of
an infinite and all-sufiicient righteousness in his Son, laid up in him, and
that by his own procurement, whereof his Son never had, nor can have any
need himself, being God blessed for ever ; and for whom was it then ap-
pointed but for the sons of man, those who are weary, wounded, sick, broken,
lost? These his Son hath put into his will, Heb. ix. 16, who still lives to
be his own executor. And say further also to him that it is come to thine
334 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DAUKNESS. [PaET IL
ears that Ms Spirit is the ' Comforter,' a ' God of comforts,' and that his
Son hath bought them all, his whole shop, and all his cordials, and all his
skill, ' and is anointed with this Spirit,' Isa. Ixi. 1-3, on purpose to pour
him forth mto the hearts of those that are wounded and sick and broken ;
and ' the whole they have no need of them.'
If it be said unto thee. Yea, but thou art most unworthy ; answer, But he
professeth to ' love freely,' Hos. xiv. 4. If the greatness of thy sius be objected
against thee, plead thou again that ' plenteous redemption is with him,'
Psalm cxxx. 7 ; and if thou hast not enough to pardon me, say, I am con-
tent to go without. If thou art ungodly, say that thou behevest ' on him
that justifieth the ungodly,' Ptom. iv. 5. If he puts thee off, as Christ a
while did the woman of Canaan, and says he hath no need of thee ; say, that
thou hast need of him, and canst no longer live without him ; for ' in his
favour is thy life,' and that without it thou art undone. If he seems to rebuke
thee, that how darest thou press thus to him who is ' the high and lofty
One/ a sinful man to him 'whose name is Holy;' say, thou hast heard himself
say, ' Thus saith that high and lofty One, whose name is Holy, that he dwells
with him that is of a contrite spirit, to revive the heart of the humble,' Isa.
Ivii. 1.5. And be further bold to tell him that there are but a few ia the
world that do seek him, and if he should turn any away that do, he would
have fewer ; for who would fear him, if there were not ' mercy in him and
plenteous redemption V Psalm cxxx. 7.
If still he doth pursue thee, and his wrath lies heavy on thee, ask him
what it is he aims at 1 Is it to have the victory, and ' overcome when he
judgeth?' as Ptom. iii. 4 : which David also knew when he humbled him-
self, Psahn LL 4. Freely tell him that thou art willing to give it him, to
yield to him, to stand out with him in nothing ; but art content to submit
to his commanding will in all things, and to his condemning will also, if so
he pleaseth : and that it shall be just, as David there acknowledgeth, if he
doth condemn thee ; and justify thou him, whilst he is condemnmg thee ;
and say that at the latter day he shall need no other judge against thee than
thyself. Only beseech him to consider what honour it will be to him to
' pursue dry stubble,' and to ' break a poor dried leaf,' Job xiiL 25, that
crumbleth under his fingers, if he doth but touch it, as Job pleads ; to ' break
a reed' that is broken already, Matt. xiL 20. Say, thou art not a fit match
for him ; and he hath said, ' He will not contend for ever,' Isa. Ivii. 1 6,
especially when he sees any to lay down the weapons, as thou art content
to do.
Or is it, ask him, that he aims to have glory out of thy eternal con-
demnation in hell ? Tell him it is true, he may ; and that this is some com-
fort to thee, that he may have glory out of thy death and destruction, who
never yet had it out of thy Life : but yet desire him to consider this before
he thrusts his sword into thee, that he did first sheathe it in his Son'a
bowels, and that he may shew as much power in overcoming his wrath as
in venting of it ; yea, and have also greater glory thereby. For, plead that
thou art never able to satisfy him, though he should throw thee down to
hell. He may cast thee into prison, but thou canst never pay the debt : and
' what profit therefore will be in my blood?' Psalm xx x. 9 ; and therefore,
if satisfaction to his justice be his end, he might better accept that which his
Son made him, and so he shall be sure to be no loser by thee : and thereby
not only receive the glory of his justice, but shew the riches of his grace and
mercy also, and so double the revenue of his glory in thee.
vjr is it. Lord, that thou aunest to have more obedience from me than
Direct. IX.] a child of light walking in darkness. 335
heretofore thou hast had 1 Plead, that thi.s is the way at present to disable
thee for service, for that, while thou sufferest his terrors, thou art as ' one
among the dead,' listless not to his business only, but to all things else ;
'distracted with terrors,' as Heman pleads, Psalm Ixxxviii. 15, so as the
powers and forces of thy soid are scattered and dissolved, and cannot intend
and attend upon their duty. And besides this distraction in thy spirit,
l)load, that it ' consumes thy strength' also, ' dries up thy bones and mois-
ture,' as David also often complaineth, and makes an argument of it, as
P.s;dm xxxix. 10-13, ' Eemove thy stroke away from me ; I am con.sumed by
the blow of thy hand. When thou rebukest man for sin, thou makest his
beauty to consume away as a moth : therefore spare me, that I may
recover sti-ength, before I go hence, and be no more seen.' And withal put
him in mind, that if he should go on thus to deal with thee, as thou shouldest
not be able to do him much service, so nor to do it long. For it will cut
short my days, say. This David pleadeth. Psalm Ixxxix. 46, 47, compared
with the 39th Psalm, ver. 12, ' How long, Lord? wilt thou hide thyself for
ever 1 Shall thy w^ath burn like fire 1 Eemember how short my time is.*
As if he should have said, I have but a little time here allotted me in the
world, though none of it be shortened. And further tell him, that for that
little time thou hast to live, the more joy thou hast, the more service thou
shalt be able for to do him ; and to go about his work more lively, and more
strongly, — for ' the joy of the Lord is our strength,' Neh. viiL 10, — and more
acceptably also, for ' thou lovest a cheerful giver,' 2 Cor. ix. 7. And there-
fore entreat him to restore thee to the joy of his salvation, so shalt thou be
able to do him more service in a week than in a year now ; long trouble of
mind being as long sicknesses, which make all thy performances weak ; and
it is for his disadvantage to have his servants lie long sick upon his hands.
And if it be objected against thee, that if thou shouldest be trusted with
much assurance thou wouldst abuse it, and turn it into wantonness ; reply,
that if he pleaseth he can prevent it, by preparing thy heart aforehaad for
these cordials, so as they shall work most kindly on thee ; by writing a
law of love towards him in thy heart, which when his love shed abroad
shall join with, will w'ork most strongly; and one grain of it hath more
force to purge out sin, to constrain and strengthen to obedience, than a
pound of terrors. And say, that though thou hast indeed a stubborn and
self-loving heart, yet he can make his loving-kindness overcome it, for it is
' stronger than death,' Cant. viii. 6. Say thou hast love in thee, (which runs
out enough to other things,) if he would be pleased to wdn it to himself.
Suggest how that that soul mentioned Isa. Ivii. had as stout and stubborn
a heart as thou, and ' went on frowardly,' notwithstanding all thy terrors :
and yet (O Lord !) thou tookest another course with him, and didst ' heal
him' again, and that by ' comforts,' (' I will heal him,' says God there, ' and
restore comforts unto him,' ver. 18,) and that so, if he please, he may deal
with thee.
And if Kght and mercy yet comes not, but still God seems as it were to
cast thee off; then call to mind if ever thou hast had any true communion
with him, and thereupon begin to challenge him. So doth the church, Isa.
Ixiii. 16, when in thy case; when ' his mercies were restrained' to her, she
says, yet ' doubtless thou art my father ; ' she saw God was angry, ' her heart
hard,' ver. 17, yet she thought she should know him : ' doubtless he is my
father; and where is thy zeal, the sounding of thy bowels?' So challenge
him thou, upon that old acquaintance thou hast had and held wdth him in
former times Say, ' doubtless thou art my father and my husband,' how
336 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IK DARKKESS, [PaET IL
strange soever thou earnest thyself now towards me ; for dost thou not re-
member what hath been between me and thee in prayer, in such a chamber,
at such a time 1 Hast thou never a piece of a broken ring between him and
thee, no love-passage, no love-token, that could not j^ass between him and
any whom he had not 'betrothed himself unto in kindness?' Hosea ii. 19.
Produce it at such a time as this. And if thou shouldest discern no grace in
thee thyself, yet desire him to look into thy heart ; and be bold to inquire
of him if he can see nothing there which himself wrote, never to be blotted
out ; if there be not some spark of love to him and his fear which himself
put there ; and ask him if he knows his own hand. And for thy comfort
know, that when thou canst not read it, thy graces bemg much blurred, yet
he can read his own hand at any time, and will not deny it.
Thou mayest be yet bolder. Yea, desire him to look into his own hearty
and therein to view the idea he had of thee, and those secret ancient thoughts
he bore towards thee, from all eternity. And if at first he seems yet silent at
it, then desire him to look upon thee again, and ask him if he doth not
know thee, and if he hath not known and taken thee for his from everlast'
ing, and engraven thee on the palms of his hands and table of his hearty
vnth such deep and lasting letters of loving-kindness as are not as yet, yea,
which will not for ever be blotted out. Tell him thou darest refer thyself
wholly to what passed between him and his Son concerning thee, and let his
own heart cast it. Appeal to Christ as thy surety, and a witness thereof for
thee, who was privy to all his counsel, whether thou art not one of those he
gave unto him, with a charge to redeem and save. And desire him to look
into Chi'ist's heart also, if thy name be not written there with his own hand ;
and if that Christ did not bear thy name written xipon his heart, as the high
priest did the names of all the tribes, when he hung upon the cross, and
when he ascended into the holy of hohes. Thus Habakkuk, putting up a
prayer in the name of the church, hath taught us to plead, chap. i. 12,
Lord, ' art nut thou from everlasting my God, and mine Holy One V It
was a bold question ; yet God dislikes it not, but approves it, and presently
assents to it in a gracious answer to their hearts ere they went any further ;
for their next words, and those abruptly spoken, by reason of a sudden an-
swer, are an assurance of this, ' We shall not die.' God being put thus to it,
and his own thoughts being spoken, coidd not deny it ; he acknowledgeth it
was true. And thus whilst thou maj^est be a-speaking blindfold, as it were,
casting anchor in the dark, yet speaking his very heart, he haply may own
thee, and fall upon thy neck and kiss thee.
And if yet, after continual praying thus thou findest still no comfort, no
answer from him, but he seems rather even to shut thy very prayers out, as
Ps. xxii. 2, 3, then expostulate, as Da\dd doth, Ps. Ixxx. 4, ' Why shuttest
thou out our prayers, and wilt not hear us pray V For, alas ! thought he,
we have nothing else to help us in the time of need but prayer ; and if prayer
will do no good, I am undone, say.
And if through all these discouragements thy condition prove worse and
worse, so as thou canst not pray, but art struck dumb when thou comest into
his presence, as David, Ps. Ixxvii. 4, ' I am so troubled I cannot speak,' then
faU a-making signs when thou canst not speak : groan, sigh, sob, ' chatter,'
as Hezekiah did ; bemoan thyself for thine own unworthiness, and desire
Christ to speak thy requests for thee, and God to hear him for thee. Christ
he is ' an advocate with the Father,' 1 John ii. 2, and pleads no bad case,
nor was ever cast in any suit he pleaded.
And if stiU, hp.ply, after many years, he owns thee not, but it grows darker
DlRKCT. X.] A CHILL) OF LIGHT WALKINQ IN DARKNESS. 337
and darker, suppose eyen till thy death approacheth, or to such extremities
that he seems to thee to cast thee off for ever, so as thy distress boils up to
such thoughts as these, that there is no other remedy but thou and he must
part ; then in the midst and depths of such sad fears and apprehensions, down
upon thy knees once more ; and notwithstanding fall thou a-blessing him for
all those glorious excellencies of holiness, kindness, grace, wisdom, &c., which
are in him, the beauty of which first took thy heart and made thee enamoured
■with him, though thou shouldst be never like to be the better for them.
Bless him for all the mercy he shews to others, by which they have occasion
to magnify him, though thou shouldst be found unworthy. Bless him and
those who shall for ever live with him, who do stand about him, and see his
face, and enjoy him ever. What sins thou thinkest thou shalt be condemned
for by him, condemn thyself for first, and still ask forgiveness of them. What
service thou hast any way done him, which he had any glory by, get thy
heart to say thou repentest not of it, but art glad of all done for him, and
wishest it had been better. What rhercies thou hast tasted of from him, con-
fess thyself unworthy of, and thank him though thou shouldst never partake
of any more. Such dispositions as these, in such extremities, do often ap-
pear in the hearts of God's children. And desire him that he would but
preserve good thoughts of him in thee, that thou mayest not blaspheme him.
And when thou art a-going, a-sinldng into hell in thine own apprehensions,
see if he calls thee not back again.
See what himself saith, Jer. xxxi. 18-20, ' Ephraim is my son,' my dear
son, ' my pleasant son,' as he says there, and yet he began to ' speak against
him ' as bitter sharp words as ever he hath done against thee, and took him
up severely, and looked sternly on him, as if he had meant never to have had
mercy on him : upon which Ephraim falls a-crying, being thus snibbed, and
' a-bemoaning himself,' as I have taught thee to do ; and being yoked as thou
art, to tame him, he acknowledgeth it was justly done, having been 'a bullock
unaccustomed to the yoke ;' and Ephraim began to be ashamed, confounded,
not able to look up, for sinning against him, and seeks after repentance, and
that from him without whose help he was not able to turn to him, ' Turn
thou me, and I shall be turned ; ' and to challenge him and his eternal love,
' Thou art the Lord my God.' Well, says God, though it be ' long' since ' I
spake against him,' and I have suffered him long to lie thus plunged in misery,
' yet I remember him still ;' his tears, his sighs, will never out of my mind ;
and though he thinks that I had forgotten him, yet I remember him, and
' my bowels are troubled for him,' as much and more than he is for himself;
and I can forbear no longer, ' I will surely have mercy on him.' And should
he have damned him, his bowels would have been troubled for him indeed,
all his days.
Direction X
The tenth and last direction is, that having done all this, you would not
rest in ease, but healing : not in ease of conscience, but in healing of con-
science. This J. ground upon Isa. Ivii. 17, 18. What was the true issue of
that his trouble there, whom God contended with? It was healing and
guiding : ' I will guide him, and I will heal him.'
You that are troubled in mind, think not your estates to be good simply
because you begin to cease to be troubled, but only then when the issue of
your trouble is healing your spirits, by some sound ground of comfort ; and
when guidance in God's ways, and more close walking with God, is the issue
uf it. For God may slack the cords and take you off the rack when yet he
VOL. in. Y
338 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKI>'G IX L>A1 KNEKS. [PART 11.
hath not pardoned you. A traitor who was cast into the dungeon, and had
many irons on him, may be let out of the dungeon, and have his irons
taken off, and have the liberty of the Tower, and walk abroad again, with
his keeper with liim, and yet not have his pardon : nay, usually before exe-
cution they use to take the irons off, and let them have more freedom. Thus
it is with many. I thank God, says one, I have had much trouble of mind,
distress of conscience, such and such sins terrified me, and I could not sleep
for them : but now I am well again, and now they do not trouble me. Yea,
but is this all ? Thou hast cause to fear that thy irons are but taken off
against execution. It is with men in point of trouble of mind in the guilt
of sin, as in the power of it ; m justification as in sanctification. A man
who hath had a strong lust stirring in him, if he hath gone a year or two,
and findeth it not to stir, he therefore thinks he is utterly freed from it, which
yet may be but a restraint of it, not killing of it ; a cessation, not mortifica-
tion. So it is often in this trouble of mind, which ariseth from the guilt of
sin : because a man finds not those doubts, and fears, and terrors in his heart
which he had wont, tlierefore presently he thinks all is well, whenas it may
be but merely a truce, not a peace ; a laying down of arms only for a while,
to make greater preparation against the soul afterwards ; a reprieval and a
little enlargement in prison, not a pardon, if this be all the issue of it.
That you may further conceive the meaning of this : in one that is God's
child, and in a wicked man, though both may be and are troubled in mind
and conscience, yet there is a main difference, both in the main cause of their
trouble, and also in the issue and removal of their trouble. A wicked man's
trouble is for the anguish and present smart he feels in sin, and in God's
wrath lashing his conscience, and out of fears that his sin will not be par-
doned, but that he shall endure these tortures for ever in hell. So it was in
Judas, Cain, and many others. But a godly man's trouble, though it hath
often all this in it, yet the chiefest of his trouble is a further thing ; it is not
only the smart, the sting of sin, but also the filth, the foulness, the offence
of it done to God, that wounds him ; for he hath a heart after God's heart,
and therefore looks on sin with the same kind of eye that God doth ; and as
God accounts the offence done to him the greatest evil in sin, so doth a
godly heart also. It is not the sting of this serpent only, but the poison of
it that disquiets him ; neither is it only the want of pardon of sin, and the
fear of God's everlasting wrath, which mainly troubleth Mm, but the want
of God's favour, the parting with him whom he sees so excellent and glorious,
the want of seeing his face. His desire is to live in his sight, and to have
God to be his God. Now such as the wound is, such also is the remedy.
Therefore the one being but troubled with the sting, the smart of sin, pull
but that sting out, take that load off, and he is well enough, as jocund, as
pleasant as ever ; it being present ease that he seeks, and to that end con-
fesseth his sin, and doth anything for the present to come out of it ; as
Pharaoh, Exod. x. 17, ' Take away this death only :' or at the utmost, his aim
is but pardon of sin and peace with God, that he may be free from the
fears of undergomg 1;hat for ever, the earnest whereof he feels in his con-
science now. And hence therefore the remedies they often have recour.?-?
unto are suitable ; they are but like rattles to still children with : they run
to merry company and to music, &c., as Cain fell a-building cities, and so
they put off the terrors of their consciences. It is ease they seek, and no
more. Or they run to a formal performance of duties ; even as poor souls
under Popery, when they were stung by the friars' sermons, they set them
penances and good deeds to be done, which stilled them a while; and for
Direct. X.] a child of light walking in darkness. 339
them they thought they should have pardon. So men run now to holy
duties, but with the same opinion that they did then, as bribes for a pardon.
' What shall I give,' says he in Micah, ' for the sin of my soul 1 ' chap. vi. 7.
But now the wound of God's child being deej^er, — not the sting of sin only,
but the poison of it ; not the smart, but the offence done to God ; nor the
fear of his wrath, but want of his favour, — therefore accordingly ease from
those terrors pacifies not him. No ; not simply peace with God will content
him, or a pardon. He says not only, ' Oh, miserable man that I am, who
shall deliver me from this death' only'? but * who shall deliver me from this
body of death 1 ' If news were brought him that God would pardon him,
and not call him to reckoning for any sin, and no more Avere spoken to his
conscience, he would still be troubled till he had assurance of his good-will
also. If it were said, God will indeed pardon thee, but he will never love
thee as he did, he will not look on thee, thou must not come into his sight ;
this would grieve the soul more than the other would content it, and he
would be everlastingly troubled. I may allude to that which Absalom said
in compliment of his father, when he was banished from him, to express the
true desire and greatest trouble of a soul in this case, as you have it, 2 Sam.
xiv. 32. Absalom was pardoned the fault, but it contented him not : ' Let
me see his face, or let him kill me.' So it is ■wdth a poor soul. Ease, par-
don, knocking off his bolts, content him not till he enjoys communion with
God, till he sees his face in his ordinances. Ps. xxiv. 6, ' This is the gene-
ration of them that seek him, that seek thy face ' — that is, this is the mark,
the genius, the disposition of that generation. This you may see in David,
when his conscience was wounded for that great sin. What was it troubled
him 1 Not the want of pardon of sins, for the prophet told him God had
pardoned him ; not the mere stings of conscience and ache of his broken
bones ; but that * against thee, thee, have I sinned,' so as ease could not
satisfy him. But further, ver. 10, 'Create in me a clean spirit,' — which he
speaks because, having chewed the cud of that unclean act, he had left a soil
in his fancy, — 'and renew a right spirit within me :' Oh, give me grace and
truth of heart to thee ; and, oh, let me live in thy presence, and see thee, and
have acquaintance with thee, ver. 11. The want of this was it that troubled
him, which tUl he had obtained, he could never be at quiet ; for he sought
not ease or pardon only, but healing of his conscience by the favour of God,
and his love shed abroad. So as take heed of resting in ease ; as, if your
hearts be right, you will not, — you will wait tUl the ' Sun of righteousness arise
with heahng in his wings,' Mai. iv. 2. Are you now in darkness, full of
terrors and God's wrath 1 You will not rest till that darkness be expelled
by the arising of the light of the Sun of righteousness on you, and revealing
God's face in the face of Jesus Christ, till his righteousness be conveyed to
your hearts by some of his wings, — by some promise, by some ordinance of
hbi For the wound being the unrighteousness of sin, nothing but Christ's
righteousness will heal it : the wound being the want of God's favour, and
of the evidence of his being your God, the want of his face and good-will,
nothing but the revealing and arising of this in your hearts will heal you.
For look what the wound is, such is the plaster. And, indeed, this only
heals ; for though by other means the sore may be skinned over, and ease
gotten, yet it will break forth again. So Isa. Ivii. 17, 18, 'I wUl heal him.'
And how 1 ' By restoring comforts to him.' ' Restore to me the joy of thy
salvation,' says David, ' that the bones that thou hast broken may rejoice.*
And how heals he him 1 ' I create the fruit of the lips. Peace.' He doth it
by some promise or other. If the want of the sense of communion with God,
340 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IX DARKNESS. [PaRT II.
and absence from him, disquiets a man, then the heart rests not till it hath
found its well-beloved, Cant. iii. 1-5. If you have doubts that no grace is
in thy heart, then the heart rests not tUl some grace in truth be evidenced,
and some such promise made to some grace brought home. Still look what
the trouble is, such also must the plaster be, and then it is healing. Wert
ever in the dungeon 1 What was it freed thee 1 Was it Christ's righteous-
ness laid hold on, God's fice revealed, thine own grace with some promise
brought home to thy heart, that came with a commission to deliver thee 1
Then it is right; otherwise thy bolts may be knocked off, and this but
against thy execution.
Sect. IT.] ▲ child or liout walking ix DARKNBia. 341
SECTION 11.
WTio is among you that feareth the Lord, that obei/eth the voice of his
servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light ? Let him tinist
in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God, &,c. — IsA. L. 10.
Some gleanings there yet remain of this text, which I thought good to bind
lip into one sheaf, and thresh out at this time.
The second* doctrine is : That though it may befall one that fears God to
walk in darkness, yet but to a few. He says, 'Who is among youl' he
singleth such out of a crowd. If simply he had spoken of those that fear
God and obey him, without this limitation added, ' and walk in darkness,'
he might well have spoken thus sparingly, ' Who is among you V For to the
wicked he says, ' All you that kindle a fire,' &c. ; for there are but a few
that fear God in comparison of them. If he had spoken of those that fear
God, and have 'been in darkness' for some little while, haply some few
days among many, there are yet fewer; for there are that walk in the light
of God's countenance to their death, and never knew what terror of con-
science means. But when he shall speak of those that ' fear God and walk
in darkness,' and suffer terrors from their youth, as Heman did, such a one
is one of a thousand. Of such a one he says, ' Who is among you V Few
have experience of such a condition. Job had friends who certainly were
godly, — for Job was to pray for them, and God said he would hear Job for
them, and they, as is Likely, knew many godly men besides Job, — yet when
this condition of darkness befell Job, it was so strange a trial to them, that
they thought him therefore a hypocrite, as never having themselves felt or
heard of the like in others. When Christ was to go into his agony, he
would not have many of his apostles so much as be by him to be witnesses
of it, much less to feel the like; he takes but two or three. The reasons
are: —
Reason 1. — Because, though all God's people &rQ fighting men and men of
valour, yet he hath but a few champions, — as David, though he had many
soldiers, yet but few worthies, — and therefore calls but a few out to fight
single combats with Satan and his wrath; though he exerciseth them aU in
lighter skirmishes, yet not to fight such bloody battles. ' Seest thou not my
servant Job 1 there is none like him.' Him God will venture into the field ;
but others his friends he ■wdll not.
Reason 2. — As he hath few champions able and fit for such an encounter,
60 he hath variety of other temptations to exercise his witbal. He hath
poverty and ill report, imprisonment and cruel mockings, loss of goods,
crosses in friends ; and some have enough to struggle under one of these ;
and there is no temptation but must befall some, and seldom aU befaU one
* The first being that stated in p. 237, and discussed in the former Part. — Ed.
342 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [PaRT II.
Some spirits are so weak, as they would faint aud not be able to sustain
themselves; and God never sutlers any to be ' temuted above what they are
able,' 1 Cor. x. 13. Some men's bodies are weak, and if God should 'rebuke
them long for sin,' they would be brought to nothing; and ho 'remembers
they are flesh, and stirs not up all his wrath,' as David says : ' Oh, suffer me
to recover strength !' Some men God hath present use of in their callings
and employments, which if they were distracted, as Heman was, with terrors
continually, they were unfit for.
Reason 3. — God afflicts in this kind but in case of extremity usually;
when he meets with a very froward heart, and stout, proud spirit, a knotty
piece, Isa. Ivii. 17. If lesser crosses would do it, he would not fetch out
the great rod. If a rod will ' thresh out the cummin,' he useth not to ' turn
the wheel over it,' nor take a flail to do it, Isa. xxviii. 27. Now lesser afflic-
tions work with the most of his, through his blessing; mercies work, dis-
grace works, poverty works, and ' he doth not willingly afflict,' Lam. iii. 33,
and therefore not unnecessarily ; he puts not men into the dungeon for every
fault, and therefore there are few long exercised this way.
Use 1. — Think not therefore thou hast not true grace, because thou wert
never terrified as some have been. As some have true faith and sound peace
who yet never tasted of 'joy unspeakable and glorious,' so some have sound
humiliation who never knew terrors of conscience. If thou seest sin the
greatest miserj^, Christ the greatest good, thou art humbled.
Use 2. — You see we may often preach such things which do yet concern
but a few in a congregation, and yet we are to preach them. There are but
a few walk long in darkness, yet to such Christ doth preach. Yea, and for
such doth God ' give gifts, the tongue of the learned.' God often gives a
pastor after his own heart for a few : Jer. iii. 15, ' Take one or two of a city,*
&c., ' and I will give them pastors after my heart ;' much more are many
sermons often preached but to a few. So even by Christ himself, as he says,
Luke iv. 26, 'There were many widows,' &c., 'but unto none was Elias sent
but unto her at Sarepta;' and many lepers, but *unto none was Elias sent
but unto ISTaaman.' So says Christ, 'I am sent but to a lew;' and there-
fore, as we must not defraud one poor soul of its portion because none else
partake of it, so the rest are not to think much, but, as in a dole, stay till
their portion come ; and if any one poor soul hath had its estate discovered,
all the rest are to be thankful.
Use 3. — See some reason why some in distress of mind complain that
none ever were in the like condition; thus they are apt to do. So the
church. Lam. i. 12. The reason is because few are so troubled, and haply
they never knew any : but yet some are and have been in the like ; for,
1 Cor. X. 13, 'no temptation befalls but is common to man.'
Doct. 3. — That those few in congregations that walk in darkness, and yet
fear and obey him, God and Christ hath an especial eye unto and care of;
you see he singles them out, as it were, from all the rest, ' Who is among
you?' Isa. lx\T.. 2, ' All these things have my hand made; but to this man
will I look, that is poor and broken, and trembleth at my word;' that is,
though all things and persons else in the world be my creatures, and so I
have a care of them all, yet he seems to overlook all else, and ' to him vdll
I look,' (fee, as if there were none else in the church.
Reason 1. — The first reason is, because it is the office of Christ so to do.
The Spirit is upon him on purpose, Isa. Ixi. 1-3, 'to open the prison to
them that are bound,' shut up in this dungeon; 'to appoint to them that
mourn beauty for ashes, t])c oil of joy for mourning, garments of praise for
Sect. II.] a child of light walking in darkness. 343
the spirit of heaviness.' He is the physician, and hath undertaken the cure,
Matt. ix. 1 2. And whom should the physician have an eye to but the sick,
and the most sick, as those arc that cannot find their sins forgiven ? Isa.
xxxiii. 14. He is the shepherd, Isa. xl. 11, and will take care of all his
sheep, ' knows them by name.' Jkit of whom especially 1 The lambs that
are weak, young Christians. ' He will gather them with his arms, and gently
lead the ewes with young;' that are travailing and bringing forth, as those
under terrors are. He will not over-drive them; for God hath given him
charge 'he should lose none of them.' He is 'that good shepherd' that
will, as he hath promised, Ezek. xxxiv. 16, 'seek out that which was lost,
and bring again that which was driven away, and bind up that which is
broken, and strengthen that which was sick.' He names all casualties that
befall them, because he helps in all miseries; yea, and, ver. 12, after they
have been wildered ' in a cloudy and dark day,' and walked in darkness long,
he will ' find them out and deliver them,' as his promise there is.
Reason 2. — If his office did not move him to it, his love would ; for he is
a merciful and a pitiful high priest, Heb. iv. 15, and was 'in all points
tempted as we are;' and especially in agony of spirit. Therein he drank
deepest of any, and therefore is fitted to pity us therein most ; and the
greatlier any is troubled, the more he is touched. Isa. Ixiii. 9, ' In all your
afilictions he is afflicted ;' and, Jer. xxxi. 20, ' Since I spake against him, I
remember him still ; therefore my bowels are troubled for him.' When a
child is sick, the mother is more troubled and careful about it, and her eye
and mind more upon it, than on all the house besides.
Use 1. — The use is, to meet with that conceit that befalls all that are in
darkness : they think that of all men else, God regards not them. Sion said,
' God hath forgotten me,' Isa. xlix. 14. So David, ' God hath forgotten to be
merciful.' Because they find their hearts hard to God, they think that his
is so to them : because they can find no love in their hearts to God, they
think he bears none to them. But you see Christ especially inquires for
such, and overlooks all others else. God hath ' graven thee on the palms of
his hands ;' every sigh of thine goes to his bowels. Isa. Ivii. 15, 'I dwell
with him that is broken, to revive his spirit.' God is nigh him.
Use 2. — Are God's eyes upon us more when we are in trouble of spirit
than on any other 1 Then let our eyes be upon him : ' We cannot tell what
to do, but our eyes are towards thee.' Let our eyes be towards him for help,
as of those that looked on the brazen serpent • let our eyes be towards him
for service, ' as the eyes of handmaidens are on their mistress ;' to look not
to men, not to credit, but to have our eyes on God in all we do, as if there
were none else in the world to approve ourselves unto.
Doct. 4. — In that when he speaks of those his children that are in dark-
ness, he chooseth rather to describe them by fear and obedience, than by any
other grace ; observe. That w'hen the children of God are under terrors, the
most eminent grace that doth appear in them is fearfulness to offend God,
and willingness to obey him. Other graces may be stirred, but these are
most eminent, and therefore he mentioneth these for their comfort.
Explication. — First, for explication. Know that several occasions draw
out several graces. When the sunshine of God's favour melts the heart, then
love and obedience, thence proceeding, are most eminent, and also godly sor-
row. So Mary wept much, loved much, for 'much was forgiven her;' her
heart was full of assurance. On the contrary, when the sense of God's love
is withdrawn, and fears and terrors shed abroad in the heart, then fear and
obedience shew and discover them.selves. Therefore, Isa. Ixvi. 2, ' He that
344 A CHILD OF LIGHT WALKING IN DARKNESS. [rART II.
is poor and contrite, and trembleth at the word,' are joined ; trembleth at
every command and threatening, is fearful to transgress : and so those in
that estate do find. The reason is :—
Reason. — Because graces, and affections in which graces are seated, stir
more or less in us according as their objects are, and our apprehensions of
them. Now therefore, when the soul is possessed most with displeasure for
sin, and apprehensions of wra'ch, then it feareth most, and then fear works
accordingly, against that which may displease. Hence the Apostle : seeing
'our God is a consuming fire,' Heb. xii. 29, 'let us serve God acceptably
with reverence and godly fear;' therefore when we see him so, we are to
suspect our hearts most, if we be not more fearful of offending him, and obey
him.
Use 1. — The first use is of trial, whether thou art a child under wrath, : if
thou fearest more, and if that fear produceth obedience. As ' Christ learned
obedience by what he suffered,' so wilt also thou, if thou hast his spirit.
Use 2. — The second use is, to exercise graces still in their seasons : * When
thou art afflicted, pray ; when joyful, sing psalms,' James v. 13 ; when fiUed
with assurance, then ' mourn and be confounded,' Ezek. xvi. 63.
A CHILD OF DARKNESS WALKING IN LIGHT.
Behold, all ye that kindle afire, that compass yourselves about with sparks :
walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.
This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow. — IsA.
L. 11.
Let us now coine to the opposite state, of wicked men, who are said here to
' walk in the light of their own fire,' &c.
All the difficulty lies in opening what is meant by their own fire, and what
is meant by walking in the light of it; which is opposed here to walking in
darkness, and to trusting on the name of the Lord — namely, Christ's right-
ness, as I said before. To this purpose you must remember, that his scope
is to shew the differing props and stays for justification and comfort, which
a godly man hath, and a natural man.
The stay and comfort of a godly man's soul lies in the light of God's
countenance, which when he wanteth, he is in darkness, though he hath
never so many outward comforts. The stay, comfort, and prop of his faith
for justification in that estate, when he sees no righteousness in himself, is
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ our righteousness.
Oppositely therefore, by \h.e fire, and the light of their fire which wicked
men are said to walk in, two things must be meant : —
I. Their own natural righteousness which they have by nature, and in the
state of nature, and the sparks and acts thereof; this they trust to, and
neglect the name of the Lord, and the righteousness of justification and of
the new creature.
XL The light of outward comforts from the creatures, which in this world
they enjoy, and the sparkling pleasures thereof which they walk in, and con-
tent themselves with, neglecting communion with God, being estranged from
the life of God, and living without him in the world. So as the opposition
strongly carries it, that both these should be meant by their fire here ; and
all interpreters give the first interpetation of it, and I have added this second
to make the sense complete.
I. How that by fire of their own kindling, their own righteousness without
Christ, such as the Pharisees had, and Paul had before conversion, should be
meant, we must consider that he, speaking here to the Jews, alludeth to the
types of the old law, which they were acquainted with. Wherein —
346 A CHILD OF DAllK>;£!iS WALKING IN LIGHT. [ISA. L. 11.
1. Fire, you know, was it they offered their sacrifices with, typifying out,
as Mark ix. 49, our inward habitual grace and righteousness, whereby we
offer up ourselves and our service as a ' living sacrifice to God,' Rom. xiL 1.
2. When they offered incense or sacrifice acceptable to God, they were not
to offer it with common fire, which is ordinary in the world in their chinmeys
and kitchens, which was kindled by themselves by sparks out of stones, or
from things here below ; but it was to be fire from heaven, and taken from
the altar, (so Lev. ix. 24,) which was kept continually burning, and there-
fore when a new altar was made, ' fire came from heaven, 2 Chron. vii. 3 ;
and the high priest was to take fire off the altar, whenever he offered incense,
Lev. xvi. 12. And therefore when Nadab and Abihu offered 'common fire
of their own kindling,' Lev. x. 1, they were consumed for thinking to please
God with it. Now aU these things feU out in types to them. For answer-
ably by fire of their own kindling is meant the common righteousness of
civility and natural devotion, which was by nature in some of the heathen,
Eom. ii. 14, found even in their chimneys ; wliich also the Jews performed,
both by the common help of nature, custom, and education, by the strength
of natural principles, of conscience enlightened by the law, and self-love im-
proved ; all which, thus coming but from nature not renewed by grace, is said
to be of their own kindling : whereby yet they thought to please God, and
rested in it, as a sacrifice weU-pleasing to him ; as ISTadab and Abihu did.
Whereas the righteousness they should have offered up to God should have
been that from heaven, the righteousness of Christ apprehended by faith,
and a new work of grace, as fire from off that altar Christ, changing their
hearts, and making them new creatures, renewing them into the same image
of holiness which was in him ; which as it adds to what is in nature, and
grows not there, so differs as much from that goodness of nature you bring
into the world, or which hath been wrought in you by education, as the fire
and light of the sun in heaven doth from common fire ; or the light of a
glow-worm from that of the sun.
Now because the Jews rested in such an outward conformity to the law
of their own working, therefore they are said, Rom. x. 3, ' to establish their
own righteousness,' being ignorant of both these righteousnesses — Christ's
righteousness, which is the fire from heaven, and the righteousness of regene-
ration, to change their natures, which is the fire off the altar. Nicodemus
was ignorant of both, and so had lain down in sorrow as his forefathers did,
if Christ had not changed him and begotten him again.
To this end you may further consider, that in men's hearts there are, (to
use the language of the metaphor here,) though they be stony unto God, yet
some sparks of fire, which may be struck out of them by the word, by educa-
tion, by enlightening of the conscience, and by working upon self-love in
men : and the sparks of this fire are those outward acts of righteousness
which arise and spring from self-love and natural conscience, which die as
sparks and remain not ; which the true righteousness of regeneration is said
to do, 2 Cor. xii. 9, and John iii. 6. And the hght of this fire, which carnal
men, not born again, content themselves with, is that ' excusing ' which na-
tural conscience, upon the performing any outward act of just dealing, hath
in such men's hearts, mentioned Rom. iL 15.
And the walking in the light of this fire is resting therein all their days,
not endeavouring to have their hearts changed, and to get a new principle
of grace, and of love to God fetched from Christ, as the spring of alL
IsA. L. 1 1.] jl child of darkness walking in light. 347
Uses.
Use 1. — The first use is, seeing so many offer up but common fire to God,
it is good you examine whether that righteousness you think to please God
with be any more than fire of your own kindUng.
First, That righteousness which is kindled in thy heart, and blazeth in
thy life, whence was it first enkindled 1 examine the original of it. Was
it kindled in thee by fire from heaven 1 that is, by the Holy Ghost com-
ing down in God's ordinances on thee as fire, burning up thy lusts, melting
thy heart, dissolving the works of the devil, enkindling sparks of true love
to God, zeal for his glory, which are above the reach of man's natural ability.
Or is it no more than that, whereas every man hath some sj^arks of inge-
nuity and honesty towards others, and of sobriety, and of devotion to a
deity, raked up in the ashes of corrupt nature, — for even the heathen had
'the law written in their hearts,' Rom. ii. 14, — which sparks thou, living in
the church, where civUity and religion is professed, civil education, natural
wisdom, and the accusing of natural conscience enlightened, have blown up
to some blaze, to some just dealing, common care of serving God ] Yet
know that if there be no other principle, nor no more, it is but fire of your
own kindling, and you will lie down in sorrow.
Secondly, Examine what duties are especially the fuel of that fire in thee.
In w^hat duties is that righteousness thou thinkest thou pleasest God with
chiefly spent and exercised 1 Are they principally the duties of the second
table, of just dealing with men, and sobriety 1 And it may be thou bringest
withal a stick or two of the first table to this fire ; that is, some duties thereof,
such as for thy credit thou must not omit, as coming to God's ordinances of
public worship. This fuel, if there be no more, argues it is but common
fire : for lock into the chimneys of the heathen, thou shalt find the most of
all this practised. And in that thou dost put the chiefest of thy religion in
them, it is argued to be but a fire kindled of those sparks which are raked
up in nature ; for those common sparks which are in all men's hearts are
especially those of the second table. But now, if it were a fire from heaven,
then though those would not be left undone, yet the chiefest heat of thy
heart would be to the duties of heaven, of the worship of God, public and
private. When men practise but so much righteousness as is necessary for
them to do if they will live in the world in any comfort or credit, as to be
just and sober is necessary, as also to frequent God's ordinances, for the state
we live in enjoins them ; but when men's zeal and fervour contends also, and
lives upon such duties which the world regards not, as mouraing for sin,
taking pains with the heart in private, between God and a man's own soul,
and feeds upon heavenly tMngs and thoughts, and is such fire as the world
quencheth, it is a sign it is more than common fire.
Thirdly, In these duties common fire warms but the outward man, as
that fire doth which you feel daily ; it heats you not within : so common
righteousness contents itself vpith ' bodily exercise,' a formal performance of
duties, public and private ; but fire from heaven heats first within, heats the
heart within, as at the hearing the word : ' Did not our hearts burn within
us 1 ' say they ; so it heats the heart in prayer, makes a man ' fervent in
spirit, serving the Lord.'
Fourthly, Examine what bellows cherish and keep alive that fire of right-
eousness that is in thee, and make it flame ; that is, what motives set thee
a-work to do what thou dost. If worldly t;nds make thee abstain from sin
Pj^S A CHILD OF DARKNESS WALKING IN LIGUT. [ISA. L. 1 1 .
and to be just in thy dealings, as credit with the world and fear of disgrace,
or the accusings of conscience only, or fear of hell, or hope of heaven ; this
is but common fire. But if love to God, the consideration of his mercies,
his eternal love, and the love of Christ, zeal for his glory; if these be the
bellows, the fire is heavenly. But if when thou art to be moved with such
as these, they stir not thy heart, it is but common fire.
Use 2. — The second use is, to take heed of walking in the light of such
fire ; that is, resting in it for salvation, and contenting yourselves with it, as
most m the world do, and as the Jews here did, for you will lie down in
Borrow if you do.
But you will say, We do not trust in this our own righteousness, for we
profess Christ, and believe in him, which, added to this, is enough.
I answer : That though you profess Christ, yet, (1.) unless you have had a
light that hath discovered to you that all the righteousness you have by
nature, and improved in nature, is a false righteousness, you do then as yet
rest in your own righteousness, and rely not wholly on Christ. So, PhU. iii.,
Paul first saw all to be dross and dung, counted it loss, that he might win
Christ ; it implies he could not have him else. Men though they seem to
take Christ's title, as many will procure the king's title for a living to make
all sure, yet they keep, and stick to, and plead their own ; but you must
give up that first, and rely wholly on Christ, or he will not save you.
(2.) He that doth not daily, above all things, directly and immediately
aim at and seek out for Christ's righteousness, and maketh it not the chiefest
of his thoughts, prayers, and business, and is restless A\'ithout it, rests in his
own ; for so when he had given up his title in his own, he mainly endea-
voured after this ' to be found in Christ,' Phil. iii.
(3.) You still seek from Christ a new righteousness of sanctification also :
for you will see that the common righteousness of nature and education will
not please him ; and Christ must be ' made sanctification to you,' 1 Cor.
i. 30, as well as righteousness. Thus Nicodemus, though a civil man before,
yet when he came to Christ, his old civility would not serve, without being
born again and becoming a new creature. So as you must not think to
make a supply or addition unto Christ with fire of your own kindling ; you
must have all off the altar : your moral virtues must be turned into graces,
by having a new end put into them, carrying your hearts in them unto
God.
II. The other interpretation which I add is, that the fire of outward com-
forts is also meant ; which, whilst men enjoy, they go on merrily, neglecting
God and Christ, and communion with him. But the soul of a believer,
wanting this communion with God, is in darkness, and till he enjoys God
again, can take comfort in nothing. Thus, Eccles. vii. 6, ' the laughter of
the wicked ' is compared to ' the crackling of thorns.'
Fire is a comfortable creature, having both heat and light in it, which
serve and help against both cold and darkness, which are two of the greatest
evils to the senses.
Heat is comfortable; therefore, Isa. xliv. 16, 'he warmeth himself,' saith
the prophet, * and cries. Aha ! '
Light also is comfortable ; for, saith Solomon, ' it is a pleasant thing
to behold the sun.' Hence, therefore, fire here is put for outward comforts.
But yet what fire are they ? But kitchen-fire — ignis focalis, as the philoso-
pher calls it; for it is fire of their own kindling, says the text; not that
purest element of fire above. God is said to be light and fire, whom the
saints enjoy, and are refreshed with his light, and 'in it see light.'
ISA. L. 1 1.1 A CHILD OU DARKNESS WALKING IN UuUT. 349
And the rescmbjance this way also will strongly hold ; for a kindled fire
bath two things common which go to the making of it, both which together
are called fire : —
First, fuel, as wood or coals, &c. ; secondly/, that element that preys upon
these.
AnsAverably, unto those carnal pleasures and delights, which wicked men
enjoy and rest in, two things are also concurrent : —
First, the object, which is as the fuel : things earthly, and of this world;
secondly, their fiery hot and burning lusts, which prey upon, and live upon
this fuel. Both which make this fire here spoken cf : in both which this
resemblance will hold in many regards.
(1.) Because the fuel of these fires of their lusts and comforts is base :
things only here below. What is the fuel of your kitchen fires ? Things
digged out of the earth, dung, wood, coal ; so things on earth are fuel to
their desires. Their lusts are therefore called 'members upon earth,' Col.
iii. 5 ; for all their comforts consist in, and their desires are after, earthly
things, as their fair wives, children, houses, meat, drink : ' their god is their
belly, and they mind earthly things,' Phil. iii. 19.
(2.) Because when this fuel is taken away the fire goes out, so do men's
hearts die when outward things are taken from them. When Nabal thought
David might yet come and take his goods, ' his heart died within him.' For
men live in the creatures, and out of them they die.
(3.) As fire is a consuming thing, Heb. xii. 29, it leaves nothing but ashes ;
80 are men's lusts, James iv. 3. They ask to * consume all upon their lusts.'
All the pleasures they have, nothing comes of them, nothing of the strength
they get by them ; they do all for themselves, and with themselves all dies.
(4.) Fire is a devouring thing ; a whole world would not satisfy it, if it
were let alone to bum on. And one day this whole world you see shall be
burnt up by fire, as a witch for enticing men. Even such are men's desires
after pleasures ; unsatisfied they are : and the more fuel is laid on, the more
ye may lay on ; they ' enlarge their desire as the fire of hell,' Hab. ii. 5.
(5.) The pleasures which arise from the meeting and conjunction of this
fuel and their lusts are but as sparks. Job calls sparks ' the sons of fire,'
being engendered by it upon fuel ; as pleasures are the sons of your lusts,
when the object and they lie and couple together. And they are not long-
lived, they are but as sparks, they die as soon as begotten; Col. ii. 22,
' perish in the using ;' and are but as ' the crackling of thorns,' they soon go
out.
(6.) Smoke accompanies such fires, the fuel being muddy things : so doth
much sorrow their comforts, Prov. xiv. 13, and they go out and end in smoke;
as in the text, 'lie down in sorrow.'
So that, put these together, both that strange fire of their own righteous-
ness, which is from and in nature, unchanged ; and the kitchen-fire of out-
ward comforts : these are the two main hindrances that keep all wicked men
from Christ, and justification through him.
That whereas the covenant of grace hath these two main promises in
it: —
First, That God himself, who is the ' God of comfort,' will be an ' abundant
reward,' Gen. xv. 1 ; and so by faith we take him to be, and are divorced
from all comforts else in comparison of him. And —
Secondly, That Jesus Christ his Son is made ' the Lord our righteousness,'
Jer. xxiii. 6 ; and therefore ere we take him to be so to us, we must be
emptied of all our own righteousness by nature, that so God and Christ
350 A CHILD OF DARKNESS WALKiya IN UGHT. [IsA. L. ] 1.
might be all in all to us. And therefore, as the first and main woik of grace
consists both in emptying the heart, and bringing it to nothing in its own
righteousness, as also in regard of all outward comforts, that so ' no flesh
might rejoice in his sight;' answerably unto these two there are found two
main impediments in men by nature : —
First, Because in nature they find some sparks of civil goodness, they rest
in them, and take them for grace, and neglect Christ. And —
Secondly, Finding also in this world themselves to be warmed with many
outward comforts, being encompassed about wdth sparks, they content them-
selves with these. Thus so long as that young man had righteousness of
his own, and possessions of his own, he cared not for Christ, nor communion
with him, nor righteousness from him. Well, but (says Christ here) flatter
yourselves with your own righteousness, and cheer yourselves with your owm
sparks, and walk on ; but know% ' you will lie down in sorrow,' when ' the
godly shall rest in their beds,' Isa. Ivii. 2. You will lie bedrid in hell ; or
as a woman in travail, never to rise again.
THE EETTJRN OF PEAYEES:
A TREATISE
HOW TO DISCERN GOD'S ANSWERS TO OUR PRAYERS'
IS BRIEFLY RESOLVED.
OBSERVATIONS UPON PSALM LXXXV, 8, CONCERNING
GOD'S SPEAKING PEACE, &c.
' I •WILL WATCH TO SER WHAT HE WILL BAT UNTO ME.' — HaB. !i 1,
TO THE MUCH-HONOUEED KNIOHT,
SIR NATHANIEL RICH.
Sir,
God, who from all eternity hath had an infinite mass of grace
and glory lying by him to bestow upon his church, and did accordingly pro-
vide a treasury and magazine sufficient wherein to store up all, the bosom of
his Son ; in whom are hid riches so unsearchable, Eph. iii. 8, as cannot be told
over, much less spent to all eternity.
He hath as richly (xXovaliig, Tit. iii. 6) shed his Holy Spirit on us ; that
we, who could never have known of anything bequeathed us, nor what to pray
for as we ought, might both fully from him know all that God hath given
us, and through him lay claim thereto, who maketh intercession for us, and
so doth furnish us with a privy key to all that treasury, which otherwise is
fast shut up to all the world.
Through which spirit of prayer and supplications thus poured forth, be-
lievers come to be at once anointed to the fellowship and execution of those
three glorious offices of Christ their head. Not only of priests, by offering
up their prayers as spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ, but of kings, to rule with God, Hos. xi. 12; being hereby made of
privy council to the King of kings, so as their counsels and desires expressed
in their petitions are said to be fulfilled, Ps. xx. 4, 5, and their decrees in
their prayers made, ratified, and established. Job xxii. 27, 28. Nay, further
by virtue of this privilege, advanced to such height of favour, as, by their
strength in prayer alone, to have power with God himself, Hos. xii. 3, 4 ;
and not only with him, but also over him, and in their wrestlings to prevail.
Yea, to command : himself hath said it, ' Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One
of Israel, and his Maker, Ask of me of things to come concerning my sons,
and concerning the work of my hands command ye me,' Isa. xlv. 11; which
so transcendent privilege of power is, by the express words of this great
charter, universally extended unto all transactions of this lower part of his
dominions, whether ecclesiastical, which do concern his sons, — that is, his
church, — or whatever other, the more ordinary works of his hands, that be-
long to common providence. Matt. vi. 10.
VOL. ILL z
364 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS.
And forasmuch as these grand affairs of this his kingdom, as future and
to come, are commended to their prayers as their most proper subject about
which they are to treat, — ' Ask of me of things to come,' — in this respect they
do become as truly prophets also, though not in so full and complete, yet in
some kind of true resemblance ; not by foretelling, yet by forespeaking in
their prayers, things that come to pass. God, who made and upholds this
world, and all things in it, by the word of his power, doth likewise rule and
govern it by the jjrecedents and prescript rules of the word of his will, Ps.
XXV. 10, exactly dispensing unto men both rewards and punishments, accord-
ing to the tenor of some or other of his promises and threatenings, and former
like proceedings therein recorded; though with such various liberty, in re-
spect of the particulars, that his ways remain ' unsearchable and past finding
out : ' that look, as he appointed in the heavens those ordinances of the sun,
moon, and stars, by their light, heat, and motion, ' to rule the day and night,'
to divide and cause the several seasons of the year, and all the changes and
alterations that do pass over the animal and natural world ; in like manner
hath he stretched out that so exceeding broad expanse of his word and law,
Ps. cxix. 96 — to which the Psalmist doth assimilate it, Ps. xix. 1, 2, com-
pared vfiih Rom. x. 18 — over this rational world of angels and men, and
therein, set his statutes and his judgments, that by the light of precepts, and
their influences in rewards and punishments, they might order and direct
these his creatures reasonable, and all their actions ; also dispose and set out
all the issues of them. And seeing his saints they are ' a people in whose
hearts is his law,' and their delight is to ' meditate therein both day and
night ;' they daily calculating and observing the various aspects, conjunctions,
and mixed influences of those innumerable precepts, promises, and threaten-
ings which themselves and others, nations or men, stand under ; and by a
judgment thence resulting, Jer. viii. 7, so far as they have attained, endea-
vouring to frame their supplications and petitions according to God's will :
hence their prayers oft full happily succeed, and beforehand do accord to
those issues and events that afterwards fall out. That like as the earth
comes to be just under the sun and moon in some of their conjunctions, so
their desires and prayers sometimes in a direct line fall under, and subordi-
nately concur with, God's secret purposes, and some revealed promise met in
conjunction, to produce such and such efi'ects. ' The Spirit' also herein
* helping their infirmities,' sometimes so guiding and directing them by a
gracious preinstinct, though unbeknown to them, to pitch their requests upon
such particulars as God hath fully purposed to bring to pass ; becoming
thereby, as it were, the spirit of prophecy unto them, respectively in some
measure and degree.
Thus doth that great King employ his nearest servants as his under-officers
and sherifi"s, to serve his writs and executions upon his enemies, to execute
the judgment written in his threatenings, Ps. cxlix. 9, and to accomplish his
mercies written also, by suing out all the promises ; to be as man-midwives,
(as Hezekiah's allusion, when he sent a- visiting to the prophet Isaiah for his
voice and suffrage, seemeth to import, Isa. xxxvii. 2-4,) to help and assist
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 355
his promises and decrees in their travail with mercies and deliverance,
Zeph. ii. 2, when these their children do come unto the birth, and there is no
strength to bring them forth.
In all which they shall therefore have the honour to be accounted co-
workers together with God in his greatest works of wonder. And at the
latter day, when that great and last edition, both of all God's works and
likewise ours, then complete and finished, shall be published to all the world,
they shall find their names put to them, together with his own ; and the
same by him acknowledged to be as truly the Avorks of their hearts and
prayers as that they are the sole work of his hands and power. Such honour
have all his saints.
And if all the works of God are so exceeding great, Ps. xcii 5, and his
thoughts therein so very deep that every iota of them doth deserve our
deepest studies and intentions, and thereunto require a proper skill and wis-
dom, to read his hand, peculiar unto the saints, ver. 6 ; whereunto there must
be adjoined the most diligent search and attentive observation, to find out
his meaning in them, Ps. Ixxvii. 6 ; and withal a special inclination and
delight to be conversant therein, ' Thy works are very great, sought out of
them that have pleasure in them,' Ps. cxi. 2 ; and if, of all the rest, those
choicer pieces, his works of mercy, may challenge our best regard, in which
his heart and delights are most, on which his wisdom hath laid on the rich-
est workmanship, in the most curious contrivements of his love, Mic. vii. 18:
then surely that selected volume of more special mercies, his epistles, vouch-
safed in answer to our prayers, is above all other most exactly to be studied,
and most diligently to be perused by us; wherein God doth unbosom himself,
and lay open his heart more sweetly, more familiarly unto us, which are
directed, and in a manner dedicated more particularly unto ourselves alone :
many of them written with his own hand, in a more immediate manner dis-
covered and appearing in them ; and aU of them come sealed with the im-
press of everlasting love, and down-laden with the enclosure of the most
precious tokens of his special favour. Whoso is wise will observe these
things, and they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord, Ps.
cvii. 43.
Neither have such favours only more of mercy in the things themselves
bestowed, but are further endeared to us by being made our own mercies, by
a more peculiar title to them ; by which the kindness in them is rendered
double. For therein we have that royal liberty to become our own choosers,
and contrivers of our own condition, having all the promises thrown down
to us, with blanks for us to write our names in which of them we please,
which is the greatest liberty. And we have withal his Spirit secretly direct-
ing and fixing the needle of our desires to the same point, wherein his great
intentions towards us do meet with our best good ; which is indeed the
truest liberty. And to be made ourselves, whom we love so well, and there-
fore delight to do good unto, the chiefest instruments under him of our own
greatest happiness, is a privilege than which the creature is not made capable
of a more transcendent royalty. And when the greatest love, thus rectified,
356 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS.
which possibly we can bear ourselves, hath opened its mouth widest, and
^tretched our desires in praying to the utmost compass, then will God's infi-
nite vast love not only fit them, but do for us above all that we are able to
ask, yea, to think ; exceeding abundantly above all ; as far above as his
thoughts are above our thoughts, which is for more than the heavens are
higher than the earth.
All which, when put together, if well considered, how would it provoke us
to call in all that precious stock of our time, thoughts, and intentions which
we cast away on trifles, to lay out the choicest portion of them in this thriv-
ing trade of intercourse with God ; the returns whereof are better than the
merchandise of sUver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. It is the praying
Christian that alone employs the riches of the promises, which we usually
let lie by us, like dead stock, unimproved : whilst he, like a wise and dili-
gent merchant, looks abroad upon all the affairs of Jesus Christ that are
afloat here in this world, and adventures in them all ; is watchful to spy out
all advantages, and with a holy 'Koayixoamri intermeddleth in every business
that may bring in glory unto God, good unto the church, grace and comfort to
his own soul. And how infinitely rich must that man needs become that
puts even God's riches out to use, with the increase of ten talents for one,
yea, a hundred-fold !
The due estimate whereof would no less quicken us to as diligent an in-
quiry, what becomes of all those goodly adventures, the prayers we make ;
to listen what haven they arrive at, — how, and when, and with what fraught
they do return.
In which great duty, and most necessary property of all true merchants,
many of the best and greatest dealers, that are dUigent enough in praying,
are yet found failing and deficient ; that omit no gainful opportunity of
adventure, but are careless and unobservant of their returns.
Some, through ignorance, it may be, that this is at all a duty, or of any
sucli importance, are careful only how to lade in prayers enough, not expect-
ing to find any of this bread cast upon the waters, until that great and general
return of themselves and all the world with joy bringing their sheaves with
them. Others, though at present many of their prayers come home after a
few days, and richly laden, yet through want of skill to read those bills of
exchange which God often writes in an obscurer character, they lie unre-
garded by them. Many, when voyages prove long, though to their greater
advantage when once they do return, yet in the meantime, through discour-
agement, they give all for lost, as we do ships at sea we cannot hear of. The
most are commonly complaining that their adventures still miscarry, and
that little or nothing comes of all their prayers. And all are negligent of
keeping their books of accounts, to cast up their comings in and goings out
the one with the other. By which they lose the chiefest portion of that
comfort which for the present God hath here allotted to us to live upon, the
revenues of their prayers. And God also is not only robbed of that custom
of his glory which should thence accrue, but wronged also by standing still
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 357
as debtor in their accounts to many prayers, in the return of which he hath
been creditor long ago.
I have endeavoured in this small treatise to convince believers of the grand
importance of this duty, which is so full of gain ; to discover likewise the causes
of the neglect herein, and remove the temptations and discouragements which
do occasion it ; and have briefly resolved such cases as do more usually oc-
cur in the practice of it. But principally my desire was to give in some few
experiments and observations which may help to teach the weaker sort,
though not perfectly to read, yet here and there to spell, and especially out
of the impressions in their own hearts, God's meaning towards them in his
answers. I have cast in some scattered calculations of broken prayers cast
up, which though they will not amount to make general and perfect tables
out of, yet may serve as instances and examples for young beginners, to direct
them in the exercise of this most useful skill and wisdom, how to compute
and balance their accounts by comparing their prayers and their returns
together.
This small and imperfect embryon I have presumed to send forth into the
world ; and directed it first of all to present its service unto you, and make
an honourable and thankful mention of your name. Your worth deserves a
more costly, large, and lasting monument for this inscription. Your own
abilities of learning, eloquence, and depth of wisdom in human affairs, would
you be persuaded to lay them out as you are able, would erect such a re-
membrance and sumptuous memorial of you when you are gathered to your
fathers, as would bear some proportion to your great worth. But that which
emboldened me was the near affinity which meditations of this nature do
hold with those other your more retired thoughts you think to none but
God and your own soul. You have been long a frequent and constant dealer
in this blessed way of intercourse with God in private. Those that know
you, know your strict observance of those exchange hours you have devoted
to meet with God and enjoy communion with him. But, above all, it was
that personal obligation under which a great and special favour from you
long since brought me, upon which I devoted (with myself) the first of my
labours unto your service. And it became one great relief unto my thoughts,
weighing the many inconveniences of appearing thus in public, that it gave
so full occasion to pay my vows thus openly before all the world ; which
having now done, God, that is rich in mercy to aU that call upon him, fill
you with aU grace, and fulfil all your petitions ! — So prays.
Your worship's obliged to love and serve you,
THOMAS GOODWIN.
THE RETURN OF PRATERS.
/ tptll hear what God the Lord will speah : for he will speah peace unto
his people, and to his saints : but let them not turn again to folly. —
Psalm LXXXV. 8.
The coherence of the words.
This psalm was penned in the name and for the comfort of the whole church
of the Jews, both as a prophecy of, and a prayer for, their return out of the
Babylonish captivity, and the flowing in again of that ancient glory, peace,
administration of justice, liberty of God's ordinances, plenty and increase,
which formerly they enjoyed, but had now suff"ered an ebb of seventy years'
continuance. And first he beginneth with prayer, from the first verse to this
we have in hand, putting the Lord in mind of, and urging him with his
gracious dealings in former times unto his church. This is not the first
time, saith he, that the church hath been in captivity, and that thou hast
returned it, (as out of Egypt, &c.,) and therefore we hope that thou wilt
do so again : ' Thou hast been favourable unto thy land,' &c. His prayer
being finished, and he having spoke, he now stands and listens, as you use
to do when you expect an echo, what echo he should have, what answer
would be returned from heaven, whither his prayer had already come : ' I
will hear what the Lord will speak ;' or, as some read it, ' I hear what the
Lord doth speak :' for sometimes there is a present echo, a speedy answer
returned to a man's heart, even ere the prayer is half finished; as unto
Daniel, chap. ix. 20, 21. And in brief it is this, ' The Lord will speak peace
unto his people :' this answer he finds written at the bottom of the petition,
but with this clause of admonition for time to come added, ' But let them
not return again to folly;' — a good use to be made of so gracioua an answer.
360 THE KEXUKN OF PIIAYEKS. [ChA.P. L
CHAPTER I.
The main observation and subject of this discourse thence deduced : That
God's people are diligently to observe the answers to their prayers. — The
reasons of it.
These words being especially spoken in relation to God's returning answer
to his prayer made, therefore in that relation I mean principally to handle
them.
The observation is this : That when a man hath put up prayers to God,
he is to rest assured that God will in mercy answer his prayers ; and to
listen diligently, and observe how his prayers are answered : both are here
to be observed. 'I will hear what God will speak;' that is, how he will
accomplish them : and withal he confidently expresseth an assurance that
' God will speak peace.' Thus doth the church, Mic. vii. 7, ' I will look
to the Lord ; I will wait ; my God wUl hear me :' she was both sure of gra-
cious audience with him, — ' my God will hear me,' — and she will wait till he
answers her; and observe how he doth it, ' I wUl look to the Lord;' and, ver.
9, ' I will bear the indignation of the Lord till he plead my cause.' So
Habakkuk, he having made a prayer against the tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar,
in the first chapter, having ended it, he begins the second chapter thus, ' I
will stand upon my watch tower, and see what he vidll answer me : ' and in
the end an answer comes, ver. 2 ; and as he thus waited for a vision, for some-
times their prophecies were in answer to their prayers, so should we for an
answer unto ours.
Reason 1. — Because otherwise you take an ordinance of God in vain in
your hearts, which is to take God's name, with whom in that ordinance you
deal, in vain ; for it is a sign you think your prayer not an effectual means
to attain that end it is ordained for, and say secretly in your hearts, as they,
Job xxi. 15, 'What profit have we if we pray to him ?' For if we use any
means, and expect not the end, it is a sign we think the means vain to
accomphsh that end. Whereas every faithful prayer is ordained of God to
be a means to obtain what we desire and pray for, and is not put up in vain,
but shall have answer: 1 John v. 14, 15, 'This is the confidence that we
have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.*
It is true God heareth an enemy, but to hear vdth favour is the hearing
there meant ; and is so used in our ordinary speech, as we say of a favourite
that he hath the king's ear ; and if a man be obstinate to a man's counsel,
we say he would not hear, though he give the hearing : so here, to hear is a
word of gracious inclination to do the thing required ; and thus God's ears
are said to be open to their prayers ; and so it follows there, that ' if he
heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we
desired of him.' As soon as we have prayed, we are said to have our peti-
tions, — that is, they are then granted, — and we may be confident they are as-
sented unto by God ; although in regard to outward dispensation, the com-
Chap. L] the return of prayers. 3G1
mand for accomplishment is not yet come forth : even as a petitioner Ls said
to have his suit wlien the word of the king is gone forth that it shall be
done, though it passeth not the seal, or be not signed a good while after.
And like as when a wicked man sinneth, as soon as the act is committed, so
soon doth sentence from God go forth against the sinner, but the execution
overtakes hini not, it may be, a good while after, according to that of Solo-
mon, Eccles. viiL 11, 'sentence against an evil-doer is not presently executed ;'
it is presently sentenced, as the words imply, but not executed : so in like
manner falleth it out when a godly man prays, that as soon as the prayer
arrives in heaven, which is in an instant, so soon is the petition granted, — so
Dan. ix. 23, ' At the beginning of his prayer the command came forth,'
though the angel, who brought the answer, arrived not at him tUl towards
the end in the evening, ver. 21, — but the real accomplishment of it may be
deferred. So as no prayer in respect of an answer to it is in vain ; but where
God hath given a heart to speak, he hath an ear to hear : which not to
regard, is to take an ordinance in vain, which is God's name.
Reason 2. — And, secondly, not simply God's name, as in an ordinance
made known, but also liis name, that is, his attributes, are taken in vain.
For it is a sign you think of that God you pray to, that either ' his ear is
heavy, that he cannot hear, or his hand shortened, that he cannot save,' or
his heart straitened, and his bowels restrained, that he will not : and thus
you rob him, and despoil him of one of his most royal titles, whereby he
styles himself, Ps. Ixv. 2, ' a God that heareth prayers ;' who is so regardful
of them, that, in 1 Kings viii. 59, they are said to be ' nigh the Lord day
and night ]' they are all before hhn, and he sets them in his view, as we do
letters of friends, which we stick in our windows, that we may remember to
answer them, or lay them not out of our bosoms, that we might be sure not
to forget them : so the petitions of his people pass not out of his sight, till.
he sends an answer, which is called ' speaking' here ; God speaking as well in
his works as in his word. But you, by your neglect herein, make an idol
god of him, such as were the vanities of the heathen, as if he ' had ears and
heard not, eyes and saw not' your need, &c. Such a god as Elias mocked;
' You must speak aloud,' says he, ' he may be in a journey,' &c. Even such a
god do you make the God of heaven and earth to be, whilst you put no more
confidence in him, or make no more reckoning of your prayers to him than
the heathens did of their sacrifices to their gods. Petitioners do not only
put up their requests, but use to wait at great men's doors, and inquire, and
listen what answer is given unto them ; and it is part of an honour to great
men that we do so : and for the same end are Ave also to wait on God, to
shew his greatness, and our distance from him, and dependence upon him.
' As the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their masters, so do we,'
saith David, ' on thee, till thou hast mercy on us,' Ps. cxxiii. 2. And, Ps.
cxxx., after he had prayed, ver. 2, he says he ' waited more than they that
watch for the morning :' like those that having some great business to do on
the morrow, long for the daylight, and look often out to spy the day ; so he
for a glimmering and dawning of an answer. The like we have Psalm v. 3,
* In the morning will I direct my prayer to thee, and look,' that is, for an
answer.
Reason 3. — Again, if God doth give you an answer, if you mind it not, you
let God speak to you in vain, when you do not listen to what he answers.
If two men walk together, and the one, when himself hath said and spoke
what he would, listens not, but is regardless of what the other answers, he
exceedingly slights the man. As, non respondere pro convitio ett, not to
362 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [ChAP. I.
answer again is contempt ; so, non attendere, not to attend to what one says.
Now our speaking to God by prayers, and his speaking to us by answers
thereunto, is one great jjart of our walking with God ; and to study out his
dealings with us, to compare our prayers and his answers together, which are
as dialogues between us and him. It is said of Samuel's prophecy, that not a
word of it fell to the ground, 1 Sam, iii. 19 : and so it may be said of our
prayers ; and so it ought to be of God's answers, not a word of them should
fall to the ground ; as there doth, if you by your observation and Hstening
thereunto catch them not, (as Benhadad's servants are said to do Ahab's
words,) apprehend and observe them not. And by the same reason that you
are to observe the fulfilling of God's promises, you are of your prayers also.
Now, 1 Kings viii. 5Q, it is said, ' not one word failed of all he promised.'
Solomon had observed this by a particular survey and register made of all
that God had spoken and done for them, and found not a promise unper-
formed. And there is the like reason both of answers to prayers and for
our observing of them, for prayers are but putting promises into suit ; and
therefore Solomon brings those words in there to this very purpose, to con-
firm their faith in this, that no prayers made would fail, being grounded on
a promise ; thereby to encourage others and his own heart to diligence herein,
as also as a motive unto God to hear him ; for, ver. 59, he infers upon it,
' Let my words be nigh thee,' &c., seeing thou always thus performest thy
good word unto thy people.
Reason 4. — Yea, you will provoke the Lord not to answer at all ; he wiU
forbear to answer, because he sees it will be thus in vain. When a man is
talking to one that listens not to him, he will cease to answer, and leave off
speaking ; and so will God. So as that which the Apostle says of faith,
Heb. X. 36, that it is not enough to beheve, but ' when you have done the
wiU of God, you have need of patience ' to eke out faith, ' that you may in-
herit the promises,' may be also said, and is alike true, of praying. It is not
enough to pray, but after you have prayed, you have need to listen for an
answer, that you may receive your prayers ; God will not fulfil them else.
As he said, the sermon was not done when yet the j)reacher had done, be-
cause it is not done till jDractised ; so our prayers are not done when yet
made, but you must further wait for and attend the accomplishment.
Reason 5. — If you observe not his answers, how shall you bless God and
return thanks to him for hearing your prayers 1 Ps. cxvi. 1, 'I love the
Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my suppKcation ; ' and therefore
he goes on to thank him throughout the whole psalm. You are to ' watch
imto prayer with thanksgiving,' Col. iv. 2 ; and therefore, as to watch, to ob-
serve, and recollect your own wants, which you are to pray for, that you may
have matter of requests to put up, so also to observe God's answers for mat-
ter of thanksgiving : and many fill that commonplace head full of matter to
furnish them for petitioning, but as for this other of thanksgiving, they watch
not unto it against they come to pray, nor study matter for that head also.
And if any study will furnish you this way, it is the studying out of God's
answers to your prayers. The reason you pray so much, and give thanks so
little is, that you observe not God's answers ; you do not study them. When
we have put up a faithful prayer, God is made our debtor by promise, and
we are to take notice of his payment, and give him an acknowledgment of
the receipt of it ; he loseth of his glory else.
Reason 6. — As God loseth, so yourselves also the experience which you
might get thereby. (1.) Both experience of God and his faithfulness, which
will cause in you hope and confidence in God another time, when you have
Chap. I.] the return of prayers. 3G3
found him again and again answering your prayers. It was a speech of one
eminent in holiness, upon occasion of the accomj)lishment of a great request
made to God by him, that God having never denied him any request, ' I have
tried God often, now,' says he, ' henceforth I will trust him.' If the hearing
the prayers of another will encourage us to go to God, — as Ps. xxxii. 6, * For
this cause shall every one that is godly pray unto thee,' — much more when we
observe and have experience that our own are heard ; therefore, says David,
Ps. cxvi, 2, ' The Lord hath heard me, and I will call ui)on him as long as I
live ; ' as if he had said, Now that God hath heard me, I know whither to go :
this experiment, if I had no more, is enough to encourage me for ever to pray
unto God ; I have learned by it to call upon him as long as I live. And
also, (2.) by observing God's answers to your prayers, you will gain much in-
sight into your own hearts, and ways, and prayers, and may thereby learn
how to judge of them. So, Ps. Ixvi. 18, 19, David's assiu-ance that he did
not regard iniquity in his heart was strengthened by God's having heard his
prayers ; for thus he reasons, ' If I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not
hear me ; but God hath heard me.' For, [1.] if God doth not grant your
petitions, it will put you to study a reason of that his dealing ; and so you
will come to search into your prayers and the carriage of your hearts, therein
to see whether you did not pray amiss : according to that, ' Ye lust and
have not, . . . because ye ask amiss,' James iv. 3. As if you send to a
friend, who is punctual in that point of friendship of retummg answers, and
useth not to fad, and you receive no answer from him, you vsdll begin to
think there is something in it. And so also here, when a petition is denied,
you will be jealous of yourselves, and inquisitive what should be the matter ;
and so by that search come to see that in your prayers which you will learn
to mend the next time. Or, [2.] if they be answered, yet because that therein
usually God deals in a proportion with you to your prayers, — as you might
perceive if you would observe his dealings with you, — you would by this means
come to have much insight into God's acceptation and opinion of your ways :
for you should see his dealings with you, and yours with him, to be exceed-
ing parallel and correspondent, and hold proportion each with other. So,
Ps. xviii. 6, ' In my distress I caDedupon the Lord;' and so, ver. 7, 8, &c.,
he goes on to describe his deliverance, which was the fruit of those prayers,
and then, at ver. 20, 21, &c., he adds his observation upon both, 'According
to the cleanness of my hands hath he dealt with me,' &c. * For with the
pure thou shalt shew thyself pure.'
Reason 7. — ^You will lose much of your comfort. There is no greater joy
than to see prayers answered, or to see souls converted by us : John xvi 24,
*Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full.' The receiving
answers makes joy to abound and overflow. Yea, even when we pray fop
others, if our prayers be answered for them, our joys are exceeding great;
much more when in our own behalf. And therein, even in the smallest
things which a Christian doth enjoy, doth his comfort exceed another's, that
he hath them by virtue of prayers and promises . he knows how he came by
them. If ' stolen waters be sweet, and bread eaten in secret,' &c., (as Solomon
says, Prov. ix. 17,) to wicked men, begged meat is much more sweet to godly
men ; yea, in the very praying for outward mercies, there is more sweetness
than they have in enjoying them. As it is joy to a good heart to see any
one converted, but much more to him that is the means of it, — ' I have no
greater joy,' says St John, 'than that my children walk in truth,' 3 Epist. 4, —
80 to see God do good to his church, and hear others' prayers, is a comfort,
but much more to see him do it at a man's own prayers. Therefore, when
364 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [CuAP. L
God restores comfort to a drooping soul, he is said, Isa. Ivii. 1 8, to ' restore
comfort also to his mourners,' that is, to those that prayed and mourned for
him, as well as unto that soul itself; it being a comfort to them to see their
prayers answered. Comfort it is many ways : (1.) To hear from God, as to
hear from a friend, though it be but two or three words, and that about a
small matter ; if there be at the bottom this subscription, ' j'our loving father,'
or, 'your assured friend,' it satisfies abundantly; so also, (2.) to know that
God is miudful of us, accepts our works, fulfils his promises. (3.) How
doth it rejoice one to find another of his mind in a controversy ; but that
God and we should be of one mind, and concur in the desire of the same
things, — not two in the earth only agree. Matt, xviii. 19, but God who is in
heaven and we to agree, — this rejoiceth the heart exceedingly. And thus it
is when a man perceives his prayer answered. Therefore you lose much of
your comfort in blessings when you do not observe answers to your prayers.
Chap. IL] xhe beturn of prayers. 3G5
CHAPTER IL
Three cases propounded : the first concerning prayers for the church, and for
the accomplishment of such promises as may fall out in ages to come.
Now as for rules and helps to find out God's meaning towards you in your
prayers, and to spy out answers, and how to know when God doth anything
in answer to your prayers, this is the next thing to be handled : wherein,
first, I will answer some cases and queries which may fall out in several sorts
of prayers, about the answering of them.
1. As, first, concerning prayers put up for the church, for the accomplish-
ment of such things as fall out in ages to come.
2. Concerning prayers made for others, of your friends, kindred, &c.
3. Concerning those prayers, whether for yourselves or others, wherein
others join with you.
1, For the first: —
(1.) There may be some prayers which you must be content never your-
selves to see answered in this world, the accompHshment of them not falling
out in your time : such as are those you haply make for the calling of the
Jews, the utter downfall of God's enemies, the flourishing of the gospel, the
full purity and liberty of God's ordinances, the particular flourishing and
good of the society and place you live in. All you whose hearts are right do
treasure up many such prayers as these, and sow much of such precious seed,
which you must be content to have the church, it may be, in after ages to
reap ; all which prayers are not yet lost, but will have answers : for as God
is an eternal God, and Christ's righteousness an 'everlasting righteousness,'
and therefore of eternal eflicacy, Dan. ix. 24, ' being offered up by the eternal
Spirit,' Heb. ix. 14, so are prayers also, which are the work of the eternal
Spirit of Christ, made to that God in his name, and in him are eternally
accepted, and of eternal force, and therefore may take place in after ages.
So the prayer that St Stephen made for his persecutors took place in Saul
when St Stephen was dead. So David's prayer against Judas, Ps. cix. 8, 9,
took effect above a thousand years after, as appears. Acts i. 20. So the
prayers of the church, for three hundred years, in the primitive times, that
kings might come to the knowledge of the truth, and they ' lead peaceable
and quiet lives, in all godliness and honesty,' (which St Paul, in Nero's time,
exhorted unto, 1 Tim. ii. 2,) were not answered and accomplished till Con-
stantine's time, when the church brought forth a man-child. Rev. xii. 5.
So, Isa. Iviii., after he had exhorted to, and given directions for fasting and
prayer in a right manner, he adjoineth this promise, ' Thou shalt raise up
the foundations of many generations ; thou shalt be called, The repairer of the
breach ;' namely, for this, because his fasting and prayers might have influ-
ence into many ages yet to come, in the accomplishment of what was prayed
for. And that which Christ says of the apostles' reaping the fruit of St
John the Baptist's ministry, and the seed he had sown, is in like manner
366 THE RETUKN OF PRAYERS. [CflAP. IL
herein verified, John iv. 37, ' One soweth and another reapeth.' And in
this sense, that which the Papists say is true, that there is a common trea-
sury of the church, not of their merits, but of their prayers. There are
bottles of tears a-filling, vials a-fiUing to be poured out for the destruction
of God's enemies. What a collection of prayers hath there been these many
ages towards it ! And that may be one reason why God wUl do such great
things towards the end of the world, even because there hath been so gi'eat
a stock of prayers going for so many ages, which is now to be returned.
And herein it falls out to us in our prayers as in their prophecies to the
prophets of old: 1 Pet. i. 11, 'The Spirit in them did signify the sufferings
of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was revealed,
that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things that are
now revealed.' And thus is it in the spirit of j^rayer, which is instead of
the spirit of prophecy; for we pray through the gTiidance of the Spirit,
' who teacheth us what to ask,' for many things that come to pass in after
ages.
(2.) Only at present in prayer it may be that thou hast revealed unto thee,
by a secret impression made on thy sjiirit, that these things shall come to
pass, and so hast thy faith confirmed in them, and withal an evidence, that
3ven for thy prayers, among others, God will perform them ; and that the.
contribution of thy prayers doth help to make up the sum. And upon such
prayers God usually for the present also testifies the accejjtation of a man's
person, and reveals himself most to him that he is his, as he did to Moses :
he never revealed his love to Moses more than when he prayed most for
God's people. And haply thou hast that as one of thy best evidences of the
uprightness of thy heart, that thou canst pray for the church's good, though
for a long time to come, which thou mayest never behold with thine eyes,
even as David also did, and rejoiced in it.
(3.) And when they are accomplished, and thou in heaven, thy joy will
surely be the more full for these thy prayers : as at the conversion of those
thou hast prayed for, so at the ruin of the church's enemies, &c., whom
thou didst pray against; for if there be joy in heaven at the conversion of a
sinner, as at the birth of a new prince and heir of heaven, then haply in a
proportion he shall rejoice most whose prayers had most hand in it, and a
special interest therem. And so as thy other works, so thy jDrayers follow
thee, and 'the fruit of them,' as Jeremiah S2)eaks, chaji. x\'ii. 10 ; and, how-
ever, yet at the day of judgment thou shalt rejoice, as well as they that en-
joyed the fruit of thy prayers in their times, thou having sown the seed of
their happiness : ' Both he that sows and he that reaps shall then rejoice
together,' as Christ says, John iv. 36.
Chap. Ill] the return of peayers. 3G7
CHAPTER III.
Tlie second case, concerning prayers made for others, of our friends, dec.
— How they are answered.
2. The second case is concerning answers to our prayers for others, for par-
ticular men, as friends and kindred, &c., and likewise for temporal blessings.
Pray for others you know we must ; so the elders of the church for those
that are sick, James v. 15, 16 : ' Pray one for another,' says St James. As in
case a man is troubled with a lust, tell some private friend of it : ' Confess
your sins one to another,' that when a man's own prayers are not strong
enough to cast it out, it may be done by the help of another's prayers joined
with his. So it follows, ' that ye may be healed,' ver. 16, for in that sense
I understand healing in ver. 1 6. So also, 1 John v. 16, ' K a man see his
brother sin a sin which is not unto death,' — that is, not against the Holy
Ghost, — ' he shall ask life for him, and God shall give him life that sins not
unto death.'
Concerning this case, I give these considerations, how such prayers are
answered : —
First consideration. — Such prayers God often heareth ; why else are any
such promises made ? As, ' that they shall be healed in their bodies,' James
V. 15, ' healed of their lusts,' ver. 16 ; ' converted to life,' 1 John v. 16. God
hath made these to encourage us to pray, and to testify his abundant love
to us ; that it so overflows and runs over, that he will hear us, not only for
ourselves, but for others also ; which is a sign we are in extraordinary favour.
So God intimates concemmg Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xx. 7, ' He is a
prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live.' And as he was a
prophet, so we are priests, as for ourselves, so for others also, to God our
Father ; and it is a prerogative we have through the fellowship we have,
and communion of Christ's priestly office, ' who hath made us kings and
priests,' Rev. i. 6, to prevail and intercede for others, and a special token
and pledge of extraordinary love ; for if God hears a man's prayers for
others, much more for himself in his own behalf So when Christ healed
the man sick of the palsy, it was, as it is said, for the faith of the standers-
by, Matt. ix. 2 : ' He, seeing their faith, said, Thy sins are forgiven thee.' The
meaning is not as if for their faith's sake he forgave that man his sins, for,
Hab. ii. 4, ' the just doth live by' his own ' faith;' but to encourage them who
out of faith brought that sick man to him, and us all in like manner to bring
others and their plaints by prayer before him, he therefore then took occa-
sion to declare and pronounce forgiveness to that poor man ; he therefore
then said, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee.'
Second consideration — Yet, secondly, prayers for others may often also not
obtain the particular thing prayed for them. So Samuel's prayer for Saul,
1 Sam. XV. 35 ; so David for his enemies, Ps. xxxv. 1 3.
For it is in this as it is in the use of other means and ordinances for the
368 THE RETUEN OF PRAYERS. [ChaP. III.
good of others ; God making such like kind of promises to our prayers herein
as he hath made to our endeavours to convert when we preach to men : that
look, as we preach to many, and yet but few believe, — for ' who hath be-
lieved our report 1 ' Rom. x 1 6, even ' as many as are ordained to eternal
life ; ' we ' become all to all, and win but some,' — so we pray for many, not
knowing who are ordained to eternal life, which whilst we know not, we are
yet to pray for them, 1 Tim. ii. 3, 4. Only as where God hath set his ordi-
nance of preaching, it is more than a probable sign he hath some to convert,
and usually the word takes among some, though often but a few ; so when
he hath stirred up our hearts to pray for others, it is a sign God will hear us
for some of those we pray for, yet so as we may be denied. For God doth
require it as a duty on our parts, because it is an outward means ordained
by God, by which sometimes he useth to bring things to pass ; but yet not
as such a certain and infaUible means, as he hath tied himself universally
unto, to bring the thing to pass on his part.
And though indeed his promise to hear and accept the prayer is general
and universal, yet the promise to hear it, by granting the very thing itself
prayed for, is but an indefinite promise, such as he makes to other means of
doing men good ; as to our admonitions and reproofs, and to our preaching,
&c. He makes such promises because sometimes he doth hear and convert
by them. For instance, that promise, James v. 15, of healing the sick, cannot
be universal ; for it might then be sujiposed, as a truth implied in it, that
sick men might never die, whereas ' it is appointed for all men once to die,'
Heb. ix, 27, seeing it may be supposed that the elders may at all such times
of danger of death still come and pray with them. But the meaning is, that
it is an ordinance which God hath made a gracious promise unto, because he
often doth restore the sick at their prayers : and therefore upon every such
particular occasion, we are to rely upon God for the performance of it by an
act of recumbency, though with an act of full assurance that we shaU obtain
it we cannot ; the promise being not universal, but indefinite.
Of the like nature are all other promises of things temporal and outward,
of which we herein speak, as when God promiseth to give long life to them
that honour their parents, riches and honours to them that fear him ; the
tenor and purport of which promises is not, as if absolutely, infallibly, and
universally God doth always perform these to those that are yet truly quali-
fied with the conditions specified in those promises ; the contrary both
Scripture instances and common experience shews : they are therefore in-
definitely meant, and so to be understood by us. For, because whenever
God doth dispense any such mercies to any of his, he would do it by pro-
mise ; all his ways to his being truth, that is, the fulfilling of some truth
promised ; and also God having purposed in his outward dispensation of
things here in this world, to bestow riches and honours upon some that fear
him, though not upon all, for how then should ' all things fall alike to all,'
Eccles. ix. 2, poverty and contempt upon them that fear God, even as well
as those that fear him not ? He hath therefore indefinitely expressed his
gracious dispensation herein : requiring auswerably an act of faith — wliich
principle in us is suited to a promise, as a faculty is to its proper object —
suitable to that his meaning in the promise ; that as he intended not in such
promises an absolute, infallible, universal obUgation of himself to the per-
formance of them to aU that fear him, so the act of faith which a man is to
put forth toward this promise, in the a^jplication of it for his own particular,
is not required to be an absolute, infallible persuasion and assurance that
God will bestow these outward things upon him, having these quahficationa
Chap. III.] the rbturn of prayers. 369
in him ; but only an indefinite act, as I may so call it, of recumbency and
submission, casting and adventuring ourselves upon him for the performance
of it to us, not knowing but he may in his outward dispensations make it
good to us, yet with submission to his good pleasure, if otherwise he dis-
poseth it.
It is true, indeed, that that act of general assent which faith is to give to
this promise, in the general abstract truth of it, is to be an assured certain per-
suasion and belief that God hath made this promise, and that he certainly will
and doth perform it unto some according to his purpose expressed therein ;
which act of general assent is that believing without wavering, — namely, of
the truth of the promise in general, — which St James calls for in prayer, chap.
i. 6. But yet that special act of application, as divines call it, required in
this faith, whereby I am to rest upon it for my own particular, is not re-
quired to be such an undoubted persuasion as to think that I shall certainly
have this particular promise in kind fulfilled to me ; for the truth, purpose,
and intent of the promise is not universal, but indefinite. So as it is but
an it may be, as God elsewhere expresseth such promises, as Zeph. ii. 3, that
it shall be performed to me ; and yet because it may be God will perform it
unto me, therefore my duty is to cast myself upon God, and put in for it,
with submission to his good pleasure for the performance of it to me. So
that so far as the truth and intent of it is revealed to be infallible and cer-
tain, so far a man is bound to have an answerable act of faith, of certain and
infallible persuasion towards it, as to believe without wavering that God hath
made such a promise, and will perform it according to his intent in making
it, which is unto some. But yet withal, because the tenor of it is but inde-
finite, and in that respect whether it shall be performed to me or no is not
therein certainly revealed ; therefore God requires not of me, in the appli-
cation of such a promise, an absolute full persuasion that he will perform it
to me in such or such a manner, <fec. ; but only an act of dependence and
adherence, with referring it to his wise and righteous good pleasure towards
me.
And yet again, if God should at any time give a man such a special faith
concerning any such particular temporal blessing for himself or another, then
he is bound to 'believe it thus in particular : as when he gave power to any
to work miracles, as to his apostles he did, with a commission to work them,
then they were bound to believe that such and such a miracle should infal-
libly be wrought by them, as that the devils should be cast out by them, &c.
And therefore in this case Christ rebukes his disciples for not believing thus
upon such particular occasions. Matt. xvii. 20.
And then it is also true that if God give such a faith, he will infallibly
perform it ; and thus those hLs words are to be understood. Matt. xxi. 22,
' Whatsoever ye ask in faith, believing, ye shall receive : ' he speaks it of the
faith of miracles ; for, ver. 21, he had said, ' If ye believe and doubt not, ye
shall say to this mountain, Remove into the sea, and it shall be removed.'
So that when God works such a faith, and we are called to it, we are bound
to believe with a certain persuasion that such a thing will be done, and it
shall be done j but unto such a kind of special faith in temporal promises
for ourselves or others, God doth not now always call us. If indeed at any
time we did beUeve and doubted not, by reason of a special faith wrought
by God, that God would remove a mountain into the sea, or bestow any
outward mercy, it should be done ; for he that stirred up such a faith would
accomplish the thing. But it is not that which God requires of believers,
that they should without doubting thus believe concerning outward things ;
VOL. IIL 2 a
370 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [ChAP. IIL
the promises thereof being not universal but indefinite ; and therefore answer-
ably a man is not absolutely bound to believe that God will certainly bestow
such a temporal blessing on him, no, not though he should have the qualifi-
cation wliich the promise is made unto, the promise being not universal,
made to all so qualified, but indefinite, to some of such so qualified. The
case is the same of believing promises made to our praying for others, which
is the thing in hand.
Third consideration. — When the prayers are thus made out of conscience
of our duty for such whom yet God doth not intend that mercy unto, then
they are returned again into our own bosoms, to our advantage ; even as St
Paul saith, that his rejoicing that others preached, though they lost their
labour, should turn to his salvation, Phil. i. 19. So prayers for others,
though to the parties themselves we prayed for they prove in vain, yet
they turn to our good. So, Ps. xxxv. 12, 13, when his enemies were sick,
David prayed and humbled himself ; ' and my prayers,' says he, ' returned
into my bosom.' David did by this his prayer in secret for his enemies tes-
tify the sincerity of his heart to God, and his true forgiveness of them, — for
it is the usual disposition of God's children to pray for them that are the
greatest enemies to them, — and this prayer, though it did not profit them,
yet it turned to David's own good ; it came back, and home again to him,
with blessings to himself ; God delighting in and rewarding such a disposi-
tion in his child, as much as any other, because therein we resemble Christ
so truly, and shew that God is our Father, and ourselves to have his bowels
in us. And God stirreth up this praying disposition in his children for their
enemies, not always that he means to hear them for them, but because he
means to draw forth, and so have an occasion to reward, those holy disposi-
tions which are the noblest parts of his image in them, and wherewith he is
so much delighted ; and so their prayers return into their own bosom, and
it is taken as if they had prayed for themselves all that while. Thus in like
manner, when Moses prayed so earnestly for the people of Israel, God offered
to return his prayer into his own bosom, and do as much for him alone as
he had desired that God would do for them. ' I will make thee a great
nation,' says God to him, for whom I will do as much for thy sake as thou
hast prayed I should do for these. As in preaching the gospel, Christ told
the disciples, that if in any house they came to preach peace, there were not
a ' son of peace,' Luke x. 6, on whom the message might take place, and
their peace rest, ' your peace,' says he, ' shall return unto you again.' So is
it if your prayers take not place.
Fourth consideration. — If we have prayed long for those whom God in-
tends not mercy unto, he will in the end cast them out of our prayers and
hearts, and take our hearts off from praying for them. That which he did
by a revelation from heaven to some prophets of old, as to Samuel and Jere-
miah, the same he doth by a more undiscerned work ; that is, by withdraw-
ing assistance to pray for such by withdrawing the spirit of supplication
from a man, for some men, and in some businesses. Now thus he did with
Samuel : ' Why dost thou mourn for Saul ? ' 1 Sam. xvi. 1. So with Jere-
miah, chap. vii. 16, ' Pray not for this people.' And this he doth because he
is loath when his people do pray but to hear them, and would not that such
precious breath as that of prayer is should be without its full and direct
success, or be in vain; therefore when he means not to hear, he lays the key
of prayer out of the way, so desirous is he to give answers to every prayer.
It falls out in this case of praying for another as in reproving another. One
whom God intends not good unto, God will lock up a man's heart toward*
Chap. III.] the return of prayers. 371
Buch a man, that he shall not be able to reprove him ; when towards another
God doth enlarge it as much, where he intends good. Thus it is sometimes
in praying for another ; so as in praying a man shaU not be able to pray for,
as not to reprove such a man, though his heart was to do both : but it fareth
with him as God threateneth concerning Ezekiel towards that people, that
he ' makes his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth,' Ezek. iii. 26.
Fifth consideration. — God will hear those prayers for, and answer them
in, some others, in whom we shall have as much comfort as in those we prayed
for ; and so it often proves and falls out. God, to shew ' he looks not as
man looks,' nor chooseth as he chooseth, lets our hearts be set on work to
pray for the conversion or good of one he intends not mercy to ; and then
answers them in some other, whom he makes as dear unto us. When God
had cast off Saul, still Samuel's heart lingered after him, and he mourned
for him ; but God, at the same time, when he bids him cease mourning for
Saul, 1 Sam. xvi., to shew that yet he accepted that his mourning as it came
from him, * Go,' says he, ' and anoint one of the sons of Jesse,' 1 Sam. xvi.
1. Samuel desired to see a good successor in that government, and he
having been their ruler it was his special care ; he having anointed Saul, it
exceedingly grieved him that he should prove so wicked : and God saw and
answered the ground of his desires ; and therefore immediately upon his
prayers, sent him to anoint the best king that ever was upon that throne,
who was the issue and man-child of those his prayers. And again, when
Samuel came to anoint one of the sons of Jesse, when he saw Eliab, ver. 6,
* Surely,' says he, * the Lord's anointed is before me.' If Samuel had been
to choose, he would have chosen him, and would have prayed for and desired
him ; but ' God seeth not as man seeth,' ver. 7, and chooseth not as man
chooseth ; but in David was his prayer fully heard and answered, and that
better. So Abraham, he had prayed for Ishmael, and ' O let Ishmael live
in thy sight !' Gen. xvii. 18; but God gave him Isaac instead of him. So
perhaps thou prayest for one child more than for another, out of thy natural
affection, looking on his countenance and stature, as Samuel did on Eliab's ;
but yet thy prayers being sincere in the ground of them, in that thou desirest
a child of promise, God therefore answers thee, though in another, for whom
yet haply thy heart was not so much stirred ; who yet, when he is converted,
proves to thee as great a comfort : and it is as much as if that other thou
didst most pray for had been wrought upon.
S72 XHE RETURN OF PRAYERS [ChAP. IV^
CHAPTER IV.
77te third case, about such prayers wherein others join with us. — How therein
to discern the influence of our own prayers.
3. The third case to be considered is, when a man prays for something with,
others, or which others likewise pray for with him, so as he is not alone in
it ; how then should he know that his prayers have a hand in obtaining it, as
well as theirs ? For in such cases Satan is apt to object. Though the thing
is granted indeed, yet not for thy prayers, but for the prayers of those
others joined in it with thee.
(1.) If thy heart did sympathise and accord in the same holy affections
with those others in prating, then it is certain thy voice hath helped to carry
it : 'If two agree on earth,' says Christ, Matt, xviii. 19, the word is aufjutpuvT;-
auaiv ; that is, if they harmonially agree to pla)^ the same tune ; for prayers
are music in God's ears, and so called 'melody to God,' Eph. v. 19. It is
not simply their agreeing in the thing prayed for, but in the affections ; for
it is the affections that make the concert and the melody. Now if the same
holy affections were touched and struck by God's Spirit in thy heart that
in theirs, then thou doest help to make up the concert, and without thee it
would have been imperfect ; yea, without thee the thing might not have
been done, for God stands sometimes upon such a number of voices, and
one voice casts it ; as when he named ten righteous persons to save So-
dom. When therefore the same holy motives and affections affected thee in
thy prayer wMch did them in theirs, it was the work of the same Spirit
both in them and thee, and God hath heard thee.
Especially if God did stir up the same secret instinct in thee to sympathise
with another in praying for such a thing unbeknown one to another, as some-
times it falls out ; then surely thy prayers are in it as well as his. You shaU.
observe sometimes a general instinct of the Spirit put into God's people's
hearts, generally to pray for or against a thing, without each other's stirring
up one another; even as Ezekiel by the river Chebar prophesied the same
things Jeremiah did at home at Jerusalem. Thus against the time that Christ
the Messiah came in the flesh, there was a great expectation raised up in
the hearts of the godly people to look and pray for him, Luke ii. 27, 38.
(2.) God doth usually and often evidence to a man, that his prayers con
tributed and went among the rest towards the obtaining of it ; as —
[1.] By some circumstance : as, for example, sometimes by ordering it so
that that man that prayed most for a thing of concernment, should have the
first news of it when it comes to be accomplished ; which God doth, as
knowing it will be most welcome news to him. God doth herein as we do
with a friend, who we know is cordial in, and wisheth well to a business ; he
sends him the first word of it who was most hearty in it, and prayed most
about it. Good old Simeon had surely been earnest in seeking the Lord, as well
Chap, it.] the return of prayers. 373
as the rest in Jerusalem, to send the Messiah into the world, to restore and
raise up the ruins of Israel ; for God did reveal to him that he should see
him before he died : aud therefore to evidence to him his respect to Ids
prayers, God carried ttie good old man into the temple just at the time
when the child was brought into the temple, for to ' be presented to the
Lord,' Luke iL 27, 28. And in like manner good Anna, * who had served
God with fasting and prayer, night and day,' God ordereth it so that she
must also come in at the same instant, liuke ii. 38. By some such like
peculiar circumstance or other doth God often use to witness to a man's
heart that he hath heard him in businesses prayed for in common with
others.
[2.] By filling the heart with much joy in the accomplishment of what a
man prayed for : which is an evident argument that his prayers did move
the Lord to effect it, as well as the prayers of others. Thus that good old
Simeon, seeing his prayers now answered, he was even willing to die through
joy ; and thought he could not die in a better time : ' Lord, now let thy ser-
vant depart in peace,' For when the desires have vented and laid out much
of themselves, then when the return comes home, they have an answerable
part and share in the comfort of it : and as desires abounded in praying, so
will joy and comfort also in the accomplishment. As when a ship comes
home, not only the chief owners, but every one that ventured shall have a
flhare out of the return, in a proportion to the adventure ; so here, though
Bome one whom it mainly concerns hath especial interest in the mercy
obtained, yet thou shalt have thy prayers out in joy from God that the
thing is granted. St Paul had planted a church at Thessalonica, but he
could not stay to water it with his own preaching, yet when absent he waters
those plants which he had set, with prayers, night and day : 1 Thess. iii. 10,
' Night and day praying exceedingly for you,' says he. And as his prayers
were exceeding abundant for them, so was his joy as abundant in them,
when he had heard that they stood steadfast, and fell not back again :
* Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord,' ver. 8. ' And what thanks can
we render to God for aU the joy wherewith we joy for your sakes before the
Lordr ver. 9.
[3.] If God give you a heart thankfiil for a blessing vouchsafed to another,
prayed for by you with others, it is another sign your prayers have some
hand in it. St Paul knew not what thanks to give for the answering of hia
prayers, as in that forementioned place. Old Eli had put up but one short
ejaculatory petition, that we read of, for Hannah ; and that was, ' The Lord
grant thy petition !' 1 Sam. i. 17 ; and for the return of that one prayer, when
Hannah related how God had answered her, ver. 26, 27, he returned solemn
thanks : ' and he worshipped the Lord there,' ver. 28.
(3.) And, lastly, in case the thing concerned thyself, which was prayed for
by others helping thee therein, what cause hast thou but to think that it
was granted for thy own prayers, and not for theirs only 1 seeing God stirred
up their hearts to pray for thee, and gave thee a heart to pray for thyself,
and besides gave thee the thing which thou desiredst. Which argues thou
art beloved as well as they, and accepted as well as they. ' I know this shall
turn to my salvation through your prayers,' saith St Paul, Phil. i. 19.
Though their prayers went to the business, yet had not St Paul been ac-
cepted himself, the prayers of all the men in the world would have done
him but little good. God may hear the prayers of the godly for wicked
men, when they do not pray themselves, in temporal things : so he did hear
371 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [CUAP. IV.
Moses for Pharaoh, Abraham for Abimelech : and he may hear godly men
the sooner for others' prayers ; so he heard Aaron and Miriam the sooner for
Moses's sake, Num. xii. 13. But if God stirs up tliy heart to pray for thy-
self, as well as others for thee, then God that gave tnee a heart to pray hath
heard thy prayers also, and hath had a respect to them more in it than to
theirs, because it concerned thyself, as a more special mercy unto thee.
Chap. V.1 the return of prayers. 375
CHAPTER V.
Common directions helpful in all cases and prayers. — First, from such ohser^
vations as may be taken from before, and in praying.
Having premised these cases, I come now to more general and common
directions to help you in discerning and observing the mind of God, and his
answers to -you in your prayers. AU which directions are such as may be
helpful in all the forementioned cases, and in all sorts of prayers whatever.
And they are taken from observations to be made upon your prayers, &c.,
both before, in, and after praying.
First, before praying ; when God bespeaus a prayer, as I may so speak, —
that is, when God secretly speaks to the heart to pray much about a thing.
I express it thus according to that phrase of David, Ps. xxvii. 8, ' Thou
saidst, Seek my face, and I said, Thy face. Lord, will I seek.' Now God
then speaks to the heart to pray when not only he puts upon the duty by
saying to the conscience. This thou oughtest to do ; but God's speaking to
pray is such as his speech at first was, when he made the world, when he
said, ' Let there be Hght, and there was light :' so he says, Let there be a
prayer, and there is a prayer ; that is, he pours upon a man a spirit of grace
and supplication, a praying disposition ; he puts in motives, suggests argu-
ments and pleas to God ; all which you shall find come in readily, and of
themselves, and that likewise with a quickening heat and enlargement of
affections, and with a lingering, and longing, and restlessness o± spirit to be
alone, to pour out the soul to God, and to vent and form those motions and
suggestions into a prayer, till you have laid them together and made a
prayer of them. And this is a speaking to the heart. And observe such
times when God doth thus, and neglect them not, then to strike whilst the
iron is hot ; thou hast then his ear ; it is a special opportunity for that busi-
ness, such a one as thou mayest never have the like. Suitors at court observe
viollissima jandi tempera, their times of begging when they have kings in a
good mood, which they will be sure to take the advantage ot ; but especially
if they should find that the king himself should b^-gin of himself to speak of
the business which they would have of him : and thus that phrase of Ps. x.
17 is understood by some, that God prepares the heart, and causeth the ear
to hear ; that is, he fashions it, and composeth it into a praying frame.
And sure it is a great sign that God means to hear us when himself shall thus
indite the petition.
And by the way let me give this note of difference between these speak-
ings to the heart and those whereby Satan puts us upon such duties at un-
seasonable hours and times ; as when we are otherwise necessarily to be em-
ployed in our callings, to eat, or to sleep, &c. ; then to put upon praying is a
device of his he useth to tire out new converts with. The difference will
appear in this : the devil comes in a violent imperious maimer upon the
conscience, but enlargeth not the heart a whit unto the duty j but whenso-
376 THE EETT7UN OF PEAYEKS. [ChAP. V,
ever God at such extraordinary by-times doth call upon us, he fits and pre-
pares the heart, and fills the soul with holy suggestions, as materials for the
duty; for whatsoever he calls to, he gives abilities withal to the thing he
calls for.
And thus usually, when he will have any great matters done and ef-
fected, he sets men's hearts a-work to pray by a kind of gracious prein-
stinct ; he stirs them up and toucheth the strings of their hearts by his Spirit
Bent down upon them. Thus against the return of the captivity he stirred
up Daniel's heart, chap. ix. 1 ; he knowing by books the time to be near ex-
piring, was stirred up to seek God. And so he that made this psalm, ' salva-
tion being then nigh,' Ps. Ixxxv. 9, 10; then God stirred him up to pray,
and pen this prayer for their return ; which God had foretold he would do,
Jer. xxix. 10-12. For having promised, ver. 10, I will cause you to return
after seventy years; 'then,' says he, ver. 12, 'shall ye call upon me, and ye
shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.' He speaks it not
only by way of command, what it was they ought to do, but as prophesying
also what they should do ; for then he meant to stir up their hearts, as then
he did, as appears by those forementioned instances. Therefore observe
what things God thus, by an instinct, doth enlarge thy heart to pray for at
times, and sometimes at extraordinary by-times, when haply thou didst not
think to pray about any such thing ; yet he then stirred thee up most, it
may be, as thou wcrt walking, &c., and having spare time, he draws thee
into his presence, and moves thee in that manner specified.
Now, secondly, as God thus speaks to the heart to pray, so also in pray-
ing ; and his speaking to the heart in prayer may be discerned by these par-
ticulars : —
1. When God quiets, and calms, and contents the heart in prayer, which
is done by speaking something to the heart, though what is spoken be not
always discerned. If you should see one who was an earnest and importu-
nate suitor, and exceeding anxious when he went in to a great man, but
beheld him after coming out from him contented, and quieted, and cheerful
in his spirit, you would conceive that certainly something had been said to
him which gave him encouragement, satisfaction, and contentment in his
suit. Thus when thou goest to God, and hast been importunate in a busi-
ness, — as suppose for Christ : O give me Christ, or else I die ! — and thy desires
were exceedingly up for it ; but thou risest up with thy mind calmed and
satisfied, and feelest the anxiousness, the solicitude of thy heart about the
thing taken off and dispelled : this is a good sign that God hath heard thy
prayer, and hath spoken something to thy heart which makes it thus com-
posed. When Hannah, out of much bitterness and with strong desires,
which by a long delay had been made more violent, so as her he^rt was much
disquieted, — for, Pro v. xiii. 12, 'hope,' and by the same reason desire also,
* deferred makes the soul sick,' — when out of the abundance of her grief she
had poured her soul out before the Lord, 1 Sam. i. 16, Eli the priest joining
in prayer also for her, ' The Lord grant thy petition ; ' after that prayer she
found her heart so quieted, that ' she looked no more sad,' as the text says
there, she arose quieted and calmed, and it was that prayer that did both fill
EK's mouth with that word of prophecy and her heart with quietness, and
a secret word from God accompanying it that did still those waves : and
accordingly God gave her a son, a son of her desires.
And the like God doth now, by speaking, as I said, something to the
heart : as by dropping in some promise or other into the heart, or some like
consideration ; saying, as it were, to the heart, even as Eli from God did to
Chap. V.] the return of prayers. 377
her, * The Lord grants thy petition.' As to St Paul, when he was earnest
with God about rcmovuig his buffetings by Satan, which whether they
were the stirring up a lust, or temptations of blasphemy, I do not now
dispute ; ' I besought God thrice,' that is, earnestly, says he, ' that it might
depart ; ' and to this he had an answer in the meantime given him, till it
should be taken away, enough to still and quiet him : so 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9.
' And he said,' — that is, in prayer the Lord did put in this consideration
and promise into his thoughts, — ' And he said unto me, ^ly grace is sufficient
for thee, and my power is made perfect in weakness." This answer thus
coming in, this promise thus seasonably suggested, stayed and quieted Paul's
heart. In like manner, thou hast, it may be, been long praying against
povcrt}' or the like distress, and God lets fall this or the like promise into
thy heart, ' I will never Lave thee nor forsake thee,' Heb. xiii. 5, which
quiets and contents thy mind. This is an answer ; and observe such answers,
for they are precious.
2. If whilst thou art a-praying God doth draw nigh to thy soul, and re-
vealeth himself to it in and upon such or such a particular petition : as in
case thou didst mainly intend, when thou didst begin to pray, to set thyself
to beg some temporal mercy at his hands, some great matter for the good
and prosperity of the church, — as Daniel, chap, ix., did set himself to seek
God for the return of the captivity, — and even before thou comest to ask it,
or in asking it, God smiles upon thee, welcomes thee, falleth about thy neck
and kisseth thee ; this thou art to observe as a sign he hears thy prayer, and
accepteth both thee and it. When there is such a strong sense of God's fav-
our and presence whilst thou art upon such a suit and request, more than at
other times or than in other passages of the same prayer, this is a token God
hears thee in that particular, and thou art to observe tliis his spealdng to thy
heart; when thus thou shalt no sooner come into his presence to inquire
of him, but he says, ' Here I am,' as the promise is, Isa. Iviii. 9. Therefore,
Ps. Ixix. 17, 18, ' Hear me speedily,' says David; 'and,' that I may know
thou hearest me, ' draw nigh to me.' Therefore when God draws nigh to
thee, it is a sign he hears thee. Daniel having fasted and prayed for three
weeks together, chap. x. 2, 3, then an angel came, and one of the three Per-
sons came and told him he was ' a man greatly beloved,' ver. 11, 19. When,
in like manner, God by his Spuit comes down, and meets thee, and tells thy
heart in secret that thou art his beloved and he is thine, then thy prayers
are certainly heard ; for if he accepts thy person, much more thy prayers,
1 John V. 13, 14. Men, Mse men, — false upon the balance, as David speaks,
when they come to be tried and weighed, — they will, out of cunning, use
suitors most kindly then when they mean to put them off, and deny them
their requests ; but God, who is truth and faithfulness itself, doth not use so
to deal, but when he means to answer the prayer, he withal sometimes re-
veals his free grace most, to the end they may see and acknowledge the foun-
tain of all to be his everlasting love, and so take the thing granted as a fruit
of it, and thereby come to be the more abundantly thankful.
Only let me add this caution, which may be of great use to you : That it
is not always infallibly true that when God draws nigh to you in a particular
request, that that request in particular shall be granted in that manner you
desired ; but it is a certain evidence that thy prayer is heard, and that the
thing thou askest is agi-eeable to his wUl, and that he approves of thee and
thy request exceedingly, and thinketh the better of thee for it, and he will
give thee it, or something that is better. There may be herein, and some-
times is, a mistake of God's meauingy to think that always then the thing
378 THE EETUEN OP PRAYERS. [ChAP. V.
shall be granted when God draws nigh to a man : experience sometimes
shews the contrary.
Quest. — But you will say, Why doth God draw so nigh if he means not to
grant it ?
Ans. 1. — He shews thereby his approving wiU of the thing prayed for.
Now God approves many things he decrees not. There is his approving will
and his decreeing will. God may shew his approving will of the thing thou
askest, — as suppose it be in view a matter which is of great consequence to
the church, — which he doth for thy encouragement ; but yet it follows not
that his decreeing will is for the accomplishment of that very thing in parti-
cular.
Alls. 2. — God may accept the person and the prayer when he doth not
grant the thing prayed for ; and by that drawing nigh witness his accepta-
tion of thy person and thy prayer. Yea —
A71S. 3. — That revealing of himself is oftentimes aU the answer he in-
tended to such a prayer; and it is answer enough, too, to enjoy in the stead
of a particular mercy the assurance of God's love. As suppose thou didst
pray against some evil coming upon his church, which he yet intends to
bring, which he did set thy heart a-work to pray against, thereby to mani-
fest the sincerity thereof, and then he, seeing thee thus sincere, draws nigh to
thee, and tells thee, however, it shall go well with thee, and that thou art
greatly beloved of him ; thou art sometimes to take this for all the answer he
means to give. And this he doth sometimes also to content the heart, and
prepare it for a denial in the thing ; whereas otherwise the denial of what a
Christian hath been earnest in might occasion, as in many it doth, a ques-
tioning and doubting of God's love.
3. When God stirs up in the heart a particular faith in a business, as
sometimes he doth, and upholds the heart to wait for it, maugre all discou-
ragements. So he did in David, Ps. xxvii 3. David was then in great
hazards by reason of Saul, or Absalom, and those such and so often, as that
to sense and outward probabihties he was like never to live quietly again at
Jerusalem, and enjoy God's ordinances there in peace ; but for this David
had prayed, and had made it as the grand request of his whole life, — as every
man hath some one great request of all other, even as he hath some special
grace above aU other, or gift, &c., so request to God, next to his salvation,
as haply for his ministry, or the like, therefore says David, ver. 4, ' This one
thing have I desired,' — and accordingly God gave him a special faith in this
thing above all other, because it was his great request ; ' In this will I be con-
fident,' ver. 3. And though a host of men should again and again encompass
me, says he, yet in this I will be confident, that I shall still escape, and see
Jerusalem again, and enjoy the ordinances and live in peace. And though his
faith failed him often, as in the persecution of Saul it did, for he said he
should ' one day perish by the hand of Saul,' 1 Sam. xxvii. 1, yet at other
times his faith was marvellously upheld, and he was confident in this. He
used not to be so in other requests thus absolutely, particularly, and dis-
tinctly ; and therefore he says, ' In this,' &c. As there is a witness of the
Holy Ghost immediate to the heart, sealing up adoption to a man's person,
so in some cases there is the like testimony for the obtaining of some emi-
nent thing we have asked. Which particular special faith doth in a kind of
sindhtude answer to the faith of miracles of old, whereby a man had a par-
ticular confidence that God would do such a miracle by him. So in and by
means of prayer, in some things there may be a particular strengthening and
assuring the heart, that God will do such a thing for a man : which I confess
Chap. V.] the betubn of psayebs. 379
is rare and extraordinary, as also that immediate testimony concerning our
persons is, ■which many want that go to heaven. And haply this other, con-
cerning the accomplishment of special mercies, is much more rare, and but
in some businesses, and is a thing which some men are not acquainted with,
but yet may be in some cases existent to some men's spirits, as it was to
David's in the thing mentioned.
And concerning this also I will also add a caution, as about the former :
That it doth not always fall out upon all such kind of evidences made to a
man's spirit, and that by God, that the thing prayed for doth come to pass.
For these very persuasions stirred up by God, may be and are often but
conditional, though thus immediately made to a man's spirit, and are so to
be understood, and not peremptory and absolute. It cannot be imagined
that all these should always be of greater absoluteness and peremptoriness
than were many of those revelations made by God to the prophets, wherein
he manifested his gracious purpose towards such a man or people, either to
vouchsafe them such a mercy, or bring such a judgment ; which forewaruings,
though they were particular and express, yet limited and intended with a
condition, according to the performance or not performance of which it fell
out, either the judgment expressly threatened was diverted, or that good
thing which was as directly and fully promised was not bestowed : as it was
in the case of Jonah threatening the destruction of Nineveh ; and so in the
promise concerning Eli's house, 1 Sam. ii. 30, ' I said indeed that thy house,
and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever:' but now the
Lord says it shall not be so, for they had broken the condition which was
implied in it, they had despised the Lord; ' and them that despise me,' says
God there, ' I will despise.'
In like manner is God's meaning expressed towards us in such like per-
suasions wrought in us by prayer, to be understood : as that such mercies
will surely come to pass, but still under a condition of obedience, and per-
forming of those vows which a man joined with those his petitions, to move
the Lord to grant the things; which if a man fail in, or ceaseth to go on to
believe, it may and doth often come to pass that things fall out contrary to
that persuasion; and then we are apt to question whether it was from God
or no ; which it might be, and truly wrought by his Spirit, and yet not always
absolutely meant, — that was your mistake so to take it, — but conditionally
only. For in such great requests of the soul unto God, there use to pass
mutual covenants between God and us, and indentures are drawn and sealed
unto by us — that is, we in prayer offer and promise to do thus and thus, if
God will vouchsafe us such a mercy, and plead it to God to move him to
bestow it ; and God, he thereupon, it may be, seals a covenant on his part to
grant the thing, and works such an undoubted persuasion ; but if we, in that
interim of waiting for that mercy, do deal falsely in that covenant which we
have made, and this even whilst we are yet in dependence upon God for it,
whereby it appears that we would have done so much more after we should
have received it once, — in this case God denies the thing, and yet notwith-
standing that persuasion and evidence was from God that heard the prayer.
He said indeed he would do thus and thus for thee, — as he told David, ' I
would have given thee much more,' — because thou saidst to him, thou wouldst
walk thus and thus, or didst vow this or that to him ; thou failest in thy
word, upon which God uttered his; and thereupon, says God, as to Eli,
* Now it shall not be so,' and yet God had spoken, it afore, and not Satan,
nor thine own heart only.
4. When God doth put a restless importunity into the heart, maugre all
380 THE EETUBN OF PRAYERS. [ChAP. V.
discouragements. So in that Psalm xxvii. 4, * One tMng I nave desired, and
I wUl seek after it,' — that is, as I have sought it, so I wUl not leave seeking
to God for it. When God maintains this in the heart, it is a sign he hearg
and will answer; for you know the parable, that the unjust judge heard her
for her importunity : therefore when God puts an importunity into the heart,
he means to hear.
Only this likewise is to be added in this, there is a double importunity ;
one out of such an inordinate desire to a thing, as the heart knows not how
■to be without such a mercy, and so continues to ask, but 'asketh amiss, and
so receives not,' James iv. 3. But there is an importunity joined with a
subjection to God's wUl, which, when it runs along with it, then God hath
stirred it up ; and then look for something to come : otherwise you may be
importunate, as * they seek me daily,' when yet God heard not, Isa. IviiL 2.
Chap. YL] ihjb bktubn of prxysba, 381
CHAPTER VI.
Furiher observations to he made on the dispositions and carriage of our heart*
after prayer^ until the issue of the thing prayed for.
Next : after thou hast prayed, observe what God doth towards thee.
As, first, how he doth guide thy feet and heart after praying ; there is
much in that. That which was the spirit of supplication in a man when he
prayed, rests upon him as the spirit of obedience in his course ; so as that
dependence he hath upon God for the mercy he seeks for, is a special motive
and means to keep him fearful of offending, and diligent in duty ; to look to
his paths, to walk and behave himself as becomes a suitor, as weU as to
come and pray as a suitor. Thus David, he walked by this principle, Ps.
Ixvi. 18, ' K I regard iniquity in my heart, God will not hear me ; ' that con-
sideration still came in as a curb unto sin; and without this a man provokes
God, and so casts himself behindhand again, and by sinning loseth what
ground he had got by praying. Therefore David, Ps. cxltii. 8-10, when he
was to pray, even as for his life, as then he did, it being a deliverance from
his enemies he sought, he specially prays God to direct him and keep him,
that he might not sin against him ; for he knew by sinning he should ener-
vate and spoil all his prayers : not only ' hear me speedily,' says he, but also
* cause me to know the way wherein I should walk ; teach me to do thy
will.' This he especially prays for, and more than for deliverance, for else
he knew God would not hear him. Therefore when thou art in treaty with
God for any mercy, observe, doth God still after praying keep thee in a more
obedient frame of spirit ? It is a sign he intends to answer thee ; as in Hke
manner, when he keeps thee from using ill means, &c. When he meant to
give David the kingdom, he kept him innocent, and his heart tender, that it
smote him but for ' cutting off the lap of Saul's garment : ' he was not so tender
after. Therefore, in Ps. xviii., when he was deKvered from all his enemies,
he says, ' God dealt with him according to his uprightness ; for I kept my-
self from mine iniquity.' So also, Ps. xxvii. 11.
Secondly, When God after prayer strengtheneth the heart to wait for the
mercy ; so, Ps. xxvii. 14, David having prayed, says to his soul, 'Wait on the
Lord ; be of good courage, and he wUl strengthen thy heart.' Honest men,
when they nourish hopes in one that is in dependence on them, who waiteth
and is obsequious upon the hopes he hath of a suit, use not to deny him :
it were dishonesty in them to keep a man underhand, and then frustrate his
expectations ; therefore, when God keeps thy soul after praying in such a
dependent frame, look for some good answer. And indeed when a man hath
prayed long, in the end he begins to wait, as I may so say, rather than pray,
though he pray still, because now he looks God should perform. Before,
382 THE RETTJEN OF PRAYEBS. [ChaP. VL
and at first, he told the Lord he desired it, but now he can with some bold-
ness tell him that he waits for it and expects it. The hope of a godly man
and his expectation should make him ashamed if it were not answered,
therefore in this case answers use to come.
Both these two last we have together joined, Ps. xxxviL 34, * Wait on the
Lord, AND KEEP HIS WAYS, and he shall exalt thee.'
Chap. YIL] thjs eeturn of peayebs. 383
CHAPTER VII.
Observations to he made after prayer, upon the issue of what was prayed for ;
and, first, if accomplished, whether as the fruit of prayers, or out of com-
mon providence. — Helps herein.
When a man hath thus waited, and kept his way, then let him observe the
issue and conclusion of what he sought for, how things are cast by God.
Now of necessity, one of these two must fall out, that either the thing desired
is accomplished, or not accomplished ; and in either of these he may come
to spy out answers to his prayers, for prayer may be answered though the
thing be not done.
I mean to insist severally on these : —
I. If the thing thou prayest for doth come to pass, then what needest
thou doubt of an answer, and whether God heard thee or no ? for thou
beholdest it with thine eyes. And so often it falls out, that God doth grant
according to the desires of a man's heart ; and not only so, but also fulfils
his counsel therein, as it is Ps. xx. 4 ; that is, fulfils not only his desire and
aim of his prayer, but in that very way, by that very means, which his judg-
ment and counsel pitch upon in his own thoughts. The desire of the heart
may be satisfied when God gives some other thing, but the counsel of the
heart is then fulfilled when a man is answered in that particular which his
own judgment pitched upon as best for him. For counsel is an act of the
miderstanding, deliberating about means to an end, and directing to choose
a particular means tending to an end : so that, as EUphaz says to Job, chap,
xxii. 27, '2^, ' Thou shalt make thy prayer to God, and he shaU hear thee :
and decree a thing, and it shall be estabhshed to thee ;' that is, a man ia
guided to decree and pitch upon such mercies in his prayers as God makes
good in particular : he says what he would have, and God performs it ; and
this privilege thou shalt have, says Eliphaz there, if thou wUt turn to him,
and be acquainted with him, and receive the law from his mouth. Thou
shalt not err in praying ; but what thou settest upon to pray for, shaU be
accordingly granted to thee. Such a man shall have the privilege fingei'e
sibi fortunam in a right sense, to be his own chooser, and carver of his own
mercies ; and as Christ said, ' Be it according to thy faith,' so God says some-
times, ' Be it according to thy prayers.' And Eliphaz speaks of it as of a
special favour, that whereas other prayers are answered obliquely, thine, says
he, shall be answered directly, which is more comfortable, as direct beams
are, and have more heat in them than collateral and oblique. Thus if a man
will hear God and obey him, God will hear him : for if a man be subject to
Christ's kingly ofiice, his prophetical office shall guide him, and cause him
not to err in his petitions ; but by an unerring providence and preinstinct
infused by his Spirit, God will so guide him as to ask even that very thing
which God intends to give • whereas of himself he knows not what nor how
to ask.
384 THE EETUEN OF P. AYEES. [CUAP. VII.
So David asked long life, and God gave it him, Ps. xxi. 2-4. God not
only gave him his heart's desire, but ' the request of his lips,' ver. 2. Haimah
asked a son, and God answered her in the very thing she desired, and there-
fore she called him Samuel, 1 Sam. i. 20, ' Because,' says she, ' I asked him
of the Lord;' and ver. 27, ' For this child I prayed, and the Lord' did not
give another thing instead of it, but ' hath given me my petition I asked of
him.' So, 1 Chron. iv. 10, ' Jabez called on God,' it is said, ' and God granted
him the thing he requested.' And thus God often deals with his children.
And to this end hath God given us his Spirit ; and made Christ wisdom
unto us, who knows what is good for us, though we do not ; and hath, there-
fore, also commanded us to spy out mercies for ourselves, and then come
to him for them : and to this end hath made such particular promises of
particular mercies, which he would have us have an eye unto in our prayers ;
all which is because often he means to bestow the very things we ask.
And yet because although we have the very things we did ask and desire,
such is the jealousy and infidelity of our hearts, that we often discern not
nor acknowledge that it was our prayers that obtained them from God ; but
we are apt, when once we have them, either to look but to things below and
the second causes of them, though before we did earnestly seek them of God,
or else stiU distrustfully to question whether or no it was at our prayers that
he granted them, or out of common providence. Thus Job, in his distemper,
chap. ix. 1 G, ' As though I had called, and God had answered me ; yet,' saya
he, ' I would not beheve that he had hearkened to my voice,' — that is, not
that he did it in respect to my prayer and request, because he now deals so
severely with me, — ' for he breaketh me with a tempest,' ver. 17. And thus
do our distrustful hearts, which are apt to be unsatisfied with all the clearest
pledges of God's favour, and stUl to misconstrue and pervert them ; although
God doth answer us upon our calling upon him, yet we will not believe that
he hearkened to our prayer in it. Therefore that you may be further en-
abled to discern how and when things you have prayed for come in by
prayer, I give you these further directions : —
Direct. 1. — When God doth a thing in answer to prayers, he often doth it
in such a manner that his hand may be in a more than ordinary manner seen
in it. There are few prayers, wherein a man hath sought God much, but in
the answers of them God discovers himself much, and turns many great
wheels in the accomplishment of them, and 'manifests,' as David desires,
Ps. xvii. 7, ' his marvellous loving-kiudness ;' and indeed when God hears
prayers that have been a long while a-making, he shews usually half a
miracle one way or other.
Now God discovers his immediate hand in the answers of prayers many
ways : —
(1.) When he carries a thing through many difficulties; when there were a
great many cross wards in a business prayed for, the least whereof would
have kept the key from turning, when God shall make, as it were, a key on
purpose to unlock it ; when God plots and contrives all the passages in a
business thou didst pray for, and so accomplisheth it ; this is a sign it is a
fruit of prayer, and that prayer had been a-making that key all that whde.
So in bringing David to the kingdom , Joseph out of prison ; Mordecai to
honour ; and likewise St Peter out of prison, which was done at the prayers
of the church. Acts xii. He was sleeping between two soldiers, if they had
waked he had been discovered ; and he was in chains, but they fall off, ver.
6, 7 ; and the keepers stood before the door, but they mind him not, ver. 6 ;
and when one watch is passed, he passeth quietly through another, ver. 10;
Chap. VIL] the return of pr vyers 385
and when both these were passed, an iron gate flies open of its own accord,
ver. 10. Now such difficulties are there in many businesses, which yet in the
end are accompUshed by prayer ; iron chains fall off, iron gates, enemies'
hearts fly open of their own accord ; and though not in that miraculous
manner, by the means of an angel, yet no less wonderfully.
(2.) Or, secondly, when God facilitates all means to accomplish the thing
which was prayed for, so as all meaiis do in view conspire and combine in it ;
that thou hast wind and tide, and a fair day, and all the way paved, or, as
David says, hast thy 'way made j)lain before thee;' and there falls out a
great conjunction and meeting of many circumstances together to eff'ect it,
which had influence into it, whereof if any one had been wanting, haply the
thing had not been done : when the thing prayed for is thus granted, prayer
then hath done it. Thus, when he delivered the people of Israel out ot
Egypt, which was the accomplishment of their long desires and prayers, —
' their cry came up,' the text says, — how were all things facilitated ! They
that detained them do themselves come and entreat them to go out ; yea,
* are urgent,' says the text, and that at midnight ; nay, hire them to go out
with their ear-rings, Exod. xii. 31, 33, 35 ; and Pharaoh himself then parts
lovingly and fixirly with them, and desires their prayers, ' Bless me also,' ver.
32. Yea, to shew there was no resistance, the text says, ' a dog did not
move his tongue : ' the brute creatures did not disturb them, though at mid-
night, when those creatures use to be most obstreperous through noises.
(3.) When he doth it suddenly, and accomplisheth the thing thou hast
long prayed for, ere thou art aware of it ; as the return of the captivity of
Babylon, which was the conclusion of many prayers, was done in a trice,
'they were as men in a dream,' Ps. cxxvi. 1, they could scarce believe it was
so when it was done : it was because they had sown many prayers, which
came up on the sudden, ver. 5, 6. So Peter, he was fast asleep, and did not
so much as dream of deliverance. So Joseph's delivery out of prison, and
advancement to be the greatest man in the kingdom, the suddenness of it
shewed it was God's remembering of him, and hearing his prayers.
(4.) When God grants the thing with an overplus above what we did ask,
and casteth many other mercies in, together with that which we long prayed
for ; this also may be a sign God did hear our prayers in it ; for when he
doth hear indeed, he useth ' to do above what we did ask or think,' thereby
the more to overcome the heart. So David asked ' long life,' and he gave
him more than he asked, Ps. xxi. 2-5. So Solomon, he asked but wisdom,
and he gave him more than he asked ; ' peace, riches, honour,' and all, with
it, 1 Kings iii. 12, 13. Hannah, she asked but 'one male chUd,' 1 Sam.
i. 11, but God gave her three sons more, and two daughters, chap. ii. 21.
When prayers are answered, usually mercies come thick, they come tumbling
in ; the thing we prayed for comes not alone : as when sins are punished,
then miseries also they come like armies in troops upon us. As temptations
likewise come together, and we fall into many of them at once, as St James
speaks, chap. i. 2, thus do mercies also.
(5.) When the thing is granted by prayers, there is often some particular
circumstance of providence concurrent with it, which is a token for good,
and sealeth to us that it is from God ; such often as a man himself takes
notice of, and which others take notice of also. ' Shew me a token for good,'
says David, Ps. Ixxxvi. 17, 'that others may see it and be ashamed.' And such
tokens doth God often make small circumstances to be. Things small iu
themselves may be magna indicia, great signs and tokens. For example,
M(jses and Aaron and the Israelites had long cried to God for the deliverance
VOL. III. 2 B
386 THE EETUPvN OF PRAYERS. [ChaP. VI L
of his people, and laid up many prayers ; * their cry came up,' as was said ;
and when God doth deliver them, what tokens were there of good, and of
God's hand in it, and of his answer to their prayers? The text notes, as
was observed before, that ' a dog did not bark at their going out,' Exod. xi.
7, which was a small circumstance, but it was magnum indicium, and so in-
tended by God ; for the text adds, ' that ye may know that God puts a
difference between the Israelites and the Egyptians.' This was a token of
God's hand, to overrule the tongues of rude brute creatures, that use to stir
at such unusual noises and at travellers, especially in the night. So when
Isaac and Abraham, and his servant also, had prayed for a Avife for Isaac,
see by what a token God shewed he had heard their prayers : Rebekah was
the first that came out to the servant sent to bring a wife for him ; and if
she be the woman appointed for Isaac, says the servant. Gen. xxiv. 13, 14,
'let her offer me driok, and my camels also.' This was a small thing in
appearance, but a great indicium of God's hand in it ; and therefore the ser-
vant bowed at it, and worshipped. And the sign in itself was such as argued
a good nature in her, and a kind, courteous disposition, which therefore, it
may be, he singled out as a token of a meet wife, as a thing especially to be
looked at in the marriage choice.
Direct. 2. — Again, the consideration of the time wherein the things we have
asked are granted, may much help us to discern whether it be in answer to
our prayers ; for God, who doth all things in weight and measure, shews his
■wisdom and love as much in the season as in giving the thing itself. God
considereth all times of thy life, and still chooseth the best and fittest to
answer thy prayers in : 'In an acceptable time have I heard thee,' so Isa.
xlix. 8. As David likewise .says ' he prayed in an acceptable time,' Ps. Ixix.
13. So accordingly God answers in the best and most acceptable time to
us ; for 'he waits to be gracious, for he is a God of judgment,' Isa. xxx. 18;
that is, he is a wise God, that knows the fittest times and seasons wherein
to shew kindnesses, and to deal forth his favours in.
As, fi7-st, it may be that at that very time when thou hast been most in-
stant and earnest, yea, even wldlst thou art a-praying, or presently after, the
thing is done and accomplished. To this purpose is that of I.sa. Ixv. 24,
that as sometimes ' he hears before they call,' which argues much love to
give mercies imsought, so also ' whilst they are speaking I will hear,' and
grant the thing, which argues no less love; and he culls out that time on
purpose that they might rest assured that it was in answer to their prayer.
Thus to assure Hezekiah his prayer w;is heard, God sent the prophet in unto
him whilst he was a-praying and weeping, with his head turned towards the
waU. So Isaac, going out to pray in the field, meets his Rebekah then
a-coming, that Vjlessing of a good wife being surely the great request temporal
he was then in treaty with God for : this Rebekah was the fruit of many
prayers. So when St Peter was in prison, the church being gathered together
to pray for him, St Peter comes and knocks ' at the same hour,' Acts xii.
12-17. So as it often faUs out herein, as to the rider in the gospel, John
iv. 52, who inquiring diligently, found that ' the same hour that Christ had
said to him. Thy son liveth, his son recovered; and so he b3lieved, and his
whole household :' so also here, that sometimes the thing is done, or the
news of it comes the same hour, or soon after, wherein a man was praying
about it, and haply then when the heart was most stirred about it, more than
at any time else. This is a sign it was an answer of prayers, and may help
to confirm a man's faith in it, as that also did his.
Or, secondly, when it is the most acceptable and every way the fittest time
Chap. VII.] the return of prayers. 387
to have the thing granted : at that time when thou hadst most need, and
when thy heart was most fit for it. For in answering prayers, God aims
especially at two things : to shew his mercy, that a man might magnify and
exalt that ; and to have the heart satisfied and filled with joy and content-
ment in his answer, and the thing made sweet, and a mercy indeed to him :
in brief, that his goodness might be delighted in, and his mercy exalted.
And for these two purposes he culls out such times when we have most
need, and also when our hearts are most subdued and our lusts mortified.
For then we are fittest to relish his goodness alone, and not to be drawn
away with the carnal sweetness that is in the thing. The one you have ex-
pressed, Isa. XXX. 1 8, ' He waits to be gracious, to have his mercy exalted.'
The second intimated, James iv., ' Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask
amiss, to consume u}ton your lusts.' Such pi-ayers, whUst the heart is in
Shis temper, the Lord denies, or defers in mercy till the heart be weaned.
For the Jirst of these : As, suppose thou didst pray long for assurance of
salvation, and joy m the Holy Ghost ; and when thou hadst most need of it,
either when ' thy spirit would have failed ' without i'u, as Isa. Ivii. 1 6, or
against some great afiiiction approaching, or some great encounter with the
world for the name of Christ, then God filled thy heart with it, kc, that
was the fittest time : now hath God heard thy prayer. As St Peter, he was
in prison, and had been so for many days ; as appears by the 4th and 5th
verses. Acts xii. God could have dehvered him aU that while the church
prayed for him, ver. 5. But God kept him in on purpose till that very night,
when in the next morning Herod meant to bring him forth to execution,
and then God delivered him at the prayers of the church ; then was the
most fit time : as the Psalmist says, ' the full time to have mercy on him
was come,' Ps. cii. 1 3. And then to receive an answer is a sign God did it
out of special love, which love he 'would have exalted by thee,' as Isa. xxx. 18.
K, secondly, when thy heart was most fit for the mercy, it was granted,
then art thou also heard in an acceptable time : for God doth not withhold
mercies from those that are his out of want of love ; neither so much for what
is past, as for the present evil disposition of their hearts, whereby they are
unfit to receive them : and in this sense lil^ewise may that be understood,
that God prepareth the heart and heareth the prayer, Ps. x, 17.
As when thy heart is most weaned from that temporal mercy, supposing
it such, granted thee upon seeking of it. So David, when had he the king-
dom in possession given him ? Then when he was as a weaned child, and
had his high thoughts, which haply at the first news of it had risen in his
mind, purged out, Ps. cxxxi. 2, ' I have no high thoughts,' &c., says he
then. Thus when thy heart had let all carnal ends go, and had betaken itself
alone to God, for thy portion to be had alone out of him, then the thing
prayed for comes to pass ; this was the fittest season.
Obj. — But you will be ready to say. To have a thing when my heart is
taken off from it, and even contented not to have it, makes it to be as no
mercy ; for where there is no desire there is no rejoicing.
Ans. — If thy desire be taken off the thing, then thou wilt rejoice the more
in God now ; and though the thing of itself should now give thee less satis-
faction, yet God by the thing will give thee more, and he wUl make it up :
for thou wilt relish his love and sweetness in it now, which is better than
life, and therefore much better than that thing enjoyed; and indeed the
violence of the desire before would have made it less sweet, for the thing
alone would not have fiUed and contented that desire when it was an inor-
dinate lust, and so thou wouldest have been vexed with it, rather than satis-
388 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [CHAP. ViL
fied, and found a greater vanity in it : but now when it is become a subor-
dinate desire unto God, that the desire is down, and the heart quieted and
contented with God in the thing, the heart says, as she said, ' I have enough.'
So likewise thou mayest have an affliction thou prayedst long against taken
off then when thy heart was most willing to accept thy punishment, Lev.
xxvi 41, as Moses's phrase is, and to submit to God in it.
Direct. 3. — A third thing you are to observe concerning the accomplish-
ment of the thing prayed for, whereby you may discern whether granted in
answer to prayers, is, when thou seest God in his dealings with thee, and
answering of thee, to deal in a kind of proportion with thy manner of pray-
ing and seeking of him, and of walking with him whilst thou wert dependent
on him, for such or such a mercy. And as you may see a proportion be-
tween sins and punishments, which are the rewards of them, that you can
say. Such a sin brought forth this affliction, it is so like the father ; so you
might see the like proportion between your prayers and your walking with
God, and God's answers to you, and his dealings with you. So did David,
Ps. xviii. 24, ' According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed
me,' &c. His speech notes some similitude or likeness ; as, for example, the
more by-ends or carnal desires you had in praying, and the more you mingled
of these with your holy desires, and the more want of zeal, fervency, &c.,
were found in your prayers, the more you shaU, it may be, find of bitterness
mingled with the mercy, when it is granted, and so much imperfection and
want of comfort in it. So says David in the same psalm, ver. 25, 26, 'With
the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure.' Pure prayers have pure blessings ;
et e contra, ' With the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.' And again,
as you in praying sometimes slackened and grew cold, so you might see the
business in like manner to cool, and cast backward ; as ' when Moses's hands
were down, Amalek prevailed ; ' but when they were ' lifted up, Israel had
the better,' Exod. xvii. 12. God let him see a proportion, which argued his
prayer was the means of prevailing. A man finds in praying that his suit
sometimes sticks, and goes not on as he expected ; this is because he gives
not so good a fee as he was wont, and doth not ply God and solicit him ;
but, on the contrary, when he was stirred up to pray, then still he found
things to go well. By this a man may clearly see that it was the prayer
which God did hear and regarded. Thus, likewise, when a man sees halls
and dales in a business, fair hopes often, and then all dashed again, and the
thing in the end brought to pass, let him look back upon his prayers. Didst
not thou in like manner just thus deal with God 1 When thou hadst prayed
earnestly, and thought thou hadst even carried it, then dash all again by inter-
posing some sin, and thus again and again 1 Herein God would have you
observe a proportion ; and it may help you to discern how and when they
are answered and obtained by prayer, because God deals thus with you
therein in such a proportion to your prayers.
Chap. YIIL] the return of prayers. 389
CHAPTER Vm.
Seven observations more, from the effects which the accomplishment of the
mercy hath upon the heart, &c.
Direct. 4. — Fourthly, Thou mayest discern whether they be in answer to
thy prayers by the eifects upon thy heart. As —
(1.) If the tiling that is granted upon thy prayers draw thy heart more
near unto God, it is then certain that it was granted as an answer to thy
prayers. Things granted out of ordinary providence only do increase our
lusts, and are snares to us, as Saul gave David his daughter Michal to be a
snare to him ; so their full tables are made snares, Ps. Ixix. 22 ; so God gave
the Israelites their will, the things they desired, but withal gave them up to
their lusts, Ps. cvi. 15 : he gave them their requests, but sent leanness into
their souls. The quails might fat some of their bodies that survived, yet
'./heir souls grew lean ; there was a curse upon their spirits ; this new deli-
cate food made their bodies more lustful, they did eat and drink, and rose
up to play, Exod. xxxii. 6. But things obtained by prayer are sanctified to
us, for every thing is sanctified by prayer, 1 Tim. iv. 5, so as it shall not en-
snare nor entangle our hearts. A thing obtained by prayer, as it came from
God, so a man will return it to God, and use it for his glory : so Hannah
having obtained Samuel by prayer, she returns him unto God, 1 Sam. i. 27,
28, ' .For this child I prayed ; and God gave me my petition : and therefore
also I have lent him to the Lord as long as he liveth.' If therefore thou
findest this his dealing -with thee in answering thee to be a kindly motive to
cause thee to mourn for sin, and to be as a restraint against sin, it is a sign it
was the fruit of prayer. Thus it wrought with David, Ps. vi. 8, ' Away from
me, ye that work iniquity ; God hath heard the voice of my weeping.'
Also, if thou rejoicest in God more than in the thing obtained ; — so Han-
nah begins her song when she blesseth God for her child, ' My heart rejoiceth
in the Lord,' &c., 1 Sam. ii. 1 ; she rejoiceth not so much in the gift as in
the giver and his favour ; more in this, that her prayer was answered, than in
the thing obtained ; — this is a sign of having obtained the mercy through
prayers, when it is thus sanctified unto a man's spirit.
(2.) Prayers answered will enlarge thy heart with thankfulness, and thus
usually they do. Self-love makes us more forward to pray than to give
thanks, for nature is all of the craving and taking hand : but where grace
is, there will be no eminent mercy gotten with much struggling but there
will be a continued particular thankfid remembrance of it a long while after,
with much enlargement ; and as prayers abounded, so will thanksgiving
abound also. Hannah she makes a song, 1 Sam. ii. 1. Great blessings
that are won with prayer are worn with thankfulness : such a man will
not ask new, but he will withal give thanks for old. Thankfulness, of all
duties, proceeds from pure grace ; therefore, if the Spirit stirs thee unto it,
it is a sign he made the prayer. ' What thanks shall I render to God for
390 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [ChAP. VIII.
the joy I have in you?' saith St Paul, 1 Thess. iii. 9, 10. So in all his
other epistles, all those he writes to, as he prays for them, so he tells them
he gives thanks for them, and for their graces which he had prayed for. And
if answeiing prayers f(jr others makes St Paul so thankful, what when for
himself ? Prayer and thanks are hke the double motion of the lungs ; the
air that is sucked in by prayer is breathed forth again by thanks. Is thy
heart afi-esb enlarged, as to mourn for past sins long since committed, so in
like manner for past mercies won with long prayers, and this for a long while
after ? it is a sign that they were obtained by prayer.
(3.) If the mercy obtained doth encourage thee to go to God another
time, to pray again the more confidently and fervently, it is a sign thou
hast got the former that way ; for the Holy Ghost ha\ing once shewed thee
this way of procming merc}^ hence it is thou art thus ready to take the same
course another time. Ps. cxvi. 2, ' The Lord hath heard me, and I will call
on him as long as I live.' I know, says he, now what course to take, if I be
in anjf want, even to call upon him ; and he calls upon others to do so too.
(4.) When, God having heard thy prayers upon solemn vows made by
thee, thy heart is made careful to pay those vows w^hich thou didst make in
the time of thy suing to God for that mercy ; this may be an argument to
thee, the thing being granted, that thy prayer was heard. For —
First, It argueth that thy heart itself doth secretly make such an account,
that upon them God did grant the thing, and thou doest therefore make
conscience to return all again to God in service, as the condition of thy
indentures made with him, and as a homage due, and an acknowledgment
for ever that such a mercy was won by prayer ; and by this preservest the
memory of the receipt of that mercy, vows being of the nature of homage.
And—
Secondly, In this also it is an evidence that the thing was obtained by
prayer : in that God calls for those vows from thee, by his Spirit in thy
heart, and stirs thee up to perform them, it argues that, in relation to thy
prayers answered, he takes them as dues from thee ; that having despatched
thy suit, he now calls for what was agreed to be given him when it should
be performed. And —
Thirdly, In that also he doth accept the payment of these thy vows of
thee, he acknowledgeth that those vows and pi-ayers were heard ; for as
Manoah* said in another case, Judges xiii. 23, ' If he meant to have de-
stroyed us, he would not have accepted a sacrifice,' so in this case it may be
said, if God had not heard thy prayers, he would not have accepted thy vows
after thy praying. Thus David, Psalm Ixvi. 13, 14, 'I will pay thee my
vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth hath spoken, when I was
in my trouble.' The reason follows, ver. 17, 19, because that 'verily God
hath heard me when I cried to hku.' And so EUphaz in Job doth connect
and hang these two together, chap. xxii. 27, ' Thou shalt make thy prayer
to him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows.' This which
he speaks of paying his vows was not only as it was to be his duty, but also
as a consequent that would follow the other, — that when his prayers should
be heard, he thereupon would perform his vows ; for his scope is to move
Job to turn to God, shewing what benefit would accrue to him by it, and
amongst others this, the hearing his prayers and performing his vows.
(5.) When thou art enabled by faith to see clearly God's hand shewed
forth in the efiecting of that mercy over and above the power of second
causes, and to acknowledge it to his glory ; for the truth is, one main cavil-
* Manoah's wife. — Er>.
Chap. VIII._^ the return of prayers. 391
ling rccoson in our blind hearts, whereby we are usually hindered and put by
from apprehending our prayers to be answered when yet the thing is done,
we shall find to be, that our eyes are terminated and bounded in second
causes, and not raised to see God's hand in the thing : therefore, on the
contrary, when God enableth thee to see that he hath done thee this kind-
ness, so as thy mind is clear in it, this is a fruit of his hearing thy prayers ;
and this you will usually find to bo true, that so much faith and dependence
as you had upon God in prayer for the obtaining of a mercy, so much faith
and acknowledgment you wiJl have in the accomplishment of it. Parallel
with this rule is that other, which in another case is usually given : that in
performance of duties, so much as the soul did go out of itself to God for
strength to perform them, so much, when they are performed, will the heart
acknowledge God's assistance and be humbled. And this is a sign of prayer
being heard upon this ground, because God's end of hearing prayers is that
we ' might glorify liim.' So, Ps. 1. 15, ' Call upon me in the day of trouble :
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.' Therefore, when the
heart hath prayed much for a mercy, with dependence before the obtaining
of it, and then is enabled to exalt God when it is obtained, it is a sign that
God did it in relation to those prayers. For there is that connexion made
between these as between the cause and the effect : ' I will hear thee, and
thou shalt glorify me.' David, when he was delivered out of all his troubles,
as when he made that 18th Psalm he was, as appears by the title of it, then
at the 6th verse he relates how he had prayed, and how he was heard : and
see thereupon how his heart was enlarged to acknowledge God alone to have
done all, in the rest of that psalm ; so from the 27th and also from the 31st
verses. When we see angels from God, beyond the power of second causes,
descending, it is a sign that prayers, as angels, first ascended, and obtained
that mercy. Thus also the church, Isa, xxvi., having obtained those deliver-
ances by prayer, ver. 17, (for which there she makes that song by way of
thankfulness,) she ascribes all unto God : ver. 12, ' Thou hast wrought aU
our works for us;' and, ver. 18, ' Verily we have not wrought any deliverance
in the earth.'
(6.) When with the mercy there cometh the assurance of God's love, and
an evidence of his favour; when God sends not a bare token only, but a
letter also with it, to bear witness of his love, in which the token is wrapt.
I need not make that a sign, for when this comes with a mercy, it carries
its own evidence ; you will then know well enough that it is the fruit of
prayer.
(7.) Lastly, it wiU be evident by the event. Things obtained by prayer
have few thorns in them, the curse is taken out ; but what comes but by
ordinary providence comes as it were up of itself alone, and, like the earth
untUled, is full of thorns and briars, and many vexations. The reason is, for
what comes in by prayer comes as a blessing, and so no sorrow is added to it ;
and also because prayer killeth those inordinate lusts which are the cause of
that vanity and vexation which are in the things enjoyed. But when * the
blessing of God maketh rich, he addeth no sorrow with it,' Prov. x. 22.
Things long deferred, at last obtained by prayer, prove most comfortable,
and in a settled manner such ; they prove standing and stable blessings :
and what trouble the heart was put to in the deferring, it is recompensed by
the more settled, constant, unmixed sweetness in the enjoying ; prayer having
long perfumed it, and the thing being steeped therein, it proves exceeding
pleasant. So, Prov. xiii. 12, ' Hope deferred makes the heart sick ;' but when
the desire comes, it is a tree of life, and heals that sickness, and abundantly
392 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [ChAP. VIII.
comforts tlie heart. Thus Isaac found Rebekah a great blessing, and a com-
fortable wife to him, Gen. xxiv. 67. Such a comfort also was Lsaac to
Abraham, Gen. xvii. 18, 19, ' a son indeed,' ' a son of laughter,' as his name
signifies. And such was Samuel to Hannah ; she had not only a son of him,
but a good son, a blessed son, a prophet, and the judge of the people of God.
Whereas Jacob getting the blessing, but without prayer, how embittered was
it to him, though a blessing to him in the event, by twenty years' banish-
ment from his mother's house ! When Israel themselves set up a king, ' but
not by me,' as God says, what a punishment was he to them i ' Given iv
■wrath, and taken away in anger,' Hos. xiii. 11
Chap. IX] the return of prayers. ^-S
CHAPTER IX.
Considerations to quiet the heart, and to help it to discern an answer to, and
acceptation of, the prayer when the thing is not accomplished.
II. But now the next and more difficult question is, when the thing is not
granted, how shall we then discern and know that God doth notwithstand-
ing hear the prayer ?
Concerning which I must premise this, that it is true that always the very
thing itself desired is not granted, when yet the prayer is heard. Christ
prayed ' the cup might pass from him,' which though some interpret the word
passing for the short continuance of the brunt, and that therefore in that
respect he was heard directly in what he asked ; yet if so, why was that
clause, ' if it be possible,' added 1 That argues his petition was for a total
removal, yet with subjection to God's will, for he knew there was no great
impossibility in a short removal of it ; nay, it was impossible but that it
should pass. Acts ii 24. But, howsoever, it is plain in Moses, about his
going into Canaan, Deut. iii. 26 : 'I besought the Lord,' says he, ver. 23,
' and he was angry with me, and would not hear me,' ver. 26. Likewise, ere
I come to resolve the case, an objection is also to be removed ; which is —
Obj. — That if the Spirit of God doth make every faithful prayer in us, —
as, Rom. viii. 26, it is said he doth, ' We know not what to pray for, but the
Spirit helpeth our infirmities,' &c. ; and he ' searcheth the deep things of God,'
as it is said, 1 Cor. ii. 10, — that therefore he knowing that God will not grant
such a thing, you may think that he should not stir up the heart to pray for
that which God means to deny, but always gTiide the heart aright, and not let
us err or miss in the things we pray for. To this, in brief, by way of answer : —
Ans. 1. — The Spirit makes not prayers in us always according to what
God's secret will and foreknowledge is, but according to his revealed will to
us, both in his word and in his providence, as things therein are presented
to us, and do lie before our view, and so not always according to what he
means to do, but according to what it is our duty to pray most for. For he
concurs to assist us to pray, as he doth in preaching or using other such like
means and ordinances, wherem though the Spirit know whom God means to
convert, whom not, yet he assists us ministers in our spirits oftentimes as
much to preach to those he means not to convert, as to those he means to
convert ; he dealing with us therein according to what is our duty, not ac-
cording to what is his decree.
Ans. 2. — Again, secondly, that phrase helps to answer this, when he is
said to * help our infirmities ;' and therefore not according to his own vast
knowledge doth he frame our prayers, but so as he applies his assistance to
our infirm, weak, and narrow apprehensions, and stirs up desires in us to
such things as according to our knowledge we are in duty to conceive, and
which by all we can see, by what is before us revealed in his providence, we
394 THE RETURN OF PRAYKRS. [ChAP. IX.
think to be most for our good and his glory ; and God accepts such desires
as from us, but yet doth for us according to the largeness of his own love.
And so now to come to the case propounded, and therein unto helps to
pacify and direct the heart about those prayers at which the things are not
granted.
1. And, first, how didst thou frame thy prayer for that thing which is
denied thee ? Didst thou pray for it absolutely and peremptorily, as simply
best for thee 1 Thou must not then think much if such a prayer be denied,
for therein thou wentest beyond thy commission. But if thou didst pray for
it conditionally, and with an if, as Christ did, — ' if it be possible,' (which
instance is a strong ground for such kind of prayers,) and * not my will, but
thy ^dll be done,' — so as thou didst refer it unto, and trust God's judgment
in the thing, and not thine own, only didst put him in mind, as thy duty
was, of what was represented to thee as best for thee in view, and so left it
to him to cast, and didst refer it to his will and wisdom ; then thy prayer
may be most folly answered and heard, and yet the thing denied, and thou
art to interpret and take God's meaning and mind revealed in the event in
the best sense, which way soever it falls ; for otherwise Christ had not been
heard, when yet the text says ' he was heard in all he feared,' Heb. v. 7.
2. Observe if there were not a reservation in that denial, for some greater
and further mercy, whereof that denial was the foundation. Thus—
(1.) Oftentimes some great cross is prevented by the denial of a thing
•which we were urgent for. If we had had many of our desires, we had been
undone. So it was a mercy to David that his child was taken away, for
whose life he was yet so earnest, who would have been but a Hving monument
of his shame. It was also a mercy to David that Absalom was taken away,
— whom surely he prayed much for, for he loved him much, — who, if he had
Hved, might have been the ruin of him and his house. As a wicked man's
deliverance and the granting his request lays a foundation, and is a reserva-
tion of him to a worse judgment ; so the denial of a godly man's prayer is
for his greater good, and is laid as a foundation of a greater mercy. And
again —
(2.) Oftentimes the very denial breaks a man's heart, and brings him nearer
to God, puts him upon searching into his ways and estate, and in his prayers
to see what should be amiss therein ; which alone is a great mercy, and better
than the thing, seeing by the loss of that one thing he learns how to pray
better, and so to obtain a hundred better things afterward. Christ desired
the cup might pass ; it did not, and that was the foundation of our salvation,
and the way to his glory, he being to pass through that suffering into his
glory. The woman that had the bloody issue, though she used many means,
and haply prayers among the rest, and all in vain, yet none took effect ; that
in the end she might come to Christ, and have both body and soul healed at
once.
3. Observe if there be not a transmutation and a translation or turning
of the thing desired into some other greater blessing of the same kind ; for
God, aU whose ways are mercy and truth to his people, doth improve, hus-
band, and lay out the precious stocks of their prayers to the best advantage,
in things whereby the greatest returns and gains may accrue. As old Jacob
laid not his hands of blessing as Joseph would have guided them, but laid
the right hand upon the younger son, whom Joseph did set at his left ; so
often doth God take off his hand of blessing from the thing we prayed for,
and lays and discovers it in another more for our good. And as God giving
Isaac the power and privilege to bless a son, though Isaac iotended it for
CUAP. IX.] THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 395
Esau, yet God unbeknown to him transmitted it to Jacob, yet so as the
blessing was not lost. Thus is it in our prayers for blessings both upon our-
selves and others. There is often a transmutation, never a frustration of
them ; which may as truly and directly be called an answer to the prayer, as
if a fiictor beyond sea, when the owner sends for such and such commodities,
supposing them more vendible and advantageous, but the factor knowing the
state of things and the prices, sends him over, instead of them, such as shall
seU better and bring in more profit, may be said to answer his letters, and that
better than if he had sent those very commodities he writ for. Thus Abraham's
prayers for Ishmael were turned for Isaac ; David's for the child to Solomon.
•4. Observe if in the end God doth not answer thee still according to the
ground of thy prayer ; that is, see if that holy end, intention, and affection
which thou hadst in prayer be not in the end fully satisfied, though not in
the thing thou didst desire ; for God answers secundum cardinem, according
to the hinge which the prayer turns upon. As when a general is sent out
with an army by a king or a state, who give him many particular directions
how to order and dispose and manage the war, although in many particulars
that fiiU out, wherein they could not foresee to give so punctual and particular
directions, he swerves from the directions, yet if he keeps to the intent of
their commission, and doth what is most advantageous for their ends, he may
be said to keep to his commission. For as they say of the law, mens legis
est lex, — the mind of the law is the law, not the bare words it is printed in, —
so the meaning of the Spirit is the prayer, Rom. viii. 27, and not simply the
things desired, whereiu we express those our desires. And still the meaning,
the intent, the ground of our prayers shall be answered.
To open this : the main ends and meanings of our hearts in our requests
are God's glory, the church's good, and our own particular comfort and hap-
piness. We can desire but comfort ; and a man looketh out and spieth out
such a particular mercy, which he thinketh tends much to God's glory and
his happiness, and yet that thing is denied ; yet notwithstanding God wUl
answer him according to the meaning of his prayers : his glory shall certainly
be advanced, even for that prayer of his, some other way, and his comfort
made up, which is the common desire of all mankind. And thou canst have
but coinfort, let the thing be what it wiU that conveys it to thee. And God
wiU take order that that comfort thy soul desii-ed thou shalt have come in
one way or other, which, when it doth, thou canst not but say thy prayers
are heard. For as God fulfils his promises, so he hears prayers ; there is the
same reason of both. Now God hath promised, ' He that leaves father and
mother shall have a hundred-fold.' Not in specie, as we say : in kind this
cannot always be fulfilled, for a hundred fathers he caimot have. God
fulfils it not therefore always in the same kind, but in some other things,
which shall be more than a hundred fcithers would be.
Moses prays he might go into Canaan : God answers the ground of his
prayer, though not in the matter in it expressed and desired, and that both
for Moses's comfort and his own glory ; for he takes him up into heaven, the
true Canaan, whereof that Canaan was but a type ; and he appoints Joshua,
a fresh and a young man,* coming on in the world, and one whom Moses
* It is by a very common inadvertence supposed that Joshua was a young man when
he was appointed to succeed Moses as leader of the hosts of Israel. Yet he was general
of the army in fighting against Amalek, nearly forty years before this. At that time
he could scarcely be under thirty-five years of age, and by many he is supposed to have
been fifty-three at the Exodus. At the time of his appointment, then, he must have
teen at the least seventy-five, and may have been ninety-three. — Ed.
3D6 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [CilAP. IX.
himself had tutored and brought up, and was his pupil, servant, and attend-
ant, Num. XL 28. And this was more for God's glory, for Joshua was therein
to be the type of Christ leading us to heaven, which the law, of which Moses
was the type, could not bring us unto, by reason of the weakness of it ; and
he being young did it better ; and it was not so much also for God's glory
that one man should do all • and whereas Moses desired to have the honour
of it, in that his servant that attended him, and had been brought up by
him, and had aU from him, that he was the man should do it, was well-nigh
as great an honour to Moses as if he had been the leader himself. And so
David, when he desired to bmld the temple and a house to God, for the like
reasons God denied it, but yet honoured him to prepare the materials, and
to draw the pattern, as also in that his son did it, who was therein also the
like type of Christ, being a prince of peace, but David a man of blood and
war ; and likewise God accepted this of David, as if he had built it, and will
recompense him as much.
5. Observe if in the thing which thou hast prayed much about, though
it be denied thee, yet if God doth not endeavour to give thee Cas I may so
speak) all satisfaction that may be, even as if he were tender of denying thee,
and therefore doth much in it for thy prayers' sake, though the conclusion
proves otherwise, as being against some other purpose of his for some other
ends : as when he denied Moses to go into the land of Canaan, he did it
with much respect (as I may so speak with, reverence) to Moses. He yielded
as far as might be, for he let him lead them till he should come to the very
borders ; and he let him see that good land, carrying him up to a lull, and,
as it is thought, by a miracle enabled his sight to view the whole land. And
the man he chose to perform this work was his servant, which was a great
honour to Moses, that one brought up by him should succeed him. So when
Abraham prayed for Ishmael, ' let Ishmael live in thy sight ! ' Gen. xvii. 18,
God went as far in granting his request as might be ; for, says he, ver. 20,
' I have heard thee ; and I have blessed him, and I will make him fruitful,
and multiply him exceedingly, and he shall beget twelve princes : but my
covenant I will establish with Isaac' So likewise, when in casting that
thing thou didst seek at his hands, he shews an extraordinary hand in turn-
ing it, it is a sign he had a respect to thee, that he would vouchsafe to dis-
cover his hand so much in it. Let the thing faU which way it will, if God's
hand appear much in it, thou mayest comfortably conclude that there is some
great thing in it, and that prayer wrought that miracle in it to dispose it so ;
and that there is some great reason why he denies thee, and a gTeat respect
had to thy prayers, in that he is pleased to discover so extraordinary a pro-
vidence about it.
6. Lastly, look into the effect of that denial upon thine own heart ; as —
(1.) If thy heart be enlarged to acknowledge God to be holy and righteous
in his dealmgs with thee, and thine own unworthiness the cause of his denying
thee. Thus we often find the saints expressing themselves in their prayers.
That Ps. xxii, though typically made of Christ, yet as it was penned by
David, and as it may concern his person, it may serve for an instance for
this : ' I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;' this might have made him
jealous of God, but says he, ' Thou art holy,' &c., and dealest now with me
in a holy manner, and art just in it. Others ' have called on thee,' and have
been heard, though I now for my unworthiness am denied ; ' but I am a
worm.' It might have put a man off when he should think others are heard,
but not I ; but it puts not him off, but humbles him : ' I am a worm,' tkc,
and * Thou art holy.'
Chap. IX. ] the return of prayers. 397
(2.) If God fill thy heart with a holy contentment in the denial ; if he
speak to thy heart, as he did to Moses when he denied him, Deut. iii. 28,
* Let it suHice thee ;' if as to St Paul, when he was so earnest about remov-
ing that buflFeting, if thou gettest but such an answer as that to him, ' My
grace is sufficient,' or that some such like consideration is dropped in that
stays thee. It was the effect of David's seven days' fasting that he did so
contentedly bear the loss of the child, which his servants thought would have
overwhelmed hinn, 2 Sam. xii. 19-21. But a consideration was dropped in,
which was the fruit of his prayer, ' that he sliould go to him, not he return
hither ;' and his mind was comforted thereby, insomuch, as it is said, ver.
24, that ' he comforted Bathsheba also.'
(3.) If thou canst be thankful to God out of faith, that God hath cast
and ordered all for the best, though he hath denied thee; and although
thou seest no reason but that the thing prayed for would have been for the
best, yet art thankful upon the denial of it, out of faith resting in God's
judgment in it, as David in all those forementioned places was : ' Thou art
holy that inhabitest the praises of iTael;' he praises God for all this. David,
before he did eat, after his seven days' fasting for the child, arose, ' and
went first into the temple, and worshipped,' 2 Sam. xii. 20 ; and of what
kind of worship it was appears by his anointing himself and changing his
raiment, which was in token of rejoicing and thanksgiving; and it fell out to
him according to his faith, for presently after Solomon was begotten, ver. 24.
(4.) If thou canst pray still, and givest not over, although thou standest
for mercies which thou missest ; if when thou hast mercies granted thou
fearest most, and when denied lovest most, and art not discouraged, thy
prayers are heard. Ps. Lxxx. 4, though God seemed angry with their
prayers, yet they pray, and expostulate with him, and give not over, for they
made that psalm as a prayer, ' And how long wilt thou be angry against the
prayer of thy people?' So, Ps. xliv. 17, ' Though we are cast among dra-
gons, yet we have not been false in thy covenant.' So say thou, I will pray
still, though I never have an answer in this life. It moves ingenuous natures
to see men take repulses and denials well, which proud persona will not do :
and so it moves God.
398 THE RETURN OF PEAYEES. [ChAP. X
CHAPTER X.
Application : a reproof of those that pray, hut look not after the return of
their prayers. — The causes of this neglect.
The use of all is to reprove those who put up prayers, and are earnest in
begging, but look not after them when they have done, no more than if they
had not prayed ; who still venture, and have a great stock of prayers going,
but look not after the returns that are made, cast not up their comings in
and gainings by prayers ; and when they have prayed, sit down discouraged,
as not making account in earnest that ever they shall hear of their prayers
again, even as if they had been but as words cast away, ' as beating the air/
as ' bread cast upon the waters,' which they think sinks or is carried away,
and they shall find it no more. But herein you despise God's ordinance,
and err, not knowing the power of prayers ; and ye contemn the Lord. But
you will say as they in the prophet said, ' Wherein do we contemn him V If
you asked a man a question, and when you had done did turn your back
upon him, as scoffing Pilate asked in scorn of Christ, ' What is truth V but
would not stay for an answer, did you not contemn him ? As not to answer
when a question is asked you is contempt, so not to regard the answer
made, when you have been earnest in begging, is no less contempt also. If
you had written letters to a very friend about important business, and had
earnestly solicited him for an answer, and he were careful in due time to send
one, if you should make account to hear of him no more, should you not
wrong him in your thoughts 1 Or if he did write, if you should not vouch-
safe to read over his answer, were it not a contempt of him 1 So is it here,
when you have been earnest with God for blessings, and regard not the an-
swer. And because verily this is a fault among us, I will therefore endeavour
to discover to you the causes and discouragements, which, though they keep
you not from praying, yet from this earnest expectation, and real and true
making account to hear of answers of your prayers. Only my scope is not
to shew you so much the reasons why God denies you many requests, as
why even in your own hearts you are discouraged after you have prayed, as
if they would not be answered, although God doth answer them. These dis-
couragements are partly temptations, partly sinful impediments, wherein we
are more faulty.
1. Because your assurance that your persons are accepted i.s weak, there-
fore your confidence that your prayers are heard is weak also. For as God
doth first accept the person, and then our jjrayers ; so the belief that God
doth accept our persons is that which also upholds our hearts in confidence
that our prayers shall be granted. This you may find in 1 John v. 13-15 :
in the 1 3th verse he says, ' These things have I written to you, that ye may
know you have eternal life ;' and upon that assurance this will follow, ver.
14, 15, ' And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any-
ClUr. X.] THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. 339
tiling according to his will, he hears us,' &c. ; ' and if we know he hears us,
we know we have the petitions we desired of him.' Mark how he links these
three together, as effects and consequences each of other. (1.) ' These things
I write unto you, that you may be assured that life and heaven is yours,' as
in the 12th and 13th verses. And upon that, (2.) this confidence will follow
in your hearts, ' that God hears you,' — that is, that you have his ears open
to you, and his heart enlarged towards you. And then, (.3.) if you be assured
that God hears you, then from this will follow an assurance that you shall
have anything granted you desire. Yea, and he makes this one of the main
and immediate effects of assurance of justification ; therefore he says, ' this
is the confidence that we have in him,' — that is, this effect there is of this
confidence. For whereas they might say. What benefit vn\\ accrue to us by
this assurance 1 Why this, says he, which is one of the great and main privi-
leges of a Christian, even assurance that God will hear him ; and not only
so, but grant him all his prayers. For when a man is assured God hath
given him his Son, he wUl then easily be induced to believe and expect,
' How shall he not with him give me all things 1 ' Kom. viii. 32. If once
he looks upon God as a father, he will then easily conceive that which Christ
says, ' If fathers that are evil can give good things to their children, how
much more shall not your Father give his Spirit and all good things to them
that ask them ? ' And if he gave his Son when we did not pray to him, how
much more shall he not with him give us all things we pray for 1 If a man
comes to sue to any man whose mind he knew not, whether he loved him or
not, he would have small hope or expectation of having his suit granted,
though he came again and again ; but if he be assured he is in favour with
him, according to that degree of favour he supposeth himself to stand in with
him, he is assured and confident of obtaining his request.
2, Discouragement is the weakness of their prayers. Though a man thinks
his person is accepted ; yet, Alas ! says he, my prayers are so poor and weak,
as surely God will never regard them.
(1.) To remove which, let me first ask thee this question, Dost thou pray
with all thy might 1 Then though that thy might be weak in itself, and in
thine own apprehension such, yet because it is all the might which thou
hast, and which grace hath in thee, it shall be accepted. ' For God accepts
according to what a man hath, and not according to that he hath not,' 2 Cor
viii. 12.
(2.) Thou art to consider that God doth not hear thee for thy prayers' sake,
though not without them, but ' for his name's sake,' and his ' Son's sake,' and
because thou art his chUd ; as the mother when her child cries, suppose it be
a weak child, doth not neglect to hear and relieve it, but tenders it, not
because it doth cry more loud, but because it cries, and pities it the more
the weaker it is.
(3.) Again, though the performance in itself be weak, yet considered as a
prayer, it may be strong, because a weak prayer may set the strong God
a- work. As faith for the act of it, as produced by us, may be weak, yet because
its object is Christ, therefore it justifies : so is it in prayer ; it prevails, not
because of the performance itself, but because of the name which it is put
up in, even Christ's name. And therefore, as a weak faith justifies, so a
weak prayer prevails as well as a stronger ; and both for the like reason
in both, for faith attributes all to God, and so doth prayer : for as faith is
merely a receiving grace, so prayer a begging grace. And therefore dost
thou think thy prayers are accepted at all, notwithstanding their weakness 1
If that they are accepted, then they must be accepted as prayers. Now if
400 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS. [ChAP. JL
they be accepted as prayers, then as effectual motives to prevail with God to
grant the thing you ask; for if he should not accept them to that end for
which they were ordained, it is as if he accepted them not at all. As,
therefore, when he apiDroves of any man's faith as true and sincere, he ap-
proves and accepts of it to that purpose for which it was ordained, which is
to save and justify, and to this end doth as fully accept the weakest act of
faith as the strongest ; so is it with their prayers, which being ordained as a
means to obtain mercies from him, if he accepts them at all, it is with rela-
tion to the accomplishment of them, which is their end.
(4.) ]\Ien are mistaken in judging of the weakness of their prayers. They
judge of the weakness of their prayers by their expressions, and gifts in per-
forming them, or by the stirring and overflow of affections ; whereas the
strength and vigour of prayer should be estimated from the faith, the since-
rity, the obedience, the desires expressed in it. As it is not the loudness of
a preacher's voice, but the weight and holiness of the matter, and spirit of the
preacher, that move a wise and an intelligent hearer ; so not gifts, but graces
in prayers are they that move the Lord. The strength of prayer lies not in
words, but in that it is fitted to prevail with God. One prayer is not more
strong than another, further than it is so framed as it hath power with God
more or less ; as of Jacob it is said, ' He had power with God,' Hos. xii.
Now prayers move God, not as an orator moves his hearers, but as a child
moves his father. Two words of a child humbled, and crymg at his father's
feet, will prevail more than penned orations, Rom. viii. : it is the meaning
of the spirit that God looks unto, more than the expression ; for the groans
there are said to be unutterable. Hezekiah's expressions were so rude and
broken, that he says, Isa. xxxviii. 1 4, that he did but ' chatter,' he being
then sick, * even as a crane;' yet God heard them.
3. A third discouragement is failings of answers : I have prayed often and
long, and I have been seldom or never answered, and therefore I make little
account of my prayers that they are heard ; others have the revenues of
their prayers coming in, but I do miss whatsoever almost I stand for. There-
fore say they as those, ' Why have we fasted and thou regardedst it not ] '
Isa. Iviii 3.
To remove this, consider —
(1.) That thou hast the more reason to wait, for thou hast the more an-
swers to come ; for as wicked men treasure up wrath, so do godly men mercy,
and especially by their prayers : and therefore mercies and answers do often
come thick together, even as afflictions also do.
(2.) Suppose thou shouldest have few answers concerning the things thou
seekest for here, either in praying for thyself or others, yet thy reward is
with the Lord. It is in praying as in preaching, a man may preach faith-
fully many a year, and yet not convert a soul, and yet a man is not to give
over waiting, but to observe after every sermon what good is done, and whe-
ther ' God will give men repentance,' as it is, 2 Tim. ii. 25. And if none be
converted, yet, as Isa. xlix. 4, ' a man's reward is with the Lord.' ' Every
man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour,' 1 Cor. iii. 8
and not according to the success of his labour only. So it is in praying
though thou missest again and again, and nothing succeeds thou prayest for
yet be not discouraged, for thy reward is with the Lord, which will come in
one day.
(3.) God doth it, not that he hears thee not, but to try thee. For a man
to say as David says, Ps. cxvi. 1, 2, ' God hath heard my prayer, therefore I
ClIAP. X.] THE RETUEN OF PRAYERS. 401
will call upon him as long as I live;' that is nothing so much as to be able
to say, Well, I have prayed thus long, and for these many things, and never
sped, and ^jet I will call upon him whilst I live, though I find no answer in
this life. To find comings in in a trade, and yet to hold out trading still,
argues not so much faithfulness in a man's calling, as when a man hath losses,
and castings behindhand, and yet to follow it.
(4.) God usually stays so long that we have done expecting : Luke xviiL
8, ' The elect cry day and night,' but God stays so long, ver. 7, that when
he comes he finds not faith, they have d^ne expecting, have forgot their
prayers, and then he doth things they looked not for, Isa. Ixiv. 3.
Other discouragements there are wherein we ourrfelves are more faulty,
and which are our sins more than our temptations, which yet weaken the
expectation of having our prayers answered : as —
1. Slothfulness in prayer, when we do not put to all our might in pray-
ing ; and then no wonder we do not only not obtain, but that our own hearts
misgive us, that we look for little success and issue of such prayers : qui
frigide rogat, docet negare, — he that shews himself cold in a suit, teaches
him he sues to deny him. If we see one seeking to us faintly and slightly,
we are not then solicitous to deny him, but think he wiU be easUy put off,
and not think much ; so accordingly when we shall observe so much by our-
selves, and see ourselves slothful in praying, and praying as if we prayed not,
no wonder if by reason of that consciousness we look not after the success
of such prayers, which in the performance we slighted, when we pray as if
we were willing to be denied, we knowing that the Scripture says that
the fervent prayer only prevails, that prayer which is Ecsj/o^asr/j, that seta
all the faculties on work, James v. 16. How should we then expect that
God should grant any good thing to us 1 For though God sells nothing to
us for our prayers, but gives freely, yet he would have his gifts accepted ;
now without large desires and longings they would not be accepted. And
what is fervent prayer but the expression of such fervent desires ? Jacob
wrestled when he obtained. ' Many seek to enter,' says Christ, ' but you
must strive.''
Now when we know these things and yet are slothful, how can we expect
any answers at all 1 Will not the consciousness of it quell all our expecta-
tions ? And hence it comes to pass that God, proportioning his deaUnga
with us to our prayers, because we seem to pray, and yet pray not to pur-
pose; therefore God sometimes seems like one asleep, and then sometimes
to wake, and make fair offers to help, and yet falls as it were asleep again,
because we were thus drowsy in our prayers. Those prayers that awaken
God must awaken us ; those prayers that stir God must ' stir us to lay hold
on God,' as Isaiah speaks. As obedience strengthens faith and assurance,
so fervency in prayer begets confidence of being heard. In all other things
shjthfulness doth discourage and weaken expectation. Doth any man expect
that riches should come upon him when he doth his business negligently ?
For ' it is the diligent hand that maketh rich.' Doth any man expect a crop
and a harvest if he take not pains to plough and sow his corn 1 No more,
if you do not take pains with your hearts in prayer, can you expect an an-
swer, or indeed will you.
2. A second cause, or sinful discouragement herein, is looking at prayer
only as a duty to be performed, and so performing it as a task, and not so
much out of desires stirred up after the things to be obtained, nor out of
faith that we shall obtain them ; which is as if a physician having a sick
VOL. iiL 2 c
402 THE RETURN OF PRAYERS, [ChAP. X.
servant, to whom lie prescribeth, and commandetli to take some physic to
cure him, and his man should take it indeed because it is commanded and
prescribed by his master, looking at it as an act of duty, as he obeys him in
other businesses, but not as looking at it as a medicine or means that will
have any work upon him to cure him, and therefore orders himself as if he
had taken no such thing. Thus do most in the world pray to God ; take
prayer as a prescrij^tion only, but not as a means. They come to God daily,
but as to a master only in this performance, not as to a father ; and thus
doing, no wonder if they look for little effect of prayers, for our expectation
never exceeds nor reaches further than our end and intention which we had
in any business. If I perform any ordinance but as a duty, then I rest
therein and expect no further; as if a man preacheth for filthy lucre only,
he performs his duty and then looks for his hire, but looks not after any
other effect of his sermons : so nor will men do after their prayers for an-
swers to them, when they perform them as duties only. Now, to help you
in this, you are to look to two things in prayer : first, to a command from
God ; secondly, to the promise of God ; and so to consider it in a double
relation, first, as a duty, in respect to the command ; secondly, as a means
to obtain or procure blessings at God's hand, in relation to his promises.
Therefore, in prayer, first an act of obedience, secondly an act of faith, is to be
exercised : ' Ask in faith, nothing wavering,' James i. Now the most in the
world perform it as an act of obedience only, and so rest in the present per-
formance and acceptation of it ; but if a man pray in faith, he will pray with
an eve to the promises, and look on prayer as a means, for time to come, to
obtain such or such a mercy at God's hands : and if so, then he is not satis-
fied tUl he hath an answer of his prayers, and till then will wait, as the church
says, ' she would wait till he did arise and plead her cause.'
3. A third sinful discouragement is returning to sins after prayers.
When a man hath prayed for some mercy, and riseth full of much confidence
that his prayers are heard, and so a while he walks, yet falling into a sin,
that sin doth dash all his hoj^es, undoes his prayers, as he thinks, and calls
them back again — meets, as it were, with the answer, which is God's mes-
senger, and causeth it to return to heaven again. How often when God had
even granted a petition, and the decree was a-coming forth, and the grant
newly written, and the seal a-setting to it, but an act of treason coming be-
tween, stops it in the seal and defers it, blots and blurreth all, both prayer
and grant, when newly written, and leaves a guilt in the mind which quells
our hopes, and then we look no more after our prayers. And this especially
if, when we were a-sinning, such a thought came in, (as often it doth to re-
strain us,) Are you not in dependence upon God for such a mercy, and have
prayed for it, and are fair for it ? how then dare you do this, and sin against
him 1 When in this case the heart goes on, this blots all the prayer, and
discourageth a man ; for, saith the conscience, will God hear sinners 1 as he
said.
And thus far it is true that sinning thus between interrupts and hinders
the obtaining our petitions : that answerably as we do thus dash and betray
and undo our prayers, so in a proportion we find, in the way to our obtain-
ing the thing we prayed for, so many rubs and difficulties do arise ; for as we
lay blocks in God's way coming towards us to do us good, so he in ours ;
therefore, often when a business goes prosperously on, and we think we shall
carry it, comes some accident between the cup and the lip, that casts all be-
hindhand again, because answerably we dealt with God. For when we had
Chap. X.] the return of prayers. 403
prayed, and were encouraged and in good hopes, then by some sin or other
we spoiled all, and bereaved ourselves of our expectation. But yet this you
are to consider, that as in the end praying useth to overcome sin in God's
children, so also God in the end overcomes difficulties, and brings the matter
to pass. And know it is not sins past so much that hinder the prayers of
God's people, as the present iinfitnesa and indisposition of their hearts for
mercy.
TIDINGS OF PEACE,
TO BE SPOKEN TO CONSCIENCES DISTRESSED.
Ood will speak peace unto his people, and to his sairUs, Ac-
Psalm LXXXV. 8.
The main thing intended to be insisted upon out of these words is despatched;
yet, that I may not leave so fair and fruitful a crop still standing upon the
ground unreaped, I will go on more briefly to have in the rest of that harvest
the text affords.
This psalm, as was said, was penned as a prophecy of, and prayer for, the
return of God's people out of the captivity of Babylon, and the settling and
establishment of that church and state upon its former basis ; yet so as therein
there is a further and more especial aim had to the peace and glory to be
brought in by Christ, till when this prophecy otherwise had but a poor and
slender accomplishment, in regard of much outward glory or peace that that
church enjoyed.
And therefore the peace here spoken of and promised for the present is
to be extended largelier than to outward prosperity, or a happy issue out of
that calamity; even to speaking peace to drooping and weather-beaten con-
sciences. And accordingly we find this kind of peace to have been specially
promised by the prophet Isaiah to the people at their return out of the cap-
tivity, both in chap, xlviii. 20-22, and chap. Ivii. 14-21; there being many
broken hearts that had wanted the light of God's countenance long, having
been during the captivity banished from the ordinances of the temple, hanging
up their harps mourning, whose thoughts were as if God had meant to de-
stroy them, — as appears Jer. xxix. 11, — who afterwards were refreshed with
inward peace at the restoration of those ordinances, as well as with outward,
as by those places doth appear. Therefore ir relation to this kind of peace
only I will at this time handle the words.
In the words you have a discovery of God's proceedings in treating of
peace or proclaiming war with his people and subjects.
1. You see that sometimes God doth not speak peace to his own children.
This was their state for the present, when this psalm was penned : ' He will
speak peace ;' therefore, at present he did not. Yea, it may incline us to
think that God at present spake the contrary; for the prophet speaks this
by faith, as contrary to sense and present experience : he believes God in-
406 TIDINGS OF PEACE. [PSALM LXXXV. 8.
tends to come again to a treaty of peace, though now he seems to have
nothing but anger, and blood, and war in his looks, speeches, and actions;
and to threaten and proclaim war and take up arms against them. And
thus God often deals with his own children, whether a people or a particular
man: so with a nation, Isa. Ixiii. 10, 'They rebelled, and he fought against
them/ so with a particular man, God frowned upon and rated his child
Ephraim, 'and spake bitter things against him,' — it is the phrase used, Jer.
xxxi. 20, — though yet ' Ephraim is my pleasant child,' says he. David had
not a good word from him a long time : Ps. li, 8, ' Make me to hear agair.
of joy and gladness;' and, Ps. 1. 7, 'Hear, my people, and I will speak;'
(but not against them, they might hope, because he owns them for his
people ;) ' Hear, Israel, and I will testify against thee ;' and yet it follows,
' I am the Lord thy God.' Job says he did not speak only against them,
but also ' wrote bitter things ;' he wrote, as it were, books against him, chap,
xiii. 26, he writing over in his conscience the sins of his youth in letters of
blood, and wrath and terrors for them.
2. There must needs be some great reason for this, they being his people ;
which is the second thing that is intimated, and may be observed out of
these words: namely, the reason or moving cause provoking God thus to
interrupt the peace of his peojDle. They had fallen into some gross folly or
other; some sinful, inordinate dispositions had been indulged unto and nour-
ished in them; which is usually, though not always, the cause of this his
dealing. This is evident by this, that the conclusion of their peace, when
it is made up again, hath this clause, as the only article of reconciliation
between them, that 'they return no more to folly;' implying they had
formerly run out into some inordinacy, which to reduce them from, God had
took up arms against them, and thereby taught them wisdom to take heed
of losing, and then buying peace at so dear a rate again. And, indeed, all
the quarrels that God hath against a nation, a particular place or person
that belongs to him, do begin there : ' They rebelled, and he fought against
them,' Isa. Ixiii. 10; 'For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wroth,' Isa.
Ivii. 17.
Reason. — The reason is, for anger is out of love, as well as hatred; which
therefore he expresseth, though with grief, he should be put to quarrel with
those he hath set himself to love. And as wicked men, whom he always
hates, may out of his patience have a truce; so, on the contrary, with his
own, God may take up a quarrel; yet he loves them, and remembers them
with everlasting kindness.
The uses of both are these : —
Use 1. — As peace with God is dear to you, so to take heed of turning
unto foUy. Only take this advertisement, that they are not mere follies or
ignorances that do interrupt or break the peace. As it is not simply the
outrage of some pirates that will cause two states at peace to enter into a
war, unless that state consent to their act, and maintain them in their rapine ;
so it is not simply the rising of lusts that ' war in our members against the
law of the mind,' that breaks the peace between God and us, unless they be
approved of and consented unto, nourished and maintained with some pre-
sumption. Whilst we maintain and take up a constant fight against God's
enemies in us, and disavow the outrageous risings of our lusts, the peace may
hold, and often doth; for whilst we are not at peace with sin, God may be
at peace with us and our spirits; but so much peace as we give them, so
much war God takes up.
Use 2. — The second use is : Doth God take up quarrels against his own t
Psalm LXXXV. 8.] tidings of peace. 407
Then, upon any breach made, go forth to meet Lira. It is St Paul's exhor-
tation, ' not to let the sun go down upon thy wrath,' but to reconcile thyself
ere night with thy offended brother ; but I turn the exhortation, ' Let not
the sun go down upon God's wrath' towards thee ; but every day make and
renew thy peace with God, ere thou sleepest, that, as David says, ' thou
mayest lie down and sleep in peace,' Ps. iv. 8.
Use 3. — The third use : If the peace of God's own people be thus often
interrupted, who yet are * the sons of peace,' Luke x. 6, what wrath is re-
served for the ' children of disobedience,' Eph. ii. 2, and open rebels, that
are children of wrath because of disobedience ? ' There is no peace to the
wicked, says my God,' Isa. Ivii. God is a-preparing against thee, whoever
thou art, that goest on in sin, 'if thou turn not,' Ps. vii. 12 ; thou art pressed
for hell, and art thither bound, to encounter with the wrath of the great God,
thither where no truce is to be had : ' There is no discharge in that war,' as
Solomon says, Eccles. viii. 8. Think of this, you that sin, and will sin ; whose
peace is not struck up between God and you, who never yet so much as
entered into any treaty of peace with God, who never apprehended God and
yourselves at odds.
3. The third thing to be observed out of the text is this : That when the
child of God wants peace, he can have no peace tUl God speak it. God
must speak peace if ever his people have it ; therefore, says he here, * I will
bear what God wUl speak.' He speaks in opposition to the voice of man
and the help of second causes, and of all means whatever, which in time of
distress of themselves can do no good.
Reason 1. — Because God is the king of all the world, the sovereign Lord
of all. Now treaties of war and peace are the prerogative of kings, and of
them alone : they may consult with their subjects about establishing good
laws, as they use to do, &c. ; but the proclaiming war and peace with foreign
states they have ever held in their own hands ; and so doth God, who is the
King of kings.
Reason 2. — Because God is the judge of all the world, and the party
offended, at whose suit all the arrests and controversies do come. Now when
a condemned man stands at the bar, let all the standers-by say what they
will, bid him be of good comfort, and tell him that his cause will go well,
yet tUl he hear the judge himself speak as much, he cannot be at rest in his
mind ; the judge only can acquit him and absolve him. The king alone
speaks pardons ; and so doth God peace. All afflictions are his arrests ; thou
must therefore make thy peace with him, if thou wilt be at peace.
Reason 3. — Peace, especially of conscience, is a thing must be created, for
our hearts of themselves are full of nothing but turmoil, as the raging sea,
■which cannot rest. * I create the fruits of the lips. Peace,' Isa. Ivii. 1 9 ; men
may speak it, but I must create it. A word of power, such as went fortn
when light was created, must go forth from God, or else there is no peace ;
for otherwise our hearts are as the sea, that rests not.
Reason 4. — The wounds of conscience which are in God's people are of
that quality that none but God can cure them ; for the chief thing that
wounds them is the loss of God's favour, not simply his wrath. For it is
the glory of God and his favour, not self-love only, that makes them seek
Mm ; therefore nothing gives peace but the restoring of his favour and the
light of his countenance ; the same dart that wounded must heal again : Isa.
Ivii., ' I smote him, and I will heal him.' And as one that is sick with love,
when love is the disease, no physic, no persuasion of friends can cure it,
nothing but only the love of the party beloved ; so when a soul ia wounded
408 TIDINGS OF PEACE. [PsALM LXXXV. 8.
for the loss of God's love, not all the things in the world can cure the heart ;
but one word from him, one good look, one promise from him that we are
his, stills all, and only can give peace. Like to a poor child that cries for
its mother ; let who will dandle it, and play with it, and use it never so kindly,
yet it will not be stilled till the mother comes ; so it is with a poor soul that
cries after God day and night.
Use 1. — In case thou art in distress, especially of spirit, and want of peace
of conscience, wait upon God in the use of means for peace. Friends may
come to thee, and say, Why shouldest thou be troubled 1 Thou hast no such
cause to be cast down. But all these are ' miserable comforters,' as Job said,
unless God speaks peace. David heard by the prophet Nathan that his sin
was pardoned, but j-et his soul was not at quiet till God would second it im-
mediately by his Spirit ; therefore, says he, when Nathan had been with
him, Ps. li. 8, ' Make me to hear of joy and gladness.' Art thou baited with
hellish blasi3hemies cast into thy soul % God must speak peace, and rebuke
Satan for thee, and take him off thee ; all thy friends, all the men in the
world cannot do it ; they can only say, as the archangel said, ' The Lord re-
buke thee.' And he can as easily do it as he did rebuke Laban, and forbade
him speaking roughly to Jacob ; the same charge he can give in an instant
to Satan : therefore wait upon God, and look up to him.
Use 2. — Consider this against the time you come to die : all your desire
is to die in peace ; and, ' Oh, let thy servant depart in peace !' is the speech
and desire of all. But who is it that must speak peace to you then 1 God
only. At death you will send for a good minister, or a good friend, to give
you some comfort, as you call it ; but if God will not speak it, how can
they ? If you could call all the angels out of heaven, and all the saints both
in earth and heaven, and so could have all that whole college of physicians
about you, and they should desire to comfort you with all their cordials ;
yet if God will not speak it, who is able to do it 1 Job xxxiv. 29, 'If he
hides his face, who can behold him V None can shew his face, as the op-
position in the next words shews. False daubers may come to you, and say
' Peace, peace,' as they in the prophet said ; but listen what God will speak,
he only must and can do it ; and be sure you make sure of him before you
come to die. Would any wise prince defer the treaty of peace with his
enemy till he come into the field, and when the battle is begun 1 How fool-
ish then are those who neglect seeking after God til-l the assault of death
comes, and the king of fears, with all his terrors, hath encompassed them
round !
4. The fourth observation is : That let God's people be in never so great
distress, yet it is an easy thing for God to give peace to them. Mark the
expression here used : it is but ' speaking ' peace ; that is, it is as easy for him
to give peace as it is for you to speak a word ; it is no more to him. Then
our comfort is, that as he only must do it, so he easily can do it, even with
a word.
Reason \. — Because his speaking is creating ; if he speaks, he makes things
to be, even with a word. As at first he did but say, ' Let there be Light, and
there was light ;' so still, if he but say, 'Let there be peace,' there is peace ;
he made all, and upholds all by the word of his power. As therefore, when
the storm was at its height, and the waves most raging, yet at one word of
Christ's they were all still, — ' The sea and the winds obey him,' — so when
temptations are most fierce, and the doubts of thine own mind most tumul-
tuous and raging, a word from him can still them.
Reason 2. — Secondly, because the light which God gives to a man's spirit
Psalm LXXXV. 8.] tidings or pkace. 409
when he speaks peace is a sure and infallible light, and therefore a satisfying
light, so as when it comes it must needs give peace, and no objection, no
temptation can darken or obscure it when it shines. ' K he give quietness,
wlio can trouble V says he, in Job xxxiv. 29. No creature is able to separate
from his love, or the assurance of it.
(1.) It is a certain and infallible light which God gives when he speaks
peace. ' The anointing from above, which enlightencth a man's eyes, is truth,
and is no lie,' 1 John ii. 27 ; that is, in teaching a man, — of which he there
speaks, not only what he is in himself, but what he is in teaching us, — he doth
it so as a man is not deluded by it, and therefore it is added, * None else
need teach him :' for did the Spirit, when he did speak peace, speak so as
that that man to whom it is spoken did not infallibly apprehend it, he should
speak in vain ; for so the Apostle reasons in case of unknown tongues, that
if a trumpet give an uncertain sound, or a man speak so as it shall not be
known what he speaks, 'he beats the air,' 1 Cor. xiv. 9. Now therefore,
surely God, when he si)caks peace, speaks it so infallibly and distinctly that
the soul knows the meaning of it ; it is not a voice else, for, says the Apostle
there, ver. 10, ' The end of all voices is to signify ;' and therefore, ' If I know
not the meaning of the voice, he shall be as a barbarian that speaks to me,'
ver. 11, especially when the speaker undertakes to be a witness, as the Holy
Ghost, in speaking peace, is, 1 John v. 6. Now to witness is such a testi-
mony as is taken for infallible, for the end of it is to put an end to the con-
troversy, and it ends the strife between man and man ; now the Holy Ghost,
when he speaks, speaks as a witness, and therefore puts an end to a man's
doubts : he speaks infallibly.
(2.) And therefore, in the second place, it is a satisfjdng Ught also ; it is
such a ligbt as dispels darkness, as answers aU objections, and so speaks
peace home. As in a question and controversy in divinity or logic, when
some one bottom truth is imderstood, a man hath a light which goes through
all the objections, and answers them all ; such a light doth the Spirit give to
a poor distressed soul, about the great controversy of his own salvation, when
he doth speak peace : he gives such a light as satisfies the mind, as lets him,
see tJiat in God's free grace, and in Christ, which doth answer to all he or
all the de\ils can say against him, from what wants or objections are in him-
self. He openeth, and no man nor devil is able to shut. And therefore,
when he doth speak peace, his testimony is taken and believed : ' If we
receive the witness of men, and rest in it,' 1 John v. 9, ' the witness of God
is greater;' that is, of more power and efficacy to persuade and satisfy the
soul.
Use 1. — The first use is a use of comfort to poor souls that are in distress,
and in such distress sometimes, as they think and say their case is desperate
and past recovery; so far are their souls sometimes shot into despair. Con-
sider how easy it is for you to have your condition altered and changed,
even in a moment. I tell thee, though, it may be, thou hast been cast down
this twenty years, and thy soul is battered, broken, hardened, settled, fixed
in serious thoughts of thy ruin and reprobation, yet one good look, one good
word from God, shall in an instant dispel all, alter thy conceit and appre-
hension clean. God can and doth often more with one word, in one moment,
than Satan could do in many years, with all the objections he could muster
up. The truth of this, in experience, we often find and observe in ourselves
and others. Yea, and sometimes when he doth speak peace, he gives such
satisfaction to a man's soul in that particular, that he would be content to
be as many years more in his spiritual conflicts to enjoy but the like light
410 TIDl>rGd OF PEACE. [r:iALM LXXXV. 8.
one half hour. Thus easy is it for God to speak peace. Though thou
thinkest thyself never so far off from peace, yet he can speak peace to them
that are afar off, as Avell as those who are near ; as himself says, Isa. Ivii.
19, for, says he, it is I that s^^eak it. And when he doth it, then all thy
doubts and distresses will be forgotten, as the pains of a woman in travail
are when a man-child is born.
Use 2. — Secondly, is the church in any distress? (as the church here at
this time was,) he can redeem it out of all with a word. A word spoken to
Cyrus's heart did set them in their own land agaiu ; so you have it expressed,
Isa. xliv. 26-28, ' The God that saith to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be inhabited;
and to the cities of Judah, Ye shall be built.' You see his manner of doing
it, it is but with a word speaking ; ' he says to Jeinisalem, Be built.' And
though there be never so great impediments in the way, he will say to the
deep. Be dry, that his people may pass over; he dried up a whole nation, a
sea of people, namely, the Babylonians, to make way for this deliverance.
And when they are conquered, and Cyrus, a new king, comes to have the
sway of things, God speaks to his heart also : ' That saith of Cyrus, He is my
shepherd, and causeth him to say to Jerusalem, Be thou built.' Therefore go
to him, and trust in him in all the distresses of the church, as the church
also did, Ps. xliv. 4, ' Thou art my King, command deliverances;' a mandamus
firom God doth it, and will do it at any time,
5. Let God be never so angry, and his people's distress never so great, yet
he will speak peace in the end to his people. You heard before, that if we
have peace, he only must give it ; and then, that he could and was able
with ease to do it : and now you shall hear that he will certainly do it in
the end.
The reasons the text suggests are these : —
Reason 1. — If we consider but who this God is that is to speak peace, * I
will hear what God the Lord will speak ;' he is the Lord, and therefore able
to speak what pleaseth him ; he is peculiarly ' the God of peace,' and there-
fore willing to speak peace. Now, (1.) when it is said he is the ' God of
peace, and the God of comfort,' the meaning is, he is full of it, infinitely full
of it, and ' out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.' Thoughts
of peace and love to his do boil within him, as hatred or malice doth in a
malicious man towards his enemy, so as he cannot contain and forbear ex-
pressing it towards him : that as David says his ' thoughts did burn within
him,' and at last break forth ; so in God, ' I know the thoughts I think to-
wards you,' says he to them of the captivity, Jer. xxix. 11, ' they are
thoughts of peace, and not of evil.' And, (2.) besides that these his thoughts
of peace are taken up of himself, his Son also hath bespoken peace for us ;
and therefore God wUl speak it : even as Joseph, though he spake roughly
a while to his brethren, yet could not in the end contain. Gen. xiv. 1 ; so
nor God.
Reason 2. — Secondly, let us consider who they are to whom he is to speak
it. They are his people, as the text hath it ; and to them there is no ques-
tion but he will speak peace, though he seems angry for a while. They are
his people, that is the reason given, 1 Sam. xii. 22, ' He will not cast off his
people ;' as also Isa. Ixiii. 8, 10, ' When they rebelled, he was wroth; yet he
said, Surely they are my people : so I was their SaAdour.' They ? why they
are the ' sons of peace,' Luke x. 6, ordained for peace, and therefore shall be
sure to have it ; and although some differences may arise betwixt God and
them, yet there is a natural STo^yn in the Lord, that moves him to speak
peace in the end to them. As the dumb soa of Croesus, when he saw hia
Psalm LXXXV. 8.] tidings of peace. 411
father like to be killed, though he had never spake before, yet then, out of an
impetus of spirit, the strings of his tongue were unloosed, and he cried out
to the murderer, ' Kill not King Croesus ; ' so, when the enemies of his church
are ready to devour his people, and Satan is ready to swallow his child up
in despair, then God's bowels work within him, and he can hold no longer,
but cries, ' Save my child, save my church.' ' Is Ephraim my pleasant
child 1 ' says God, Jer. xxxi. 20. Well, says God, * though I spake against
him,' and took him up, and chid him soundly, yet I cannot forget my child,
says he, nor my fatherly affection to him, but ' my bowels are stirred, and I
will surely have mercy on him.'
Reason 3. — Thirdly, otherwise if God did not in the end speak peace, they
would indeed return to folly, which is the third thing in the text. For his
end of speaking peace is, that they might not return to folly : Ps. cxxv. 3,
' The rod of the wicked shall not always lie upon the righteous, lest they
put forth their hand to iniquity ; ' therefore, at the last verse, ' peace shall
be upon Israel.' As for this cause he speaks outward peace, so also inward,
and suffers not the rod of Satan, and of his own heavy displeasure, to lie
upon their hearts, for else they would return to the pleasures of sin ; for
every creature must have some delight : their spirits would fail, and be tired
out else, and wearied in good duties, if God should not in the end speak
peace, Isa. Ivii., ' The spirit would fail before me.' When the child swounds
in the whipping, God lets fiiU the rod, and falls a-kissing it, to fetch life
into it again. As it is a rule in physic still to maintain nature, and there-
fore when that shall be in hazard to be destroyed, they leave giving purging
physic, and give cordials ; so doth God with his people : though with purging
physic he often brings their spirits very weak and low, yet he will uphold
and maintain their spirits, so as they shall not fail and be extinguished, but
then he will give cordials to raise them up again.
Use 3. — What good heart that bears a childlike affection to God would
offend such a God, that be thy distresses what they wiU be, will certainly
speak peace ? Then do not put him to it, spend not upon that precious stock
of his free grace and love. It is true ' he is married to thee,' and therefore
'though thou hast gone a-whoring after many lovers,' Jer. iii. 1, 2, 14, stiU
he says, ' Return, for I am married to thee.' As, therefore, when man and
wife are fallen out, they consider. We must live together, and therefore they
reconcile themselves again ; so consider it must be between God and thee,
and make it a means and motive to recover thee, as Samuel did to the Israel-
ites, 1 Sam. xii. 22, 'You have committed this great sin; yet turn not aside
from following the Lord, for God will not cast you off, you are his people.'
Go home to him again, he will speak peace. Think thus. The time will
come wherein God will be friends again with me, he and I cannot be strange
long; though I would, he will not; Isa. Ivii. 18, 19, though he went on
stubbornly, yet God healed him, and would not lose his child, therefore I
wiU return of mysel£
THE FOLLY OF RELAPSING
AFIEK PEACE SPOEEN.
But let them turn no more to folly. — Psalm LXXXV. 8.
6. Thb sixth observation is, That peace being spoken to their hearts by
God, they should * return no more to folly.' See this, Ezra ix. 13, 14, ' Thou
having punished us less than we deserve, and given us such a deliverance as
this, should we again break thy commandments, wouldest thou not be angry
with us tni thou hadst consumed us?'
Reason 1. — Because it will be a greater aggravation in sinning. It is made
the aggravation of Solomon's sin, 1 Kings xi. 9, * that God had appeared to
him twice.' They were especial appearances and manifestations of mercy ;
and though such do now cease, yet we read of such as are analogical to them :
as, John xiv. 21, Christ promiseth to manifest himself, which is by shedding
abroad his love and his Father's love into the heart, which is evident by the
former words, ' he shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him,' and
after he saith, * We will come to him, and make our abode with him,' ver. 23,
and ver, 27, ' My peace I will give unto you.' Now such appearances wiU be
set upon the score of every sin many years after, as they were upon Solomon's.
And the reason is, because nothing wounds an ingenuous, loving nature more
than matter of unkindness : ' If it had been my enemy,' says David, ' I could
have borne it,' Ps. Iv. 12, 14 ; 'but it was thou, O man, mine acquaintance;
we took sweet counsel together :' a bosom friend, to whom I had committed
my secrets, opened my heart. Thus, when God hath unbosomed himself, as
it were, to a man, and told him what was in his heart towards him, this goes
nigh him if he lifts up the heel against him. And the reason of that further
also is — (1.) Because of all things else, a man cannot endure to have his love
abused ', you come nigh him when you do so, for his love is himself, and
commands all in him ; so that abuse his love, and you strike at his heart. It
is less to abuse any excellency in a man, to reproach and extenuate his parts,
learning, &c., though these are dear to him ; but his love is his bowels.
And therefore, when God hath opened his heart to a man, and set his love
upon him, and revealed it to him, and he carries himself unworthily, it pains
him at the heart. Besides, (2.) it is against the law of nature and of nations
to seek out for a peace, and get it concluded, and then secretly to prepare
for and enter into a war ; nothing more hateful, or can exasperate two
414 THE FOLLY OF RELAPSING. [PsALM LXXXY. 8.
nations one against another more than this. It was the aggravation of
Absalom's sin that, being newly reconciled with his father, and taken into
favour again, after two years' discountenance, he then began to rebel more
closely.
Reason 2. — Tlie second reason is intimated in the word 'folly:' as if the
Lord should have said, Set aside the unkindness and wrong you do to me,
yet therein you befool yourselves ; you wall have the worst of it. And
indeed, when God doth afterwards draw nigh to a man again, upon that his
recovery of his peace, it appears to be folly, even in that man's own appre-
hension. When he hath tasted how sweet God is, then come and ask him,
What, will ye return to sin again ? he mil then say. Ask me if I will wound
or cut my flesh. It is impossible, thinks he. I should any more be so be-
sotted ; if there were no other motives, he thinks it the greatest folly in the
world. And therefore God on purpose chooseth out that expression, and
placeth it here in this case, because it is indeed the greatest foUy in God's
sight, and is so apprehended by ourselves, looking upon sin after peace is
sjjoken to us. It is foUy to sin against God at any time, but especially then,
and that will appear by these particulars : —
(1.) Because, before a man had that peace he felt the bitterness of sin, for
God never speaks peace till that be felt. Now, that is an argument even to
sense never to return to it agam, which a fool will be warned by : a burnt
^hild dreads the fire ; even a child will take heed, being taught by sense.
When a man shall be in great distress, and his conscience shall suggest to
him, as Jer. iv. 1 8, ' Thy ways and thy doings have procured these things to
thee : this is thy wickedness,' — a speech like that when you say to your chil-
dren, when they have gotten any harm, or cold, or sickness, This is your play-
ing, and gadding, and going in the snow, and your eating of fruit, &c., — so
doth God speak there to them when they were in distress, 'This is your wicked
ness, for it is bitter, it reacheth to the heart ;' it woundeth the conscience, the
wounding of which, of all else, is the greatest misery. When once a man
after this hath peace restored to him, and he comes newly out of such a dis-
tress, ask him then how he likes turning to such a sin again, and he will teU
you it is the greatest foUy in the world : ask David if he wiU murder any
more after his bones have been broken and set again.
(2.) Thou wilt easily acknowledge it is folly to return to sin again if thou
considerest the terms upon which thou didst obtain thy peace. Reckon
what pains it cost thee to wash out the guilt and stain which sin had made,
what vows and resolutions thou madest, what bonds thou didst seal unto,
what promises never to return, what prayers and tears, what raps and knocks
at heaven's gates ere thou couldest get an answer, or God to speak one word,
he making as if he had not been within : why, is it not foUy now to lose that
in an instant thou hast been a-getting so long, haply many years, and with
so much pains and cost 1 You use it as an excuse to prodigals to say things
lightly come by are lightly gone ; and yet you count them and call them
fools for it, as not knowing what it is to earn a penny : how much more folly
is it when a man having before mortgaged his peace, and God restored it
again after much suit, and waiting many a term, then to come home and
venture to cast all away at one throw at dice ? Such a fool art thou when
thou returnest to sin. To drink that at one draught which thou hast been
getting many a year, what madness is it ! When thou hast taken much
pains to wash thyself, then to wallow in the mire again, and make thyself
new work, what foUy is it ! Who but children and fools wiU do thus ] That
Psalm LX;;i^V. 8.] the folly of relapsing. 415
which the church said in another case may well be alluded to in this : Cant.
V. 3, * I have washed my feet ; how shall I defile them ?
(3.) Consider what it is thou dost hazard to lose by returning to folly —
thy peace, (David lost it, as api)ears Ps. li. 12 ; therefore, says he, ' Restore
to me the joy of thy salvation ;') in losing of which thou wilt be so much a
loser, that if the sin thou choosest were able to give thee all the world, it
could not recompense thee ; no, not the loss of one hour's communion with
God, which in a moment will bring thee in more sweetness than all thy sins
can do to eternity. If all the [Measures of sin were contracted, and the quint-
essence of them strained into one cup, they would not afford so much as one
drop of true peace with God doth, being let fall into the heart. It is ' peace
which passeth understanding.' Few pleasures here do exceed the senses ;
nay, the senses are capable of more than the things can give ; but this passeth
understanding. ' God's loving-kindness is better than life.' If it were pro-
pounded to thee, thou must lose thy life next moment if thou shouldest
commit such a sin, wouldest thou venture, if thou didst believe it 1 Now
' the loving-kindness of God is better than life,' and wilt thou lose the enjoy-
ing of it, though but for a moment ?
(4.) It is folly to return again, because the pleasures of sin will be much
less to thee after thou hast had peace spoken. Take them at the best, when
they are freshest, and when thy palate was most in relish and taste with
them, when thou wert carnal, and ere thou knewest what sweetness was in
God, and they then were but poor sorry pleasures. But now they will prove
far more empty than before : they are empty vain pleasures even to him that
hath them in their flower, and in his season of sinning ; and therefore all
wicked men are weary, and do inwardly complain of their condition, only
they cannot find sweetness in God, and so are fain to keep themselves to
their husks ; but, alas ! to thee they are far less worth than to another man,
who knows not God, and therefore thou art like to have a worse bargain of
it. Another man can make more money of a sin, and get more pleasure out
of it, than thou art able to do.
For, Jirst, thy conscience having been scorched with sin, — as scalded flesh
adheres more, and is more sensible in coming to the fire, than other parts of
the body, — is become of a quicker sense ; whereas wicked men's is seared, and
so they commit ' all uncleanness with greediness ; ' but thine is tender and
galled in the act, which allays much of the pleasure of thy sin, and mingleth
the more bitterness with it.
And, secondly/, besides this galling of conscience, which is common to thee
with many an unregenerate man, thou hast a principle of grace, an inner
man, which is dead to such pleasures, that tastes them not, that is like Bar-
zillai, who, through age, 2 Sam. xix. 35, co^ld not taste either what he ate
or drank, as young men do ; no more can that new man in thee, and there-
fore it can be but half as pleasant to thee as to another man. If one side of
a man be taken all with a numb palsy, what pleasure is it to that man to
exercise his Umbs in the actions of life ? He is but half a man, and lives
but half a life. So it is with thee when thou hast grace in thy heart : but half
thy heart can take pleasure in sinning ; that new man, the other half, reluc-
tates, grieves for it, hates what thou doest ; and all this must needs strike
off much of the pleasure.
But, thirdly, if we add to this, that this new man in him, having once tasted
what sweetness is in God, and how good the Lord is, is then like a man that
hath eaten sweetmeats, other things are out of taste with him, and therefore
il6 THE FOLLY OF EtLAPSIXG. [Ps.ALM LXXXV. 8.
also it is folly to return. ' No man,' says Christ, Luke v. 39, ' having druuk
old wine desireth new, for he saith the old is better;' a man used to high
fare cannot agree so well with thin diet : so the soul having been used to
taste of great pleasures in God, the impression and remembrance of them
leaves his soul less satisfied than another man's. A stomach that hath been
enlarged to full diet, looks for it, and riseth more hungry from a slender meal ;
now communion with God enlarges the faculties, and widens them, and
makes them more capable of greater joys than other men have, and therefore
the creature is less able to fill them ; still he remembers with much grief, whilst
he is eating his husks, what fare he had in his father's house ; and oh, ' then
it was better with me than now.' Call me not Naomi, but call me Marah,
as she said, ' for I went out full, and am come home empty ;' so doth he say
when he comes from the act of sinning, he went with his heart full of peace,
and meeting with a bargain of sinning, thought to eke out his joy, and make
it fuller, but he comes home empty.
Use 1. — The first use is to those who have had peace spoken to them : Let
them at such times fear themselves and God most, for then comes in this, as
you see here, as the most seasonable admonition that can be given, to return
no more to foUy.
(1.) Fear God then most ; for of all times else then sins provoke him
most. To come and call him father, and the guide of your youth, and yet
to fall to sin, this is to do as evil as you can, you cannot do worse, Jer. iii.
4, 5. So Ezra is. 13, 14, ' After such an escaping should we again break thy
commandments, wouldest thou not be angry till thou hadst consumed us?'
In times of afiiiction it is the property of a good child to love God most : in
times of speaking peace, to fear God most and his goodness, and to fear to
ofi'end him for his goodness' sake. Did I only say that God is provoked
most then, if you return to folly? Nay, I add further, he is grieved, which
is more than to be provoked ; and therefore you shall mark that exjjression
and admonition not to ' grieve God's Spirit,' then comes in when the ' Spirit
hath sealed us up to the day of redemption,' Eph. iv. 30. Then by sinning
we are said more properly to grieve him than before, when he hath so far
engaged himself to love a man, and expressed himself to him, and set his
seal upon him for his. God is angry with wicked men's sins, but he is
grieved for yours. To grieve him is more than to anger him. Mere anger
is an affection can ease itself by revenge, and by coming even again with the
party ; and when we can or intend to do so, our minds are not so much ag-
grieved, but please themselves rather to think of the revenge which we mean
to execute : so when wicked men sin whom God means to meet with, he is
said to be angry rather than grieved ; and says, ' I -nill ease myself of mine
adversaries,' Isa. i. 24, ' and avenge myself of mine enemies.' But here, as
when a man's wife that lies in his bosom, or his child, shall wrong him ; so
is it when one sins whom God hath set himself to love, and done much for,
and made known his everlasting kindness unto, and sealed to the day of
redemption. This goes to his heart, grieves him rather than angers him ;
and such are the truest and deepest griefs. What should he do with you
in this case ? If afilict you, and by that means go about to turn you
from your iniquity, therein he shall but afilict himself as it were ; for
* though they rebelled, yet when they were afilicted he was afihcted,' Isa. Ixiii
9, 10. As when a father that is a magistrate, or as one that maintains a
student in a college, if either punisheth a child or pupil in his purse, he
punisheth himself; so must Gud afflict himself to afflict you. Put not the
Lord into these straits if you have any love in you. And —
Psalm LXXXV. 8.] the folly of relapsing. 417
(2.) Aa thou art therefore to fear God most then, so thyself most, and to
be more watchful over thy own heart ; thou art then apt to return to folly,
if thou takest not heed ; as when a man hath been very hot, or sweat much,
he is apt to take the greatest cold. Hezekiah, after God sealed peace to
him and answered his prayers, and renewed the lease of his life, his heart got
cold, he did return to folly. The reason is, because then the heart is apt to
grow less watchful, and to think itself fortified enough against any tenta-
tion. As St Peter, ha\dng seen Christ transfigured in the mount, grew con-
fident in his own strength. And know that the devil watcheth such an op-
portunity most, for he gets a great victory if he can foil thee then, after he
hath been foiled himself, and when thou art most triumphing over him.
How many battles have been lost through security of victory and recoiling
of the enemy ! And besides, our corrupt nature, so far as unrenewed, is apt
to gather heart to itself, to slight sin, as thinking its pardon easily gotten.
Therefore when thou art tempted, labour often to renew those thoughts
which thou hadst of thy sin at that time when thou wert suing for peace,
before thy peace was gotten ; when thou wouldest have given a world for
God's favour ; and also what thoughts thou hadst of it when God spake
peace, how thou didst abhor it, yea, thyself. And look what sm was most
bitter to thee and an enemy to thy peace, — as if uncleanness, idleness,
neglect of prayer, ill company, <fec., — and preserve in thy heart those bitter
apprehensions of it, and say of it, Thou hast ' been a bloody sin to me,' (as
Moses's wife said of her husband :) and though I have got peace and my life
saved, yet it was a bloody sin to Christ, his blood was shed to purchase this
my peace ; and shall I return to it 1
And when tempted to it again, have recourse to the kindness God shewed
thee in pardoning, and say, ' How shall I do this, and sin against God 1 ' say
as he said, ' Is this thy kindness to thy friend V 2 Sam. xvi. 17 ; and what !
shall I, Absalom-like, now I am new reconciled to my Father, fall a-plotting
treason again 1 What ! shall I make more work for prayer, more work for
God, break my bones again, and lie roaring again ? Think thus, I was
burned in the hand before, I shall be racked surely now. ' Sin no more, lest
a worse thing befall thee.'
Use 2. — The doctrine of assurance, if not abused, and of God speaking
peace to men, is no dangerous doctrine to make men secure and presump-
tuous in sinning. When peace is preached in any man's heart, this use na-
turally flows from that doctrine, ' Keturn no more to folly.' The very scope
of the whole epistle of St John is to help all believers to assurance, as appears
by 1 John i. 4, v. 13,' These things I write you, that ye might have com-
munion with God, and that your joy might be full.' But this will open a
way to aU licentiousness. No, says St John, chap. ii. 1, 'These things I write
unto you, that ye sin not.' Nothing guards the heart more against tentations
than the peace of God : it is said to guard the heart, Phil. iv. 7. Yea, and
if you do sin, the assurance of God's love is the speediest way to recover
you ; so it follows, ' If any one doth sin, we have an advocate with the
Father,' &c. * And he that hath this hope in him,' — that is, to live with
Christ, — and ' knows what manner of love the Father bears us,' ' purifies him-
self as he is pure,' 1 John iii. 1-3.
If there were no more but self-love in a man, it were then no wonder if he
doth abuse it. For self-love, where the love of God is wanting, is unthankful
and ungrateful, willing to take all the love and kindness which is afforded,
and abuse it, and work upon it for its own advantage. And it is true also
that because we have too much of this principle unmortified in us, therefore
VOL. UL 2d
418 THE FOLLY OF RELAPf,IXG. [PSALM LXXXV. 8.
God trusteth so few with much assurance, because they would abuse it. But
where true love to God is seated, and much of it implanted, there the love
of God and the peace of God doth as kindly and naturally enkindle and in-
flame and set it a-work, even as arguments suitable to self-love do work upon
and stir that principle. For grace is more for God than for ourseh'es, it
being the image of God's holiness, whose holiness consists in this, to aim at
himself in all ; and therefore when God's free grace towards a man is re-
vealed, it raiseth him up to higher strains of love to God and hatred of sin.
And therefore it is observable, Ps. li. 12, that David, when he prays fur
'the restoring of the joy of his salvation,' he prays not simply for it, or alone,
but withal prays for a free spirit, ' Establish me with thy free spirit ; ' that
is, a spirit of ingenuity, which is kindly, sweetly, and freely wrought upon,
Therefore when we have a free spirit wrought in us, then that free love that
is in God towards us will work most kindly upon it, and constrain us to
love him that loved us first. 'The love of Christ constrains us,' 2 Cor. v.
14, 'because we thus judge, that if Christ died for all, then they which live
should not live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them.' St Paul
gives the reason why this love of Christ did thus constrain him, because he
did thus judge ; that is, this consideration of Christ's love, he having a
principle of love in his heart to Christ, he found to be a powerful prevailing
reason to persuade him to live to Christ. Having a new judgment, he saw
force and strength in the argument. And so shall we if we thus judge ; and
it will have this natural consequence as naturally to follow upon it in our
hearts, as any reason in any other kind hath, that is brought to enforce any
other conclusion. And therefore as the mind is constrained, as it were, to
assent to a truth proved by force of reason, that if you grant this, then this
or that will follow ; so because we judge this reasonable by an argument drawn
out of love's topics, that if Christ died for all, who otherwise must them-
selves have died, that then they should live to him ; this will constrain us
to love him, and live to him. Amor Dei est extaticus, nee se sinit esse sui
Juris.
This text and admonition here gives a just occasion to consider a little of
that so often questioned case of conscience concerning relapses of God's chil-
dren into the same sins and folly again, and whether, after peace spoken,
God's people may return again to foUy. Some have held that a man after
a second repentance could not fall into the same sin again ; others, if he did,
it excluded him from mercy for time to come. For the comfort of some
poor souls, whose case and tentatiou this may be, I will speak somewhat,
though sparingly and with caution.
1. The Scripture nowhere excludeth those from the state of grace, oi bars
mercy from those that have relapsed into the same sin, especially so long as
in regard of the manner of their sinning it be but folly, not wickedness or
wilful sinning ; that is, rather proceeding out of error of understanding, and
heat and impetuousness of foolish affections, than obstinacy and malice in
the will, and with 'despite of the Spirit of grace,' Heb. x. 29. Yea —
2. In Scripture we meet with such passages and promises as may un-
doubtedly uphold any soul that hath so fallen, after peace received, into the
same sin, and preserve him from apprehending himself excluded therefore
from mercy and the state of grace. As, Hosea xiv. 4, *I will heal their
backslidings, I will love them freely.' Unless they had fallen after repent-
ing and former healing, it could not have been called backsliding ; and yet
]'SALM LXXXV. 8.J THK KULLY OF rEI,APSlNt;. 419
this he promises to heal, and withal shews the ground that moves him to it.
his loving thera freely. For if in anything his free love is shewn to any of
his children, and drawn out, it is in healing aguiu such a backsliding soul
after recovery and peace given; for the falling into the same sin which
hath been repented of and healed, provokes God more than a thousand other
acts of sins formerly committed, tiiough of the same kind. And therein
also to shew his free love, that he can pardon even the abuse of love itself,
he leaves some thus to sin after his love shed abroad in their hearts. Some
he shews his free love unto, in keeping them from sinning; others, in pardon-
ing them, and giving them repentance. They are but several ways of draw-
ing it forth ; so that, if in anything, herein his free love is shewn, for if it
were not free it would never endure itself to be abused.
And likewise the sure mercies of David are then shewn, when God ' multi-
plies to pardon ;' so, Isa. Iv. 3, having mentioned the promise of the ' sure
mercies of David,' he promises to ' multiply to pardon,' as it is in the ori-
ginal, ver, 7 ; which, are thus joined, both because the sureness of his cove-
nant is therein shewn, and because we might haply midtiply to sin ; and at
least it supposeth the possibility of it again. God likewise runs upon such
a supposition in that expression of his to his own people, Jer. iil 1, 2, ' They
say. If a man put away his wife, and she become another man's, shall not
the land be greatly polluted ] But thou hast played the harlot with many
lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord.' He speaks to her as to one
who had been his wife, who though she had not been put away by him, but
had put away herself, and run away, not once, but oftan, and tLat with many
lovers ; and sometimes in the midst of her whoredoms, had come in and
made challenge of his former love, and pleaded his former mercy to her, and
yet tallen back agaiu, ver. 4, 5, (where he adds, ' Wilt thou not from this
time cry, My father, and thou art the guide of my youth V that is, I kuow,
says God, you will come now and cry, as heretofore you have done, and say.
Oh, thou art my father and my husband, and confidently still claim an in-
terest in me upon my former kindness, and yet do as evil as you can, for you
cannot do worse than thus to abuse my love,) yet, for all this, at the 12th
verse, ' Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord ; for I am married to
you,' ver 14. That which he doth thus to a nation, he may do to a particu-
lar man who is his child. Again —
3. There are not altogether examples wanting for this : —
Examp. 1. — We find Samson, a godly man, (whom yet we would scarce
have thought such, but that we find his name in the list of those worthies,
Heb. xi.,) ensnared with a Philistine woman, against the counsel of his
parents, Judg. xiv. 3, who clearly laid open his sin to him. And he was
in the event reproved for his folly, for his wife deceived him, told his riddle
to his enemies ; which he in the end perceived. And further to reprove him,
in the issue she was given away to another, ver. 16, 17, 20. From all which
passages of reproof, a holy man, that had his eyes in his head, could not but
see his error. And yet again, a long while after this, (twenty years after, Judg.
XV. 20,) when certainly ere that he had repented of this his sm, for which
his parents before, and after God, so clearly did rebuke him, he went to Gaza,
Judg. xvi. 1, 'and saw a harlot, and went in to her,' and there escaped nar-
rowly with his life at midnight ; and, ver. 4, after that also it came to pass
he fell in love with another, as bad as any of the former, Delilah, who was
his ruin. But his returning thus to folly cost him dear, for in the end he
was taken as a captive to the Philistines, his enemies, and that through her
falsehood ; deprived of his strength he had spent upon these women , had his
420 THE FOLLY OF RELAPoIXO. [PsALM LXXXY. 8.
eyes, those betra}TJig lights, put out, that had ensnared him ; and himself
made a fool of, to make his enemies sport. So as no child of God can take
any great encouragement thus to return to foUy for the future by his ex-
ample ; though comfort they may have therefrom in case they have returned
for the time past.
Examp. 2. — Another example may be that of Jehoshaphat, who committed
a great sin in joining with Ahab, that wicked king that ' sold himself to
work wickedness,' 2 Chron. xviiL 1-3 ; and he was foretold what would be
the success of that confederacy and journey by Micaiah, before he went with
him to battle, and after in the battle itself, where he hardly escaped with his
life, and by an extraordinary providence at his prayer was delivered, ver.
31, 32 ; and as if that were not sufficient, God sends another prophet to him,
chap. xix. 2, who with open mouth reproves him] and discovers to him his
sin, ' Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord T
therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord : ' which message to so good
a man doubtless was not in vain, but humbled him for that his sin, and
\vrought repentance in him to avert that wrath. And yet after that great
and miraculous deliverance of him and his people, chap, xx., we find him
relapsing into the same sin, ver. 35, ' After this did Jehoshaphat join himself
with Ahaziah, king of Israel, who did very -svickedly. And he joined him-
self with him to make ships to go to Tarshish ; ' which another prophet in
like manner reproveth, and likewise God himself rebuked by the like ill
success of that league to the former : ' the ships were broken,' ver. 37.
Examp. 3. — St Peter, a man who seemed by other of his carriages bold
enough, was yet three several times surprised with base fear : once when he
tempted Christ not to hazard himself at Jerusalem, where Christ told him
that he was to suffer, Matt. xvL 21-23, 'Master,' says he, 'spare thyself;'
upon which speech Christ calls him Satan, rebuketh him more sharply than
at any other time, for which surely there was a more than ordinary cause.
St Peter thought that if his Master should suffer at Jerusalem, that himself
and the rest should not be safe. That speech, therefore, proceeded from
fear ; and therefore Christ doth immediately thereupon call for self-denial
and taking up the cross, ver. 24. And this was immediately after peace
spoken, ver. 16-18. Christ had never more comfortably given testimony to
St Peter and his faith than there. Yet again, after this, Christ had him up
into the mount, and transfigured himself, to hearten him against that trial
to come, which made him so confident ; yet then he denied him at his ar-
raignment : when again Christ, immediately upon that, looked back upon
him with so sweet a look as broke his heart for this his folly ; and so he
returned again, and it cost him many a tear. And Christ, after the resur-
rection, owned him again more than any of the rest ; bade them that first
met him, ' Go tell Peter.' He mentions him by name, and in especial : Go
teU liim the first news of it. And then also he asked him, ' Peter, lovest thou
me 1 ' and he said, ' Lord, thou knowest I love thee : ' as if he had said.
Though I have played the wretch, yet I love thee. Upon this, though he
grew more bold. Acts iv. 13, yet, Gal. iL 11, 12, we find him falling into the
grudgings of the same disease, which cast him into another fit : 'he dissem-
bled, fearing them of the circumcision.* This was a spice of the former sin,
though not so gross ; and though the outward acts in these sins were diverse
in their occasions, yet they were all acts and buds of the same root of bit-
terness ; and may as well be called sins of the same kind as the committing
differing acts of uncleanness are reckoned falling into the same sin.
4. In the fourth place, if the Scriptures had been utterly silent in eiamples,
Psalm LXXXV. 8.] the folly of kelapsino. 4:il
yet reason, consonant to other principles, and grounds of divinity, and of tlio
Scriptures, might persuade the same.
Reason 1. — If he may, after the most serious and thorough repentance, fall
again into as grievous a sin of another kind, and return ; why not into the
same again % I confess there is some disparity, which might make him more
averse, and set him in some more remoteness from the same sin he hath par-
ticularly repented of than another ; whicli shall be considered in its place.
Yet the difference cannot be supposed such as should make the one possible,
and not the other ; all true repentance working the heart to an abominating
every sin, as well as any : and therefore, if it were true, it was for that par-
ticular sin, as sin ; and then it would work the like against all and every
sin, according to the measure of the sinfulness. And though it may and
doth work a more keen and special hatred against that particular sin a man
hath been most stung with, yet still this is but so far as this aggravation (to
fall into the same sin again) may cause such a relapse to be more sinful than
another sin. And so far, and upon that ground, he is and may be more set
and strengthened against it than against another sin. But then, if the sup-
position fall upon another gross sin, never before committed, the sole and
single act of which other circumstances make as heinous even as this reiter-
ated act of a sin formerly committed can be, then the one is equally as pos-
sible as the other. But, however, yet still the difference is but in degrees, —
namely, in that the heart is elongated a degree or so further from that sin
formerly committed than any other, — which will not therefore so vary the
case (as magis and minus do not) that it should be made impossible to fall
into the one, and not into the other.
Reason 2. — If he may fall into some gross sin, which at first conversion
he did above all other humble himself for, and yet that same initial repent-
ance did not put him into such an impossibility of falling into that sin again ;
why then should a renewed act of repentance for the same, or for some other
reiterated sin, be supposed to have such virtue in it as to make him shot-free
for ever from the same fiery dart again ?
Reason 3. — Again, thirdly, let it be considered from whence it should be
that a renewed, or indeed any act of true repentance, though never so great
and intense, should have such a transcendent, eternal, and invincible virtue
in it, and privilege annexed to it ; for how is it that repentance doth
strengthen us against sin, but by restoring the decayed frame of grace to a
better constitution and greater degree of strength than before, and by rais-
ing it above a man's lusts, and above that lust more than all other ? As in
David, when he prayed, ' Create in me a clean heart,' which, through his sin
of uncleanness, was in an especial manner defiled with a proneness to that
sin. But yet withal remember, that that new frame of heart and strength
gotten by that renewed repentance, and that augmentation and increase of
hatred against, and abominating that sin wrought by it, is all but a creature, —
as grace and every new degree of grace is, — and therefore, for preserving us,
hath in itself but the power and force of a created habit, which may be pre-
vailed against by the sin that is in us ; and can no more, nay, much less, put
us into a state of confirmation against any particular sin, than the grace of
the angels could of itself confirm them in a state against all sin.
And as for the impression of that bitterness which, in our repentance for
that sin fallen into, was made upon our hearts, that also can be sujjposed
to have but the like force upon our spirits that the impression of joy un-
speakable and glorious hath upon the heart in those heavenly raptures which
believers sometimes enjoy. Yea, and the latter of these will easily be sup-
422 THE FOLLY OF RELAPSING. [PsALM LXXXV. 8.
posed to be of the greater efficacy of the two, and both but creatures. Now
those ravishing joys are not yet such immortal and everlastingly quickening
cordials, that put such spirits into a man as to preserve him from swounds
and faintings of spirit for ever ; and though, whilst they abide and are pre-
sent to the heart, they do then raise it above all things here below, yet
when a man hath been a while off from that mount, and hath conversed a
while with things here again below, then that lustre wears away, as the glory
that shined in Moses's face did, and after a while the sense and present taste
of those joys wears out ; and when that is gone, the bare remembrance of
them which is left hath not, in their absence, such an infallible, though a
great efScacy to preserve his mind in an everlasting disrelishing former de-
lights, but that he may and often doth fall in love again too much with
them ; although indeed whilst the present sense of them did abide upon
the heart, it abstracted the mind from all things here below. And hence a
man is apt to ' fall from his first love,' Eev. iL, and from that high esteem of
spiritual things; as the Galatians, chap. iv. 15, 'Where is the blessedness
you spake of?' says St Paul to them. Therefore answerably the remem-
brance of the bitterness of any sin felt in our deepest humiliations is much
less able to preserve a man, nor is the impression and dint made so lasting,
nor the scars and wounds of conscience continuing for ever so fresh, as ever-
lastingly to preserve and deter us from falling into the same sin again. For
both are but creatures, and at best but arguments drawn from sense and
experience within ourselves, and have but a human created power which is
not always efficacious ; especially seeing God hath ordained us to ' live by
faith more than by sense,' for faith is appointed by God to be our more
constant keeper, 1 Peter i. 5, ' We are kept through faith unto salvation,'
and by it more surely and more constantly than by impressions of joy or
sorrow which are made to sense : and yet we are not kept by it of itself, but
by the power of God. So then we are kept by the power of God as the
principal supporter and guardian, through faith as the instrumental, and by
it rather than by sense or any other grace of sorrow or repentance, because
faith carries the heart out of itself, and commits itself wholly into the hands
of God as a faithful Creator, (who is the strength of Israel, to keep a man
from every evil work,) as not being able to secure itself against any sin
through the power of any fortification or strength that any other grace or
degree of grace hath built, no, not for one moment ; and therefore is as de-
pendent upon God after a fall, and a renewed repentance out of it, yea, and
more than before he fell ; and his own woeful experience hath reason to make
him so.
The like instance to illustrate the truth of this we may draw from the
assurance of faith itself. For even the assurance of faith itself, — which is an
act properly belonging to that grace, called therefore the assurance of faith,
Heb. X. 22, — which doth strengthen us as much against doubting, when it is
joined with joy unspeakable and glorious, as repentance can do against any
other sin ; and whilst it is upon us, in the strength of it a believer is apt to
think himself armed and strengthened, and so established as that he shall
never question God's love any more, or the pardon of his sins ; and yet, ex-
perience shews it, that the guilt of sin prevails sometimes again after this,
and the same doubts arise and prevail as much as ever. Neither will the re-
membrance of the former assurance be always of force enough to resist them ;
for he may come to question that assurance itself also, and so forget that he
was purged from his old sins. And if the guilt of sin prevail in the con-
science again, against such a renewed and settled act of faith, why may not
Psalm LXXXV. 8.] the folly of relapsimg. 4_'3
the power of a lust prevail in the members after a renewed act of repent-
ance?
Reason 4. — If it be said that a renewed act of thorough repentance doth
keep a man, not by any peculiar virtue in itself alone, but by tlie power of
God concurrent with it; then I demand to see the promise wherein God
hath infallibly obliged and engaged his power, upon such a renewed act of
repentance, to preserve from falling into that sin of all other for ever, with-
out which no man in faith can affirm it, and without which there is an it
may be, and a supposition of such a possibility as sometime falleth out and
is reduced to existence. God indeed hath said, that if we fall he will put
under his hand to break that fall, that it shall not ruin us ; but not so to
keep us in his hands as we shall be out of danger of falling again. A re-
newed act of repentance is indeed an ordinance sanctified to preserve a man ;
yet but in the same manner that other ordinances are, as prayer, and the
word preached, and admonition, &c., with which God doth not always so
infallibly co-operate as efficaciously to work always that which they serve to.
5. If there were not such a possibility as might and doth sometimes fail
out, then every regenerate man, after such a renewed act of repentance,
might secure himself against the committing that gross act again for ever ;
but so he can never do against any particular act of sin but that sin against
the Holy Ghost. St Paul therefore exhorts, when a brother is fallen into a
sin, to ' restore such a one with the spirit of meekness,' upon this conside-
ration, ' considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted ; ' and he lays the ex-
hortation upon those who are most spiritual : ' Ye that are spiritual, restore
such a one, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted,' Gal. vi. 1 ; so as
he speaks of such as have their hearts raised up to the best frame, through
the most deep and serious repentance. And now we will suppose one that
hath formerly fallen himself into the same sin which anofher is fallen into,
but not yet restored, but himself is returned by repentance out of it ; for, in-
deed, such a spiritual man is of all other Uke to be the meekest bone-setter
of a man fallen ; and even such doth St Paul exhort to consider that them-
selves may for the time to come be also or in like manner tempted, — that ia
fall as this man fell, — and therefore so be tempted as to fall into the same
sin again that he was fallen into. And if any man could be secure from the
like fall again, he had been out of the reach of this exhortation to this duty
upon that ground mentioned, as not capable of it. But the Holy Ghost hath
elsewhere, 1 Cor. x. 13, told us, that there is no tentation which is common
to man but is incident to befall any man at any time ; and therefore, ver.
12, exhorts 'him that standeth' to 'take heed lest he fall.' Indeed, that
temptation which is common to devils with men, the sin of final despair, and
against the Holy Ghost, &c., a regenerate man may, through the grace of
Christ, secure himself against ; but all such sins as are common to man,
from these or any of them, no man, in any state, can, without an extraordi-
nary revelation, secure himself from the commission of.
Only I add these cautions concerning this case : —
Caution \. — There are two sorts of corruptions. First, more gross cor-
ruptions, which St Peter calls rd fj^iaa/j^ara rou xmimov, ' the defilements of the
world,' 2 Pet. ii. 20 ; they being the common mire or kennel wherein the un-
clean swine of this world wallow, and which the Apostle calls such ' works
of the flesh as are manifest,' Gal. v. 19, even to the light of nature ; such as
are adultery, fornication, drunkenness, &c. ; and by those two expressions do
they distinguish them from a sort of more spiritual and refined lusts. For,
secondly, there are corruptions more spiritual, as pride, secret love of the
424 THE FOLLY OF RELAJSIKG. [PSALM LXXXV. 8.
world. Now, for those gross corruptions wMcli are contrary even to com-
mon honesty, and, to use Job's phrase, ' are punished by the judges,' chap,
xxxi. 11, which profane men wallow in, a godly man hath more strength
against them, so as it is not so ordinary for him to be entangled again and
again with these. For where but moral principles are, these are abstained
from, as we see in the Pharisee, — I am no adulterer, &c., — therefore, where
grace is, much more. And some sins are more opposite to the spirit of
holiness, and less compatible with grace, as uncleanness, of wliich St Paul
says, ' God hath not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness,' 1 Thess. iv. 7 ;
it is in an especial manner there ojjjjosed to holiness ; and such as these are
' works of the flesh, which are manifest,' even to nature, to civil men ; and
therefore, when they are often fallen into, they do manifest that the heart is
but flesh. And although the limits, how seldom or how often, cannot be set
concerning relapses into these or any sins, yet, in an ordinary course, it may be
said that few godly men fall into such sins again and again. God keeps them
from such in an ordinary providence, that scandals should not arise ; they
being sins which all the world takes notice of. But those other sins of rash
anger, and love of the world, and spiritual pride, &c., these being less mani-
fest, and sitting more close to our spirits, godly men are more subject unto.
Caution 2. — Yet, secondly, we must again distinguish : —
(1.) There are the inward lustings to those outward acts now, though grace
weakeneth the very lustings within, yet takes them not wholly away : ' The
spirit that is in us,' — that is, in us saints, — says St James, ' lusteth to envy;'
and as to envy, so to all other sins. And —
(2.) Secondly, there are the outward gross acts of such sins ; and therein
the weakness of sin in a regenerate man and strength of grace shews itself
most in preserving from them. For, as ' to will is present with me,' says St
Paul, ' to will what is good, yet how to perform it I am not able,' Rom. vii.
18 : so, on the contrary, to lust the heart may be ready, and lust may soon
rise up in rebellion, but when it should come to the act there is a weakness
discovered ; they come to the birth, and want strength often to bring forth ;
the contrary lusting and prevailing of grace being then seen and discovering
itself. That it fareth with a regenerate man in this case often as with a man
that is deadly wounded, who riseth up to strike his enemy, and thinks to run
him through, but sinks down again, medio conatu, when his sword is at his
enemy's breast, through a deficiency of spirits. Or as a man in a palsy, or
the gout, who thinks he is able to walk till he comes to try, and then he finds
a weakness which makes him faU back again. Thus, even when the whole
forces of lusts are mustered up, yet the weapons fall out of their hands.
Humours, in a healthful constitution, may stir and boake* in the stomach,
when yet they come not up, nor prevail unto vomiting. In that place afore-
named, Gal. v., the Apostle seems not to deny but that in the most regenerate
lustings may arise ; for ' the flesh,' says he, ' lusteth against the spirit,' ver.
17 ; but yet, as for outward acts, he tells them, ver. 16, ' that if ye walk in
the spirit,' — that is, in the prevalency of the spirit, keeping up a holy frame
of heart above the flesh, — that then ' ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh :'
for that frame of heart so kept up will hinder the outward fulfilling of the
lust, which is never done till flesh and corruption is actually raised above
the spirit, and gets more voices to carry it ; till the spirit be under-hatches
and the flesh above, and so steers the helm. Otherwise the lusting of the
spirit against the flesh will hinder the outward doing and fulfilling of a lust.
For the reason he gives, ver. 17, 'so as you cannot do what you wo;ild,'
* Retch. -Ed.
Psalm LXXXV. 8. J tub kolly ok relapsino. 425
implies, that not only lustings, which arise without consent, may be in such
a man, but further, much of the will may be won to consent to them, to like
them ; when yet there is not strength enough to carry it on to the outward
act, ' you cannot do what you would.' And what those works of the flesh
are, which are manifest works of the flesh, and which Christians, whilst they
walk in the spirit, fulfil not, he mentions and reckons up in the following
words. And this is the more ordinary frame of a Christian's heart ; for,
ver. 24, says he, ' They that are Christ's have crucified the affections and
lusts,' that is, so far as not to fulfil them.
Caution 3. — He may more easUy fall into a gross sin of another kind than
into the same after special repentance for it, and peace spoken in the pardon
of it. Because true repentance especially fortifies the heart against that sin
■which a man hath most repented him of; and sincerity lies more in watch-
ing over that sin than any other ; so, says David, Ps. xviii., ' I was upright,
and kept myself from mine iniquity,' that especial sin which was eminently
his sin. A man's arm that hath been broke will, if well set, rather break in
some other place than where it was broke at first. Hence sometimes it falls
out that that which was a godly man's bosom-sin before conversion continues
not to be so after ; but another steps up in the room of it, by reason that
he then endeavoureth to wash out that great stain most, and spendeth the
most of the fuller's soap to purge himself from it, and so becomes ever
after most watchful over it, and sets in this, his weakest place, the strongest
garrison, and a watch, to prevent the enemy. And as an act of some pre-
sumptuous sin, though it incUnes the heart more to all sin than before, yet
especially to commit that kind of sin again rather than any other ; so, on
the contrary, is it in a sound and solemn repentance for some especial sin,
and in the endeavouring to mortify some especial member of the body of
sin, (to mortify which, not only in the bulk and general, but also par-
ticularly and apart in the several members of it, the Holy Ghost exhorts.
CoL iii. 0,) though thereby the whole habit of the body of sin is purged and
weakened, yet that particular sin which we aim especially to have mortified,
is, through God's blessing, more subdued than any other. We see idolatry
was the sin which the people of Israel relapsed into again and again ; yet
when they were once thoroughly humbled by the captivity for it, they never
returned to it, of all sins else, not to this day : so as it may be said, as was
foretold haply in another case, Ezek. xvi. 43, ' Thou shalt not commit this
lewdness, of all thy abominations.' Jonah, though he would haply never
run away from God again after his jail delivery out of the whale's belly, yet,
immediately after peace spoken to his heart, he falls into a sin of another
kind, into a passion of extreme anger and peevishness, and quarrelling against
God.
And the reason of this especial tenderness to fall into the same sin is,
because the conscience looks upon a relapse into that sin to be more heinous
than into any other sin of another kind, because of that aggravation of it
which thereby would stain and dye it ; and although a sin of another kind
shews the variety of corruption more, yet this is more against the power and
work of repentance itself, which was particularly exercised about that sin ;
and also breaks and dissolveth all bands of a man's vows, covenants, prayers,
&c., made against it in particular, and so is made more grievous. And this
we may see in Ezra's humbling himself for that great sin of the people, in
joining themselves in marriage with the people of the land, when he did set
himself to humble himself for them, together with those ' that feared God,'
chap. ix. 4. What a hideous apprehension of the heinousness of that sin, if
426 THE FOLLY OF RELAPSING. [PsALM LXXXV. 8.
they should again fall into it, did that day's repentance raise his heart up
unto ? as appears, ver. 1 4, ' Should we again break thy commandments, and
join in affinity with them, wouldest thou not destroy us tUl thou hadst con-
sumed us, and till there was no escaping 1' Into which sin yet the people
did again fall, after they had repented of it with a solemn confession and
promise of amendment, which is recorded chap. x. 11, 12, tkc. ; yet they re-
turned to it again the second time, as we find in Malachi, who Lived the last
of the prophets, and after this prayer of Ezra. For, chap. ii. 11, the prophet
says, ' An abomination is committed in Jerusalem, for Judah hath married
the daughter of a strange god;' and then follows the aggravation, ver. 13,
' This ye have done again,' — that is, the second time, and in that respect are
challenged to deal treacherously, and that also in respect they had repented
of it the first time, — ' covering the altar with tears, with weeping, and with
crying out,' as ^Malachi there speaks, so as ' God regardeth not your offerings
any more.' And therefore, also, Ps. IxxviiL 40, ' How oft did they,' saith he,
as aggravating their sins, by murmuring ' provoke the Lord?' and, Num. xiv.
22, God reckons up and mentions the times of their sinning, how often they
had thus sinned, as an aggravation of them ; ' they have tempted me these
ten times.'
Caution 4. — He may fall into the same sin again and again, irntU he hath
recovered himself and his peace fully by a thorough repentance, but yet
seldom after. Lot committed incest two nights together ; but the orifice of
his lust was not yet stopped by repentance, the wound was not closed, and
so bled again afresh ; but when it is healed once, and the heart made perfect
with God, and divorced from that sin, and entered into communion with
God again, then though it may fall out, yet a man more hardly returns. A
woman that is gone from her husband may play the whore a long while with
him she ran away withal, tUl her husband fetches her again : but to run
often away, after receiving again, is intolerable. That is not so ordinary in
God's child.
Caution 5. — Though we can hardly set limits to say when, or when not,
this shall fall out from the degrees of men's repentings, — as that if they have
such or such a degree of repentance, then they fall no more, — yet we may
further consider a difference of their retumings to God and repentings, and
of God's speaking peace : —
(1.) Of their repentings. Some are more imperfect, and but, as it were,
thawings of the mind a Little, by means of a little sunshine of God's love :
some are more thorough and deep, that recover a man, and put him into a
sound and healthful estate. As, for example, a man in an ague hath well
days, yet his fits return, and it may be they leave him for a month or so,
and yet they take him again, as at spring and autumn ; which is because all
this while his body is not thoroughly recovered to a state of health : so is it
with a man's heart, in respect of his lusts ; though he may have many well
days, wherein he may eat his meat, and receive sweetness in the word and
ordinances, yet at times his distempers and aguish fits return, he being aguish
stUl. But in the end, after the peace of God hath more thoroughly estab-
lished his heart, he attains to some settled, constant \T.ctory over it ; and
when it doth not prevail to victory, such aguish fits end usually in consump-
tions, in which long agues often end. As in temporaries, in whom, sin over-
coming God's striving with them, it eats aU good beginnings out ; but if
they belong to God, then usually that aguish distemper is, in the end, by a
more thorough reptiitance, so healed as that they attain to more victory
and security against it than any other sin : that as in those other kind of
TSALM LXXXV. 8.] THE FOLLY OF RELAPSING. 427
tentations, it often fulls out that that which a man doubted of most he
comes in the end to be most assured of, and to doubt no more ; so also here
a man becomes most freed from that sin he was long exercised with of all
others. So also —
(2.) For God's dealings with his, there is much diflFerence therein to be
found. There are some kinds of speaking peace by God, and meltings of the
heart of his people, which yet are not of that force as to overcome, but
wherein God doth but, as it were, strive with them ; which strivings do ever
and anon work their hearts to a repentance, and that true and serious ;
which yet is not so deep and thorough, nor so healing the heart at the bot-
tom, as it should. For God sometimes useth more imperfect kind of striv-
ings, even with his own children, about some particular sin they are to leave,
which do not so fully at first prevail and overcome in them ; which God
doth, to let them see the running issue of their natures, how grace would
run out at it, (as the Apostle speaks, Heb. ii. 1,) and overcome grace in them,
if he should let it alone : and so lets out upon his child, after many years,
some lust which had been long down, which puts him to it exceedingly, so
that he is in hazard to be undone, and is put into fears of it ; and yet God
visiteth his spirit by fits, and, per intervalla, at times strives with him. And
though he falls, yet he puts under his hand, and gives him well days, and
some comfortable visitations ; yet such as are not deep enough to work him
fully off from it. For as God strives with wicked men, so he sometimes
strives with his own also ; which may seem to be the true meaning of that
speech, Gen. vi., where, having mentioned the sin of his own children, ver.
2, that ' the sons of God took to them wives of that wicked seed of Cain,' he
says, ' My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is but
flesh.' He means not this of all mankind, for he says, he also is but flesh.
Now, with what other creatures doth he join them in this comparison but
with others of the sons of men 1 So as the meaning is, I see my children,
that they also are corrupt and degenerate, as well as the rest of mankind,
and my Spirit hath striven with them. In which striving God lets them see
how, if he did not in the end shew forth his free love to the full, in the res-
cuing of them and healing their backsliding, they would be undone. So as,
in the end, through his grace, which is sufficient, they obtain the greatest
conquest over that lust of any other ; when the heart is once thoroughly
awakened, and settled in a thorough peace. And as those doubts they were
most troubled with once — which though they had at times some light against,
yet by fits did stUl arise — are yet in the end so overcome as they arise no
more, but they enjoy the greatest freedom from them ; so is it often herein.
And these strivings to not overcoming I resemble to the thawings of the
ice in a great frost, as when in the daytime the sun shines, and in the sun-
shine it thaweth a little, but yet so as at night, or in the shade, it freezeth;
when sometimes also the weather begins to change for a night, and yet falls
a- freezing again : so here there is not such a thorough shedding abroad the
love of God in the heart as should make a thorough general thaw, to the
purpose, as we say; and so, when the heat of that is withdrawn, it freezeth
again ; but in the end there comes a more thorough and general thaw and
change, that carries all away, melts the heart, and so alters the temper and
constitution of the weather, as I may so speak, as it freezeth no more. And
such a thawing of his heart had David when Nathan came to him, and not
before ; though it may be he had those lesser relentings often before.
But let those that are in such a case take heed they be not hardened
through the deceitfulness of sin ; and of all the times that pass over you in
42s THE FOLLY OF RELAPSING. [PSALM LXXXV. 8.
your lives, these are the most climacterial and critical, and most dangerous.
For God will not always strive, but if thou beest his child, if such thawinga
will not do it, he will use some great afflictions, in the end to divorce the
heart and thy sin; his love will one way or other overcome thee, and in the
end prevail. As when Israel went on stubbornly in the way of his heart,
says God, ' I have seen his ways, and will heal him and guide him,' Isa. Ivii.
1 8 ; and the Lord may so heal thee as those lusts, of all other, shall not in
that gross manner break forth any more. And in those times when God
dealeth thus with him, a man will after say, that in such passages of his Me
he had more free love spent on him than in all his lifetime, before or after ;
and when he is freed and healed, he will be more thankful and fearful than
ever before, or than otherwise he would have been, and so get ground by his
stumblings. If any of you, being now in such a conflict as this, in such a
vicissitude and chance of war, if yet thou findest a constant fight against
thj sin, and that those breakings and meltings of thy heart by God do win
ground of it, and that the comforts and hope which at times are vouchsafed
do strengthen ' and stablish thy heart in well-doing,' as 2 Thess. ii. 1 7, and
make thee more fearful every time thou risest than ever, so as to look upon
another fit, if it should come, (which, knowing the deceitfulness of the heart,
thou fearest,) as the fit of some great sickness, lest it should return again;
esteeming it as the greatest cross that can befall thee, which thou wouldest
buy off with thy blood ; and bleedest most of all to think that thou hast so
unconstant a heart, which as it hath abused God's love formerly, so thou
fearest will do so again ; — if thus thou go on to fight it out, the love of God
will in the end overcome in thee. But if thou findest that those encourage-
ments from God do, through thy corruption, (which tunis God's grace into
wantonness.) nouri.sh thy lusts, and make thee less fearful against the next
time, and thy heart harder and secure, and to slight sin more, because thou
hast been so oft visited from on high, and pardoned; thy case is dangerous,
and may prove desperate.
Caution 6. — Though he may return, yet not presently : Luke v. 39, * He
that hath tasted old wine, doth not straightway drink and desire new ' — not
whilst the love of God, and the taste and relish of it, is fresh in his mouth.
WTien the impression is worn out indeed, and begins to be forgotten, then
haply he may return.
Use. — To conclude with the use of this point : If it be f<jliy to run into
the same sin, though we repent of it afterwards, then what folly is it in
them that utterly fall away, and after they have been enlightened, and
tasted of the good word of God, then fall again to the pleasures of sin, and
never repent of them 1 as many do that come and trj^ a little what is in re-
ligion and the ways of God, and then return again to their vomits, and never
return to piety again. ' Focli-sh souls, who hath bewitched you 1 Are ye so
foolish that, having begun in the Spirit, ye end in the flesh V as Gal. iiL 3.
Folly indeed, to spend the harvest of your time in seeking God, and then to
leave him when you are about to take leave of the pleasures of sin ! Alas,
poor souls ! whither will ye go ? Do jou ever think to have such a God
again 1 ' Thou hast the words of eternal life,' said the disciples to Christ ;
and as Saul said to his servants, to keep them from falling away unto David,
' Can the son of Jesse give you vineyards, and make you captains of thou-
sands 1' 1 Sam. xxii. 7 : so. Can the world give you that peace that I can
give you? (may 'Chri.st say to you :) yea, and heaven besides hereafter? Is
the devil, with all the wages of sin you post after, able to make you amends ?
You thereby dishonour God in returning to sin, and bring an evil report
Psalm LX XXV. y.] the folly of relapsing. 429
upon the good land, and discredit your master in changing your service ; but
withal you befool yourselves most, ' you return to folly.' For even that
which you think to gain the world's good word and opinion by, even that
you lose ; for though they make a spoil of you, and triumph in such, and
glory in their flesh a while, yet they never inwardly think well of such a
one, nor truly love him. A backslider is like lukewarm water, having been
once heated, which good men spue out, and evil men regard not ; for what
use can, indeed, be made of it? 'Like salt that hath lost its savour, it is
good for nothing but the dunghill.' Like one that hath been married, but
lives divorced, she is undone for her marriage ever after. Such is the condi-
tion of those that fall away. You who have but turned unto folly, and are
not grown to a despising and despiting God's ways, ' Return, O Shulamite,
return.' And you that have peace and communion with God, take heed you
do not losf him : you will never have such a God again.
THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH
IN
FiOPJIFICATION, OR PURGING OUT CORRUPTION;
AND
VIVIFICATION, OR BRINGING FORTH MORE FRUIT:
A TREATISE
HANDLING THIS CASE,
HOW TO DISCERN OUR GROWTH IN GRACE :' AFFORDING SOME
HELPS RIGHTLY TO JUDGE THEREOF,
RESOLVING SOME TESTATIONS, CLEARING SOME MISTAKES, ANSWERING
SOilE QUESTIONS, ABOUT SPIRITUAL GROWTH.
TOGETHER WITH
SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PARABLE OF THE VINE, JOHN' XV. 1, 2
* Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting
HOLINESS IN THE FEAR OF GOD.'— 2 COR. vii 1.
TO THE READER
This following treatise, The Trial of a Christian's Growth, was formerly
printed during the time of my absence out of my native country, and by
reason thereof had many imperfections and incongruities both in style and
matter ; which, now being again (through the good hand of God upon me)
returned, I have endeavoured to amend : so as, partly through some altera-
tion in the method and frame of it, partly bj' cutting off some redundancies,
I have reduced it to some better shape, and nearer proportion to its fellows.
The scope and way of handling this subject, growth, is not doctrinal so
much, nor yet hortatory, as either persuading to, or discoursing of a Chris-
tian's growth in general, concerning which much hath been already written
by others ; but the more proper aim of this is to resolve a case of conscience,
(like as those two other preceding tractates of mine have done,) namely this,
How to discern our groivth, and to answer more usual temptations about it.
And so these three treatises being of like sort and kind, and properly belong-
ing to that part of theology which we call case-divinity, I have therefore,
in this new edition of the whole, ordered to put them together, (which is all
the alteration I have made,) although in their firsx, and single publishing
some other came between.
If in the performance this falls short of many more raised experiments
of growth which are found in such as the apostle John calls fathers, elderly
Christians, who with Enoch have walked long with God ; yet I have hoped
that you that are young men, (as he also styles the middle sort of Christians,)
that you may find many things helpful to your right understanding and judging
of your growth, and which may free you from many mistakes in misjudging
thereof, and so consequently of many tentations about it, which that age of
believers are more peculiarly incident unto. I dare not say, ' I write these
things to you, fathers ;' I never presumed it in my thoughts. I myself wrote
and preached it when I was but young in years, and for the time far younger
in grace and experience. And I dare not (if the great Apostle, 2 Cor. x. 14,
would not) stretch myself beyond that measure which God hath distributed
VOL. ILL 2 £
434 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH.
to me : a measure which yet may reach you that are young men, though
more eminent grown Christians are gone far beyond the line of it.
The God of grace and peace grant us and all his children spirits endea-
vouring ' to speak the truth in love ' in these dividing times, ' that we may
grow up into him in all things, who is the head, even Christ,' Eph. iv. 15.
THO. GOODWIN.
AprU 26, 1643.
THE TEIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GEOWTH.
INTRODUCTIOK
SOME OBSERVATIONS PREMISED UPON THIS PARABLE OF THE VINE :
/ am, the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in m6
that beareth not fruit he taketh away : and every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. — John XV. 1, 2.
The sum and division of the words, and subject of this discourse.
A FAIR and fruitful parable this is, spread forth into many branches, in
which, under the pleasant shadow of a vine, (upon occasion they had but
newly been real partakers of his blood in the fruit of the vine,) Christ ele-
gantly sets forth himself in his relation to his visible church, and the estate
of his apostles, and in them of all visible professors to the end of the world ;
shewing withal, under that similitude, what his Father meant to do with
Judas, now gone out to betray him, as with all other unfruitful branches lik#
unto him ; even ' cut them off, and throw them into the fire : ' but, on the
contrary, encouraging them, and all other fruitful branches, that they should
still continue to abide in him, with promise that they should yet ' bring forth
more fruit.'
The parable hath three parts : —
1. A vine here is, of all the fairest, ver. 1.
2. A husbandman, of all the carefulest.
3. The end of planting this vine, fruitfidness.
1. First, this vine, as aU vines else, hath two sorts of branches : —
(1.) Such as, though green, bring forth no true fruit, nought but leaves.
(2.) Such as bring forth fruit, ver. 2.
2. The husbandman hath answerably offices of two sorts towards them
both : a'l^iiv, xadai^eiv, which is a witty paranomasia, amputare et j^utare, to
lop and cut off. First, clean to cut off those that are utterly unfruitful,
which thereupon are ' cast out, do wither, and are gathered and cast into the
fire;' so ver. 2, 6. And thus now he mennt to deal with Judas. But,
secondly, to purge and but lop off the luxuriancies and too much runnings
out of the fruitful branches into springs, which they are subject to.
3. Thirdly, his end in all is, that fruit, and more fruit, might be brought
forth. This is his end of planting this vine, this is the end of purging these
436 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [InTEOD.
branches of it, -which, he being frustrated of i-n those other is the cause why
he takes them clean away.
And to exhort these unto fruitfulness was one main end of Christ's using
this parable, and unto this tends all in the following verses, either as means
or motives unto fruitfulness.
First, as means —
(1.) He assures them of their being in the state of grace, ver. 3. Assur-
ance is a means of fruitfulness.
(2.) He speaks of purging them by his word in the same verse, ' Ye are
clean through the word I have spoken to you.' This is a means he farther
useth,
(3.) He inculcates into them the sense of their own inability ' to do any
thing without him,' ver. 5.
(4.) Therefore to ' abide in him,' and suck from him, ver. 5.
(5.) And to let his ' word abide in them,' by which himself * shall also
abide in them,' and by which they may still be purged, and so be fruitful.
The motives are —
(1.) If not, they know their doom; to the fire with them, ver. 6.
(2.) If they do, their prayers shall be granted, ver. 7.
(3.) Hereby his Father is glorified, ver. 8.
(4.) They shall shew themselves his disciples, ver. 8.
(5.) They shall continue in his love, who loves them as dearly as his
Father doth him, ver. 9, 10.
And so you have the sum of all this parable.
The principal subject I aim at in this scripture is this main case of con-
science, which useth to be the exercise and inquisition of many good souls,
How a Christian may discern his growth, both in purging out corruptions and
increase of grace, and the fruits of it.
Therefore whatever other spreading fruitful observations grow upon this
stock, and this vine afft^rds many, we will but shortly, and as men in haste,
view and take notice of, but as in our way to that other which I principally
intend, and only so far stay upon the observation of them as the bare open-
ing this similitude here used doth give sap and vigour to them.
First observation — How Christ is a vine, and only the true vine.
First, Christ, he is a vine. To explain this : — First, Adam indeed was a
vine, planted in paradise, to bear all mankind upon, but he turned ' a wild
one ; ' he proved not the true vine. God planted him (to allude to that,
Jer. ii. 21) ' a noble vine, a holy and right seed,' but he degenerated, and so
have all engrafFed on him, and so bring forth nothing but ' grapes of Sodom,'
as Isaiah speaks.
But, secondly, God the Father having many branches of chosen ones, that
grew by nature on this cursed stock of Adam, whom yet, as ver. 16, 'he had
ordained to bring forth fruit,' — that is, to spring and spread forth in the earth
in all ages, and then to be transplanted unto heaven, the paradise appointed
for them, the earth being but the nursery of them for a while, — hence there-
fore he did appoint his own Son to be a new root, as into whom he meant
to transplant them, and ordained him to be that bulk, and body, and chief
branch, which they all should grow out of, who is therefore called ' the Eoot
of David,' &c.. Rev. xxii. 16, and that ' righteous Branch,' Jer. xxiiL 5.
Whom, therefore, thirdly, he planted as a root here on earth with us, and
clothed with a human nature, a weak and mean bark and body, and a rind
and outside such as ours is, that so both root and branches might be of the
Introd.j the trial of a christian's growth. 437
same nature, and homogeneal. Which nature of ours in him he likewise
* filled with his Spirit,' as with juice and sap, ' without all measure,' that so
he might fructify and grow into all those branches appointed to be in liim,
by communicating the same Spirit to them.
And, fourthly, although he was of himself the fairest cedar that ever the
earth bare, yet in relation to those multitudes of branches he was to bear,
chooseth to be a vine, which is of all trees the lowest, the weakest, and of
the meanest bark and outside of any other ; only, because of all others it is
the plentifulest of branches, and runs out and spreads its bulk in branches,
and those, of all branches else of any other trees, the fruitfulest, it is there-
fore called 'the fruitful vine,' Ps. cxxviii. 3. And for that reason only doth
he single out this comparison as suiting with his scope, shewing therein his
love ; that as he condescended to the lowest condition for our salvation, so
to the meanest resemblances for our instruction, yet so as withal he tells us
that no vine nor all the vines on earth were worthy herein to be compared,
nor to be so much as resemblances of him.
For he, and he alone, is the true vine ; that is the second observation.
For take those choicest excellencies in a vine, for which the comparison
here is made, as, more particularly, that of fruitfulness either in boughs or
fruit, and it is but a shadow of that which is in him. As God only is / am,
that I am, and all things else have but the shadow of being, so Christ alone
hath only all the excellencies in him in the true real nature of all things to
which he is compared. So in like manner he is said to be ' bread indeed,'
John vL 55, and, ver. 32, ' the true bread from heaven.' Manna, and all
other meat, and all that sweetness which is in meat, is and was but a sha-
dow to that which he affords. He excels and exceeds all things he is com-
pared to in what they have, and they are but .shadows to him, Heb. x. 1.
First, therefore, never any vine so fruitful. ' All our fruit is found in
him,' Hos. xii. 8. ' If you abide in me, you shall bring forth much fruit.'
He hath juice to supply you with every grace, to ' fill you with all the fruits
of righteousness ; ' which if the branches want, it is for want of faith in them-
selves to draw from him, not want of sap in him.
Secondly, This he is at aU times, hath been in all ages, thus flourishing ;
this root never withers, is never dry or empty of sap; it is never winter with
Christ. ' Every branch,' saith the 2d verse, — that is, every one that hath
borne fruit in any age, — beareth all its fruit 'in him ;' branches in him fear
no drought, Jer. xvii. 8.
Thirdly, For largeness of spreading, no such vine as this. He, as the
Psalmist says, Ps. Ixxx. 11, 12, ' sends out his boughs unto the sea, and his
branches to the rivers;' all the earth is, or hath been, or shall be, filled with
them.
Use — Is to persuade us to take Christ alone, and make him our all in all,
because in him all excellencies are supereminently found. All creatures are
not enough to serve for comparisons to set him forth, and when they do in
part, for some particular thing that is the excellentest in them, yet therein
they are but shadows, Heb. x. 1. He only is the truth, he is ' the true light,'
John i. 9. The Baptist, Moses, and all lights else were but as twilight, but
a shadow. So he is ' the true bread,' ' the true vine ;' he hath really the sweet-
ness, the comfort, the excellencies of them all. The like may be said of all
those relations he hath taken on him ; so he only is a true father and hus-
band, &c., and the love and sweetness in aU other fathers and husbands are
but a shadow to what is in him.
438 THE TRIAL OF A CHEISTIAN's GKOWTH. [InTEOD.
Second observation — How the Father is the husbandman.
As Christ is thus a vine, so his Father is the husbandman, and as strange
a husbandman as Christ a vine. For —
Fi7'st, He is the very root of the vine itself, which no husbandman is to
any vine ; therefore he that is the vine calls the husbandman his Father, * My
Father is the husbandman.' Tlds vine springs out of his bosom by eternal
generation, for this is the derivation of our offspring, chap. xiv. 20, ' I am in
my Father, and you in me.' And, chap. v. 26, 'The Father, he hath life'
original ' in himself, and gives it to the Son,' and the Son to us, and thence
spring li\ing fruits, the fruits of righteousness.
Secondly, He is the engraffer and implanter of all the branches into this
vine. Isa. Is. 21, he calls them ' his righteous people, the branch of my
planting, the work of my hands.' Other husbandmen do but expect what
branches their vines wUl of themselves bring forth, but God appoints who,
and how many shall be the branches, and gives them unto, and engraffs them
into his Son.
Thirdly, He appoints what fruit and what store of fruit these branches
shall bring forth, and accordingly gives the increase, which other husband-
men cannot do : ' Paul may plant, and ApoUos may water, but God only
gives the increase,' 1 Cor. iii. 6. Though Christ merited, yet the Father de-
creed every man's measure of fruitfulness.
Fourthly, He is the most dUigent husbandman that ever was, for he
knows, and daily views, and takes notice of every branch, and of all their
fruit ; for, says the text, ' Every branch that brings not forth fruit, he takes
away,' &c., therefore knows who beareth fruit, and who doth not. He knows
their persons, who are his, and who are not, 2 Tim. ii 19 ; not so much
as one man could come in ' without a wedding garment,' but he spies him
out.
Fifthly, The most careful he is daily to purge his vine ; so says the 2d
verse. And of all possessions, saith Cato, nulla possessio majorem operam
requirit ; vineyards need as much care, and more, than any other. The
com, when it is sown, comes up, and grows alone, and ripeneth, and comes
to perfection, the husbandman sleeping and waking, he knows not how, saith
Christ ; but vines must be dressed, supported, sheltered, pruned, well-nigh
every day.
And of all trees God hath most care of his vines, and regards them more
than all the rest in the world.
Use 1 — Is to honour the Father in aU the works tending to our salvation,
as much as we honour the Son. If Christ be the vine, his Father means to
be the husbandman ; and indeed it may teach us to honour aU the three
Persons in every work that is saving, for in aU they bear a distinct office ;
the Father hath not only a hand in election, but also in .sanctification, concern-
ing which this parable was made. If Christ be the root that affords us sap,
■whence all fruit buds, the Father is the husbandman that watereth the vine,
gives the increase, purgeth the branches, and is the root of that life which
Christ affords to us ; and then the Sjjirit also comes in to have a work and
influence herein also : for he is the sap, though not here mentioned, yet
which is implied, which lies hid in this parable of the vine, and appears in
all the fruits that are brought forth, therefore called. Gal. v., ' fruits of the
Spirit.' None of the three Persons wiU be left out in any relation, or in any
work, that is for our salvation. That ever three so great Persons should have
a jomt care of our salvation and sanctification, and we ourselves neglect it !
Introd.] the trial of a christian's growth. 439
That they should be so careful, we so negligent and unfruitful ! If they do
all so much for us, what should not we endeavour to do for ourselves !
Use 2. — Be careful of your words, thoughts, ways, affections, desires, all
which are the fruits of your souls ; for God takes notice of all, he walks in
this his garden every day, and spies out how many raw, unripe, indigested
performances, as prayers, &c., hang on such or such a branch, what gum of
pride, what leaves, what luxuriant sprigs, what are rotten boughs and which
are sound, and goes up and down with his pruning-knife in his hand, and
cuts and slashes where he sees things amiss ; he turns up all your leaves,
sees what fruit is under, and deals with men accordingly.
Use 3. — When the church is in any distress or misery, go to him that is
the husbandman ; such is the usual condition of this his vine, spread over
the face of the earth. Complain as they, Ps. Ixxx. 12, ' Why hast thou
broken down her hedges, so as all they which pass by do pluck her 1 the
boar out of the wood doth waste it.' Complain to him that the hogs are in
his vineyard, and do much havoc and spoil therein ; and tell him that he
is the husbandman who should take care for it. So they go on to pray,
* Eeturn, we beseech thee, O God of hosts : look down from heaven, behold
and visit this vine, and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted,'
ver. 14, 15.
Third observation — Two soiis of branches in this vine, fruitful and unfruit-
ful : and the difference between temporary and true believers, as they are
laid down in the text.
We see this vine hath branches of two sorts, jfruitful and unfruitful, which
is the third thing to be observed.
And herein our Saviour followeth the similitude ; for experience shews the
like in vines. And writers of vines observe it, and accordingly distinguish.
the branches of vines into pampinarios, which bring forth nought but leaves,
and fructuarios, which bring forth fruit.
The unfruitful, they are such as make profession of being in Christ to
themselves and others, and receive some greenness from him, but no true
fruit. For their profession they are branches; for their emptiness, unfruitful
ones.
Quest. — The only question is. How such as prove unfruitful are said to be
branches, and to be in Christ ; ' Every branch in me,' &c.
Ans. 1. — Many comparisons there are of Christ, as he stands in various re-
lations to his church ; whereof some serve to express one thing concerning
him, some another. That of a vine here presents him only as he was to
spread himself into a visible church on earth, in the profession of him ; and
so considered, he may have many branches that are unfruitful. That other,
of * a head over all the family in heaven and earth,' imports his relation only
to that invisible company of his church mystical, which together make up
that general assembly spoken of in Heb. xii., which are his fulness, Eph. i.
23. And agreeable to this meaning — in comparing himself to a vine, in
this large and common relation of a root to both sorts of professors, true and
false — is that other expression also, whereby he sets forth his Father's office,
when he calls him, not afj^'irs'kov^'yci, a vine-dresser, or a tiller of a vineyard,
in a strict sense, as Luke xiii. 7, but yiuiyo;, as it were at large, the husband-
man. As thereby denoting out, not simjjly and alone that peculiar care that
he hath to true believers only, that are branches of this vine, though includ-
ing it, but withal importing that common care and providence which he bears
to others of his creatures; and this because some of these branches of this
440 THE TKIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [InTROD.
vine are to him but as others out of the church, and of no more reckoning
with him. The Father's relation herein answering to, and in a proportion
running parallel along with, that which Christ bears towards them : those
that Christ is head unto, those he is a father unto ; those whom Christ
is but as a vine unto, he is but yiM^yo;, a husbandman unto, whose office is
seen as well in cutting off such branches, as in pruning and dressing of those
other.
Alls. 2. — These unfruitful ones are not, in Christ's account, reckoned as
true branches here ; for, in the 5th verse, he calls those disciples of his that
were there and then present with him, (when now Judas was gone forth be-
fore, as appears chap. xiii. 30,) them only, the branches ; and therefore re-
peats it there again, ' I am the vine,' with this addition, 'ye are the branches.'
Implying hereby, that as he is the true vine, so that these only were the
true branches. The other he calls but ws pcA5)/Aa, as a branch, ver. 6, ' He
is cast forth as a branch,' giving them the name of branches, thereby the
better to express his father's dealing with such, that as they that are dressers
of a vineyard use to do with such branches, so my Father with them ; but
they themselves are but tanquams, quasi 2)almites, as hvanches — not really
and in truth such.
Ans. 3. — That expression which seems most to make for it is that in the
2d verse, when he says, ' Every branch in me that beareth not fruit ;' but
those words in me may as well, yea rather, be understood to have reference
to 'their not bringing forth fruit in him,' than to their being properly
branches in him : so as the meaning should be, they are ' branches that
bring not forth fruit in me.' Though they do some good, yet it is not fruit ;
if so, not in me, though from me, and from my assistance. And so his
meaning is not so much to declare that they are branches in him, as that
they bring not forth fruit in him, which indeed is one of the characteristical
differences between true and unsound branches, and one main scope of the
parable ; and this the Syriac translation makes for also, and confirms it :
Omnem palmitem qui in me non fert fructum, — 'Every branch which in me
bringeth not forth fruit.' And there is this reason that this should be his
meaning, that he never reckoned them at all true branches ; because that is
the difference God puts between these and those other, that ' those that
bring forth fruit his Father purgeth, that they may bring forth more fruit.'
He lets them not run so far out into sin as to become altogether unfruitful;
but these ' he takes away : ' so as true branches were never unfruitful.
Use. — The use is to stir up all that profess themselves to be in Christ to
examine whether they be true genuine branches of this true vine or no.
Here in this kingdom, Christ is spread forth into a fair and pleasant vine in
show, as this earth affords. But if we ministers were able, with this hus-
bandman here, to turn up the leaves of formal jijrofession, and look with his
eyes, we should discern that there are but a few true branches indeed to be
found in flourishing congregations, as Isaiah foretold there should be in
Israel : chap. xvii. 6, 'Like the gleaning grapes, two or three in the top of the
uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches.'
Now for a general help to discern whether you be true branches, consider,
that union with Christ is it that makes men branches ; that is, men are ac-
counted branches of Christ in regard of some union with him ; and such as
their union is, such also is their communion with him, and accordingly such
branches are they, and such their fruit.
1. Some, and indeed the most, are united to him but by the external tie
of the outward ordinances, such as their obligation made in baptism ; and
Introd.] the trial of a christian's growth. 441
are knit -to him thereby, no otherwise than many grafiEs are, that do not take
or thrive in their stocks, only stand there as bound about by a thread. And
suitable is their communion with him, even wholly external ; they continu-
ing to partake of the outward ordinances, but without any sap or inward in-
fluence derived, without any inward work of the Spirit, or stirring of affec-
tion. And answerable also is their fruit, when no other are found on them
but such as you shall find grow in the waste of the wilderness among hea-
thens, which ingenuity, and modesty, and natural honesty, and natural
conscience do bring forth ; but not any such as an inward sap from Christ
useth to produce. Civil men are not true branches ; for look on Christ, the
root, and see what fruits abounded in him most, as fruits of holiness did;
and therefore if such were true branches, the same would abound in them
likewise, for every tree brings forth according to its kind.
2. You have some, they living in the church, Christ begins to shoot some
sap of his Spirit into their hearts, quickening them with many good motions,
and stirring up some juiciness of afl'ections in the administration of the word
and sacraments, which causes them to bud forth into good inward purposes
and outward good beginnings ; but this being not the communication of the
Spirit, as sanctifying and changing the branch into the same nature with the
root, therefore it comes to pass they are still nipped in the bud, as the stony
ground was, and the sap stricken in again, like rath ripe fruit, which look-
ing forth upon a February sun, are nipped again with an April frost. Many,
when young, and their affections are green and tender, are wrought upon,
and bud, but the scoffs of men nip them, and their lusts draw the sap another
way, as hopes of preferment, and the pleasures of sin, and so these buds
wither and fall off, and the Spirit withdraws himself wholly in the root
again. Again —
3. Some there are, as the thorny ground, in whom this inward sap com-
municated to them, though not spiritually changing and renewing them, yet
being communicated in a further degree, abides in them longer, shoots up
farther, and these prove exceeding green branches, and are owned for true,
even by the people of God themselves, as Judas was by the apostles, and
therefore are outwardly like unto them ; for how else are they said to ' be
cast out?' ver. 16, who therefore had once some fruit to commend them, for
which they were accounted of by the people of God, and received amongst
them, ' who judge of trees by the fruit.' Neither are their fruits merely out-
ward, like Solomon's ' apples of gold, in pictures of silver,' merely painted ;
but they have a sap that puts a greenness into what they do, and by reason
of which they bear and bring forth ; for how else are they said ' to wither '
also t ver. 6, which is a decay of inward moisture and outward greenness.
And these also have some kind of union with Christ as with a Lord, 2 Pet.
ii. 1, he ' ascending to bestow gifts, even upon the rebellious also,' Ps. IxviiL
18, so far to enable them to do him some service in his vineyard. They are
not united unto Christ as unto an Head; neither is it 'the spirit of adop-
tion' which they do receive from him. And such a branch was Judas, who
was not only ovmed by the disciples, who knew him not to be false, but
who surely at the first had inward sap of gifts derived from Christ, to fit
him for the ministry, he being sent out as an apostle to preach; whom there-
fore Christ here aimed at in this place.
Now for a more particular differencing of these branches and their fruits,
it is not my scope to engraff a large commonplace head of all the differences
between temporaries and true believers upon this stock ; this root is not big
enough to bear them, those differences being many. Only I will explain
442 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [InTEOD.
those differences which the text affords, because they are in our way, and
will further open the words.
Difference 1. — That which they do bring forth is not true fruit; the Holy
Ghost vouchsafeth it not that name ; they are said here not to bring forth
fruit. That speech in Hos. x. 1 will give clear light to understand this,
with the ground of it also ; Israel is there called ' an empty vine, which
brings forth fruit to herself.' It implies a seeming contradiction that it
should be called an empty vine, and yet withal to bring forth any fruit.
And these bring forth, not leaves, good words only, but good works, good
actions, and those green ; and therefore, Jude 1 2, their fruit is said to wither,
as themselves are said to wither here, ver. 6. And as there Israel is said to
be an empty vine, though it hath fruit, so here these are said 'not to bring
forth fruit ' at all. Now the meaning of both is one and the same ; for a
thing is said to be empty when it wants that which is proper to it, and ought
to be in it, as weUs are called empty when they are not fuU of water, they are
fall of air : for non datur vacuum. So they are called an empty vine, and
these branches to have no fruit, because not such as ought to grow upon
them, such as is proper to the root they seem to grow upon. Therefore, in
Heb. vi 7, that epithet is added, ' meet herbs,' or fruit, — that is, such as
should grow there. So Luke iii. 8, they are to ' bring forth fruit worthy
amendment of life,' or else they were to be cut down, — that is, such as be-
came true repentants, as were answerable, suitable thereunto : as we say a
man carries himself worthy of his place, when answerably to what is re-
quired of him in it. That place forecited out of Hosea further acquaints us
with the true ground why their fruits, though green, which, chap. vi. 4, is
called goodness also, yet were not to be accounted meet fruit, and so not
fruit at aU ; even because of this, that it brought forth aU its fruit, whether
good or bad, to itself, — that is, those ends that did draw up the sap, and did
put it forth in fruit, were drawn but from themselves, they bring them not
forth principally to God, and for him. All their prayers, all their affections
in holy duties, if they examine the reason of them all, the ends that run in
them all, and whence all the motives that do actuate all they do in these,
they will find they are taken from themselves. And though the assistance
wherewith they are enabled to do what they do is more than their own, yet
their ends are no higher than themselves, and so they employ but that
assistance God gives them wholly for themselves. Now the end for which a
true branch brings forth fruit is, that God might be glorified. Thus, Rom.
vii. 4, when ' married to Christ,' they are said to ' bring forth fruit to God;'
which is spoken in opposition to bringing forth fruit to a man's self. Thus
also Christ here useth this as the great and main motive to fruitfulness in
ver. 8, ' Hereby is my Father glorified, that you bring forth much fruit.'
Now whom will this move ? into whose affections will such an argument draw
lap sap and quicken them ? None but those hearts who do make God's glory
their utmost end; and so aU true branches do, or else this motive should
have been used by Christ in vain unto them. And as this end makes their
performances to be fruit, so this being wanting, all that is brought forth
deserves not the name of fruit, for it is not fruit worthy, as the Baptist says,
not meet fruit for the dresser to receive, as was noted out of the Hebrews,
not such as ought to grow on that tree. They should be * trees of righteous-
ness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified,' Isa. Ixi. 3.
Again, not fruit meet or suitable for the root it seems to grow upon, — that
is, such as Christ did bring forth, for he did aU that his Father might be
glorified ; and therefore, says he, exhorting them to fruitfulness, ver. 8 of
InTEOD.] the TIIIAL OF A CHEISTIAN'S GROWTH. 443
this chapter, ' If you do likewise, ye shall be my disciples.' Again, otherwise
it is not such as is meet for the husbandman's taste and relish, it being equal
that ' he that planteth a vineyard should eat of the fruit of it,' 1 Cor. ix. 7.
And in fruit, you know, above all we regard the taste, and esteem the relish
of it. Eve first considered the ' fruit was good for food,' then ' pleasant to
the eye,' Gen. iii. It is not the sap that is in fruit only makes it acceptable ;
crabs are as fuU of sap as apples. Nor is it the greenness, or colour, or big-
ness, but the relish that is the chiefest excellency in it, though those other,
when joined with a good relish, do make it more desirable. So though thy
performances be full of life and afi"ection, and green, and long, and many,
yet if they relish and taste of none but self-ends, God regards them not, they
are not ad gustum suum ; it is the end that gives the relish, and makes them
fruits, and acceptable to God.
Difference 2. — The second difference this text holds forth is, that they
bring not forth their fniit in Christ ; for so the Syriac translation reads it,
as making the sense to be that ' they bring not forth fruit in me : ' and so
this particle in me referreth not so much to their being branches in him as
to not bearing their fruit in him. Which indeed seems to have been Christ's
meaning, for his scope in this parable is to shew how that he is the root of
sanctification ; and how not the habitual power only, but every act of grace,
and the performance, comes from him : ' Without me ye can do nothing,' ver.
5. And thereupon he exhorts his disciples to fetch all from him, and to
'abide in him;' and therefore, also, when he speaks of these unfi'uitful
branches at ver. 6, that which here he calls ' bearing not fruit in me,' he
expresses there by ' not abiding in me,' as the cause of their not bringing
forth fruit in him. Yea, and the principal scope of that phrase, ' Abide in
me,' is, (as evidently appears by ver. 4, 5,) to depend upon him for bring-
ing forth of fruit, and to fetch strength from him by faith. There is
therefore this essential defect in the work that is upon such, that they
do not do all in that dependence upon Christ, such a dependence as
a branch hath upon the root in bringing forth its fruit. For, my
brethren, this you must know, that as it is essential to evangelical
sanctification to do all for another, as your end, namely, to God; so to do
all in the strength of another as your sole assistant, namely, Christ, who
works all in you, and ' through whose strength,' saith Paul, ' I am able to
do all things,' and nothing without it. ' The life we lead is by faith,' and it
is ' not I, but Christ who lives in me.' Therefore we find both these joined,
PhU. i. 11, 'The fruits of righteousness by Jusus Christ, to the praise and
glory of God.' The latter, to the glory of God, is mentioned as the final
cause ; the other, by Jesus Christ, as the eOicieut cause. Both these are
necessary unto true sanctification. For as we are to honour tlie husband-
man by making him our end, so also the root, by doing ail in him and from
him. Now temporary believers, as they do all principally for themselves, so
also all as from themselves ; and as they do not make God their end, so nor
Christ their root. And so some expound that phrase in the parable of the
stony ground, Luke viii. 13, when it is said they ' have no root,' (though I
think he means also inherent habits of grace infused, for it is added, ' ud root
in theviselves," which Job calls the root of the matter which was in him,) it is
because they fetch not their strength to do all they do from Christ by iaith,
and from their union with him. And the reason is this, because they are
never emptied of themselves, which is the root we all do grow upon, either
in regard of their own ends or of their own efficiency of working. Whereas
we must all be brought to nothing in ourselves, both in regard of self-aims
444 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [InTROD.
and also abilities of working; and till our liearts are inwardly taught that
lesson, that ' we are not sufficient as of ourselves/ we will not go out of our-
selves to do all in Christ ] and therefore there was nothing which Christ
endeavoured more to engraff upon their hearts than this principle, now at
his departure, as it is ver. 4, 5. And indeed it is as hard a thing for nature to
live out of itself and fetch all from another, as not to live to itself but to
another. We are full of our o^ti strength as well as of our own ends. And
although these unfruitful branches they do indeed receive all their strength
from Christ, and so all they do in what is good is from him ; yet they do
not honour Christ in receiving it by doing all as in his strength, and so do
not do it as in him. But though they receive all, yet they work with it as
if it were their own stock, and so ' glory,' as the apostle says, ' as if they had
not received it.' And thus though the sap and liveliness which stirs them
is really and all efficiently from Christ, yet they may be said to bring forth
fruit in themselves, because both they neither fetch nor receive it by faith,
nor act by faith that strength received, as men that were acted by Christ,
and as working all in Christ ; but they do all as if all proceeded from their
own root. Even as the ivy, though it clasping about the oak receives much
sap from it, which it digesteth and turneth into itself, yet it brings forth all
its berries by virtue of its own root, rather than as in the oak, which yet
sustains and supplies it with juice and sap. Whereas a true believer brings
forth fruit in Christ, as a branch that is in and of the oak itself, as its own
root, and so ' from him all their fruit is found,' Hos. xiv. 8. He fetcheth
his assistance from him ; whereas the inward assistance of another unsound
branch is strengthened and supported by pride, and self-sufficiency of gifts
and parts, and not derived by faith, and mamtained by confidence in Christ's
strength to act all in them. So that, as it is said of the Corinthians, that
they ' reigned, but without us,' says Paul ; so I may say, temporaries per-
form duties, and pray, but as without Christ. But all true behevers are
emptied first of their own strength and ability, and so walk as those who can
* do nothing without Christ,' as those who are not able to love, believe one
moment more without him. So Phil. iv. 13, ' I am able to do all things,'
but ' through Christ that strengtheneth me.' And this they lay for a prin-
ciple in their hearts which they walk by, which therefore Christ presseth
upon his disciples here, as the main requisite and fundamental principle of
evangelical sanctification, ' Without me ye can do nothing.' And therefore
such a one is sensible of that cursed self-sufficiency in Mm, and hujnbleth
himself, checks himself for it, as for as great and foul a sin as any other;
and humbleth himself not only for the want of what life and stirring, &c.,
should have been in the duty fallen short of in performing it, but also for
that he sanctified not Christ in the strength he received to do it \^dth. But
another doth not so ; if he finds strength, and jDOwer, and vigour to perform,
and quickness in the perfoi-mance, he looks no farther. That poor man in
the gospel, as he acknowledged his want of faith, that he had much unbelief
in him, so he goes out to Christ for the supply, ' Lord, help my unbelief,'
for he knew that it was he was to be the worker of every degree of faith in
him. And again, a true believer being thus sensible of his own inability,
doth, when he is anj-thing assisted, attribute all to Christ when he hath done ;
and honours him as the author of it in himself ; confesseth in his heart, be-
tween Christ and himself, that it was not he, but Christ that strengthened
him. ' It is not I,' says the Apostle, ' but the grace of God in me, though I
have laboured more than they all.' But another, though he receives aU, yet
not being emptied of himself, ' boasteth as if he had not received it.' As the
Introd.] the tkial of a chkistian's growth. 445
Pharisee, though he thanked God in words, yet in his heart attributed all
to himsel£ Such a one is the more full and lift up when he hath done,
but the true branch more empty and humble. A true believer glories not
of himself as in himself, but only as he is 'a man in Christ;' and that as a
man in Christ, he did thus or thus : as Paul did, and no otherwise. So, 2
Cor. xii. 2, ' I knew a man in Christ,' &c. ' Of .such a man I will glory,
but of myself I will not glory.' And yet it was himself he spake of, but
yet not in himself as of himself, but as he was in Christ.
Quest. — And if it be asked, Whether in every act a Christian doth thus ? —
Ans. — I answer, it is in this as in that other parallel to this, the making
God a man'.s end. Now, as it doth not require that in every action a man
should actually think of that his end, whilst yet habitually he makes it his aim ;
— as a man in his journey doth not think of the place he goes to in every step
he takes, yet so habitually hath it in his thoughts as he keeps in the way to
it ; — parallel to tliis is it in doing all in Christ : it cannot be supposed that
in every act a man hath such a distinct thought of recourse to Christ ; but
at the beginning and entrance of greater actions, he still hath such actings
and exercise of faith ; and also often in the progress he reneweth them ; and
in the conclusion, when he hath performed them, he doth sanctify Christ in
his heart, by ascribing the praise of all unto him.
Quest. — If, in the second place, the question be. Whether every true be-
liever doth from his first conversion thus distinctly and knowingly to him-
self fetch thus aU power from Christ, and do aU in him 1 —
A71S. 1. — The answer is, that to all believers this principle of having re-
course to Christ for acting their sanctification may haply not presently be so
distinctly revealed as it hath been to some. This indeed is common and
absolutely necessary to all believers, to constitute and make them such, —
namely, that their faith should have recourse to Christ, and to take him for
their salvation, in the large and general notion of it, as it enfolds all under
it that is to be done to save them ; and thus many more ignorant do, when
yet they have not learned explicitly li every particular that concerneth
their salvation, to have frequently a distinct recourse unto him. It is pro-
bable that these very disciples of Christ, who yet savingly believed, had not
this particular principle of bringing forth aU their fruit of holiness in Christ
as their root, until this very time and sermon whereby Christ informed them
in it, so clearly revealed to them, nor till then so clearly apprehended by them.
For ignorant they were of, and negligent in having recourse to, Christ in
many other particulars, and making use of him therein, which are of as much
concernment as this. They had not so distinctly and explicitly, as woidd
seem, put their prayers up in Christ's name : ' Hitherto you have asked no-
thing in my name,' John xvi. 24. Neither had they so frequently exercised
faith on Christ in all things as they had upon God. Therefore, John xiv. 1,
he calls upon them, ' Ye believe in God, believe also in me.'
Ans. 2. — Many sorts of principles believers' hearts may secretly have been
taught, which also habitually they practise, and yet they may be exceeding
hidden and latent in them in respect of their own discerning them ; as was
the case also of these disciples. John xiv. 4, says Christ, ' The way,' namely,
to heaven, 'ye know;' and yet, ver. 5, Thomas says, 'How can we know
the wayl' and then, ver. 7, Christ says of them again, that 'they knew him
and the Father ; ' and yet, ver. 8, Philip again saith to him, ' Lord, shew us
the Father,' speaking as if they were ignorant of him, for Christ rebukes
him, ver. 9, and tells him he had ' both seen him and his Father.' Those
principles of atheism and unbeUetj — as those sayings in the heart, that there
44o THE TPJAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [InTROD.
is fio God, ikc, — of whicli the Scriptures speak so much, they are the prin-
ciples that act and work all in men that are wicked and carnal, and are the
encouragers and counsellors to all the sins committed by them; and yet they
are least of all discerned by them of all other corruptions, for they are sel-
dom or never drawn forth into distinct propositions, or actually thought
upon, but do lie as common principles taken for granted, and so do guide
men in their ways. And thus it is, and may be long, with some of the
contrary principles of faith ; they may act all secretly in the heart, and yet
not be discerned, until called forth by the ministry of the word, or some
distinct information, when it comes more distinctly to clear such a practice
to them.
A71S. 3. — Neither is union with Christ presently cleared up to all believers;
which, whilst it is darkly and doubtfully apprehended by them, Christ's
communication of his grace and strength to them in every action remains
doubtful also, and is not discerned by them. Of these disciples Christ says.
John xiv. 20, ' That in that day' — namely, when they received the Com-
forter more fully, of the promise of whom he there speaks — ' they should
know that they were in him, and he in them.' But not so clearly was this
as yet apprehended by them. And so likewise that intercourse betwixt
Christ and them, both for grace and comfort, &c., was not so clearly dis-
cerned by them, though continually maintained by him in dispensing all
grace and power to them.
Ans. 4. — And yet, in the meanwhile, take the lowest and poorest believer,
and he doth these five things, which put together is really and interpreta-
tively a bringing forth their fruit in Christ, though not in their apprehen-
sions : —
(1.) In that their hearts are trained up in a continual sensibleness of their
own insufficiency and inability for any good thought or word, as of them-
selves ; for ' poverty of spirit,' to see their own nothingness in this respect,
is the first evangelical grace, Matt. v. 3. And if the contrary would arise
in them, to think, through habitual grace alone received, they were able of
themselves to do good, it is checked soon, and confuted by their own expe-
rience, both of their own weakness, being sure to be left to themselves, as
Peter was when confident in his own strength ; as also by those various
* blowings of the Spirit' in them ' as he pleaseth,' vsdth which, when their
sails are filled, they are able to do anything, but when withdrawn they lay
wind-bound, though all habits of grace be hoist up and ready, and not
able to move of themselves. Now this principle of self-emptiness, habitu-
ally to live by it, no carnal heart in the world hath it, or doth live by it.
And—
(2.) For this assistance they are trained likewise up, from the first, to have a
continual dependence upon a power from above, without which they find they
are able to do nothing, to come from God and from the Spirit of Christ,
with a renunciation of themselves; which implicitly is the same with this
immediate intercourse with Christ, and is really equivalent thereunto,
though they hit not at first haply on the right explicit notion thereof, as
having not been taught it by the ministry of the word, or other ways, in that
distinct manner that others do. And yet in honouring the Spirit of Christ
dwelling in them, they honour Christ, who sends that Spirit into their hearts,
even as in ' honouring the Son ' Christ says that ' we honour the Father
also,' although our thoughts may sometimes more distinctly be exercised
towards one of the three Persons more than to another.
(3.) And, thirdly, when they are once taught from the word that it is the
InTROD.] the TIIIAL OF A CHRIdTIAN's GIIOWTH. 447
duty of a Christian, and part of the life of faith, to live thus in Christ, and to
bring forth all in hiin, and so come distinctly to apprehend this as requisite to
a right bringing forth of fruit, then their hearts instantly do use to close with
the truth of it, as being most suitable and agreeable to that holy frame of
their o^vn spirits, which are evangelically wrought to glorify Christ all manner
of ways that shall be revealed. There is an instinct, a preparedness in their
faith to make Christ their all in all, as any particular comes to be revealed
to them, wherein they ought to exalt him in their hearts ; and so this being
once revealed to be one way whereby they are to honour him, if they have
gone on before in a confidence on their own graces, ' henceforth they do so
no more;' yea, they humble themselves as much for so roblnng Christ of
glory, or neglecting of him, in not having had that distinct recourse to him,
as for any other sin. And —
(4.) Though haply after all this, yet still their union with him is not cleared
to them, and so their communion with him herein, as must needs, doth still
remain dark also. They therefore neither discern that they have any true
communion with his person, nor can say how strength comes from him ; yet
having been thus taught to fetch all from him, as was formerly explained,
they do, in a continual renunciation of their own strength, deny all offers of
assistance from any other strength, — as, namely, that which their gifts and
parts would make, — even as they deny unlawful lusts or by-ends, and they
BtUl have their eyes upon Christ to work in them both the ' will and the
deed ;' and so by a faith of recumbency, or casting themselves on him for
strength in all, such as they exercise towards him for justification, Gal. ii.
16, ' they live by faith on the Son of God,' and have thereby such a kind of
faith, a continual recourse unto him. Upon which acts of true fiiith being
exercised by them towards him, he, as he is pleased to dispense it, moves
them, and works and acts all in them, although stUl not so sensibly unto
their apprehensions as that they should discern the connexion between the
cause and the effect ; nor can they hang them together, that is to say, know
how or that this virtue doth come from Christ, because their union with him
is as yet doubtful to them, and also because the power that worketh in be-
lievers is secret, and like that of the heavens upon our bodies, which is as
strong as that of physic, &c., yet so sweet and so secretly insinuating itself
with the principles of nature, that as for the conveyance of it, it is insen-
sible, and hardly differenced from the other workings of the principles of
nature in us : and therefore the Apostle prayeth for the Ephesians, ' that
their eyes may be enlightened to see the power that wrought in them,' Eph.
i. 18, 19. Yet so as—
(5.) Their souls walk aU this while by these two principles firmly rooted
in them, both that aU good that is to be done must and doth come from
Christ, and hira alone ; and that if any good be done by them, it is wrought
by him alone, which do set their souls a-breathing after nothing more than
to ' know Christ in the power of his resurrection.' And having walked thus
in K self-emptiness and dependence upon Christ by way of a dark recum-
bency, when once their union with him comes to be cleared up unto them,
they then acknowledge, as they, Isa. xxvi. 1 2, that * he alone hath wrought
all their works in them ; ' that they are nothing, and have done nothing.
And though before this revelation of Christ, as Christ said to Peter, ' What
I do now «hou knowest not, but thou shalt know,' so they knew not then
that Christ had wrought all in them, yet then they know it ; and when they
do know and discern it, they acknowledge it with the greatest exaltation of
him, they having reserved, even during all that former time of their empti-
448 TflE XrJAL OF A CnRISTIANS GROWTH, [InTROD,
ness, the glory for him alone, staying, as Joab did for David,* till Christ
come more sensibly into their hearts, to set the crown of all upon his head.
This I thought good to add, to clear this point, lest any poor souls should
be stumbled.
Fourth observation. — In the m,ost fruitful branches there remain
corruptio7is unpurged out.
The fourth doctrine is. That in the most fruitful branches there remain
corruptions that still need purging out.
This is taken but as supposed in the text, and not so directly laid down,
and I shall handle it but so far as it makes way for what doth follow. What
shall I need to quote much Scripture for the proof of it ? Turn but to your
own hearts, the best will find proofs enough of it.
Reason 1. — That God might thereby the more set forth and clear unto us
his justifying grace by Christ's righteousness, and clear the truth of it to all
our hearts. When the Apostle, long after his first conversion, was in the
midst of that great and famous battle, chronicled in that 7th of Eomans,
wherein he was led ' captive to a law,' and an army of sin within him, ' war-
ring against the law of his mind,' presently upon that woful exclamation and
outcry there mentioned, ' O miserable man that I am,' &c., he falls admiring
the grace of justification through Christ, — they are his first words after the
battle ended, — ' Now,' says he, ' there is no condemnation to them that are in
Christ.' Mark that word now ; that now, after such bloody wounds and
gashes, there should yet be no condemnation, this exceedingly exalts this
grace ; for if ever, thought he, I was in danger of condemnation, it was upon
the rising and rebelling of these my corruptions, which, when they had car-
ried me captive, I might well have expected the sentence of condemnation
to have followed ; but I find, says he, that God still pardons me, and accepts
me as much as ever upon my returning to him, and therefore I do proclaim
with wonder to all the world, that God's justifying grace in Christ is exceed-
ing large and rich. And though there be many corruptions in those that
are in Christ, yet there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ, that
walk after the Spirit, though flesh be in them. And this at once both
clears our justification by Christ's righteousness alone, and also magnijles
and extols it.
It clears it ; therefore how doth this remaining of corruptions afford to our
divines that great demonstration against the Papists, that we are not justi-
fied by works, nor are those works perfect, which they so impudently affirm
against their own experience, even because corruption stains the best, and
' our best righteousness is but as a menstruous cloth.'
And as it clears it, so likewise it extols it ; for how is grace magnified,
whenas not only all the sins and debts a man brought to Christ to pardon at
first conversion are pardoned, but after many relapses of us, and provings
bankrupt, we are yet still set up again by free grace with a new stock ; and
though we still run upon new scores every day, yet that these should still be
paid, and there should be riches of love enough and stock enough, that is,
merit enough to hold out to pardon us, though we remained in this mixed
condition of sinning to eternity, this exceedingly advanceth the abounding of
this grace.
Reason 2. — It serves exceedingly to illustrate the grace of perseverance,
and the power of God therein ; for unto the power of God is our persever-
ance whoUy attributed. 1 Pet. i. 5, ' Ye are kept,' as with a garrison, as the
* Apparently referring to 2 Sam. xii. 28. — Ed.
Introd.J Tnii: trial of a curistian's growth. 419
word signifies, ' through the power of God unto salvation.' And were there
not a great and an apparent danger of miscarrying, such a mighty guard
needed not. There is nothing which puts us into any danger but our cor-
ruptions that still remain in us, which ' fight against the soul,' and endea-
vour to overcome and destroy us. Now, then, to be kept maugre all these,
to have grace maintained, a spark of grace in the midst of a sea of corrup-
tion, how doth this honour the power of God in keeping us ! As much in
regard of this our dependency on him in such a condition, as he would other-
wise be by our service, if it were perfect, and we wholly free from those
corruptions. How will the grace of God under the gospel triumph over
the grace given Adam in his innocency ; when Adam having his heart full
of inherent grace, and nothing inwardly in his nature to seduce him, and the
temptation that he had being but a matter of curiosity, and the pleasing his
wife, and yet he fell ; whenas many poor souls under the state of grace, that
have but mites of grace in comparison, and worlds of corruption, are yet kept
not only from the unnecessary pleasures of sin in time of prosperity, but
hold out against all the threats, all the cruelties of wicked persecutors in times
of persecution, which threaten to debar them of all the present good they
enjoy ! And though God's people are foiled often, yet that there should still
remain ' a seed within them,' 1 John iii. 9, this illustrates the grace of Christ
under the gospel. For one act in Adam expelled all grace out of him, when
yet his heart was full of nothing else. Were our hearts filled with grace
perfectly at first conversion, this power would not be seen. The angels are
kept with much less care, and charge, and power than we, because they have
no bias, no ' weight of sm,' as the Apostle speaks, hung upon them to draw
them aside and press them down, as we have.
Reason 3. — Neither would the confusion of the devil in the end be so
great, and the victory so glorious, if all sin at first conversion were expelled.
For by this means the devil hath in his assaults against us the more advan^
tages, fair play, as I may so speak, fair hopes of overcoming, having a great
faction in us, as ready to sin as he is greedy to tempt ; and yet God strongly
carries on his own work begun, though slowly, and by degrees, backeth and
maintains a small party of grace within us to his confusion. That as in
God's outward government towards his church here on earth, he suffers a
great party, and the greater still by far, to be against his church, and yet
upholds it, and ' rules amongst the midst of his enemies,' Ps. ex. 2, so doth
he also in every particular believer's heart. When grace shall be in us but
as a spark, and corruptions as much smoke and moisture damping it, grace
but as a candle, and that in the socket, among huge and many winds, then
* to bring judgment forth to victory,' that is a victory indeed.
Reason 4. — Lastly, as God doth it to advance his own grace, and confound
the devil, so for hcly ends that concern the saints themselves ; as —
(1.) To keep them from spiritual pride. He trusted the angels that fell
with a full and complete stock of grace at first, and they, though raised up
from nothing a few days before, fell into such an admiration of themselves
that heaven could not hold them, — it was not a place good enough for them :
' They left,' the text says, ' their own habitation and first estate,' Jude 6.
' Pride was the condemnation of the devil,' 1 Tim. iii. 6. But how much
more would this have been an occasion of pride to a soul that was full of
nothing but sin the other day, to be made penect presently ? Perfectly to
justify us the first day by the righteousness of another, there is no danger in
that, for it is a righteousness without us, and which we cannot so easily
boast of vainly ; for that faith that apprehends it empties us first of our-
VOL. UL 2 F
450 THE TRIAL OF A CnRISTIAX's GROWTH. [InTROD.
selves, and goes out to another for it. But sanctification being a work
wrought in us, we are apt to dote on that, as too much upon excellency iu
ourselves. How much ado have poor believers to keep their hearts off from
doting upon their own righteousness, and from poring on it, when it is, God
wot, a very little ! They must therefore have something within them to
pull down their sjjirits, that when they look on their feathers they may look
on their feet, which, Christ says, are still defiled, John xiii. 10.
(2.) However, if there were no such danger of spiritual pride upon so
sudden a rise, — as indeed it befalls not infants, nor such souls as die as soou
as regenerated, as that good thief, — yet, however, God thinks it meet to use
it as a means to humble his people this way; even as God left the Canaan-
ites in the land to vex the Israelites, and to humble them. And to have
been throughly humbled for sin here will do the saints no hurt against they
come to heaven ; it wt.11 keep them nothing for ever, in their own eyes, even
when they are filled brimful of grace and glory. For —
[1.] Nothing humbles so as sin. This made him cry out, * O miserable
man that I am ! ' He that never flinched for outward crosses, never thought
himself miserable for any of them, but ' gloried in them,' 2 Cor. xiL 10,
when he came to be ' led captive by sin ' remaining in him, cries out, ' O
miserable man !' And —
[2.] It is not the sins of a fore-past unregenerate estate that will be enough
to do this throughly; for they miglit be looked upon as past and gone,
and some ways be an occasion of making the grace after conversion the more
glorious. But present sense humbleth most kindly, most deeply, because it
is fresh ; and therefore says Paul, ' O miserable man that / am ! ' And
again, we are not able to know the depth and height of corruptions at once,
therefore we are to know it by degTees. And therefore it is still left in us,
that after we have a spiritual eye given us, we might experimentally gauge it
to the bottom, and be experimentally still humbled for sin. And experi-
mental humbling is the most kindly, as pity out of experience is. And —
[3.] God would have us humbled by seeing our dependence upon him for
inherent grace. And how soon are we apt to forget we have received it,
and that in our natures no good dwells ! We would not remember that our
nature were a step-mother to grace, and a natural mother to lusts, but that
we see weeds still grow naturally of themselves. And —
[4.] God would have us not only humbled by such our dependence on
him, but by a sense of our continual obnoxiousness to him, and of being in
his lurch; and therefore leaves corruption still, that we might ever acknow-
ledge that our necks do even lie on the block, and that he may chop them
off; and to see that ' in hbn we' should not only ' live and move' as crea-
tures, but further, that by him we might justly be destroyed ever}' moment,
this humbles the creature indeed, Ezek xxxvi. 31, 32.
(3.) As thus to humble them, so that they might have occasion to deny
themselves; which to do is more acceptable to God than much more service
without it, and therefore the great promise of ' having a hundred-fold ' is
made to that grace. It was the great grace which of all other Christ exer-
cised. Now, if we had no corruption to entice and seduce us, what oppor-
tunities were there for us thus of denying ourselves? Christ indeed had an
infinite deal of glory to lay down, not so we. Unless there be a self in us to
solicit us, and another self to deny those solicitations, we should have no
occasions of self-denial or the exercise of any such grace. Therefore Adam
waa not capable of any such grace, because he had no corruption to seduce him-
Intuop.J thp: trial of a christian's growth. 451
And therefore a little grace in us, denying a great deal of corruption, is in that
respect, for so mucli as is of it, more acceptable than his obedience. Though
we have less grace, yet in this respect of a higher kind in the exercises of it.
Use 1. — To be meek and charitable to those who fall into sin, as knowing
corruption is not fully yet purged out of thyself. This is the Apostle's ad-
monition upon this ground, Gal. vi. 1, ' If a man be overtaken in a fault,' —
he speaks indefinitely, that any man may, — if it be but an overtaking, not a
Binning wilfully and obstinately, but a falling by occasion, through rashness,
suddenness, and violence of tenii>tation, &c. ; ' ye which are spiritual, restore
such a man with the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also
be tempted.' He would have every man be meek in his censure, and in his
reproof of such a one, and restore him, and 'put him in joint again,' as the
word signifies : for still he may be united to Christ, as a bone out of joint
is to the body, though for the time rendered thereby unuseful. And do this,
says he, with tenderness and pity, ' with the spirit of meekness,' which a man
wdl not do unless he be sensible of his own frailty and subjection to cor-
ruption, unless he reflects on himself, and that seriously too. Considering,
saith the Apostle there, as implying more than a slight thought, — I may
chance to fall also; but the seeing and weighing what matter of falling there
is in thine own heart, if God but leave thee to thyself a little while ; this
works a spirit of meekness towards such a one. For meekness and pity is
most kindly when we are sensible of the like in ourselves, and make it our
own case. And this he speaks to the most spiritual Christians ; not to those
who are as yet but as carnal, as he speaketh of the Corinthians, Christians
newly converted, who — finding their corruptions at the first stounded with
that first blow of mortification given them, and though but in part killed,
yet wholly in a manner for a while laid asleep, and having not as yet, after
their late conversion, had a fresh experience of the dangers and temptations
a man after conversion in his progress is subject to — are therefore apt to
imagine they shall continue free from assaults, and think not that their lusts
will get up again, and so are prone to be more censorious of the falls
of others. But you, who are more spiritual, to you I speak, says the
Apostle, for you are most meekened with a sense of your own weakness;
and even you, says he, if you ' consider yourselves,' and what you are in your--
selves, have cause to think that ' you also may be tempted.'
Use 2. — Never set thyself any stint or measure of mortification, for still
thou hast matter to purge out. Thou must never be out of physic all thy life.
Say not, Now I have grace enough, and health enough ; but as that great
Apostle, ' Not as if I had as yet attained,' for indeed thou hast not ; still
' press forward ' to have more virtue from Christ. If thou hast prevailed
against the outward act, rest not, but get the rising of the lust mortified, and
that rolHng of it in thy fancy; get thy heart deaded towards it also; and
rest not there, but get to hate it, and the thought of it. The ' body of death,'
it must not only be ' crucified with Christ,' but ' buried ' also, and so rot, Kom.
vi. 4, 6 ; it is ' crucified to be destroyed,' says the Apostle there, — that is, to
moulder away more and more, after its first death-wound.
Fifth observation — That branches that have brought forth true fruit, God
takes them not away.
The fifth doctrine is, That those who are true branches, and bring forth
any true fruit pleasing to God, though they have many corruptions in them,
yet God takes them not away, cuts them not off. The opposition implies
452 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [InTEOD.
this, he speaks of ' taking away ' the other ; not so of these, but ' purgeth
them.' It is an elegant paranomasia, a-'r^n, xaOaleBi, which the Holy Ghost
here useth.
For an instance to prove this, M'herein I will also keep to the metaphor
here used, I take that place, Isa. xxvii., where this his care of fruitful
branches, with the very same difference put between his deahng with them
and the unfruitful that is here, is elegantly expressed to us. God profes-geth
himself the keeper of a vineyard, his church, ver. 2, 3, ' I the Lord do keep
it;' and, ver. 6, ' He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root; Israel
shall blossom and bud, and fill the earth with fruit.' But Israel having cor-
ruption in him which would hinder his growth, he must be lopped and cut.
And so, in the next verses, God is said to deal with him ; but not so as to
cut them off, as he doth others that are both his and their enemies. * Hath
he smitten them as he smote those that smote him?' No. For 'in mea-
sure when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it.' When Israel is but
a tender plant, and first shooteth forth, he doth but in measure debate with
it, that is, in such a projiortion as not to destroy it, or cause it to wither;
but that it may blossom more, he measures out, as it were, afflictions to
them, but ' staj's his rough wind,' as it follows, that is, such afflictions as
Would shake that his plant too much, or quite blow it down; but such a
wind as shall make it fruitful, and blow away its unkindly blossoms and
leaves, .so much, and no more, wUl he let out of lus treasur}', even he who
holds the winds in his fists, and can moderate them as he pleaseth. For hia
scope and purpose is nothing less than to cut ofi" Jacob, both root and branch,
because of corruptions and sins that do cleave to him. ' But this is aU the
fruit to take away the sin,' says he, ver. 9, — that is, this is the fruit of that
wind, and of all these his dealings with them ; and it is all the firuit, — that
is, all that he mtends thereby, even to purge them.
But doth he deal so with others ? No ; for ' the boughs of the most
fenced city wdther, and are broken off and burned,' ver. 10, 11.
Reason 1. — First, because in Christ God accepts a little good, and it
pleaseth him more than sin in his doth displease him. And therefore, as in
nations he will not destroy the righteous with the wdcked, so nor in men
will he cast away their righteousness that is in them for a little wickedness'
sake, but will rather purge out the one, and so preserve the other. This we
have expressed under the same metaphor, Isa. Ixv. 8, we have in hand : ' Thus
saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith. Destroy
it not, for a blessing is in it ;' — that is, look as when a man is about to cut
down a vine, and his axe is even at the root of it, and one standing by spies
a cluster upon it that hath new w^ine in it, (which also argues there is sap
still in the roots, which may yet bring forth more,) Oh, says he, destroy it
not : even so says God of nations and men that fear him, of nations where
he hath many holy ones. So there it follows, ' So will I do ' with Israel,
'for my servants' sake I wiU not destroy them all :' so it follows there; and
thus he likewise says of particular men. There is a blessed work in such a
man's heart, though mingled with much corruption, ' Oh, destroy it not.'
Take away the sin if possible, but cut not off the man. Why should his
grace perish with his wickedness 1 Eveiy dram of grace is precious ; it cost
the blood of Christ, and he will not suffer it to be destroyed.
Reason 2. — Because he hath ordained that all the fruits of his children
should remain, John xv, IG. Now, if they should be cut off", their fruit would
wither, their work must perish with them. Now, no man's work shall ' prove
in vain in the Lord,' 1 Cor. xv. 5S. But though the world, and all works
Introd.] the trial of a christian's growth. 4:»3
and lust3 of tlie world, will, with their makers, come to nothing, ' yet he that
doth the will of God endureth for ever,' 1 John ii. 17. As the works of
Christ in himself are eternal, so his works in us are eternal also, because they
are the fruits of what he did : ' He that soweth liberally, and gives to the
poor, his righteousness remains for ever.'
Reason 3. — Becaiuge he loves the person, and hates only the sin; therefore
he preserves the one, destroys only the other. ' This is all the fruit, to take
away the sin.' Thus, Ps. xcLx. 8, ' He forgave the persons, and took ven-
geance only on their inventions.' The covenant that is made with us in
Christ is not a covenant made with works, but with persons ; and there-
fore, though the works be often hateful, yet he goes on to love the i)ersons ;
and that he may continue to love them, destroys out of them what he hates,
but cutteth not them off. A member that is leprous or ulcerous, a man loves
it as it is 'his own flesh,' Eph. v. 29, though he loathes the corruption a/id
putrefaction that is in it ; and therefore he doth not presently cut it oflF, but
purgeth it daily, lays plasters to it to eat the corruption out : whereas a wart
or a wen that grows to a man's body, a man gets it cut off, for he doth not
reckon it as his flesh.
Reason 4. — Therein God shews his skill, that he is able to deal with a
branch which hath much corruption in it, so artificially as to sever the cor-
ruption, and let the branch stand still. Utterly to cut down, and make
spoil of all, there is no great skill required to it ; but to lop the branches in
the right place, and due time and season, so as they may become fruitful,
this is from the skill of the husbandman. Come to unskilful surgeons with
a sore log or arm, and they seeing it past their skill, they talk of nothing
but cutting it off, and tell you it is so far gone that there is no way else ;
but come to one that is slalful indeed, that discerns it is not so perished
but it may be cured, and he will tiy" his art upon it. And so doth God
with branches and members that have much corruption in them : he tries his
skill upon them, makes a great cure of a leg or an arm where he discerns
some sound flesh, though much corrupted ; he can cut out the dead flesh,
and let the sound remain, and so makes it whole in the end.
Use 1. — Of comfort to those who are true branches, and continue to bring
forth fruit in the midst of all the trials that befall them, that God will not
suffer them to be cut off by their corruption. K anything in them should
provoke God to do it, it must be sin. Now for that, you see how Christ
promiseth that God wUl take order therewith, and will purge it out of them.
In Ps. Ixxxix. 28-30, this is the covenant made with David, (as he was a
type of Christ, with whom the same covenant is made sure and firm.) that
' if his seed forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments,' — What ! presently
turn them out of doors, and cut them off, as those he meant no more to have
to do with ? "What ! nothing but utter rejection ] Is there no means of re-
'"laiming them 1 Never a rod in the house ? Yes, — ' then will I visit their
transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes,' whip out their
stubbornness and sinfulness ; ' but my loving- kindness will I not take from
him' as I did from Saul, as it is 1 Chron. xvii 13.
Let the saints consider this, that they may return when they are fallen^
and submit to him and his nature, and suffer him to do what he will with
them, and endure cutting, and lancing, and burning, so long as he cuts them
not off; endure chastening, and all his dealings else, knowing that aU the
fruit is but to take away the sin, to make them ' partakers of his holiness ;'
and 'if by any means,' as Paul speaks of himself, as Phil, ui 11, be the
means what it will, it is no matter. And God, if at any time he seems to
454 THE TRIAL OP A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [InTROD.
cut thee off, yet it is but as the incestuous Corinthian was cut oflf, that * the
flesh might be destroyed, and the spirit saved.'
TJ&e 2. — Of encouragement to go on still to bring forth more fruit to God.
For if you do, God wUl not cut you off; ' he will spare you as a man spares
his son that serves him ;' he will not take advantage at every fault to cast
one off. It was his own law, Deut. xx. 19, that such trees as brought forth
fruit fit for meat, they should not destroy when they came into an enemy's
country. * Doth God take care of trees V No, it was to teach us that if we
bring forth fruit, he will not destroy us, if it be fruit indeed fit for meat.
Oaks bring forth apples, such as they are, and acorns, but they are not fit
for meat ; such trees they might cut down. So, if thou bring not forth such
fruit as is for God's taste and relish, wherein thou sanctifiest not God and
Christ in thy heart, thou mayest and wilt be cut down, but else not. If thou
beest betrothed to Christ, and he hath begotten children on thee, fear not a
bill of divorce, he will not lightly cast thee off. And it is a good argument
to use to him, desire him to spare thee by all the children he hath begotten
on thee. Children increase love between man and wife ; so between Christ
and us.
Sixth observation — That unfruitful branches God in the end cuts off, and the
several degrees whereby he cuts off professors that are unfruitful.
That unfruitful branches God in the end takes away, — as he did Judas, who
was here especially aimed at, — for proof take Ps. cxxv. It is a psalm made
of purpose to shew the different estate of the professors of religion. Those
that are ' upright,' ver. 4, he saith, God will continue to do them good, and
* they shall be as Mount Zion,' and all the gates of hell shall not be able to
remove one of these mountains. But because there are many that like
planets go the same course with the other orbs, and yet have some secret
byway besides of their own, of these he says, ' Those that turn aside into
crooked ways, God will lead them forth with the workers of iniquity,' — that
is, in the end he will discover them to *be what they are. And though they
go amongst the drove of professors like sheep, yet God will detect them,
either in this life or in the life to come, to be goats. Though they did not
•seem to be workers of iniquity, yet God will lead them forth with them.
Reasons why God dealeth thus with them: —
Reason 1. — Because they dishonour the root which they profess them-
selves to be graffed into. They profess themselves to be in Christ. Now, he
is a fruitful root, full of sap, and for any to be unfruitful in him is a dis-
honour to him. When you see unfruitful branches upon a tree, you blame
the root for it ; so doth the world blame the grace of Christ, the profession
of Christ, yea, even the root itself, for the unfruitfulness of the branches.
Therefore, that they may dishonour the root no more, he takes them away,
cuts them off from that root they seemed to stand in, and then they run out
into all manner of wickedness.
Reason 2. — Because the husbandman hath no profit by them : Heb. vi. 8,
* The ground that bringeth forth thorns, and not fruit meet for him that
dresseth it, is nigh to cursing.' In the 8th of the Canticles it is said,
* Solomon had a vineyard, and he let it out to keepers,' &c. He speaks this
of Christ, of whom Solomon was a type, and of his church ; and his compari-
son stands thus : Solomon being a king, and having many vineyards for his
royalty, — for the riches of ancient kings lay much in husbandry, — he let
them out to vine-dressers, and they had some gain by them ; but ' Solomon
must have a thousand,' and they ' but two hundred;' the cliief gain was to
Introd.] the trial of a curistian'c) growth. 455
come to Solomon. So the vineyard that God had planted here below, he
lets it out to men, and they shall have some profit by it, you shall all have
wages for the work you do, yet so as the chief gain must return to God ; he
must have a thousand for your two hundred. But when men will have all
the gains that is in what they do, set up their own ends only, and the hus-
bandman shall have none, such branches he takes away, because they are not
for his profit, for it is made a rule of equity, 1 Cor. ix. 7, ' that he that
planteth a vineyard should eat of the fruit of it.'
Reason 3. — Because of all trees a vine is good for nothing else but to
bring forth fruit, as we see it expressed to us, Ezek. xv, 4 ; it is good for
nothing but the fire when it becomes unfruitful. Other trees are good for
building, to make pins of, but not the vine. And this similitude God chose
out to shew, that of all trees else, professors, if unfruitful, are good for
nothing ; their end is to be burned.
Now if you ask, How God taketh them away ? the degrees he doth it by
are set down here, ver. 6, ' If a man abide not in me,' (fee, — that is, fall away,
— then, 1. They Bxe cast out ; and, 2. They wither ; 3. They diXQ gathered ;
4. They are burned.
1. They are cast forth, — that is, out of the hearts of God's people, out of
their company, out of their prayers, yea, and out of their society by excom-
munication often ; and many times they cast out themselves, being given up
to such errors as discover them to be unsound. As Hymenseus and Philetus,
they were forward professors, so that their fall was like to have shaken many
of the fruitful branches, insomuch that the apostle was fain to make an apo-
logy about their fall : ' Nevertheless the foundation of God remains sure,'
2 Tim. ii. 19. God gave them up to such opinions and heresies as dis-
covered their hearts to be rotten and unsound. So also he gives these carnal
professors up to such sins as will discover them. This was the case of Cain ;
he brought forth some fruit, for he sacrificed ; yet because not in sincerity,
he envied his brother, and was given up to murder his brother, upon which it
is said that * he was cast out of the sight of the Lord,' Gen. iv. 16, — that is,
cast out of his father's family, and from the ordinances of God there enjoyed,
and made a vagabond upon the face of the whole earth, which of all curses
is the greatest. Or else, as was said, they of their own accord ' forsake the
assembly of the saints.' The Apostle makes this a step to the sin against the
Holy Ghost, Heb. x. 25. He saith, that when men forsake the assemblies
and company of the people of God, public and private, and love not to
quicken and stir up one another, or begin to be shy of those they once ac-
companied, they are in a nigh degree to that which follows in the next verse,
' to sin wilfully after they have received the knowledge of the truth.'
2. Being thus cast forth, they wither, — that is, the sap of abilities which
they once had begins to decay ; that life in holy duties and in holy speeches
begins to be withdrawn, and their leaves begin to fall off; they cannot pray
nor speak of holy things as they were wont. Thus it is said of such professors,
Jude 1 2, that ' their fruit withereth,' even here in the eyes of men ; for
when God casteth them out, then he withdraws his Spirit from them ; and
then, although they come to the ordinances, yet they have no breathings.
They come to prayer, and the Spirit of God is departed; and so by degrees
God withdraws sap from them till they be quite dead. Thus he dealt with
Saul ; when he had discovered himself by sparing the Amalekites and by
persecutmg David, it is said, ' the Spirit of God departed from him,' and he
withered ever after, all his gifts vanished, and the spirit or frame of heart he
once had departed from him. So likewise they that had not * gained by their
456 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [INTEOD.
talents,' ^latt. xxv. 26, their ' talents were taken from them,' even in this
life, and the Spirit of God, which rested upon them, rested upon some other
that were more faithful.
3. Lying long unfruitful, in the end it is said they are gathered. Our
translation hath it, ' men gather them,' which either respects a punishment
in this life, that when they are cast out from the society of God's people,
wicked men gather them, they fall to those that are naught. Popish per-
sons or profane atheists take them, as the Pharisees did Judas, when he cast
himself out of the society of the apostles. Or else it may in a metaphor
refer to the life to come ; the angels, they are the reapers, they * gather them
In the last day,' and bind them in bundles for the fire.
4. So, lastly, it is said, they are cast into the fire, and they burn. A
man would think he needed not to have added that, for being cast into the
fire they must needs bum ; but his meaning is, that of all other they make
the fiercest, hottest fire, because they are trees most seared, and ' fuel fully
dry,' as the prophet speaks.
Use. — You, then, that profess the name of Christ, take heed that you
be fruitful branches indeed. I say to you, as the Apostle saith, Rom. xi. 1 9,
20, ' Because of unbelief they were broken off • thou standest by faith. Be not
high-minded, but fear.' Take heed that it be fruit that you bring forth : do
all for God, make him your end in all, bring forth more fruit every day, let
your fruit be riper and more spiritual daily, labour to spread and root your-
selves as much downward in inward holiness as you do upward in outward
profession, and purge yourselves continually, lest that which is threatened
here befall you, which are fearful things to be spoken, and yet concern many
a soul. The Apostle compares such to ' trees twice dead, and plucked up
by the roots.' You were born dead in Adam ; since that you have had per-
haps some union with Christ by common graces ; if you wither again, then
you are ' twice dead,' and therefore fit for nothing but to be stubbed up and
cast into the fire. And if any soul begin to forsake the assemblies of the
saints, or be cast out from them, let him look to himself lest he wither in
the end, and be twice dead, and so he never come to have life put into him
again ; that is, repent and return again. And know this, that if you, being
cast out by the church and people of God, break your hearts, so that you
mourn for your sin, as the incestuous Corinthian did, it is a sign you are
such branches as God will yet make fruitful ; but if, being cast out, you
begin to wither, as here, the end will be burning
Chap. L] the trial of a christian's growxh. 457
PART I.
OP GROWTH IN ViriFICATION, AND BRINGING FORTH MORE FRUIT.
He puvgeih it, that it mav bring forth more fruit. — John XY. 2.
CHAPTER L
That all ti'ue branches in Christ do grow.
Grotvth in grace is the main thing held forth unto us in these words ; and
therefore I make it the chief subject of this discourse.
Now as in the work of sanctification at first there are two parts, mortifi-
cation and vivification, so our progress in that work hath two parts also apart
to be considered, and both here in the text : —
1. A growth in mortification, or purging out of sin : * He purgeth it.'
2. A positive growth in holiness, and all the fruits of it : ' That it may
bring forth more fruit.'
And my purpose is accordingly to treat of these two distinctly and apart
by themselves. And although purging out of sin is here first mentioned, yet
our growth in fruitfulness shall have the first place in the method of handling
of them ; both because growth in positive holiness, and bringing forth more
fruit, is the end and perfection of the other, and so chiefly intended ; the
other but subserving unto this, and is accordingly made mention of here by
Christ, * He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.'
Now, in handling this first head, I shall do three things : —
First, In general, shew that all true branches do grow in grace and fruit-
fulness, and the reasons of it.
Secondly, Propound such considerations by way of explication as may
conduce to satisfy the tentations of such Christians as discern not their
growth herein.
Thirdly, Explicate more largely, by way of trial, what it is to bring forth
more fruit, thereby further to help believers to discern and judge aright of it.
My scope in this discourse being not so much to give means or motives
unto growth as helps to judge of and try our growth, and prevent such mis-
takes herein as Christians are apt to fall into.
First, In general, to demonstrate that all true believers do grow more or
less in fruitfulness. I shall give both proofs and reasons of it.
For proofs out of Scripture, those two places, Hos. xiv. 5 compared with
Psalm xcii., where the Holy Ghost singleth out the choicest trees and
flowers in the world on purpose to express the saints' fruitfulness, and their
growth therein, will suflBce,
458 THE TEIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT I.
As, first, to sliew the sudden springing up of the new creature, as it falls
out upon some men's conversions, or upon the saints' recovery again after
falls, he compares them to the lily, Hos. xiv. 5, whose stalk, though long
hid in the earth, when once it begins to feel the dew, grows up oftentimes
in a night. But yet a lily is but a flower, and soon decays.
Therefore, secondly, to shew their perpetuity and stability, together with
their growth, the prophet there compares them to the cedar, whose wood
rots not, proverbially put to express immortality — Digna Cedro — and wliich
is not only most durable, but of all trees the tallest, and shoots up the
highest.
Jjiit yet, thirdly, suppose the new creature be kept under and oppressed
with tentations and oppositions, yet to shew that stUl it will grow and flou-
rish again, therefore he further compareth them to a palm-tree, which useth
to grow the more weight is hung upon it, and sprouts again even when it is
cut down to the roots.
Fourthly, to shew that they grow with all kinds of growth, therefore the
prophet expresseth their growth both by the spreading of their root and also
of the brunches, and so in a growth both upward and downward, ' He shall
cast forth his roots as Lebanon,' — that is, grow inwardly in habitual grace
in the heart, and then outwardly ' spread forth their branches,' and so grow
in the outward profession of God's ways and truth, and external holiness in
their lives.
Neither, fifthly, is it a growth merely in bulk, but also in fruitfulness, arid
therefore he compares them to the olive and the vine, (so in that place of
Hosea,) which are of all trees the fruitfulest and most useful to God and
man, Judges ix. 9, 13.
But yet, sixthly, trees have a flourishing time of it but for some while,
during which, although they may be thus green and fruitful, yet in their
age they wither and rot, and their leaves fall ofi", and their fruit decays.
The Holy Ghost therefore, as preventing this exception to fall out in the
saints' growth, he adds, Ps. xcii., * They bring forth fruit still in their old
age.' When nature begins to decay, yet grace renews its strength ; which if
it be wondered at, and how grace should grow and multiply, the soil of our
hearts being a stepmother to it, ' From me,' says Christ, ' is thy fruit found,'
ver. 8 of that lith of Hosea. ' It is God that gives this increase, and I will
be as the dew to Israel,' ver. 5.
The reasons why Christians do thus grow are drawn —
1. From Christ's being our head, and we his members. Now although
clothes, though never so gorgeous, grow not, yet members do. This simi-
litude the apostle useth in two places, to express the growth of the saints,
Eph. iv. 15, 16, and Col. ii 19, where he saith, Christ is a head, 'from
whom the whole body grows up to him in all things.' Now the consequence
of this reason will many ways appear : —
(1.) If no more but that there might be a conformity of the head and
members, it was meet we the members should grow ; * for we are predesti-
nated to be conformable to the image of his Son,' Rom. viii. Now Christ
' did grow in wisdom,' Luke ii 40, 42; and therefore so must we. But —
(2.) As he is our head, he hath received all fulness, to that very end that
we might grow even to ' fill all in all,' Eph. i 23.
Now we are empty creatures at his first taking of us. John x. 10, 'I
came,' says Christ, ' that they might have life ;' and not only so much as will
keep body and soul together, as we say, but ' that they might have it more
abundantly.' Why is grace called life, and of lives the most excellent, but
Chap. L] the trial of a cuuistiaji a growth. 459
because it containeth all the essential properties of life in it 1 Now the main
properties of life are to move and grow. The wtars they have a moving life,
but they grow not ; the sun increaseth not, for all its tumbling up and down,
as snow-balls do; plants they have a growing life, but they move not out of
their place : but in grace there is both. It is an active thing, and it is a
growing thing also; and because the more it is acted the more it grows,
therefore its growth is expressed by its motion. Yea —
(3.) As his fulness is for our growth, so our growth makes up his fulness,
even the fulness of Christ mystical, though Christ personal is full without
us. Therefore the stature that every Christian grows up to is called, Eph.
iv. 13, 'the stature of the fulness of Christ.' In like speech to this, Eph. i.
23, it is said that 'his body is his fulness;' and, Eph. iv. 13, the growth of
these members is said to be ' the fulness of Christ.' So that as Christ should
be a head without a body if he had no members, and his body a lame body
if he wanted any of those his members; so it would be found a dispropor-
tioned body, as it were, if any of these members should not grow to that
stature God hath appointed them. So that as there will be plenitudo par-
tium, a fulness of parts, no member lacking, so also plenitudo graduum, no
degree of growth wanting in any part ; that so Christ, who filleth all in all,
may be fully full. And as there would be a deformity if any one should not
grow, — as to have a withered member were a dishonour to the head, — so to
have any one grow in immensum, to too great a stature, would breed as
great a deformity on the other side; therefore he adds, that ' every member
hath its measure.' The hand grows according to the proportion of a hand,
and so the rest; and so in the 13th verse he hath it, that there is a 'mea-
sure of the stature of the fulness of Christ' that every one attains to.
2. The second reason is taken from God the Father —
(1.) Who first hath appointed, as who shall be members, so also what
growth each of these members shall attain to ; therefore it is called ' an in-
creasing with the increase of God,' Col. ii. 19. Other parents appoint not
what stature their children shall attain to, but the Lord doth, that when
they meet in heaven there may be a proportion in the body; as all Christ's
' members were written in God's book,' so the growth of them also.
(2.) He hath promised that they shall grow; therefore it is said, Ps. xciL,
'They shall bring forth fruit in their age, to shew the Lord is faithful,'
which respecteth his promise ; for faithfulness is the fulfilling a promise.
(3.) God the Father hath accordingly appointed means to that end, prin-
cipally that they might grow. As —
[1.] Eph. iv., it is said h^ hath 'given gifts unto men,' not that they
may be converted only, but also to ' build them up for the edifying of the
body of Christ.' He speaks as if that were one main end. Therefore the
word is not only compared to seed, that begets men, but to mUk also, that
so babes may grow, and to strong meat, that men may grow, and thus that
all sorts of Christians may grow. So also sacraments, their principal end is
growth, and not to convert, but to increase; as meat puts not life in, but is
ordained for growth where life is already.
[2.] He gives his Spirit, which works growth in the hearts of his people ;
and by him they have a nutritive power conveyed from Christ. For it might
be said, though there be never so much nourishment, if they have no power
to concoct it, still they cannot grow; therefore the Apostle says that there is
an * effectual working to the measure of every part,' Eph. iv. 16, the same
power working in us which raised up Jesus Christ from death to life,
Eph. 11 9.
460 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT L
3. The last reason is taken from the saints themselves : they could not
otherwise enter into heaven ; which I take from that j^lace, ' Except ye be
converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom
of heaven.' He speaks this to his disciples, who were converted before ; but
saith Christ, Unless ye grow, there being a further measure appointed you of
my Father, you cannot enter into heaven. There is therefore as great a
necessity to grow as to be born again, or else we cannot enter into heaven.
Chap. IL] the trial of a christian's growth. 461
CHAPTER II.
An explication Tioio the saints do grow. — Many considerations to satisfy those
that discern not their growth.
Having given you the reasons, I will now explicate the point.
And that chiefly for the satisfaction of those whose main doubts and
troubles about their estate are occasioned by their want of discerning them-
selves to grow, and so call into question the work begun, because not carried
on so sensibly unto perfection as they expect and desire.
Their objections are many and diverse.
They say, when they were young, they then had more spiritual enliven-
ings and quickness of affections, more joy in duties, &c. ; that formerly they
had more zeal in what they did for the good of others, and more fruit of
their labours ; that heretofore they have spent more time in duties, in con-
ference, and hearing, &c. ; that others start up who have more grace the first
day than they have been getting many years. Yea, they are so far from
discerning that they grow, that they rather think that they fall back, and
therefore fear even the truth of grace in them, because all believers grow.
Now, the scope of all which I shall speak of this argument will tend to
this, to help such to discern and judge aright of their estates herein, and to
free them from such mistakes and errors as their objections are usually
founded upon.
I. And, first, concerning this kind of tentation and trouble, let me premise
this one observation, concerning what sort of converts this temptation is apt-
est to seize on.
You all know that there are two more eminent and conspicuous manner
of conversions of God's people usual in the church. The conversion of some
is more sudden and apparent, like the bringing of Joseph out of a dungeon
into a marvellous glorious light. It is with a sudden change, which there-
fore is accompanied with a mighty violent inundation and land-flood of
humiliation for sin, increased with many gracious enlargements and dews
from heaven ; which afterwards abating, and the stream settUng and growing
less, and coming to an ordinary channel, and falling but unto so much as
the natural spring of grace, as I may so call it, will serve to feed, they then
begin to call all into question for their want of growth. Others, on the con-
trary, whose conversion hath been insensible, and carried on with a still and
quiet stream, and have had a more leisurely, gentle thaw; and their change
from darkness to light hath not been sudden, but as the breaking forth of
the morning, small at first, and not discernible at what time day began then
to break : these, on the contrary, are exercised rather about the truth of the
work begun, about the work of conversion itself, and the right beginning of
all at first ; but their tentations arise not from a want of growth so much,
for this to them is more evident and sensible, being like ' the morning light,
which grows clearer and clearer unto the perfect day/ Prov. iv. 18.
462 THE TUIAL OF A CHEISTIA>f's GROWTH. [PaUT I.
Now, observe the different condition of these two sorts. The former of
these hath a more apparent work at first to shew as the evidence of their
estate, but are apt, through desertions, neglects, and carnal presumption, to
call into question their progress in it, and from thence to question the truth
of that first work begun. The other, on the contrary, sees a constant spring
and stream increasing, but cannot shew the well-head, or when or where the
sjDring began. So that so apparent a work of grace begun would become
matter of assurance to the one, but is checked with want of discerning growth
answerable to such beginnings. But an apparent growth, and fast going up
of the building, comf )rts the other, but yet so as they still are apt to ques-
tion whether the foundation of such a building be well and surely laid ; that
they are going on further to perfection, this they clearly see, but whether
they come in at the right gate or no, that is the scruple which exerciseth
their spirits. Thus hath our wise God, as in the work of his providence, so
of his grace, ' set the one against the other,' as Solomon speaks, that unto
both these there might be occasion of exercise left, that neither might con-
fide in any works wrought ujjon them, but fly alone to Christ ; and that
neither should rejoice against the other, or be discontented with that way
wherein God hath dealt with them.
II. In the second place, there are some considerations to be added con-
cerning a Christian's discerning his spiritual growth, which wiU be profitable
to the thing in hand.
1. As, first, that our growing in grace is a mystery to be apprehended by
faith rather than by sense ; our spiritual life itself is carried along by faith,
much more the discerning the increase of it. Yea, and it being carried on
by contraries, as by falls and desertions, and even by our owti opinions of our
decrease, therefore it is rather discerned by faith than sense, for ' faith is the
evidence of things not seen.'
2. Secondly, the eager desire that many Christians have to have more
grace, together with their going on to discern more and more their wants,
which in some respect is a growth, these do keep them from thinking that
indeed they do grow. ' There is,' as Solomon says, ' that maketh himself
poor, and hath great riches,' Prov. xiii 7 ; because he enlargeth his desires
still, therefore stUl he thinks himself poor. So hungry and greedy Christians,
looking still to what they want, and not to what they have, are still com-
plaining and unthankful. If thou wouldst discern thy growth, do not com-
pare the copy wdth thy writing, but rather thy writing now with thy writing
at the first. For this is a sure rule, that the better thou leamest to write,
the better copy doth God daily set thee, — that is, gives thee to see more
strictness in the rule, and so still mayest think that thou wantest as much,
and art as far short as at first, if thus thou comparest thyself with nothing
but thy sight of the rule itself.
3. The third consideration : that if growth at any time be made sensible,
and be discerned by sense, yet so as after a while it is not so discernible as
that great change which was made upon a man's first conversion ; the reasons
whereof are —
(1.) For at first conversion the change was specifical, wholly from want of
grace unto beginnings of grace ; but the change in our growth afterwards is
but gradual, — that is, but addition of more degrees only, of something of the
same kind still ; and therefore it doth not so eminently afiect the heart as
the change at first conversion doth. To be translated out of a prison to a
kingdom, as Joseph was, would afiect more than to have new kingdoms
added to one that is a king already, as Alexander had.
CirAP. II.J THE TRIAL OF A CURISTIAN's GROWTH. 4G3
(2.) Because then the newness makes a great impression. One that begins
anew to study any art, his growth is sensible, because everything he reads
is new ; w-henas afterwards in his reading he meets with the same thing
again and again, and with new nutions but now and then, and yet he studies,
it may be, harder, and learns what he knew before more perfectly, and adds
new to his old.
4. A fourth consideration to discern thy growth : there must be time al-
lowed ; ' For the time,' says the Apostle, ' they might have been teachers,'
Heb. V. 12, implying they must have had time to grow up to perfection.
Christians do not grow discernibly till after some space. The sun goes up
higher and highi.T, but we discern not its progress till after an hour's motion.
Things most excellent have the slowest growth : bulrushes grow iiist, but
they are weaker kind of plants ; herbs, and willows, and alder-trees grow
fast, but full of pith ; oaks more slowly, yet more solidly, and in the end
attain to a greater bulk.
5. Fifthly, consider the growth itself; there may be a great diflference
thereof in several men. You heard that every man hath a measure appointed
to which he must grow ; but men are brought to this fulness several ways,
which makes a difference in their growth.
(1.) First, some have the advantage of others at fkst setting out; God
gives them a great stock of grace at first, and that for these causes : —
[1.] When there is a present use of them. Paul was 'the last of the
apostles, born out of time,' as himself complains, as one that was set to school
long after the rest of the apostles, and yet came not behind any of them in
grace, because God was to use him presently. To some God gives five
talents, to others but two ; so that he that hath five hath as much given him
at first as he that had but two with all his gains all his lifetime.
[2.] When a man is converted late, as he that came into the vineyard at
the eleventh hour was famished with abilities to do as much as the rest, for
they all received but a penny.
(2.) Secondly, in the manner of their growth some have advantage of
others.
[1.] Some grow without intermission, as that great Apostle, and the Colos-
sians, who ' from the first day they heard of the gospel, brought forth fruit,'
Col. i. 6. Others have rubs, and for some time of their lives stand at a stay.
And thus some do presently after their first conversion, as the church of
Ephesus, who ' fell from her first love.' Others in old age, as the Hebrews,
' who when for the time they might have taught others, were so far cast be-
hind, that they had need be taught again the first principles ' of religion,
Heb. v. 1 2. Measure therefore not so your growth by a piece of your lives,
but by comparing your whole life together.
[2.] Some die sooner, and therefore God fits them for heaven sooner.
Dorcas died ' rich in good works ; ' Stephen died ' full of the Holy Ghost,'
Acts vii. It is with several Christians as with several planets : the moon
goes her course in a month, the sun in a year, the rest in many years, so as
often they that live shortest grow fastest.
464 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTU, [PaET I.
CHAPTER m.
Whai it is to bring forth more fruit explicated negatively by removing manif
mistakes.
Let us now see what it is wherein Christians may be said to grow, that so
you may be able to discern what it is to bring forth more fruit.
And this I will explicate two ways : —
I. First, negatively; what it is not to bring forth more finiit really, though
in appearance and in show it be a growth in fruit, which occasions many
mistakes.
II. Secondly, positively ; what it is truly to bring forth more fruit.
I. For the first : —
1. First, to grow is not only or chiefly to grow in gifts or abilities, as to
preach and pray, &c., but to increase in graces : in gifts only, so reprobates
may grow ; yea, and so true believers may grow, and yet not bring forth
more fruit. The Corinthians grew fast this way in respect of gifts ; they
were ' enriched in all utterance and knowledge, and came behind in no gift,'
1 Cor. i. 7, and yet he tells them that they were ' babes and carnal,' chap.
iii. 2, 3. And therefore in the 12th chapter, after he had spoken of gifts,
and endeavouring to excel therein, as they did, he tells them that indeed
they were things to be desired, and therefore exhorts them to ' covet the best
gifts ; ' but yet, says he, ' I shew unto you a more excellent way,' in the last
verse of that 12th chapter. And what was that? It follows in the 13th
chapter, even true grace, charity, love to God, and love of our brethren. A
dram of that is, says he, worth a pound of the best fruit of gifts. And so
his discourse, chap, xiii., doth begin, ver. 1, ' Though I speak with tongues
of men and angels, yet if I have not charity,' &c. Gifts are given for the
good of others, to edify them especially, 1 Cor. xii. 7 ; but graces, as love,
faith, and humility, these are given to save a man's own soul, and therefore
tnerein is the true growth. Yet as concerning this I will propound a caution
or two : —
Caution 1. — Indeed, growth in gifts, together with growth in sanctifica-
tion ninning along with it, will increase our account ; for God will crown his
own gifts in us, if, as they come from Christ, so they be used in him, and for
him, in our intentions ; but otherwise they puff up and hinder. They serve
indeed to set out and garnish the fruit, and to help forward the exercise of
graces ; they are good fruit-dishes to set the fruit forth. But if grace grow
not with them, we bring not forth much fruit, for at best they are but blos-
soms, not fruit.
Caution 2. — Again, men are indeed to endeavour to grow in these gifts of
memory, and instructing others, and conferences, &c. As was said to Timothy,
'Let thy profiting appear to all,' 1 Tim. iv. 15; and to the Corinthians,
* Covet the best gifts,' especially whilst you are young ; yet we are not simply
thereby to take an estimate of our growth.
ClIAP. Ill] TnE TRIAL OF A CnRISTIAN's GROWTH. 4G5
Caution 3. — Though this let me withal add, that often by increasing in
grace a man increaseth in gifts, and for want of increasing in grace, gifts also
do decay. The talents being used faithfully, were double(^ and unfaith-
fully, were lessened.
And this consideration may help to answer some doubts and objections
which some Christians have about their growth ; as, because they cannot pray
so well as others, nor do so much service to the saints as some do, therefore
they bring forth less fruit. Thou mayest bring more fruit for all that, if
thou walkest humbly in thy caUiii,2;, and prayest more fervently, though less
notionally or eloquently. By how much the more we are humble, prize
ourselves less by them, and use them in Christ and for Christ, seeing they
come all from him ; the more we are contented to want them, and not envy
others that have them ; so much the more fruit we bring forth, even in the
want of such gifts.
Again, decay in gifts, as in old age, doth not always hinder men from
bringing forth more fruit. As, although they cannot remember a sermon so
well as they had wont, nor preach with that vigour, and vivacity, and quick-
ness when they are old, nor be so active, stirring, forward, it follows not that
they bring not forth more fruit. David when he was old could not govern
the kingdom, nor do the church that service he had done formerly, yet true
fruit he might grow in, in regard of his personal carriage towards God for
his own salvation. A musician when he is young is able to sing sweetlier
than when he is old ; or when his vigour decays, his joints grow lame, he
cannot play as he had wont ; yet still he may grow a better musician, and
have more skill, and set better. Affections, the quickness of them depends
much upon bodily spirits.
2. Our bringing forth more fruit, it is not to be measured simply by our
success towards others in the exercise of those gifts, though that be called
fruit also ; so, Jer. xvii. 10, they are called 'the fruit of our doings.' There
are our doings, and the fruits of our doings, — that is, the success which our
examples, or gifts, or graces, have upon others, — and so the conversion of
the souls of men by the apostles is called by Christ ' their fruit,' John xv.
16 ; yet simply by this we are not to reckon our growth, for in success and
exercise of gifts a man may decrease when he grows older, and so see less
fruit of his labours than formerly, or haply he may be laid aside. So says
the Baptist of himself, ' I must decrease,' John iii. 30. John, when Christ
came to preach, had less comings in. And in this respect, old Christians
and ancient ministers may decrease, and young ones increase, and yet they
decay not in grace ; for there are God's works in us, and God's works with
us. Now, God's work with us in doing good to others may be less when
yet his works in us may be more ; for as there are ' diversities of gifts,' so of
' operations,' 1 Cor. xiL 4, 6. The Holy Ghost may use one of less grace to
do more good than one of more : though herein this caution is to be added,
that he delights usually to honour those of most sincerity with most success ;
as in that eminent apostle, Paul, ' the grace of God was more in him,' and
so wrought more with him in doing much good to others, 1 Cor. xv. 10;
and God also will reward ' according to the fruit of our doings,' as Jer. xvii.
10, when our desires are enlarged to do much good, and we intended and
aimed to do that good which is done ; there it is added there, in that Jer.
xvii., * whose heart thou knowest.' When he sees the heart clearly enlarged
to do much good, then the fruit that is done is reckoned him as his ; other-
wise, whatever it be he doth by us, he will reward but according to our
works, as concurrent with his. So, 1 Cor. iii. 8, the Apostle upon this oc-
voL. in. 2 G
466 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT I,
casion intimates that seeing it is ' God that gives the increase,' he says that
' God will reward men according to their own labours ; ' not simply according
to his works by them. As if God doth not go forth with a minister whose
heart is much set to do good and to convert souls, to do so much good by
him as with another, who is in his own spirit less zealous ; yet if his heart
was large in desires, and his endeavours great to do good, God wdU reckon
more fruit to him than to another that had fewer endeavours, though more
success.
3. This growth in grace, and bringing forth more fruit, is not simply to
be reckoned by the largeness or smallness of those opportunities which men
have of doing more or less good, and so, by the bringing forth of more fruit,
in respect of more opportunities vouchsafed. Some that have more grace,
and better gifts, have their shop-windows shut, night overtakes them, and
the power of darkness, as it did Christ himself in the end, and then ' they
cannot work.' Others have lesser shops to work in, and yet have more
grace ; yea, the same man may have larger opportunities when young and
lesser when he is old, and yet grows and brings forth before God more fruit,
because he accepts the will for the deed. So the Baptist was hindered in
his latter time in prison, when yet he brought forth more fruit ; and there-
fore he envied not Christ that got all his custom, his hearers, and disciples,
but rejoiced that the work went forward, though not by himself. Here was
as much grace expressed as in many sermons. So Paul, he was much of his
time in prison, yet then he ceased not to bring forth more fruit that should
tend to his salvation ; for, Phil. i. 15, 16, whenas he being in prison, he heard
others preached, and that out of envy to him, others out of good-will, I in
prison rejoiced, says he, 'that Christ is preached,' though I cannot do it
myself; and I know, says he, 'that this shall turn to my salvation,' ver. 19.
These fruits were as much, and would bring him in as much glory as his
preaching. Indeed, when a man shall prize opportunities of doing good,
and for them voluntarily let go all opportunities of advancing himself and
his credit, or ease, or carnal advantages, then the more fruit he brings forth
in those opportunities, the more is reckoned on his score.
4. It is not always to be measured by accessory graces, as joy and spiri-
tual ravishment, &c., which tend to the bene esse, the comfort of a Christian;
but it is to be estimated rather by those substantial graces, as faith, humility,
love, strong and solid affections to what is good. The other may decrease
when these that are more substantial do increase. These sweet blooms may
fall off when fruit comes on ; though the gloss wear out, no matter, so the
stuff be strong and substantial. Young Christians grow like new instru-
ments ; they have more varnish than old, but not so sweet a sound. Yea,
often the decreasing of those superadded graces are a means of the increase
of the other. Want of feeling causeth more exercise of faith, as taking away
bladders exercises a man to swim. One that hath bladders, and the stream
with him, seems to swim as well and as fast as one that hath learned long,
and hath more skill and strength, but wanteth these, and swims against the
stream, yet not so fast. Spiritual withdrawings cause more humility, more
cleaving to God. A man, as the leper cleansed, haply at the first leaps more,
but goes as fast afterward.
5. It is not increasing in outward professing, and a seeming forward, but
especially in inward and substantial godliness ; the other is but as increasing
in leaves ; but in growth there must be a bringing forth more fruit. When
the root strikes not deeper downward and further into the earth, but spreads
much upward in the branches, this is not a true growth ; though look where
Chap. Ill] the tpial of a christian's growth. 4G7
there is more rooting, there will be more spreading also above ground.
Growth, it lies not in this, ' that men should think of me above what I am
indeed,' 2 Cor. xii. G. Many at first grow into so great a profession as they
cannot fill up and grow up to all their days : make bigger clothes than they
can grow to fill ; as they say of elephants, that the skin is as big at first as
ever after, and all their lifetime their Hesh grows but up to fill their skin up.
True growth begins at the vitals ; the heart, the liver, the blood gets sound-
ness and vigour, and so the whole man outwardly ; this heart-godliness is
the thing you must judge by.
6. And yet, even in inward affections many be deceived ; even there the
party for Christ in appearance may be greater than in truth. So, often in a
young Christian, there is a greater army of affections mustered, but most of
them but mercenaries : his affections are then larger, his joys greater, his
sorrows violenter than afterwards. More of his heart joins in duties at first ;
but afterwards, though less, yet more spiritually and truly. The objects
being then new, draw all after them : not only spirit, or that new principle
of grace is stirred then, but flesh also. The unregenerate part becomes a
temporary believer for a time, hath a work upon it pe7' redundantiam, as an
unregenerate man hath who is a temporary ; which work on the unregenerate
part doth decay, as in temporaries it doth, and grows less. Not only godly
sorrow is stirred to mourn for sin, but carnal sorrow, being awakened by God's
wrath, joins also, and so makes the stream bigger. Infidelity itself, like
Simon Magus, for a while believes. Whilst the things of grace are a wonder
to a man, as at first they are, presumption joins and ekes out faith. A great
party in the heart ' cleaves by flattery,' as the phrase is iu Daniel, and for
by-ends, wliich, after some progress, fall off and faint in the way ; and those
lusts that, over and above their true mortification, were further cast into a
swoon, begin again to revive.
AU this was resembled to us by the coming of the children of Israel out
of Egypt, when, by those plagues in Egypt, and Moses's call, not only the
Israelites, but even many of the Egyptians were wrought upon, and began
out of self-love to fear the Lord, Exod. ix. 20, and so ' a mixed multitude,'
it is said, went out with the Israelites, Exod. xii. 38, to sacrifice to the Lord;
but ere long, as Num. xi. 4, this mixed multitude began to murmur, and to
fall off. So, at a man's first setting out at his first conversion, mixed carnal
affections, the unregenerate part, through the newness of the objects, and
impression of God's wrath, and heavenly ravishments, are wrought upon,
and go out with the new Israel to sacrifice, but after a while these fall away,
and then the number is less ; but the true Israelites may be increased.
Hence it is that young Christians, if they know their hearts, complain more
of hypocrisy, and old Christians of deadness. So, in times of peace, pre-
sumption ekes out faith, and makes it seem a great deal, which in times of
desertion and trial falls off; and then, though the believing party be less,
yet more sincere. When the fire is first kindled, there is more smoke, even
as much as fiUs the house ; but after the flame comes, that contracts all into
a narrow compass, and hath more heat in it. So it is in young Christians,
their affections, which Christ compares to the smoking flax, their joy in
duties, their sorrow for sin, their love of God, is more, but exceeding carnal ;
the flame after, though less, grows purer, and less mixed with vapours of
corrupt self-love.
7. We must not measure our bringing forth more fruit by some one kind
or sort of duties, but by our growth in godhness, in the universal extent and
latitude of it, as it takes in and comprehendeth the duties of both callings.
468 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT L
general and particular, and all the duties of a Christian. Thus it may be
when grown up we are less in some sort of duties than we were when we were
young Christians. Haply we were more then in praying, in fasting, and
reading and meditating ; yea, spent the most, if not the whole, of our time
in these. But because now we spend less time in these, we must not say
therefore that we are fallen or decayed ; for there are many other duties to
be done besides these, which haply then we neglected, but now make con-
science of So that take aU sorts of duties in the latitude of them, and we
may be grown more, and do bring forth more fruit. Perhaps we bring forth
less fruit of some one kind than afore, but if we be filled with aU variety of
fruits of the first and second table of our general and particular callings, this
is to bring forth more fruit.
Men at their first conversion are necessitated often for to spend their whole
time in such duties wherein they immediately draw nigh to God. Paul then
spent three whole days in fasting and prayer. And then we allow them to
do it, because their estates require it ; they want assurance and establish-
ment, they see grace to be that one thing necessary, and therefore we give
them leave to neglect all things for it ; they are new married to Christ, and
therefore they are not to be pressed to war the first year, (as I may so allude,)
as for young married persons it was provided in Leviticus ; and parents and
masters are to give allowance to such, then in their travail of their new birth,
to lie in, and not to be cruel to them, in denying them more time than
ordinary.
So also when they are in desertion, — which is a time of sickness, and in
sickness you allow your servants time from their work, — as the church when
she wanted her beloved. Cant. iii. 2, no wonder if she leaves all to seek
him. As yourselves, when you want a child or a servant, you cry him in
every street, and leave aU to find him, as he left ninety-nine to find one lost
sheep. And they then come new out of prison, out of their natural estate,
and out of the fresh apprehension of the wrath of God, and therefore no
wonder if they run so fast to haste out of it, and salute none by the way, stay
to do no business ; but when once they are gotten to the city of refuge, then
they fall about their business and callings again. Hence young Christians
are apt to be more negligent in their particular callings, and are all for the
duties of religion, for their present distress and estate requires it. Ancienter
Christians are apt to abound more in the duties of their particular calling.
But he that hath learned to be conversant in both aright, to be conversant
in his calling, so as to keep his heart up in communion with God, and so
attend upon God without distraction, and to be conversant so in duties as
to go about his calling cheerfully, and to ' do with all his might what his
hand therein finds to do,' he is the best Christian. And therefore, 1 Thess.
iv. 10, when he had exhorted them to increase more and more in grace, he
goes on, ver. 11, to exhort them also 'to do their own business, and to work
with their hands,' that they may ' walk honestly towards them without ;'
for to neglect our callings gives offence to them without, and therefore
masters stumble at young Christians. But both, you see by the Apostle's
exhortation in that epistle, may stand together, increasing in holiness, of
which he had spoken before, chap. iii. 12, and chap. iv. 1, 10, with diligence
in a calling, of which he speaks, ver. 11, &c. To be conversant all day in
holy duties is indeed more sweet to a man's self, and is a heaven upon
earth ; but to be conversant in our callings is more ' profitable to others,'
and so may glority God more. And therefore, as when Paul would gladly
have been with Clurist, — for * that is best for me,' says he, — yet, says he, * to
Chap. III.] the trial ob a christian's growth, 4G9
abide here is more profitable for you,' Phil. L 24. So, to enjoy immediate
communion with God in prayer, and to meditate all the week long, is more
for the comfort of a man's particular; but to be employed in the business of
a man's calling, the more profitable for the church, or commonwealth, or
family. And therefore it is to be accounted a bringing forth of more fruit,
when both are joined and wisely subordinated, so as the one is not a hin-
dnmce to the other. Though the child, out of love to his mother, and the
sweetness he hath in her company, could find it in his heart to stay all day
at home to look on her , yet it pleaseth her more for him to go to school all
day, and at night to come home and be with her, and play with her; and
she then kisseth him, and makes much of him. Children when they are
young, they eat often, and do little, and we allow them to do so ; afterwards
you set them to work, and to school, and reduce them to two good meals,
and they thrive as well with it
470 THE TKIAL OF A CHE1STIA^''S GKOWTH. fPAJRT I
CHAPTER IV.
What it is to bring forth more fruit explicated positively/; wherein many direct
trials of growth are given.
II. Thus I have shewn you negatively what this growth is not to be mea-
sured by, and so by way of intimation wherein it consists ; I will, secondly,
do it ID ore positively, and directly, and affirmatively.
1. We grow when we are led on to exercise new graces, and so to ' add one
grace to another,' as the apostle Peter exhorts ; as when in our knowledge
we are led into new truths, and have answerable affections running along
■with those discoveries towards the things revealed. At first a Christian doth
not exercise all graces, though all are radically in hun. But as a man lives
first the life of a plant, then of sense, then of reason, so is it in graces.
There are many forms Christians go through, as scholars at school do, wherein
their thoughts are in a more especial manner taken up about divine objects
of a higher or inferior nature. The first form is to teach them to know their
sinfulness of heart and life more ; and so they go to school to the law, and
are set to study it, even oftentimes a good while after conversion and faith
begun. And then, after they have learned that lesson throughly, they are
led up higher to have their faith drawn out, and to be exercised about free
grace more, and towards Christ's person, union with him, and about the art
and way of drawing virtue from him, and doing all in him. And herein it
falls out with particular Christians as with the church in general ; that as
although the most infant days of the church, from Adam's time in the old
world, had the knowledge of all fundamentals necessary to salvation, yet God
went over To/.u/xi^w:, piecemeal, Heb. i. 1, age after age, to instruct his
church in a larger knowledge of those fundamentals : so is it in God's deal-
ing with particular Christians. Though a believer in his conversion hath
the substance of all these taught him, yet he goes over them by piecemeal
again throughout his whole life ; and hath often such a distinct apprehension
renewed of them, as if he had not known or minded them before. And
sometimes his thoughts do dwell more about the emptiness of his own
righteousness, sometimes about that fulness is in Christ, sometimes more
about the spiritual strictness he ought to walk in. And because some are
apt to give up the old work when they have new, hence that which is in-
deed but growth in grace in them many account to be but their first conver-
sion ; though every such eminent addition be to be accounted as a conver-
sion, as Christ speaks to his disciples, ' Except ye be converted ;' yet they were
converted before. Now, the purpose I speak this for is a help to discern our
growth ; for when God thus is leading us with further light and affection to
a larger apprehension of spiritual things, or to the trying new gi-aces, so long
we grow. Therefore, Cant. vii. 1 3, the church is said to ' lay up for her be-
loved fruits new and old;' and, Ptom. v., from patience a man is led to
experience, and from experieuce tu hope As \a icked men are led on from
Chap. IV ] the trial of a cnrasTiAN's growth. 471
one sin to another, jlncl so grow worse and worse; so godly men from one
grace to another : and when it is so with us, then we increase.
2. When a man finds new degrees of the same grace added, and the fruits
of them grow bigger and more plentiful : as when a man's love grows ' more
fervent,' as 1 Pet. iv. 8; when faith, from merely casting itself on Christ,
comes to find sweetness in Christ, which is to * eat his flesh and drink his
blood;' and then from that grows further up to an 'assurance of faith,'
which is an addition to it ; when anything that ' was lacking in faith,' as the
apostle speaks, 1 Thess. iii. 10, is added. So when a man grows up to more
strength of faith in temptations, and is less moved and shaken in them, more
rooted in faith, as the apostle speaks. Thus in godly sorrow, when from
mourning for sin as contrary to God's holiness, we go on to mourn for it as
contrary to him who loves us, which follows upon assurance, as they * mourned
over him which once they had pierced :' not only that we mourn that we
should offend a God hath so much mercy in him, but out of a sense of it to
us, which many cannot find. So when our motives to hate sin grow more
raised, more spiritual, these are additions of the same degree. So in prayer,
when we find our prayers to grow more spiritual, as in that jDart of prayer,
confetssi on, when more spiritual corruptions are put into our confessions ; and
so, in li ce manner, stronger grounds of faith put into deprecation and peti-
ti tns for pardon ; more enlargedness to thankfulness ; more zeal to pray for
the churches ; when we go on to ' pray with all jjrayer more,' as the Apostle
speaks, Eph. vi. 18. Or in obedience, when we 'abound more and more
in tlie work of the Lord,' as. Rev. ii. 1 9, it is said of that church, that ' their
last vorks were more than the first ;' so as the boughs are laden, and we are
' filled with the fruits of righteousness,' Phil. i. 11.
3. When the fruits and duties we perform grow more ripe, more spiritual,
though less juicy, that is, less affectionate ; and though they grow not in
bigness nor in number, — that is, we pray not more nor longer, — yet they
grow more savoury, more spiritual, more compact and solid. It is not
simply the multitude of performances argues growth ; when one is sick, and
his body is decayed, he may be ^ess in duties ; but it is the spiritualness, the
hoUness of them. One short prrtyer put up in faith, with a broken heart, is
in God's eye more fruit than a long one, or a whole day spent in fasting ;
even in the same sense that the ' widow's mite' is said to be ' more than they
air cast in, Luke xxi. 3. Young Christians perform more duties at first, and
oftener, than after ; as young stomachs eat more and oftener. As in noting
sermons, so in performing duties, some will note more words but not more
matter, because with less understanding. Young Christians perform more
duties, and withal spoil more duties ; young carpenters make many chips.
But the more spiritual your performances grow, the more fruit there is to be
esteemed that there is in them. It is not the bigness of the fruit, or juici-
ness of them, for then crabs were better than apples, but the reUsh it is that
gives the commendation. And it is the end you have therein that puts this
relish into them : when your ends are raised more to aim at God, and to
sanctify him more, and to debase yourselves in a sense of your own vileness,
and emptiness, and inability; and when your obedience proceeds more out
of thankfulness, and less out of the constraint of conscience. As the greatest
growth of wicked men is in spiritual wickedness, — in which the Pharisees
grew, and sinners against the Holy Ghost do grow, when yet it may be they
leave more gross evils, — so the greatest growth of grace is in spiritual holi-
ness, in sanctifying God much in the heart, and * worshipping him in spirit
and truth.'
472 THE TRIAL OF A CURISTIA^'ti GROWTH. [PaRT L
4. WLen a man grows more rooted into Christ, that is the true growth,
and that which makes the fruit to be more in God's sight and esteem ; there-
fore, Eph. iv. 15, we are said ' to grow up in him,' — that is, to live tlie life
we lead more out of ourselves and in Christ. As when, for the acceptation
of our persons, we are emptied of our own righteousness ; so for strength to
perform duties, we are emptied of our abilities, seeing ' without him we can
do nothing.' So when for acceptation of our performances when we have
done them, our hearts have learned habitually to say more and more with
the apostle, ' Not I, but Christ in me;' when we interest Christ more and
more in aU we do, as the efficient and also the final cause. And therefore I
observe, when growth of grace is mentioned, it is still expressed by ' growing
in the knowledge of Christ;' so, 2 Pet. iii. 18, ' Grow in grace and in the
knowledge of Christ;' as if to grow in grace without him were nothing, as
indeed it is not. So in the Ephesians we are said both to grow up in him and
for him. Philosophers did grow in moral virtues, but not in Christ ; so do civil
men and others. Temporaries do duties from him, but yet as in themselves ;
as the ivy that hath sap from the oak, but concocts it in its own root, and so
brings forth as from itself. To do one duty, sanctifying Christ and free
grace in the heart, is more than a thousand. Young Christians, it may be,
do more works, but not as works of grace ; and the more men think by
duties to get Christ and God's favour, the more in duties they trust, and so
they become as works of the law; but the more dead a man grows to the
law, and to live to Christ and Christ in him, and the more free grace is
acknowledged in all, trusted in above aU, the more evangelical our works arc,
and the more to God, (for that is the end of the gospel, to honour Christ and
free grace,) the more we grow. * We are of tlie circumcision,' says the
Apostle, ' who rejoice in the Lord Jesus, worship God in the spirit, and have
no confidence in the flesh,' Phil, iii 3. As these are the surest signs of true
grace, so of true growth.
5. The more we learn to bring forth fruits in season, the more fruit we
may be said to bring forth. For the seasonable performance of them makes
them more. All the fruits in their season, how acceptable are they! which
out of season they are not. In the 1st Psalm a righteous man is said to
* bring forth his fruits in due season ;' and in the Proverbs, ' Words in season
are as apples of gold and pictures of silver.' In Ezek. xlvii. 1 2, they are
said to ' bring forth pleasant fruits in their months.' As in reproving he is
not so much to reprove, as to reprove in season ; to have our ' senses exer-
cised ' to know fit seasons, and to ' consider one another to provoke to love,*
as it is Heb. x. 24. Young Christians do more, but more out of season, and
the devil abuseth them, putting them upon duties, when they would be at
their refreshings, at their callings ; he deceiving them with this, that holy
duties in themselves, as alone simply compared, are better than to do any-
thing else ; whenas the season adds the goodness to our actions. Thus to
recreate thyself at some seasons is better than to be a-praying. A ' right-
eous man orders his conversation aright,' Ps. L 23, and order gives a recti-
tude, a goodness to things.
6. When we grow more constant in performances, and more even in a
godly course, and settled in spiritual afi"ections without intermission, it is a
sign we grow. It argues that ' our inward man is more renewed day by
day,' when we can walk closely with God a long while together. A right-
eous man is compared to the palm-tree, 'whose leaf never fades,' Ps. L ;
whereas other trees bring forth by fits. And by fits to be much in duties
is not a sign of growth, but weakness ; it is out of inordinacy. And of such
Chap. IV.J tue tjiial of a chiustiak's ghowth. 473
a frame are young Cliristians' hearts, like new lute-strings, which, when they
are wound too high, are stUl a-falling ever and anon ; whereas strings settled
long on an instrument will stand long, and not slip down.
7. A man may be said to grow and bring forth more fruit, when, although
the difficulties of doing duties become greater, and his means less, yet he
contmues to do them, and this though it may be he doth no more than he
did before. For a tree to bring forth much fruit in cold weather, or stand-
ing in the shade, is more than in summer, or when it stands in the sun. ' I
know thy work, thy labour, and thy 'patience^ Rev. ii. 19. When a man,
though he do fewer works, yet with much labour, having it may be now a
body grown weak ; or holds out in the profession of the ways of God, with
more scoffs, and hazarding more, in a place where ' Satan's throne is;' this
makes a little done for Christ a great deal. So when a man thrives with a
little trading, with small means of grace, and yet exceedeth those that have
more ; to pray, and to continue to do so, though the stream is against us, and
gales cease; to pray, and to continue to pray, when we hear no answers, but
the contrary. It is noted of Daniel, that ' he did the king's business after
he had been sick,' chap. vuL 27 ; and so he prayed, you know, when he ven-
tured his life for it. When we have less straw to make the same number of
brick with, less wages, less encouragements, and yet do as much work with
cheerfulness.
8. When a man, though he doth less for the outward bulk, yet grows
more wise and faithful to lay out all his opportunities and abilities to the
best advantage ; this is to bring forth more fruit. Thus Moses, who at first
began to hear himself all causes both small and great, but in the end he
gave over the lesser causes to others, and reserved the hearing of the greater
to himself, Exod. xviii. 13-26, yet still he continued to do more, and laid
himself out to the greater advantage. His former course would in the end
have killed him ; ' Thou wilt wear away Hke a leaf,' saith Jethro to him.
So the Apostle, who strived to preach the gospel * where Christ had not been
known,' Kom. xv. 20. When a man forbears lesser things to lay out all for
the church's advantage ; less ventures himself in a smaller course, (unless
particularly called to it,) not out of fearfulness but faithfulness, and will lay
all the stock on it in a greater. Young Christians are as young fencers, they
strike hand over head, downright blows ; whereas if they would consider
their brother, or a wicked man whom they would reprove, as skilful fencers
do, and at an advantage hit them a good blow, is it not much better ? When
a man ' watcheth in all things,' as he exhorts Timothy, 2 Tim. iv. 5, and * serves
the season,' as some read it, Rom. xii. 11, — that is, waits for the best advan-
tages of doing good, both which may stand with fervency of spirit, and en-
during afflictions, for so the next words are in both those places. A man is
no less liberal that studies how to lay out his money to most charitable uses,
though he gives less to fewer particulars. We live in a wicked world, and
godly men cannot do what they would, as wicked men also cannot. When
therefore a man looks about him, and studies to improve himself to the
utmost advantage for God in his place, to lay out his credit, his parts, and
all for God, as a faithful factor in the best wares, though he deals in fewer
particulars, he may notwithstanding bring forth more fruit. — And thus much
for matter of trial about the first thing, positive growth in fruitful neaa.
474 THE TKIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GliOWTH. [PaET H
PART 11.
OF GROWTH IN MORTIFICATION: OE, GOD'S PURGING OUT CORRUPTION.
ne purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. — John XV. 2.
CHAPTER L
The observation out of the text propounded, That God goes on to purge cor-
ruption out of true branches. — Bounds set to this discourse about it, ac-
cording to the scope of the text. — The reasons of the point.
I come now to the trial of our growth in that other part of sanctification, —
namely, the mortification of lusts, and purging out of corruptions, — which the
text also calls for ; Christ here saying not only that they bring forth more
fruit, but that God ' purgeth them' that they may bring forth more fruit.
The observation from which words is clearly this. That God chooseth true
branches to grow, in a purging out of their corruptions, as in true fruitfulness.
In the handling of this pomt, I shall do these four things : —
I. First, Set the bounds and limits of this discourse about it, according to
Christ's intendment, as here he speaks of it.
II. Secondly, Give some reasons of the point.
III. Thirdly, Shew the ways which God useth to carry on the progress in
this work
IV. Fourthly, Give some helps of trial about it.
I. Now for the first, the explication and Limiting this point unto Christ's
intendment here, that so I may only so far handle it as the scope of the
words will bear, I premise these three things about it : —
1. That purging here intended, which is indeed all one with mortification,
and emptying out sin out of our hearts and lives, is to be restrained here to
the progress of a Christian in that work, and not as taking in with it that
first work of mortification wrought at a man's first conversion ; so as I in-
tend not now to lay open to you the nature of mortification, and what it is,
by way of commonplace, but only intend to speak of growth in it : for of
that Christ speaks, because it is such a purging as is after bringing forth
some fruit, and whereof the end is to bring forth more fruit. Neither —
2. Are we so much to speak of it here as it is a duty to be done by us,
though it be so, but as it is a work of God upon us, which he takes care to
go through with and perfect in all those who are fruitful ; for he speaks
here of it rather as an act of God's — ' he purgeth ' — than as it is to be an act
of ours, that we ought to purge ourselves ; though both do go together, as
Chap. I.] the trial of a christian's growth. 475
in that speech, Rom. viii. 13, 'We by the Spirit -do mortify the deeds of tne
flesh ;' so as that which is proper to the point in hand, for the explication
of it, as here in this place it is Laid down, is not so much to give you motives
or means of purging yourselves, as to shew you the ways and courses God
takes still one way or other to purge his children by, that they may be mt re
fruitful. And yet —
3. In this work of mortification, considered thus in the progress of it, we
are not mere passives, — as at that final perfecting and finishing of it, and carry-
ing away aU sin at death we are, and are at that first habitual beginning of
it, at conversion, — but therein we are ' workers together with God :' we being
purged from sin as the body is by physic from humours ; though the physic
work, yet nature joins with the physic, being quickened and helped by it to
cast out the humours ; for give a dead man physic, and it carries not any
humours away. So as those means whereby God purgcth us are not to be
imagined to do it as mere physical agents, like as the pruning-hook cuts off
branches from a tree, or as when a surgeon cuts out dead flesh ; but these
means do it by stirring up our graces, and quickening them, and by setting
our thoughts, and faith, and affections a-work, and so God assisting with the
power of Chi-ist's death, he doth purge us daily, by making his word, afilic-
tions, and the like, to set our thoughts a-work against sin, and so to cast it
forth. It is certain, that unless our thoughts work upon the means, as well
as the means work upon us, and so do mingle themselves with those means ;
that unless faith and Christ's death be mingled in the heart, it purgeth not.
And therefore it is said as well that 'we purge ourselves,' — so 2 Tim. ii. 21,
and also 1 John iii. 3, and Rom. viii., that ' we by the Spirit mortify the
deeds of the flesh,' — as it is said that ' God purgeth us,' which is the thing
affirmed here, because God stiU, in going on to purge us, doth it by stirring
up our graces, and useth therein acts of our faith, and love, and many motives
and considerations, to stir up our graces so to eff'ect it. Now —
II. For the reasons that move God thus to go on to purge corruptions
out of his children : —
1. Because Jesus Christ hath purchased an eternal divorce between corrup-
tion and our hearts. He hath bought off all our corruptions, and redeemed
us from all iniquity. Titus ii. 14, ' He gave himself for us, that he might
redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people ;' and
God wiU have the price of Christ's blood out.
2. Because God desires more and more to have delight in us, and to draw
wiigh to us, and therefore he more and more goes on to purge us. For though
he loves us at first, when full of corruptions, yet he cannot so much delight
in us as he would, nor have that communion with us, no more than a hus-
band can with a wife who hath an unsavoury breath or a loathsome disease.
They must therefore be purified for his bed, as Esther was for Ahasuerus.
' Draw nigh to God,' says James, ' and he will draw nigh to you,' chap, iv,
8, 9 ; but then you must ' cleanse your hands, and purify your hearts,' as it
follows there ; God else hath no delight to draw nigh to you.
3. He daily purgeth his that they may be fit for use and service ; for un-
less he purged them, he could not use them in honourable employments, such
as to suffer or to stand for him, in what concerns his glory ; they would be
unfit for such uses, as a vessel is that is unscoured. Therefore, 2 Tim. ii.
21, ' If a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour,' —
that is, he shall be used in honourable employments, and not laid aside, — and
he shall be ' meet for his master's use,' as vessels kept clean, when on the
sudden the master hath occasion to use them, and to have them served in.
476 THE TEIA.L OF A CHRISTIAN'S OEOWTH. [PaKT II.
4. Tliat as our persons,, so thg^ our ssr^ces may be more and more ac-
ceptable ; that our prayers and such performances may savour less of gifts,
and pride, and self-love, and carnal desires : so, Mai. iii 3, 4, it is said, ' He
shall sit as a purifier of silver ; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, as gold
is purified, from their dross, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in
righteousness ; and then shall their offerings be pleasant to the Lord.' The
more the heart and life is purged, the more acceptable your praijera are, and
your obedience, and all you do.
Chap. IL] thk trial of a christian's growth. 477
CHAPTER IL
The ways God useth to purge out our corruptions ; and means whereby he
causeth us to grow therein.
III. Now, in the third place, for the ways whereby God goes on to purge us,
there are many and diverse ; he blesseth all sorts of means and dealings of
his to accomplish it.
1 . First, he useth occasional means to do it, and blesseth them ; as —
(1.) Even falling into sins. Thus it was with David when he fell;
thereby God set him anew upon this work, as by his prayer appears, Ps. li.,
' Oh, purge me, make me clean.'
(2.) Secondly, by casting them into afflictions. So, Dan. xi. 35, ' They
shall fall, to purge them and make them white.' What the word doth not
purge out, nor mercies, that afflictions must. These vines must be cut till
they bleed. Summer purgeth out the outward humours that lie in the skin
by sweating, but winter concocteth the inward by driving in the heat, and
80 purgeth away the humours that lie in the inward parts ; and so, what by
the one, what by the other, the body is kept in health. Thus mercies pre-
vail against some sins, and afflictions against others. Moses neglected to
circumcise his child, (as we do our hearts, it is such a bloody work,) tiU God
met him, and would have killed him. And in like manner God sometimes
puts us in the fear or danger of losing our lives, casts us into sicknesses, and
the like, making as if he meant to kiU us, and all to bring us off to this work
of purging, to circumcise our hearts.
2. As these occasional, so also instrumental instituted helps, as his word.
So, Eph. V. 26, Christ is said * to cleanse his church with the washing of
water by the word ;' by the word spoken, either in preaching or in conference.
So in the very next words to my text, ' Now ye are clean through the words
I have spoken unto you / they had then received the sacraments, and had
heard a good sermon. The word at once discovers the sin, and sets the heart
against it : ' I was ignorant, tiU I went into the sanctuary.' There goes a
light with it to see sin after another manner, although a man did know it
before, and then the word sets out the vileness of a sin ; and to hear a sin
declaimed against and reproved sets an exasperation upon the mind against
it, and so a man goes home, and sets upon it to kill it and destroy it. Or
else by the word meditated upon, as by keeping some truth or other fresh and
sweet in the mind, which the mind cheweth on. God fastens the mind upon
some new promise, or new discovered sign of a man's estate, and these
* cleanse ' him, 2 Cor. vii. 1 ; or upon some attribute of his, and that quickens
the inward man, and overcomes the outward. Some consideration or other
every day God doth make familiar to a man's spirit, to ' talk with him,' (as
the phrase is, Prov. vi. 22,) and to keep him company, and usually some new
one ; God leading us through varieties of sweet truths to chew upon, one
this day, and another to-morrow. And these have an exceeding purging virtue
'1-78 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT IL
in tfeem; they keep the purging issue open, even as those that have issues
made in their arms or legs use to have a pea, or some such small thing, to
lie in the orifice of the issue to keep it open ; and so doth such a new truth,
with spiritual light discovered, still keep the purging issue of sin open, and
draws out the filth, and ' keeps the heart.' So says Solomon, Prov. vi. 21, 22,
24 : observe the coherence there, and it is as if he had said, Keep this com-
mand fresh in mind, and it shall keep thee.
3. God useth also the examples of others as means to provoke a man to
purge himself
(1.) Examples of those that have been professors, and fallen away. They
provoke a man to set fresh upon this work, lest that the like sins should
prevail against him also, and cause him to fall. Therefore the Apostle, when
he heard of Hymenaeus and Philetus's fall, 2 Tim. ii. 1 9, ' Let every one,'
says he, ' that calls upon the name of the Lord,' make this use of it, to ' de-
part from iniquity.' And it follows, ' If you purge yourselves from these, ye
shall be vessels of honour.' It follows upon that occasion.
(2.) Examples of holy men. To hear very holy men speak what victory
over lusts may be attained here doth much provoke another to purge him-
self, who else would content himself with a lesser degree ; so Phil. iii. 17.
4. In the last place, there are many inward workings upon the heart,
whereby God goes on still to purge us.
(1.) First, by a further discovering of corruptions unto us ; either a greater
filthiness in the evils we saw before, or to see more of them, and by what
one sees to suspect more. God never discovers lusts to his but to carry
them away ; he stirs the humours to purge them. Thus when David saw
his sin, he sets anew upon cleansing himself In the 19th Psalm, coming new
from taking a view of his heart, and having seen such volumes of corrup-
tions, so many errata in all that he did, he cries out, ' Who can understand
his errors?' and withal, 'Oh, cleanse me from secret sins.' He then saw
secret evils, and suspected more than as yet he saw ; and this made him cry
out, ' Oh, cleanse me,' and so to use all means, and to go to God to cleanse
him. So when, in the 51st Psalm, God let down a light to let him but see
the corruption of his nature afresh, that he was ' born in sin,' and had ' no
truth ' there, more falsehood than he could ever have imagined, ' Oh, purge
me,' says he upon it.
(2.) Secondly, he sets the heart on work to make it a business to get
one's lusts mortified more and more, and not to rest in the measure at-
tained. Phil. iii. 13, Paul 'forgot what was behind;' he did still desire to
have more fellowship with Christ in his death and sufferings, in the death
of sin. When a man's heart is set upon the work, as that to spyov he came
into the world for, as David, who took up a resolution, ' I said I would look
to my ways ;' so when a man hath said unto himself, I will grow in grace,
as they say, ' I will be rich,' 1 Tim. vi. 9, and so looks at it as his business,
being as much convinced of this, that he should be more holy, as he was at
first that he was to be new born ; when growth of grace is as much in a
man's eye as getting grace at first was, and as great a necessity made of the
one as of the other. This conviction many want, and so take no care to
grow more holy and more pure. Phil. iii. 15, ' If any be otherwise minded,
says the Apostle, that there is no such absolute necessity of going on still to
perfection, ' God shall reveal it to him.' God doth reveal and set on this
upon every godly man's heart at one time or another, and so goes on to
purge them. And this is also expressed to us, 1 Peter iv. 1, 'Forasmuch
as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, let us arm ourselves with the same
Chap. II.] the tuial op a christian's growth. 479
mind,' namely, to mortify our lusts ; for it follows, ' He that hath suffered
in the flesh,' tliat is, hath mortified his lusts, ' hath ceased from sin.' That
same ' arming ' there is God's putting into the mind a strong and invincible
resolution to go through with this work ; when he arms and steels it against
all difliculties, all encounters. This is meant by ' arming us with the same
mind :' that as Christ looked upon it as his business why he came into the
world, even to suffer for us ; so for us to look upon it as our business to
crucify our lusts. When therefore we intend all our endeavours upon this
work, and mind nothing in comparison, pray for nothing more, receive sacra-
ments for this purpose, and hear and perform all other duties with an eye to
this, prosecute this business as the main ; when God hath put such a reso-
lution into a man, and preserves it, then he goes on to purge him.
(3.) Thirdly, God doth it by drawing the sap and juice of the affections of
the heart more and more into holy duties and into obedience. When that
intention of mind, as our morning thoughts and the like, which we formerly
spent upon vanities, are now drawn into prayer and holy meditations, then
lusts do wither ; and when our care is how to please God more, and our
hearts are more in the duties of obedience, then doth corruption shale off
more and more ; and thus by diverting our intentions doth God work out
corruptions. And look, as the sun doth draw up the sap out of the root, so
doth Christ draw out the heart at some times more than at others to holy
duties, and unto communion with himself in the duties. This killeth sin,
and causeth it to wither, — namely, by taking away the sap, that is, that in-
tention of mind which doth usually nourish it. Thus, 1 Pet. L 22, ' We
purify our hearts by obeying the truth.'
(4.) Fourthly, by bringing the heart more and more acquainted with
Christ, his Son, which is the Father's work to do, for ' none comes to the
Son but whom the Father draws.' Now, how many souls are there who
have gone puddering on, as I may so speak, in the use of other means, and
though in the use thereof Christ hath communicated some virtue to them,
yet because they did not trade with him chiefly in those duties, they have
had little in comparison to what afterwards they have had when he hath
been discovered to them, as that great ordinance who is appointed by God
to get their lusts mortified. Before this they have washed and washed, but
they have washed without soap, until Christ hath been thus revealed to them,
and the virtue of his death and rising again, which is compared, Mai. iii. 2,
unto ' fuller's soap,' &c. In Zech. xiii. 1, it is said that ' God opens a foun-
tain to the house of David, for sin and for uncleanness,' that is, for the guilt
of sin and the power of sin. Now by that opening is not meant the promise
of sending his Son into the world to be crucified, but the discovery of him
to believers after his being crucified : for, chap. xii. 10, he is supposed to bs
crucified already, for they there ' see him whom they have pierced / therefore
by that opening there is meant the discovery of him to his people, and him
to be the great ordinance of cleansing them. Now, the more distinctly a man
understands Christ, and how to make use of him, who is already made sanc-
tification to us, the more easily he gets his lusts purged. Such a one, that
trades immediately with Christ, will do more in a day than another in a year ;
for, seeing that the power of purging us lies immediately in him, and that he
is the purging drug which mingles itself with the word and all means else,
and sets them all a-work, therefore the more of him we have, and the
more immediate application we have of him to us, and of his power, the more
recourse our hearts have to him, the more our lusts are purged. As it is ia
dru£S or minerals, if the infusion and steeping of them in liquors will work,
480 THE TRIAL OF A CIICISTIAN's GROWTH. [PaRT II.
how mucli more if tlie substance of them be taken down inwardly and im-
mediately 1 Now this comes to pass, as God doth go on to open our faith
to see him, and know him, and to be acquainted with him ; for so the
Apostle expresseth it, Phil, iii., ' That I may know him, and the power of
his resurrection.' The more we look upon all means else in the use of them
as ineffectual without him, the more power we shall find from him.
(5.) Fifthly, by assuring the soul of his love, and shedding it abroad in
the heart, and by working spiritual joy in the heart, doth God also purge his
people. And to work all these is in God's power immediately and solely.
' I am crucified with Christ,' Gal. ii. 20. And how ? By believing that
' Christ gave himself for me, and loved me.' This deadens a man to the
world, makes a man crucify that which Christ was crucified for; and this
makes a man hate sin, the more he loves Christ, or apprehends his love. And
it doth this in a double relation or respect, not only because sin so displeaseth
him, nor only as it is contrary to his wUl, but because it did afilict him so
much once, and because to ' take sin away ' was the mtent he came into the
world. For so (1 John iii. 4) although a believer is said to mortify sin upon
this consideration indeed, that it is ' the transgression of the law,' yet much
more upon this other, because * Christ was manifest to take sin away.' And
the more assurance I have of another life and a better, and of being like
Christ hereafter, the more a man purgeth himself to be fit for that condition.
• He that hath this hope in him purgeth himself, as he is pure ; ' so in 1 John
iii. 2. The more joy a man hath in Christ, the more deadened he must
needs be to the world ; the one eats up the other : for the ground of all sin
is but the love of pleasure. Now, if I find it in God and Christ, it deadens
me for seeking it in the world ; for omnis vita gustu ducitur, all life is main-
tained by a taste of some sweetness. Now, when the sweetness of sin, the
relish of it, is spoiled by the taste of a greater, it must needs die and abate.
And though that sweetness from God doth not always remain in the present
taste and relish of it, yet it leaves such an impression behind it, that what-
ever a man tastes after, it hath no relish with him in comparison ; still he
says * the old is better : ' and though the taste of one sinful pleasure may
take us off from another, yet none but a contrary pleasure doth kill the aia
and the pleasure in it.
Chap. Ill] the trial of a christian's growth: 431
CHAPTER III.
The trial of mortification ; and that first hy negative signs, or such as argue
much corruption yet remaining unpurged out.
IV. I WILL now come to that fourth thing which was propounded, namely,
helps whereby you may discern what progress hath been made in this work.
And as I said at first that my purpose was not so much to handle mortifica-
tion in the commonplace of it, as only growth therein ; so those things I shall
now deliver about discerning the measure of it, I intend them not so much
for signs of mortification, as rules whereby we may judge how the work goes
forward in us, and how far we are still short in it.
1. And, first, I will handle it negatively, and give you such symptoms as
argue much corruption, a great deal of humours yet remaining to be purged
out ; such as argue little proficiency in this work, though such as withal true
grace may be supposed to be in the heart.
(1.) When a man doth magnify and sets a high price upon worldly and
carnal excellencies and pleasures ; is much taken with outward things, and
carried away with them ; or when, though we restrain ourselves from the
eager pursuit after them, yet if in our eyes and opinions they seem glorious
and goodly things, and, oh, we secretly think, the enjoying such a pleasure,
the obtaining such an excellency, or such or such a condition of life, accom-
modated with such and such conveniences and circumstances, would be so
great an addition of happiness to us ; this argues a green heart, much want
of mortification, though truth of grace be there. These apostles to whom
Christ spake this parable of the vine, and unto them especially, how were
they affected and transported with a trifle ! Even that very night that Christ
was to be attached, they strive for precedency, and ' who should be the
greatest amongst them,' Luke xxii. 24, who should be chief of that noble
order. And it was such a precedency which they affected as noblemen have
in kingdoms, as appears by the following words : they shewed themselves
but Gentiles in it, (as, ver. 25, Christ insinuates,) who stand upon their blood
and their outward privileges. It was not for nothing Christ tells them in
this parable they needed purging ; but the reason was, they were but chil-
dren yet, and ' babes in Christ,' now in their minority, and were not weaned
from rattles and trifles. Christ was not yet crucified, nor they so thoroughly
crucified with him as they were afterwards. The Holy Ghost had not yet
come upon them as fire to burn up their lusts, and to consume this their
dross. That other apostle, Paul, — who says of himself that he was ' bom out
of time,' in comparison to them, — had attained to a greater measure, he glory-
ing in this as his highest title, that he was ' the least of the apostles.' This
magnifying of outward things in our conceits and opinions is indeed but
' knowing things after the flesh,' as the Apostle speaks, 2 Cor. v. 1 6, because
the flesh doth fascinate and corrupt the judgment, in jvidging ourselves by
such things. And this argues exceeding much want of mortification, for it
VOL. lu 2 H
482 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaET II.
is lust that puts that lustre, and gloss, and varnish upon the things of the
world ; for the things in themselves are vain, and we have had experience
that they are such. How comes it, then, we should esteem tbem and be
taken with them, that we should have such high conceits of them 1 It is by
reason of our lusts unpurged out, which represent them falsely ; and there-
fore it is observable that John, 1 Epist. ii. 1 6, speaking of the things of this
world, he puts the lust which is in us to express the things themselves. He
says not, riches and preferment, &c., though he speaks of them, but the ' lusts
of the eye ' and ' pride of life ; ' so he expresseth them, because they are these
lusts that make the things so glorious to us, and set a price upon them.
And therefore so much magnifying and high esteem of outward things as
there is in us, so much inordinate lust there is in the heart after them, and
so much want of mortification ; and when these lusts boiling in us fume up
so high as to intoxicate and corrupt our esteem and judgments, which though
grace should keep us from pursuing these vanities, that yet we look upon
them with a wanton eye, and think great matters in them, and think our-
selves, as it were, debarred and restrained of so muclf of our happiness, whilst
we want and cannot enjoy them, this argues an unmortifiedness ; for herein
lies the power of mortification, even to ' count all things dross and dung,' to
look upon them as ' crucified things,' to have them seem all as withered
flowers, as ' small things,' as he speaks of man's esteem, 1 Cor. iv. 3.
(2.) Secondly, when our minds are carried out to superfluities, and more
than needs, and are discontented with our own condition, though it be such
as might content us, this argues a great want of purging, this is from super-
fluity of humours abounding in the heart. When they in the wilderness,
though they had manna, yet they must have quails also. When there are
such extravagant affections in us, that we think any other condition would
please us better than our own, this argues much unmortifiedness, though it
run not out into acts ; it is the ' superfluity of naughtiness,' the excess of
corruption that thinks ' stolen meat sweet,' as in the Proverbs. When our
longings are wild and humorous, like the longings of women with child, whom
nothing but some one odd thing they have set their fancy on will please ;
like sick men's stomachs, with whom nothing will down that is provided
for them, but still they have a mind rather to something else ; so nor we
with what God allots us. And when we are environed about with comforts,
yet all are nothmg'if some one be wanting. Such unmortified lusts we see
in Samson ; though a good man, yet none of the daughters of Israel could
please, but he must have one of the Philistines, Judges xiv, 3,
(3.) Thirdly, when our minds are so glued to anything, as we cannot tell
how to part with it^- how to lose such a friend or such a convenience, we
would think ourselves half undone if such or such a thing should fall out.
David's heart was full of humours, and needed purging, when he ventured
so much of his comfort in his Absalom alone, that when he was cast away
he wished that he had died for him. It is good often to try our hearts, by
supposing the worst that can befall us, — What if a change should come, such
a thing I should be put to, — to see how the heart can bear it. When some
men have a loss in their estates and riches, it is as it were raked out of their
bellies, as Zophar speaks, Job xx. 15, and a piece even of their very heart
goes with them.
(4.) Fourthly, when a man is still distempered under variety of conditions
and businesses, and is inordinate in them all, it argues much unmortifiedness.
As if he be to recreate himself, he is inordinate in it, and knows not when
to end, and fall to his calling again ; if to study, then he is also as violent in
CiiAk'. III.] Tirr: trial of a christian's orowth. 483
it, and entrenches upon the duties should keep up his soul in health, as also
upon the necessary refreshings his body requires. Broach the vessel where
you will, if still it runs muddy and thick, it is a sign the vessel is full of ill
liquor. To be distempered in some one particular is less, but when in every
vein that is opened much corrupt blood comes forth, it is a sign the body
is full of humours, and needs purging. A man tliat is in an ague, and when
the cold (it takes him he is extreme cold, and when the hot fit comes he is
on the contrary as extreme hot, it is a sign he is full of humours, which as
they are purged out, one or the other abates, or both. If when a man abounds,
then he is commonly confident, and forgets God ; if when he wants, then he
is as much on the other side distempered, and grows solicitous, distrustful.
Sound bodies can bear sudden alteration of heat and cold, but distempered
weak bodies cannot. Nature cannot bear a sudden alteration, but much
grace can ; ' I know liow to want, I know how to abound,' Phil, iv, 12. He
was much therefore mortified; he could work hard in summer, without
much sweating, and he could undergo the cold of winter without catarrhs,
and such weaknesses as others are subject to ; his soul was well purged of
humours. And so Job had learned to bless God when all was gone ; he
was a man thoroughly mortified before, he had carried him.self in his best
estate without security and carnal rejoicing ; thus he says of himself, that
he ' made not gold his hope, nor his confidence, nor had rejoiced because his
wealth was great,' chap xxxL 25, and answerably, he behaves himself in his
worst estate with patience and thanksgiving.
(5.) Fifthly, the more carnal confidence we have in the creatures, and bear
ourselves upon them, and have our spirits strengthened and upholden by
them, the more want of mortification. The Corinthians, though godly, yet
they were very uumortified ; therefore the Apostle says, they were ' rather
carnal than spiritual,' 1 Cor. iii. 1. Now this their carnal-mindedness,
among other things, was expressed in their carnal confidence they had in
outward things. They had riches, and gifts, and learning, and they did swim
Ir these ; and reigned and domineered in their own thoughts, and excelled
ail other churches in their own opinions, and so despised others in compa-
rison. They were cariied aloft by these waxen wings, which I take to be the
Apostle's meaning, 1 Cor. iv. 8, ' Now ye are full, no^v ye are rich, ye have
reigned:' they had riches and gifts, &c., and they thought themselves as
kings, full of happiness, having the world before them, and were filled with
conceits of it ; and ' I would to God you did reign,' says he, — that is, that
it were not repnum in cajnte, in your own conceits only, — and that there
were indeed such real cause to applaud your own conditions. ' We are of
the circumcision,' says the Apostle, ' and have no confidence in the flesh,'
Phd. iii. 3. The more the heart is truly circumcised, — of which he there
speaks, in opposition to those who rested in outward cu'cumcision, — it
trusteth not, nor beareth not itself, upon outward things, privileges, and
endowments, as riches, blood, credit, learning, righteousness; these, when
the heart is not circumcised, do puff it up ; ' but we,' sa3^s he, ' have no con-
fidence in the flesh,' either for comfort, or for justification, or anything else ;
but we rejoice in Christ Jesus.'
(6.) Sixthly, the more full of envyings, and heart-burnings against others,
and of breaking forth into strife, our hearts are, and of strivings and con-
tentions to get the credit, or riches, or victory away from others, &c., the
more uumortified are our hearts, and the more need of purging. These
overflowings of the gall and spleen come from a fulness of bad humours.
'Whereas there is among you envying and strife, are ye not carnal V 1 Cor.
484 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [FART II.
iii. 3. That is. this argues you to be such, for envj' and strife are not only
lusts in themselves, but further they are such lusts as are always the children
and fruit of some other ; they are rooted in, and spring from inordinate
affections to some things which we contend for ; and accordingly, if this fire
of envy or strife prove great, it argues the fuel — that is, the lusts after the
things we envy others fur — to be much more. For envy is but an oblique
lust, founded on some more direct lust ; these are but the outward flushings,
that shew the distemper to be much more within. James iv. 1, ' From whence
come wars and fightings amongst you 1 come they not hence, even of your
lusts which fight in your members 1 ' There is something the heart would
have, as it follows in the 2d verse, ' Ye lust, and have not,' &c. A conten-
tious spirit is an unmortified spirit ; ' If ye bite and devour one another,'
Gal. V. 15. ' This I say then, Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil
the lusts of the flesh.' Mark the coherence, it comes in upon biting one at
another, for such walk not in the spirit, flesh doth prevail in them, that is
his meaning.
(7.) Seventhly, the less able we are to bear reproofs for the breakings forth
of our lusts, the more unmortified it argues our hearts to be. It is a sign
we love those much whom we cannot endure to hear spoken against : there-
fore, says the Apostle, ' Be swift to hear, but slow to wrath;' take heed of
raging when you are touched. And it follows a verse after, ' Casting away
all superfluity, receive the word with meekness,' for it is your lusts uncast
out, unpurged, that cause that wrath and heart-boiling against reproof That
good king was in a great distemper of spirit when he cast the prophet in
prison that reproved him, for ' he oppressed the people also at the same
time,' as is said, 2 Chron. xvi. 10. He was then taken in the springtide
and swelling of his lusts of covetousness and oppression ; they brake down
all that withstood and opposed the current of them : and if, as he in this fit
at this time, so we be found in such passionate tempers upon such occasions
of reproof ordinarilj', it argues the haljitual frame of our hearts to be much
unmortified, as this argued him at this time to have been actually much dis-
tempered.
(8.) Eighthly, the more quick and speedy the temptation is in taking, the
more unmortified the heart is : when an object at the first presenting makes
the lust to rise, and passeth through at the very first presenting of it, and
soaks into the heart, as oil into the bones, and runs through all ; when a man is
gunpowder to temptations, and it is but touch and take, so as there needs
not much blowing, but the heart is presently on fire, as, Prov. vii. 22, it is
said, ' He went straightway after her.' A man will find that when his heart
is actually in a good temper, a temptation doth not so easily take ; his heart
is then, though tinder, yet as wet tinder, that is more slow in taking. As
there is a preparedness to good works, so there is a preparedness to evil ;
when the heart is in a covetous humour, ' and will be rich, then a man falls
into temptations and a snare,' 1 Tim. vi. 9. His lusts will nibble at every
bait in everything he deals in ; they will take presently. When the heart
is thus bird-limed, then it cleaves to everything it meets with. It is a sign
that the heart is not ' awake to righteousness,' as the Apostle speaks, but to
sin rather, when a little occasion awakeneth a lust, and rouseth it ; as when,
on the contrary, if a great deal of jogging will not awaken a man's grace.
(9.) Ninthly, the more our lusts have power to disturb us in holy duties,
and the more they prevail with the heart, then the more unmortified and
profane the heart is ; as to have unclean glances in hearing, and worldly
thoughts then ordinarily to possess the heart, and to take it up much : ' They
CUAP. III.] THE TKIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 485
are profane,' says God, Jer. xxiii. 11, 'for in my house I have found their
wickedness.' If the heart be carried away and overcome with unclean and
worldly thoughts, then this argues much unmortifiedncss, and that the flesh
is indeed much above the sjiirit. For why, then a man is in God's presence,
and that should overcome and overawe the unrcgenerate part, if it were not
impudent and outrageous ; and besides, then the regenerate part hath the
advantage, for the word and the ordinance is a stirring of it up and provok-
ing it to holiness. And therefore that at such a time a man's lusts should
be able to tempt and seduce a man's heart, it argues sin hath a great part iu
the heart, when it affronts God in his throne, when grace is in solio, where it
would be. For the disciples then to be talking who should be greatest, when
Christ had made so long a sermon to them, and had administered the sacra-
ment to them, this argued much want of mortification in them ; even as it
were a sign tiiat the orthodox party were but a weak party in a kingdom,
if, whilst they are at sermons, Papists durst come in and disturb them, and
put them out.
(10.) Tenthly, when the recalling former acts committed by a man prove
stUl to be a snare to him, and being suggested by Satan as a means to
quicken his lust, the thought thereof doth rather stir up his lust afresh, it is
a sign uf an uumortitied frame. Thus it is laid to the charge of that nation,
Ezek. xxiii. 21, that 'she multiplied her whoredoms in calling to remem-
brance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land
of Egypt.' The remembrance of them was a snare to her, as appears by the
8th verse. It is a sign a man is deeply in love whenas he falls in love Avith
the picture. When the remembrance of whence he is fallen should make him
repent, that it should, on the contrary, cause him to commit the same sin
again, it is a sign flesh hath much the better. To have the mind stirred
with new objects and new temptations may stand with far less corruption
and more grace, than to have it stirred afresh with the remembrance of the
old. To find sweetness in a lust twice sod, which we have also often steeped,
as I may so speak, in godly sorrow and hatred of it, and so boiled it in sour
herbs ] yet still to find sweetness in the remembrance of such an act, this
argues much corruption. As the Apostle argues the sinfulness and strength
of corrupt nature in hiln, that the law, which was holy and good, should stir
up his lust whilst unregenerate ; so may we, when the thought of a sin, which
should stir up godly sorrow, should provoke and tickle corrupt nature again.
Indeed, that the new scent of meat should have moved the Israelites would
not have been so much, but that the remembrance of their flesh-pots should
do it ! That speech, Rom. vui., where we are commanded to ' mortify the
deeds of the flesh,' may admit, among other, this interpretation also, that
not only the lusts, but even former deeds and acts committed, which may
prove an occasion of sin to us, and have a fresh verdure in our eye, are to
be mortified.
186 THE TRIAL OF A CHPaSTlAK's GROWTH. [PaKT II
CHAPTER IV.
Positive signs of growth in mortification, and God's purging of us.
2. And so now I come to tlie second sort of signs — namely, positive signs
of growth in mortification, and of God's purging of us.
(1.) First, the more insight a man hath into spiritual corruptions, together
with a conflict against them, the more growth he hath attained unto iu
purging out corruptions ; so as that now the chiefest of his conflict is come
to be with spiritual lusts, not worldly lusts and gross evils ; it is an evidence
of his progress in this work. These ordinarily are sure rules, that whdst a
man's conflict is with more outward gross evils, as uucleanness, worldly-
mindedness, &c., so long and so much he is kept from the sight of those in-
ward, hidden, close corruptions, which sit nighest to the heart. As also, on
the contrary, the more a man is freed from, and hath got victory over such
more outward evils, the more his thoughts and intentions are bent inward to
the discovery of the other more spiritual wickednesses. And the reason is,
for these spiritual lusts, as pride, carnal confidence in a man's own graces,
Belf-flattery, presumption, and the like, these corruptions lie, as I may so
express it, more up in the heart of the country ; but those other, of worldly
lusts, lie, as it were, in the frontiers and skirts of it : and therefore, until
such time as a man hath in some good measure overcome those that en-
counter him at the borders, he comes not to have so through a discovery and
constant conflict with those that lie higher uj) in the heart : ' Let us cleanse
ourselves from all pollution, both of flesh and sjjirit,' says the Apostle, 2
Cor. vii 1, which imphes that there are two sorts of corruptions, one of the
flesh or body, the other of the spirit or soul : for so the opposition there is
to be taken, for else all lusts are lusts of the flesh ; that is, of corrupt nature.
Again, such corruptions cause ' a blindness, that a man cannot see afar ofi",'
as 2 Pet. i. 9. Whilst a scholar that learns a tongue hath not learned to
escape all grosser faults in grammatical construction, he cannot be supposed
to have come to know the elegancies of the tongue, nor see his errors therein ;
so nor do men come to be critics indeed, and cunningly skilful in the more
curious errata of their hearts and spirits, till they have attained to such a
degree of mortification as to be free from grosser evils. And indeed, those
who are grown in grace have attained ordinarily some freedom from such
sins; therefore, says John, 1 Epist. ii. 14, 'You young men are strong, and
have overcome that evil one :' they have attained so much strength as to
overcome the grosser evils. So as, to allude to what the Apostle says in
another case, they then come to conflict not so much with ' flesh and blood '
and outward evUs, as mth ' spiritual wickednesses ' within, — that is, with
afi"ections and dispositions contrary to the work of gi'ace ; and therein lies
their chiefest exercise, which is not till they have some freedom and victory
over the other, and so are at leisure to view these.
(2.) Secondly, we may discern our victory over our lusts by our ability
Chap. IV.] the tiual of a christian's growth. 487
more or less to deny ourselves. The more we grow up to a readiness, will-
ingness, and freencss, and cheerfulness of heart to deny ourselves when we
are called and put upon doing of it, the more are lust.s purged out ; for the
reason that our hearts consult so much with carnal ends in business, that we
have so much ado with them ere we can bring them off to part with such
and such things, as God and our own consciences do call us unto, is through
want of purging. For all want of self-denial is from an adhesion to outward
things. Were we free and unmarried men to the world, were our hearts
loosened from all, and were all the secret fibi-oe, those stings of lusts that
shoot into things, cut, it would be nothing to us to part with them : this
was in that gi-eat Apostle, how ready was he to lay down his life ! ' My life
is not dear to me, so I may fulfil my ministration with joy ; ' and so when
the time of his departure was at hand, says he, ' I am ready to be offered,'
2 Tim. iv. 6. He speaks it in the present tense, <s^hhi>ij,aij 'I am offered ;'
it was done in his heart already. As in like phrase of speech it is said,
Heb. xi. 17, that ' Abraham offered up his son,' because in his heart he fully
purposed it. "When men must be forced by terrors of conscience, as Pharaoh
with plagues, to let their credits or estates go by restitution, or for God and
good uses, &c., it is a sign of want of purging. The more loosened a man is
from the world and the things of it, the more prepared that man is for all
works of self-denial, and the more purged. So when a man parts with all
without sticking or higgling, as Abraham is said to ' believe without stagger-
ing,' it is a sign he hath attained to a good degree, even as that argued a
strong faith, Rom. iv. 20. When a man hath an open and a large heart to
God, as a liberal man hath an open hand to men, as Abraham had when he
was willing to let God have his only son, it was a sign he was much weaned ;
when God can command anything thou hast at an hour's warning, as we
say. Abraham stood not long deliberating, Shall I, shall I ? but went ' early
in the morning,' even the next morning, God having called for his son that
very night, as it is likely by that in the 22d of Genesis, ver, 3 ; for the
night was the time when God used to reveal himself by visions; and the next
morning he went forth early.
(3.) Thirdly, the more constancy there is in our hearts and ways, the more
even, stable in well-doing, and the more lasting, durable frame and temper
for holiness we find our hearts to abide in, the more we are purged ; for in
that we find such sudden Sowings and re-flowings in our hearts, that when
a corruption seems to be at a low ebb, and our hearts in a good frame,
within an hour or so a mighty tide comes in, and we find our hearts over-
flown with a sea of filth, such sudden alterations from the better to the
worse do come from those vast seas of corruptions that are still within us,
that tumble and float up and down in our hearts. So the Apostle intimates,
' Purge your hearts, ye double-minded.' That their hearts are of so unequal
a temper, sometimes in hot fits, sometimes in cold, and so suddenly altered,
this cannot be but from much corruption. This double-mindedness comes
from want of purging. The Galatians were surely very weak and foolish, as
he tells them, when they were so soon transported. He marvels not so much
that they were removed, as that so soon, o'jrw ray^mg, so suddenly. Gal. i. 6,
and brings it in as an evidence of their weakness, that they who would have
* given him their eyes ' should now so much be altered and carried away ;
80 much mortifiedness, so much constancy. Therefore, in the 5th of Galatians,
ver. 24, 25, when in the 24th verse he had said, ' Those that are Christ's have
crucified the afi'ections with the lusts,' he adds in the 25th verse, ' K we live
in the spirit, let us walk in the spirit :' the word imports a being constant
488 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT II.
in the spirit. Then when lusts are crucified, then the Holy Spirit will rule
us in our ways, and a holy frame of heart will be discovered, in a constant
tract of holiness ; we shall walk in the spirit, keep ourselves long in a spiri-
tual frame and course, and not be biased aside ; that we step out so much,
is from strong lusts unmortiiied.
(4.) Fourtlily, the more a man comes to a spiritual taste of the spiritual
word, and that which is most spiritual therein, the more it is a sign that
corruption is purged out. When a man comes to his stomach, it is a sign
he is growing out of a sickness, and that the humours are much purged out.
So, 1 Pet. ii. 1, 'Laying aside all malice,' &c., 'as babes desire the word,
that ye may grow thereby : if so be ye have tasted.' Therefore the more
corruption is laid aside, the more we taste the word, and God in it ; the
more we taste, the more we desire it ; the more we desire it, the more
we grow.
(5.) Fifthly, when we are ashamed of former carriages and ways, as seeing
and discerning those weaknesses we saw not before, as scholars use to be of
their exercises a year or two after ; so if we be ashamed of former prayers,
hearings, &c., as that great proficient discerned in himself, who, looking back
upon his first days of conversion, says, ' When I was a child, I spake as a
child :' he speaks it, applying it to his growth of grace.
(6.) Sixthly, when in ordinary times of temptation a man finds a lust not
so violent and raging as it was wont, but more impotent and weak. Look
to your fits of sinning whether they become greater or less, for then a man's
strength or weakness is discerned most ; as the bodily strength is, when a
man either goes about to put himself forth, or is assaulted and set upon.
Many that are sick, whilst they lie stUl in their beds think they have a great
deal of strength, but when they attempt to rise and walk they sink down
again. As a man's weakness to good is discerned when he comes to do and
to act it, — Kom. vii., ' to do I am not able,' — so a man's weakness to sin, or
strength against it, is then also best discerned. The weakness or strength
of a kingdom is best seen and discerned in time of war, when all forces are
mustered up. Now, God sometimes appoints some more frequent assaults,
and on purpose suffers ' the law in the members to war,' and to muster up
all their force, that, as it is said of Hezekiah, a man ' might know what is in
L.is heart.' Now, if then a man finds that the motions of sin in his heart do
every temptation after other meet a hotter encounter than they had wont ; that
the resistance against sin grows quicker and stronger ; that sin cannot ad-
vance and carry on his army so far as formerly, but is still encountered and
met withal at the frontiers, and there overthrown even at the first setting
out, so as it cannot carry it through the camp, (as Zimri did his mistress
Cozbi,) as sometimes it had wont, whenas grace stood at the tent door, as
Moses, weeping, yet unable to resist it ; and although assaults and tempta-
tions do continue, that yet there is ground kept and won upon the encroach-
ments of a lust, insomuch that at least the outward forts are kept by grace,
—that is, outward acts are abstained from : now so far as the lust is not
fulfilled as it had wont to be, and not only so, but the inroads of it are con-
fined and contracted also to a narrower compass, and to have a lesser ground
and space in regard of inward acts ; also so far it is purged more forth. As,
for instance, be it a lust of fancy, when it cannot boil up to such gross
fancies as it had wont ; be it a lust of pride, or uncleanness, or grosser acts,
when it falls from bringing forth fruit, to bring forth but blossoms, but
inward burnings, and from blossoms only to bring forth leaves, it is a sign
then it is withering more and more. When the intention of mind in the
CnAP, IV.] THE TEiAL OF ^ chkistian's okowth, 489
temptation, which is as the fire that makes it to boil, grows loss and less ;
when the inordinate thirst is not so great in the time of the fit ; when the
inward acts are grown in their requests more modest, the lustings them-
selves pitch upon lower and inferior acts than they had wont; when their
armies depart with lesser spoil, are content with them, whenas before they
flew at the first onset to the highest kinds of villanies and outrages ; when
thus the overflowings of a man's lusts do abate and fall short, the tides
lessen, overflow less ground, overspread less every day than another, this is
another probable sign of a growth herein,
(7.) Seventhly, the more ability to abstain from occasions and opportunities
of satisfying a man's lusts ; as Job, a man much mortified, ' made a covenant
with his eyes not to behold a maid,' and kept to it, chap. xxxi. 1. When
a man hates the ' very garment spotted with the flesh ;' it is a sign of a
strong hatred, when a man cannot endure to come where one he loves not
is, cannot endure the sight of him, anything that may put him in mind of
him, not so much as to parley or to speak with him.
(8.) Eighthly, when our hearts do not linger after such objects as may
satisfy our lusts when absent, but when out of sight they are out of mind ;
this is a good degree of mortification. We may find it in ourselves, that
when objects are not presented, that yet there is in our hearts oftentimes a
lingering after them, and this from themselves, without any outward provo-
cation ; that is far worse. Many a man, when he sees meat, finds he hath
a stomach to it, which he thought not till it was set before him ; but when
a man longs after meat he sees not, it is a sign he is very hungry. As we
see against rainy weather, before the rain begins to fall, the stones will give,
as we use to say, and grow dank ; so a man that observes his heart may
find, before objects are presented, or actual thoughts arise, a giving of his
heart to such and such a lust, an inclination, a darkness, a moistness, a
sympathising with such an object, — that is a sign of unmortifiedness. David
was ' as a weaned child,' he had no thoughts of the dug, no longings after it ;
I have ' no high thoughts' after the kingdom, says he, Ps. cxxxi. A child
that begins to be weaned, it may be, at first cries after the dug, though he
Bees it not ; but afterwards, though it may be when he sees it he cries after
it, yet not when absent. Objects present have a far greater force to draw,
when absent less ; therefore this is a further degree of mortification attain-
able. It was in Joseph, when his mistress tempted him from day to day;
opportunity was ready, the object present, but he denied her. So in Boaz,
a woman lay at his feet all night. So in David, when he had Saul in his
lurch, might as easily have cut off his head as the lap of his garment ; and
was egged on to do it, but he was then weaned indeed, and did it not.
When a man can look upon beauty and preferment, and truly say. They are
no temptations to me. It is a sign of an unsound temper, when upon eating
such or such meats, a man is presently put into the fit of an ague ; a health-
ful man is not so. The prophet calls them ' the stumblingblock of their
iniquity.' When a man is going on his way, and though he did not seek
occasions of falling, yet meeting with them, he cannot step over them, but is
caught, and stumbleth, and falls, it is a sign of unmortifiedness.
490 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT II.
CHAPTER V.
Some cautions to prevent misjudging hy false rules. — This case resolved,
Whether growth in mortification may be judged by the ordinary prevail-
ing s of corruption, or actings of grace.
Besides these rules both these ways given, I will, in the third place, add
some cautional considerations, to prevent misjudging of oiir growth in
mortification, by such false rules as men are apt to be deceived, in judging
worse or better of ourselves by, than the truth is, or than there is cause.
Which considerations will also further serve as directions to us, as well as
the former have done.
1. First, men may deceive themselves when they estimate their progress
herein by having overcome such lusts as their natures are not so prone unto.
The surest way is to take a judgment of it from the decay of a man's bosom-
sin, even as David did estimate his uprightness by his ' keeping himself from
his iniquity,' Ps. xviii. 23 ; so a man of his growth in uprightness. When
physicians would judge of a consumption of the whole, they do it not by the
falling away of any part whatever, as of the flesh in the face alone, or any
the like ; such a particular abatement of flesh in some one part may come
from some other cause ; but they use to judge by the falling away of the
brawn of the hands, or arms and thighs, (tc, for these are the more solid parts.
The like judgments do physicians make upon other diseases, and of the
abatement of them from the decrease in such symptoms as are pathognomical,
and proper and peculiar to them. In like manner also the estimate of the
progress of the victories of a conqueror in an enemy's kingdom is not taken
from the taking or burning of a few villages or dorps, but by taking the forts
and strongest holds, and by what ground he hath won upon the chief strength,
and by what forces he hath cut off of the main army. Do the like in the
decrease of, and victory over, your lusts.
2. Secondly, you must not judge of your mortification by extraordinary
assistances or temptations; as you do not judge of the strength of a kingdom
by auxiliary foreign forces, that are at extraordinary times called in. A
young Christian shall, for his encouragement even in the heat of the battle,
when he is ready to be overcome and carried away captive, find the Holy
Ghost breaking in, and rescuing of him, as Jehoshaphat was (to allude to it)
when 'he cried to the Lord;' whenas a Christian of much standing is left
to fight it out hand to hand. Now it doth not follow that the other, because
thus freed, hath the more strength. Again, on the other side, a man is not
to judge of himself by his weakness in some one extraordinary temptation.
A man that is very sick, and nigh unto death and dissolution, may, through
much heat and stirring up of all his spirits, have the strength of five men in
him, and much greater than when he was in health. And so a godly man,
whose corruptions are weak, and more near to dissolution, yet in a fit may
have all the corruption that is within him mustered up, and blown up by
Chap. V.] the tiiial of a ciiiustian's growth. 491
Satan, and so it may for the present appear to have more strength than ever
in all his life, and yet he may be much mortified. Even as Sarah may, by
an extraordinary means, have pleasure in her old age, and bring forth a child
when she had left* child-bearing long, and yet her * womb was dead,' Rom.
iv. 1 9. And as it may be true that one of small grace may have that little
grace drawn out, and wound up to a higher strain, for one fit, brunt, and
exercise ; all the strings wound up to a higher note for .some one les.son, than
one haply of more grace ever felt, to higher acts of love to God, and of re-
joicing in God. and purer strains of self-denial ; yet take the constant strains
of one's spirit that hath more grace, and the strings will ordinarily endure to
stand higher, and continue so. So, on the contrary, one of much mortifica-
tion may have his lusts spurred on faster, and boiled up higher by Satan's
fires than one of less. The estimate of our growth must not therefore be
taken by a step or two, but by a constant course ; for as a man's sincerity is
to be measured, so is his growth : even as a man's health is to be measured
by the constant tenor of his temper.
Only, I will add three things to give further direction concerning such
extraordinary cases of temptation : —
(1.) First, that it is certain that so much corruption as at such a time, and
in such a fit, a man felt a-stirring in him, so much indeed and in truth there
is of corruption in his heart ; for the de\il can put none in, but only acts
and doth improve what is there already. For, as that speech of Christ im-
plies, Satan can work but according to the matter he findeth in us : ' He
Cometh, and findeth no matter in me ; ' the wind adds no water to the sea,
only can make the waves to rise and surge ; the fire adds nothing to the
water when it is set upon it, but attenuates it only, and causeth it to boiL
And so in Hezekiah, when he was cast into that fit of pride, the text says
that it was ' that he might know all that was in his heart,' 2 Chron. xxxii.
31. It was in his heart before.
(2.) Secondly, I add, that yet hence it cannot be infallibly inferred that a
man hath, comparatively either to himself, more corruption in him than he
had twenty years before, because more is stirred up ; or that, comparatively
to others, he hath more corruption than they, because more is now for a fit
drawn forth. So that it follows not from hence that others which are kept
free from such a temptation, that they have lesst mortification because they
were never cast into so hot and burning a fit. One whose body is less full of
humours, and naturally of a more moderate temper for heat, may yet, through
some accident or other, or disease, suppose the plague, be cast into hotter
fits of a burning fever, than one whose temper is more fiery, and humours
more abounding in him. To have recourse to the former instance. Heze-
kiah surely had more corruption twenty years before his recover}' out of his
sickness than at that time, and yet it wrought not so, that we read of, as it
did then ; not that the barrel was then fuller, but that now it was broached
lower, and a greater vent given, and so it came more gushing out, dregs and
all That a man, after he is grown up to his full strength, falls into so great.
a sickness, such a one as he never had when he was a child, which maketh
him weaker than when he was ten or twelve years old, doth not argue but
that he is a man grown for all that. David, after a long growth, had a time
of great sickness, whereby he lost the exercise, the lively, vigorous use of his
graces ; enfeebled by that sickness, he lost his taste in God's ordinances by it,
and ' the joy of God's salvation,' as appears by the 51st Psalm.
(3.) And the third thing I would add is this, that such a one as is indeed
* Eather, ' passed the age of child-bearing.'— Ed. t Q". ' more' ? — Ed.
492 THE TKIAL OF A CUKISTIAX's GROWTH. [PaET IL
much mortified, if it ha^jpens lie falls into sucli a fit, yet the greater measure
of his mortification wUl appear afterwards, in that the lust will be weaker
after his recovery again. It is in this as with a man that is in a hot fiery
fit of a fever, though he have at that instant the strength of two men in him,
as was said, yet afterward, when the spirits are ebbed and settled again, his
body is the weaker for it ; so is the body of sin, upon the resurrection of
grace, after such a fall. Many grow more after sickness. For God's end
being but to discover his weakness, and what he is in himself, and to rouse
him out of his security, he then loves to manifest his power when once we
have seen our weakness ; and so ' makes his strength perfect in our infirmi-
tie.s,' when they are not ordinary, but beyond the ordinary temper and dis-
positions of our spirits.
Quest. — But then the question may be concerning the more ordinary
passages of a man's life : Whether a man may measure and take a sure esti-
mate of the inward root of corrujjtion left in him, by the ordinary risings
and stirrings of it, and his fallings into sin more or less ? I speak not now
of extraordinary fits, but of ordinary qualms and weaknesses.
Resolved. — To this I answer, that ordhiarily men may conclude from the
more or less busy they find corruption to be in them, that the more or less
there is of corruption in them, and so thereby measure their growth ; for
grace and corruption are as two roots, and therefore the actions of them both
are called their 'frmts,' Gal. v. 19, 22. Now Christ elsewhere gives us this
rule of nature, to judge of the tree by the fruits, to proceed by in matters of
grace also. And as by the fruit we may know of what sj^ecies and kind the
tree is, so likewise what plenty of sap there is at the root, by the plenty,
or bigness, or fairness of the fruit it doth bring forth. The more inward
corruption at the root, ordinarily the more fruit thereof appears in the life ;
and proportionably also of the tender fruits of the Spirit. And therefore
Christ here says that the vine is to be ' purged, that it may bring forth more
fruit ;' because the more corruption is emptied, the more holiness Avill appear
in your inward and outward fruitfuhiess. And the reason hereof is, because
ordinarily as a thing is in bemg, so it is in working. Loesa principia hahent
Icesas operationes. Children, the weaker, the more falls they have in their
ordinary walkings ; bodies, the more sickly, or the weaker and more un-
healthy the jcsKff/s and constitution is, the more qualms ; and as they recover
strength more and more, they find they outgrow such weaknesses. And
therefore, ordinarily, according to what activeness a man finds of grace or sin
in him, according are the inward principles of either of them more or less in
him. For the soul of man, as it is an active thing, so bemg left to its ordi-
nary course, it acts according to the sway, and bias, and inclination of the
habits that are in it, which are also active, as both grace and sin are. As a
bowl, when the force of the hand that threw it begins to decay, it is swayed
by the bias, and lead that is in it j and so the less grace, the less, ordinarily,
it acts graciously, and the weaklier. And then also the opposite corruption
must needs be so much the more active ; for the soul being active, abates
not of its mettle, but it wiU still shew itseif one way or other. The flesh
will ' lust against the spirit ' so nmch the stronglier, as the spirit is weaker,
'for they are contrary.' Yea, and thus God judgeth of the principles of
grace in us, according as they act in us : he will judge of our mortification
by the fruits of it in our lives and hearts ; the more the fruits of sin grow
on in us, the less mortified he will account us ; as he wdll judge of faith by
the works, so of mortification by the fruits. And therefore it is observable,
Chap. V.] the thial of a christian's g owth. 493
that he bids us mortify the deeds of the body, as well as the body of sin,
Rom. viii. 13 ; for God will judge of the one by the other. Therefore the
objects of mortification are the deeds of the body, as weU as the inward
principle of corruption, because the mortification of the inward principle will
be seen and appear in the deeds.
Obj. — But it may be objected, that grace is acted, or lusts do stir, accord
ingly as the Spuit of Christ, who is a voluntary agent, doth act grace, or
will leave a man ; so that if he be pleased to stir that little grace in a weak
Christian, he shall act it more, and if he leave a strong Christian to himself,
he shall tall more.
But to this it is answered —
Ans. 1. — First, that though the Holy Ghost be a voluntary agent, and
blows when and where he pleaseth, for his times of working, yet ordinarily
he acteth grace in us, take our whole course, according to the proportion
of grace given us, so as he that hath more habitual grace shall be more as-
sisted and enlivened, which falls out according to that rule, which in this
case will hold, habenti dabitur ; Matt. xxv. 2'J, 'To him that hath shall be
given,' if it be a true talent. Hence therefore he that had five talents
gained more than he that had but two : for he gained his five more unto his
five ; the other but two more to his former two ; though he that had but
one is said to have gained none, because indeed it was not a true talent, for
he ' seemed but to have it,' the text says. And the reason hereof is, because
those habits of grace which God hath infused are his own works, and are
ordained by him to be acted, and he delights stUl to crowTi his own works in
us with more. And as he proportions glory to works, so he promiseth to
act according to the principles of grace infused, which else would be in vain,
they being ordained to that end. As the Apostle says of gifts, that they are
' given to profit withal,' so are graces to work, and therefore ordinarily God
draws them out, where he hath bestowed them, as he doth gifts also, accord-
ing to their proportion. And thus, e contra, it is for leaving a man to sin ;
the more corruption a man hath, the more ordinarily he lets it vent and dis-
cover itself, that so men that have many corruptions in them might know
•what is in their hearts ; and so when God doth mortify them in them to
thank him the more, the grace of which else would be to them lost, if God
should mortify their lusts in them, without their seeing and bewailing them,
and crying to him, * miserable man that I am !' and ordinarily see and
discern them men would not, unless left to them. As in case of humbling
a man, though God sometimes doth humble a man that hath less sins more
than one that hath greater, to shew that he can give a spiritual light to see
more sin in a little than others in much ; yet ordinarily those are most
humbled that have been greatest sinners, as Manasseh ' humbled himself
greatly,' and Mary Magdalene ' loved much,' and the Apostle thought himself
* the greatest of sinners.' And thus it is in acting grace, or letting forth
corniptions ; it is according to their principles within.
Ans. 2. — And, secondly, that very acting grace doth increase habits : so
as the increase of habits and inward mortification is proportioned according
to the acting of grace by the Holy Ghost ; for every abstinence doth mortify,
as was said, and every act of grace doth, through the blessing of the Spirit,
further sanctify and increase the habit: Eom. vi., 'You have your fruit
in holiness.' When they do any duty, it makes the heart more inwardly
holy, so as indeed the one cannot be without the other ; but the more a
man doth abstain out of right principles, by the assistance of the Spirit, the
494 THE TRIAL OF A CHEISTIAN's CHIOWTH. [PaET II.
more he grows : so as in the end all comes to one ; he whose holiness is
acted most hath in the end most habitual grace, and thereby often it comes
to pass that ' he that is first comes to be last, and he that is last first.'
Yet there are two limitations to be put in about this : —
(1.) First, I grant, for sume times of men's lives, that God doth act some
men's graces more, who have yet less grace, and leave those to sins who have
more grace. So he left Peter, who in all appearance had more grace than
any of the twelve, yet God left him to deny Christ more foully and falsely
than any of the other.
But then let the ends of God be considered why he doth it : —
[1.] First, in case of too much confidence upon inherent grace, and the
strength of it. When we trust to habitual grace received, then Christ, to
shew that it is a new grace, to assist that grace, and to the end that it may
be acknowledged that he that gives one grace is not bound to give another,
may in this case leave one that hath indeed more grace to the prevailing of
corruptions more. It falls out sometimes that when men are young Chris-
tians, and new born, God adds much assistance, and this for their encourage-
ment ; and as you carry young children in your arms, and so they are kept
from falls more than some more elderly that are let go alone, thus, Hos.
xi. 3, ' God takes them by the arms when a child,' ver. 1, but then ' they
acknowledge it not,' as it follows there, and are apt to think that that
strength and life they have is from themselves, and so God afterwards leaves
them, when grown more elderly. Those Christians who walk most sensibly
of their own weakness, and observe God's keeping them from sin, and at-
tribute this to him, such God delights to help, though for the present they
have less habitual grace. And so those Christians that sooner come to the
knowledge of that way of dependence upon Christ, — some come to see it the
first da}', and make use of it, others not so clearly a long while, — they shall
be more assisted than another. To many that way so soon is not so clearly
opened.
[2.] Again, secondly, sometimes God will magnify this his acting grace,
as I may call it, more in one man than in another, seeing it is a grace. That
one Apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, did more than all the apostles ; shall we
thereby infallibly conclude he had more inherent grace than they all ? but
that he had more assistance. As God sometimes useth men of weaker gifts
to do more than men of greater ; so men of weaker graces, and less growth,
to shame the other. As there are ' diversities of gifts,' so of * operations and
exercise' of those gifts, 1 Cor. xii. 6, the ' Spirit dividing as he will,' ver. 11.
God casts aside one of eminent gifts into a place or condition wherein they
are not useful, and so he may one of much habitual grace.
[3.] Thirdly, he acts often according to actual preparation ; the habitual
preparation lies in habits, and is more remote ; as strings may be good, yet
out of tune, and so not played upon.
[4.] Again, fourthly, God may leave a Christian of more grace and growth
to more stirring of corruptions, in case he means yet to bring him to a higher
pitch of humiliation, and that by sins. It is in this his dealing of leaving
men to corruptions, and the vigorous conflicts with them, as it is in his
leaving his people sometimes to those other evils of afliictions. God hum-
bleth his either by afilictions or by sins, and his manner in both is some-
times alike. You shall see one who hath attained to a great measure of grace
already, and that by affliction, and yet never to be out of the fire, but God
still foUoweth him with one affliction or another; whereas one of less growth
and grace, who in that regard hath more need, shall have fewer afflictions in
Chap. V.] the tkial of a christian's guowth. 495
his course. And what is the reason of this difference ? It is not that the
grown Christian hath simply more need of affliction than the other, h\ii be-
cause God intends to bring him on yet to a further degree of grace. As
refiners of sugar, taking sugars out of the same chest, some thereof they
melt but once, and another part of it they melt and refine again and again ;
not that that which they refine twice hath more dross in it, but because
they would have it more refined, doubly refined. And as God deals thus
in afflictions, so also in leaving of his people to the stirring of corruptions,
which of all afflictions is the greatest to humble a holy heart. And thus in
experience it is found that he doth sometimes leave a grown Christian to
conflict with corruptions more than a weaker Christian; not that he hath
more in him, but because he means to bring on that grown Christian to a
further degree of humiliation; he is not humbled as he means to have him
yet. And whereas God humbieth some men by afllictions, he humbleth
others by sins. And nothing humbleth more than sins, for cros.ses do but
humble by revealing sin as the cause; and nothing will humble a grown
Christian more than to see such shameful soul-corruptions still stirring in
him : the greatest aggravation of which to him will be in this, that after so
long a time such lusts should be so lively in him ; to have such gross faults
in his exercises after he hath been so long at school, this shames him. For
a grown Christian to be disguised with a corruption, and when his hair is
grown, to have it shaven off, as David's messengers were ashamed of it,
so how doth it shame and humble him ! Thus Hezekiah, though he was
much humbled by a sickness to death, but because he was not humbled
enough, and so far as God meant to bring him, therefore God let loose
pride on him, and then he further humbleth himself and all Israel, as it is
2 Chron. xxxii. 26. Upon some men God shews his free grace in keeping
them from sin; upon others he spends it in pardoning them. These are but
two several ways he hath of laying it out. And so sometimes he shews hisf
grace in keeping those of less grace, and again in letting those of more to
struggle with their lusts : and such sicknesses are not to death or to weaken
them, but for the glory of God and their further growth ; for this will be
the effect and consequent of such stirrings in grown Christians, that as their
fits of corruptions stirring are great, so their humbUngs will be greater.
Grace being much in them, will shew itself that way; great fits of sinning
have intermingled with them great exercises of repentings, and the growth
of their grace will shew itself in them, and appear in them. Even as in men
that are cheerful naturally, but sometimes oppressed with melancholy, when
those pressures are over they are most merr}', their spirits breaking forth,
being at liberty, they shew themselves as much on the contrary in mirth ; so
is it here when grace gets above again. As it is in the body when the spirits
are not weak, but only are kept under by humours, when they do once get
up, they then shew their strength in causing the body to grow the more, —
as in many j'oung men after a sickness, where strength of nature is, — and
so thereby they become after often the better, and more lively; but if the
natural spirits be weak, it is not so.
(2.) A second limitation is, that though one of less growth in mortifica-
tion may sometimes by watchfulness keep under his lusts more, and act that
little grace he hath, more than haply he doth who hath yet radically more
grace; therefore says the Apostle, 'Stir up the gift that is in thee.' To
Timothy he speaks it, and he exhorts. Gal. v., even young Christians ' to
■walk in the spirit;' that is, to have the spirit kept above the flesh, so as a
■man shall Have srreat hand over his corruptions, that they break not forth.
49(J THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [I'AET II.
Now, I say that this exhortation doth belong unto and concemeth the young-
est Christians ; for he speaks to all that have spiritual life begun in them :
ver. 25, ' If we live in the spirit, let us,' says he, ' walk in the spirit,' and
then ' we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh,' ver. 1 6. A weak body, though
weak, 3'et if he useth care, may keep himself from distempers as much aa
some man who is strong, but grows careless and neglects his health. But
yet though one of less grace be thus actually more watchful, yet he may
discern the want of growth by this : —
[1.] First, that still his lusts rise oftener, and that with delight, and are
apter to catch fire presently, although they be smothered as fast as they
catch. His case then is as if there were a heap of straw in a room where
fire is, where sparks fly about, still taking fire upon every occasion; but he
that keeps the straw is careful still to put it out.
[2.] And, secondly, in this case they shall find the strength of their cor-
ruptions in privative workings against grace, and distracting and disturbing
them, deadening their hearts in duties; and therefore when the Apostle had
exhorted such to ' walk in the spirit, so as not to fulfil the lusts,' mark what
follows : Yet, says he, the flesh will discover itself in ' lusting against the
spirit,' take what care you will, so as a man ' shall not be able to do what
he would,' Gal. v. 16, 17; and the more strong it is, the more it wdll shew
itself strong in disturbing : so as Christians not grown up, that are very
watchful over their hearts, do keep as it were but negative Sabbaths, and
are therein like unto those watchers and keepers of good rule in great
churches, where there are many sleepers ; they have so much to do to watch
those boys that sleep and are idle at church, as they cannot attend the ser-
mon. For though, by reason of watchfulness, corruption may be kept
from discovering itself in open unruliness much, yet it can never, by all
the watchfulness in the world, be brought on to duties, but so much as is
in the heart will discover itself either in opposition to them or a hypo-
critical joining in them. Although the Papists may be kept by a waking
State from venting that malice of their hearts in rebellion, yet they cannot
be brought to join with us in holy duties ; no more will corruption, imlesa
in hypocrisy; and therefore so much as is doth still discover itself in them.
CUAP. VI.] THE TEIAL OF A OHEISTIAN'b GROWTH. 497
CHAPTER VI.
Five cautions more to prevent suck misjudgings.
3. A THIRD caution to prevent misjudging : If a man will not be mistaken In
judging his growth in mortification comparatively with others or with him-
self, he must consider his occasions and opportunities to draw him out.
Thus, a man when he had more corruption, yet less occasions and provoca-
tions to sin, may have corruption less stirring in him than when he is more
grown up in grace, if his temptations were then greater. The same tree
standing in the shade, where also the rain comes not to it, when transplanted
where both sun and rain fall upon it, may be more fruitful than formerly.
David, when under afflictions in the wilderness, and wanting opportunities,
how strict was he, and ' kept himself from his iniquity !' Ps. xviii. 23. But
when he came to the delicacies of a kingdom, though he was grown up more
and more in grace, yet how did he fall ! As to aggravate the sin of not
growing more, the proportion of means every one hath had is to be consi-
dered ; and for one who hath had much means to grow much, for him is less
than one who hath less means : so in the stirring or declining of sin, op-
portunities and occasions are also to be considered ; as if a man be trans-
planted out of a full condition into an empty, if then many of his lusts do
not stir so much as before, no wonder. Even as if a man when cast into a
sweat by reason of multitude of clothes, it is no marvel if, when clothes are
taken off, he sweat less.
4. A fourth thing to be considered, to keep us from mistakes herein, is,
that he whose spirit is naturally active, his lusts, though weaker than an-
other man's whose spirit is slower, may be yet more quick and apt to break
forth more than his. Peter was of a bold spirit, and so spake often rashly,
and vented corruption more than the other disciples, insomuch as he once
provoked Christ to call him Satan, not that he had less grace, but a more
active spirit. Yea, he might have more grace, and less of corruption stirred
in him, only a more forward natural spirit, that was apt to put itself forth.
As an angry man, whose spirit is quick, may soon be stirred, and in the for-
wardness of his spirit to action, give a man a blow, when one given to malice
will scarce give you an ill word, whose lusts of revenge yet burn inwardly
more. Gunpowder will take and fall into a blaze sooner than lime, yet lime
hath more innate heat, and burns more within ; some have speedier vent.
Those two brethren, John and James, ' sons of thunder,' as Christ calls them,
how soon was their choler up ! They had quick and hot spirits, as Christ
teUs them, ' Ye know not what spirit ye are of,' Luke ix. 55.
5. Fifthly, if we would judge aright what measure of true mortification
is in us, we must not take into the reckoning what restraining grace doth in
us, but observe that apart, and cast that up in a sum by itself. For this
you must know, that even in the regenerate, all their abstinence from sins is
not from mere mortification, but restraining grace continues even after rege-
VOL. UL 2 I
498 THE TRIAL OF A CHEISTIAN's OEOWTH. [PaST II.
neration to contribute to it, and so make mortification seem the greater. It
was not merely and only mortification of the lust of anger that made Moses
so meek ; for at another time, when he was left, what a chafe was he in,
when he called them all rebels, and said in a heat that he must fetch water
out of the rock for them ! It was his temper and disposition of nature
helloed to make him so eminent in ruling that passion above any other, that
he is said to be ' the meekest man on earth.' It was not simply, merely
mortification that made that great apostle, Paul, so eminently chaste ; but
over and besides what mortification helped him in it, he had a * peculiar
gift,' as he calls it, 1 Cor. viL 7 ; he speaks of it as of a gift, not a grace, such
as might be in reprobates. ' For,' says he there, ' every one hath his proper
gift.' So it was not mere mortification that made Luther never troubled
with Govetousness, but the freeness and generousness of his spirit that helped
him in it.
Now, if all these would have cast up what grace and mortification they
had attained to, they must have reckoned restraining grace by itself, (which
may be observed by what our virtues were before conversion,) which though
now sanctified, — that is, helping forward sanctification, and making the ab-
stinence easier, — yet is not to be reckoned true sanctification. As goldsmiths
mingle in all the sUver they work some other metals to make it more malle-
able, so are those common graces mingled with true in this life, where sanc-
tification is imperfect, which do help them and eke them out. Grace set i i
a good nature seems a great deal more, and goes further than in a ba 1.
Wine that is of itself somewhat pleasant, a little sugar wUl make it sweete.*
to the taste than a great deal of sugar will do sour wine. Therefore le:
every one consider what natural ingenuity, and modesty, and education did
in him before conversion ; and let him know that, now he hath true grace,
these help him still, and stand him in stead as much as ever, although he
hath a further new principle of grace in him beyond these. Grace in this
life, and whilst imperfect, takes not away such common gifts, but sanctifieth
and useth them, as the reasonable soul doth a quick fancy or memory, which
are sensitive faculties, and do make his ability to abstain from such and such
sins more easy. Indeed all such gifts will be swallowed up in glory. And
therefore many who have less grace, yet seem in many carriages more morti-
fied than those who have more grace, they t\t11 be less impatient in a cross,
less stirred and provoked with an injury. A man who hath been less helped
by restraining grace before conversion, and had his lusts more outrageous, if
he hath them now under, it is a sign he hath much more mortification in
him than one who was naturally ci\il. And I ajjpeal to every godly man's
conscience, it is not only simply mortification that makes him always to ab-
stain from sins, but shame, modesty, terrors of conscience strike in at a pinch,
when strength of mortification had failed him else ; and many accidental
things, ordered by God's providence, hinder and keep God's people from sin-
ning. And as David was fain to make use of Goliah's sword, and take in
discontented persons that had not the same ends that he had, to strengtheo
himself against Saul ; so is grace fain to take in fleshJy dislikes and discon-
tents against sin, to help it in a pinch, till it hath got the victory. For
instance, it was not Judah's grace so much kept him from killing Joseph, for
then he would not have consented to sell him, but nature wrought in him,
and made him abhor the killing him : ' Is it not our brother, and our flesh?
and what pKjfit is it to kill him?' Gen. xxxvii. 26. So God prevented
David in his murdering Nabal's family by an external means, whenas his
grace else had not kept him from revenging himself causelessly upon his
dlAP. VI.] THE XraAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 499
family, for they were in no fault ; his grace alone had not done it, for his
passion was up, and he in a rage, and fully resolved to do it. But God
used another means, and sent Abigail submissively to meet him ; and her
lowly submission and elegant oration won him, and cooled him : though this
David acknowledgeth God's hand in it, and was glad he was so kept, as a
godly man will, and hath cause, when he is hindered of his purpose in sin-
ning. As he says, Phil. i. 18, 'I rejoice that Christ is preached, though out of
envy,' so if sin be abstained from, though by any means; yet God did
rather by this means restrain him than by his fear of God, or the grace in
his heart ; but God kept him by her coming, 1 Sam. xxv. 34. * For in very
deed,' says David, 'as the Lord liveth, wliich hath kept me back from hurt-
ing thee, except thou hadst hasted and met me, surely there had not been
left a man unto Nabal.' So shame moved Judah. Fear of being destroyed
moved Jacob to reprove the sin of his sons, and is all the argument he useth,
Gen. xxxiv. 30. So that in an evening, when thou castest up thy abstin-
ences of that day, think not how much thou hast abstained from sin or denied
thyself, but how much out of hatred of it, and the spirit of mortification,
how much of that there is in thy abstinence, and accordingly measure thy
growtli in it.
6. Sixthly, another false rule is, when men judge of their mortification,
and the measure of it, by their present listlessness of the heart to sin : which
though it be true, that where true mortification is there is a listlessness and
a deadness, and so much mortification, so much deadness, Rom. vi. 2, ' How
shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein 1 ' — and indeed, to live
in it is to take pleasure in it ; — but yet this you must know, there are many
things which in a godly man may add to his deadness to sin besides true
moi'tification, and so make it seem greater than it is in truth ; and therefore
it may be a false ride to judge by, if it be not warily considered and diS'
tmguished. Sickness breeds a listlessness; when we are sick, our lusts are
sick together with us ; and as we gather strength, they gather up their
crumbs again : Job xxxiii. 19, 20, then his 'soul abhors dainty food.' Sup-
pose he be a glutton, old age brings a listlessness : Eccles. xii. 1, 'When
the evil days come, wherein a man says he hath no pleasure in them ; ' as
BarziUai had no taste in his meat, by reason of old age. So when our expec-
tations or desires are crossed, or are like to be, and we begin to fail of those
main props of the comfort of our lives, we are apt to have a listlessness to
all other pleasures ; when some one thing that was a sauce to all the rest is
gone, or like to go, we then have no stomach to all the rest, and we are
weary of living, as David was when Absalom was gone : ' Would I had died
for thee !' Some great cross coming may, like thunder, sour all our joys
and delights, and make them stale to us, and as dead drink to the stomach.
Terror of conscience may, like an eclipse, overspread our spirits, and then aU
things lose their beauty and lustre, as things in the dark use to do ; as Job
says of himself in his desertion, that his soul had no more sweetness in all
comforts than in 'the white of an egg.' For such occasions as these do
draw the intention another way, and do take the mind up about God's
wrath, or the afflictions we are in, so as it cannot run out to sin ; and inten-
tion, you know, is the cause of all pleasure. As therefore, when by study
the spirits are drawn up to the head, a man's stomach decays to that meat
he most loved, so when terrors drink up the spirits, as Job speaks; but
when that heat is over, and intention dismissed, a man recovers his stomach
again : and so do men their appetites to sin, when they come forth of terrors.
And this will help you to find out the true reason why that young Chris-
600 THE TEIAL OP A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaRT IL
tians are often more dead to all pleasures of sin than those who are grown up,
or than themselves are when grown up. They are often then altogether dead
to all mirth and other contentments, and yet they are not more mortified
than afterwards, for then legal humiliation adds to their doadness. And be-
sides that first deadly blow which Christ gave their lusts then in part, the law
also and the bitterness of sin did lay that part of their lusts which remained
unkilled in a swoon, that one would think all were dead. ' Sin revived,' saith
Paul, ' and I died,' Piom. vii. 9. He speaks of that time w'hen he lay hum-
bled for sin, during which time, we read in the Acts, he fasted. He had no
mind to meat nor druik ; for three days he forgot all. And again, as then
they are usually so taken up about pardon of sin, and the obtaining thereof,
that all the spirits retire to the heart to relieve it, and to encourage it to
seek out for pardon, and so sin is left in a swoon, and it seems quite dead ;
but by degrees men come out of that swoon, and sin revives, and then men
think they decay in mortification. Again, young Christians sometimes, and
others afterwards, for some honeymoons of their lives, are entertained with
raptures and ravishments, joy unspeakable and glorious, and then they seem
in a manner whoUy dead to sin, and walk so; but as the others are in a
swoon, so they are in an ecstasy; but when they are out of it, then sin comes
to itself again. Those joys, whilst they last, make a man's actual present
deadness to sin seem more than habitually and radically it is indeed. As a
man that hath tasted some sweet thing, whilst the impression upon his palate
lasteth he hath no relish of meat, so whilst the impressions of spiritual joy;
but when their mouths are washed once, and their sense of that sweetness
gone, they find their wonted relish of them. Thus spiritual joys do, for the
time they are upon the heart, much alter the taste ; but yet much of that
alteration is adventitious and not wholly radical, or altering the sinful faculty
itself; though it doth add much that way, yet not so much as they seem to
do at that present, the sense of that sweetness is fresh in his heart.
Now therefore, to give a help or two to difference what is real and true
mortification from this seeming listlessness and deadness to it : —
(1.) First, true mortification makes a man not only listless to sin, but to
have a quick hatred against it, a hatred aiming at the destruction of it ; but
false listlessness takes but the heart off it, doth not set it against it. How
often are these yoked together in Ps. cxix., ' I hate sin, and every false way,'
with this, ' Thy law do I love ! ' The heart being quickened with love to
God and to his law, is carried out against sin, and not only taken off from it to
have no mind to it, but to have a mind against it to destroy it. There is the
same difference between mortification and listlessness that there is between true
patience and senselessness. Senselessness is a dull, stupid bearing of pains,
but patience is joined with a quick sense of them, which ariseth from strength
of spirits, that, being quick and vigorous, are the more sensible of pain or
pleasure ; so true mortification is joined w^ith an active hatred that flies out
against sin, which comes from liveliness of affection to the contrary.
(2.) Secondly, true mortification is joined with activeness and life in the
contrary duties : Pom. vi. 11, ' Eeckon yourselves dead unto sin, and alive unto
God.' That false listlessness is but a dead palsy that doth take these mem-
bers of sin, but true mortification is with a new life, a resurrection, strength-
ening a man to walk so much the more nimbly in the ways of God, Pom. vi
4, 5. Young Christians, and such as have a false listlessness and deadness,
you shall find them complain that their mortification is more than vivifica-
tion ; they will find they are more dead to the world than quickened to God.
True mortification doth not dull the spirits, but sets them at liberty, as purg-
Chap. VI.] the trial of a christian's growth. 501
ing the humours out doth. It makes the body more light and nimble ;
whereas false listlessness causcth a deadness, a dulness to everything else.
Those ftxlse causes of listlessness contract the mind, as a bladder that is clung,
and dried, and ' hung up in the smoke,' as David compared his condition in
terrors of conscience ; but mortification empties it of the sin, and fills it with
grace, so as the mind is as full and wide as before, only filled with grace now
instead of sin.
7. Seventhly, a man is not to judge of his growth in mortification simply
by the keenness of his affection against sin, though that is good and blessed,
but by his strength against it. As there is a fond love, which is not so
etrong and solid, which will not do so much for one, or hold, if it come to
the trial and be put to it, that yet hath a more seeming edge in it ; so there
is a keenness of hatred that hath not so much strength. A man that is
angry seems to have more keenness of affection against him he falls out with,
and in his rage vows never to be reconciled, and could eat him up ; whenas
yet a malicious man hates more strongly. So do young Christians their sins,
having lately felt the bitterness of them ; and then many other inconveni-
ences, besides the contrariety of them to God, do egg on and provoke their
spirits against them ; but like as a sharp knife that is weak, the edge is soon
turned and blunted, so in a temptation, they are for all their edge soon over-
come. For all those concurring inconveniences and apprehensions of their
hurt by them makes their spleen indeed greater, but it adds not to their
strength and courage to resist them ; like a stomachful boy, that cries he
cannot have the victory, yet is weak, and easily laid on his back ; his stomach
is more than his strength. The hurt that comes by sin to us at first lately
felt, helps to sharpen the edge, but adds no metal, and so our weapons are
beaten to our heads again when we use them. What an edge of spirit had
Peter raised up against denying Christ ! He would die rather ; he spake
then as he thought, and he would have died in the quarrel, for he drew his
sword, but afterwards he wanted strength to his stomach ; how easily was he
overcome, being yet but weak in grace ! Therefore judge of your growth
herein by your strength to resist. Hence the Apostle prays, ' they may have
strength in the inward man,' Eph. iii. 16 ; and in chap. vi. 13, he speaks of
* abihty to stand in the evil day.' Although this let me add, that every man
should keep up his heart in this continual keenness and edge of spirit against
sin, and whet his heart against it ; for that will cause a man to use his
strength the more against it, and to put it forth. A man that keeps his
heart in a revengeful, vexed, spleenful spirit against sin, he will easier cut
through a temptation : and though if a Christian want metal, though he hath
an edge, he may be foiled ; yet when edge and metal both meet, a man walks
above his lusts. If either be wanting, a man may be foiled
/
502 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH [PaKT III.
PAET III.
RESOLVING SOME QUESTIONS CONCERNING GROWTH IN MORTIFICATION
AND VIVIFICATION.
CHAPTEK I.
Two questions resolved concerning growth in mortification.
I WILL now conclude this discourse about growth, in grace with answering
some questions which may be made concerning this our growth, both about
mortification and about increase in positive graces ; which I did reserve to
this last place, that I might handle them together.
Quest. 1. — The first question concerning the purging out of sin is. Whether
every new degree of mortification, and purging out of sin, be always universal,
extending itself to every sin 1 So as the meaning of this, that God goes on
to purge, should be, not only that he goes on first to purge forth one sin, then
another, but that he goes on to purge out, by every new degree of mortifica-
tion, every sin together ; so as when any one sin is more weakened, all the
rest in a proportion grow weak also.
Ans. — To this I answer afiirmatively, that every new degree of mortification
is universal. Because when the Scripture speaks of our growth therein, he
speaks of it as extending itself to every sin. So, Eph. iv. 22, when he ex-
horts the Ephesians, who were mortified already, to a further progress in it,
he exhorts them to ' put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the
deceitful lusts.' It is not one lust that is the object of mortification, and
the growth of it, although he mentions particular lusts afterwards, but the
whole man that is corrupt, and aU its lusts. And thus he there speaks of daily
growth therein ; for of that he had spoken in the former verses, from the
12th verse, and goes on to speak of it and exhort to it. Thus, in like
manner, Gal. v. 24, it is called ' crucifying the flesh with the lusts : ' not one
lust, but the flesh, the whole bundle, the cluster of them all ; and in that it
is called crucifying, it implies it also, for of all deaths that did work upon
every part, it did stretch every nerve, sinew, and vein, and put all the parts
to pain : and this going on to mortify sin is called, Rom. vi., ' the destroying
of the body of sin,' of the whole body. It is not the consumption of one
member, of the lungs, or liver, &c., but it is consumptio totius, a consumption
of the whole body of sin, so as every new degree of mortification is the con-
suming of the whole. And therefore also. Col. iii., where in like manner he
exhorts to growth therein, he exhorts to ' mortify earthly members ' — every
member. And the reasons hereof are, because —
ClIAP. I.] THE TRIAL OF A CHEISTIAN's GROWTH. 603
(1.) First, trae mortification strikes at the root, and so causeth every
branch to wither : for all sinful dispositions are rooted in one, namely, in
* love of pleasure more than of God ; ' and all true mortification deads a man
to the pleasure of sin, by bringing the heart more into communion and into
love Avith God ; and therefore the deading to any sin must needs be general
and universal to every sin. It is as tlie dying of the heart, which causeth
all the members to die with it ; for that is the dificrence between restraining
grace, which cuts off but branches, and so lops the tree, but true mortifica-
tion strikes every blow at the root.
(2.) Secondly, every new degree of true mortification purgeth out a sin,
as it is sin, and works against it under that consideration ; and if against it
as sin, then the same power that works out any sin works against every sin
in the heart also. Now that every new degree works against a sin, as it is
sin, is plain by this, because if it be purged out upon any other respect, it is
not mortification.
(3.) Thirdly, the Spirit, and the vii-tue that comes from Christ, which are
the efficient causes of this purging out a sin, do also work against every sin,
when they work against any one ; and they have a contrariety to every lust ;
they search into every vein, and draw from all parts. Physicians may give
elective purges, as they call them, which will purge out one humour, and
not another ; but Christ's physic works generally, it takes away all sorts of
distempers.
ObJ. — And whereas the objection against this may be, that then all lusts
will come to be equally mortified —
Ans. — I answer. No, for all lusts were never equally alive in a man ; some
are stronger, some weaker by custom, through disposition of body and spirit ;
and therefore, though mortification extends itself to all, yet there being an
inequality in the life and growth of these sins in us, hence some remain still
more, some less mortified : as when a flood of water is left to flow into a
field, where many hills are of difi'ering height, though the water overflows all
equally, yet some are more above water than others, because they were
higher before of themselves. And hence it is that some sins, when the power
of grace comes, may be in a manner whoUy subdued, — namely, those which
proceed out of the abundance of naughtiness in the heart, as swearing,
malice against the truth ; and these the children of God are usually wholly
freed from, and they seem wholly dead; being as the excrements of other
members, and being as the nails and the hair, they are wholly pared off, as
was the manner to a proselyte woman ; the power of grace takes them away,
though other members continue vigorous. And therefore of swearing Christ
says, ' What is more than Yea, yea, and Nay, nay, is ix rou mv^ov,' out of a
profane heart. As when a man is a-dying, some members are stiff and cold,
and clean dead long afore, as the feet, whilst others continue to have some
life and heat in them ; so in the mortification of a Christian, some lusts that
are more remote are whoUy stiff and stark, when others retain much life in
them.
Quest. 2. — The second question is. Whether, when I apply Christ, and the
promise with the virtue of Clirist, for the mortification of some one particu-
lar lust or other, and do use those right means, as prayer, fasting, &c., for
the special mortification of some one lust, whether that lust thereby doth not
become more mortified than other lusts do 1
An&. — I answer. Yes, yet so as in a proportion this work of mortification
runs through all the rest ; for as in washing out the great stains of a cloth,
the lesser stains are washed out also with the same labour, so it is here. There-
504 THE TKIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaUT III.
fore the Apostle in all his exhortations to mortification, both Eph. iv. and
Gal, V. and Col. iii., though he exhorts to ' the putting off the old man,' the
whole body of sin, yet instances in particular sins, because a man is particu-
larly to endeavour the mortification of particulars, as it were apart ; and yet
because in getting them mortified the whole body of sin is destroyed, there-
fore he mentions both the whole body and particular members thereof apart,
as the object of mortification. And to that end also doth God exercise his
children, first with one lust, then with another, that they may make trial ol
the virtue of Christ's death upon every one. And therefore Christ bids us
to ' pull out an eye,' and ' cut off a hand,' if they offend us : for mortification
is to be by us directed against particular members ; yet so as withal, in a
proportion, all the rest receive a further degree of destruction. For as a par-
ticular act of sin, be it uncleanness, or the like, when committed, doth increase
a disposition to every sin, yet so as it leaves a present greater disposition to
that particular sin than any other, and increaseth it most in potentia proxima,
though all the rest in potentia remota ■ so in every act of mortification, though
the common stock be increased, yet the particular lust we aimed at hath a
greater share in the mortification endeavoured, as in ministering physic to
cure the head, the whole body is often purged ; yet so as the head, the party
affected, is yet chiefly purged, and more than the rest.
Chap. II.J the trial of a christian's growth. 505
CHAPTER n.
Three questions resolved concerning positive growth.
Other questions there are concerning that other part of our growtli, namely,
in positive graces and the fruits thereof.
Quest. 1. — As, first, Whether every new degree of grace runs through all
the faculties 1
Ans. — I answer, Yes : for as every new degree of light in the air runs
through the whole hemisphere, when the sun shines clearer and clearer to the
perfect day, which is Solomon's comparison in the Proverbs ; so every new
degree of grace runs through, and is diffused through the whole man. And
therefore also, 1 Thess. v. 23, when the Apostle there prays for increase of
grace, he prays they may be ' sanctified whoUy, in body, soul, and spirit.'
And every new degree, though it begins at the spirit, the understanding, yet
goes through all ; for so, Eph. iv. 23, 24, 'Be renewed in the spirit of your
minds, and put on the new man :' it runs therefore through the whole man,
having renewed the mind ; as the work of grace at first, so after still con-
tinually ' leaveneth the whole lump.'
Quest. 2. — Whether one grace may not grow more than another?
Ans. 1. — I answer, first, that it is certain that when a man grows up in
one grace, he doth grow in all ; they grow and thrive together. Therefore,
in Eph. iv. 15, we are said to ' grow up into him in all things.'' Growth
from Christ is general ; as true growth in the body is in every part, so this
in every grace. Therefore, 2 Cor. iii, 18, we are said to be ' changed into
the same image from glory to glory.' Every increase stamps a further de-
gree of the whole image of Christ upon the heart. So the Thessalonians,
their faith and their love did both overflow, 2 Thess. i. 3.
Ans. 2. — Yet, secondly, so as one grace may grow more than some other : —
(1.) Because some are more radical graces, as faith and love, therefore of
the Thessalonians' faith the Apostle says, 2 Tkess. i. 3, that it did ' grow ex-
ceedingly ;' and then it follows, their love ' did overflow.'
(2.) Some graces are more exercised, and if so, they abound more ; as
though both arms do grow, yet that which a man useth is the stronger and
the bigger, so is it in graces. In birds, their wings, which have been used
most, are sweetest to the taste. As in the body, though the exercise of one
member maketh the body generally more healthful, yet so as that member
which is exercised will be freest from humours itself; so it is here. So
* tribulation worketh patience, patience experience,' Rom. v. Many sufferings
make patience the less difficult, and much experience, many experiments,
make hope greater.
(3.) Again, thirdly, that some graces are more in some than others, ap-
pears hence ; for what is it makes the differing gifts that are in Christians
but a several constitution of graces, though aU have every grace in them ?
As now in the body every member hath all singular parts m, it, as flesh.
506 THE TRIAL OF A CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. [PaET III.
bones, sinews, veins, blood, spirits in it, but yet so some members have more
of flesh, less of sinews and veins, &c., whence arise th a several office in every
member, according as such or such similar parts do more or less abound in
a member. The hand, because it hath more nerves and joints in it than
another member, though less flesh, yet how strong is it, and fit for many
offices ! The foot is not so. So in Christians, by reason of the several con-
stitution of graces, and the temper of them more or less, have they several
offices in the church, and are fitted for several employments. Some have
more love, and fit for offices of charity ; some more knowledge, and are fit to
instruct ; some more patience, and are fitter to sufier ; some for self-denial,
and accordingly do grow in these more specially.
Quest. 3. — The third question is, Whether this increase be only by radicat-
ing the same grace more, or by a new addition ?
Ans. — I answer, that by adding a new degree of grace, as in making
candles, which is done by addition ; when a candle is put anew into the fat
of boiled tallow, every time it is put in it comes out bigger, with a new addi-
tion ; or as a cloth dipped in the dye comes out upon every new dipping in
with a deeper dye. And this is done by a new act of creation, put forth by
God. Therefore when David, being fallen, prayed for increase of grace, he
says, ' Create in me a new heart.' And therefore, Eph. iv. 24, when the
Apostle exhorts to further putting on the new man, and speaketh of growth,
he adds, ' which is created ;' for every new degree is created as well as the
first infusion, which shews the difi"erence between natural growth and this.
In natural growth there needs not a new creation, but an ordinary concur-
rence ; but it is not so in this : that God that begun the work, by the same
power perfects it. And therefore, Eph. i. 19, he prays that the believing
Ephesians might see that power that continued to work in them to be no
less than that which raised up Christ : for though natural life may with a
natural concurrence increase itself, because the terminus a quo, the term from
whence it springs, is but from a less degree of life to a greater ; yet it is
otherwise in this life, and our growth in this is from a greater degree of
death to a further degree of life. And therefore, PhiL iiL 11, the Apostle
calls growing in grace a going on ' to attain the resurrection from the dead.'
And therefore the same power that raised up Christ must go along to work
it. Hence also every new degree of grace is called a new conversion, — ' Ex-
cept ye be converted,' says Christ to his disciples converted already, — because
the same power that wrought to conversion goes still to this. And there-
fore it is said that ' God gives the increase,' 1 Cor. iii. 7 ; and it is called ' the
increasing of God,' Col. iL 19 ; so, Hos. xiv., shewing the ground why they
grow so fast, ' Thy fruit is found in me,' saj's God, ver. 7. Although this
is to be added by way of caution and diff'erence, that therein God doth pro-
portion his influence to our en^leavours, which in conversion at first he doth
not. Therefore we are said to be fellow- workers with him, although it be
he that gives the increase, 1 Cor. ui 6-8 ; the same you have also Rom. viiL,
' We by the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh.' We, as co-workers
with the Spirit
THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS DISCOVEEED;
■WITH
THEIK DANGER AND CURE.
THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS.
How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee ? — Jeb. IV. 14.
In these words lie compares the heart unto some house of common resort,
made, as it were, with many and large rooms to entertain and lodge multi-
tudes of guests in ; into which, before conversion, all the vain, light, wanton,
profane, dissolute thoughts that post up and down the world, as your thoughts
do, and run riot all the day, have free, open access, the heart keeps open
house to them, gives them willing, cheerfol welcome and entertainment ,
accompanies them, travels over all the world for the daintiest pleasures to
feed them with ; lodgeih, harbours them ; and there they, like unruly
gallants and roysters, lodge, and revel it day and night, and defile those
rooms they lodge in with their loathsome filth and vomits. * How long,'
says the Lord, ' shall they lodge therein,' whilst I, with my Spirit, my
Son, and train of graces, ' stand at the door and knock,' Rev. iii. 20, and
caimot find admittance 1 Of all which filthiness, &c., the heart, this house,
must be washed : * Wash thy heart from wickedness.' Washed, not swept
only of grosser evils, as, Matt. xii. 43, the house the unclean spirit re-enters
into is said to be swept of evils that lay loose and uppermost, but washed
and cleansed of those defilements which stick more close, and are incor-
porated and wrought into the spirit. And those vain and unruly guests
must be turned out of doors without any warning; they have stayed there
long enough, too long : 'how long?' And 'the time past may suffice,' as
the Apostle speaks ; they must lodge there no more. The house, the soul,
is not in conversion to be pulled down, but only these guests turned out ;
and though kept out they cannot be, they will still enter whilst we are in
these houses of clay, yet lodge they must not. If thoughts of anger and
revenge come in in the morning or daytime, they must be turned out ere
night : * Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,' Eph. iv. 26 ; for so
you may come to lodge yet a worser guest in your heart with them. ' Give
not place to the devil,' for it follows, who wUl ' bring seven worse with him.'
If unclean thoughts ofi"er to come to bed to thee when thou liest down, let
them not lodge with thee. To conclude, it is not what thoughts are in your
hearts, and pass through them, as what lodging they have, that doth difference
your repentance. Many good thoughts and motions may pass as strangers
through a bad man's heart ; and so likewise multitudes of vain thoughts
may make a thorouehfare of a believer's heart, and disturb him in good
510 THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. [JeR. IV. 14.
duties, by knocMngs and interruptions, and breakings in upon the heart of
a good man; but still tliey lodge not there — are not fostered, harboured.
My scope in our ordinary course is, to discover the wickedness and vanity
of the heart by nature. In the heart, we are yet but in the upper parts of
it, the understanding, and the defilements thereof, wliich are to be washed
out of it ; and the next defilement which in my broken order I mean to
handle is that which is here specified, The Vanity of youe Thoughts.
For the discovery's sake of which only, I chose this text as my ground ; that
is it, therefore, which I chiefly insist upon ; a subject which, I confess, would
prove of all else the vastest. To make an exact particular discovery of the
vanities in our thoughts, to travel over the whole creation, and to take a
survey and give an account of all that vanity abounds in all the creatures,
was, as you know, the task of the wisest of men, Solomon ; the flower of his
studies and labours. But the vanity of our thoughts are as multiplied
much in us ; this little world afi'ords more varieties of vanities than the great.
Our thoughts made the ' creatures subject to vanity,' Rom. viii. 20 ; there-
fore themselves are subject to vanity much more. In handling of them I
wUl shew you — 1. What is meant by thoughts. 2. What by vanity. 3. That
our thoughts are vain. 4. Wherein that vanity doth consist, both in the gene-
ral and some particulars.
1. First, what is meant by thoughts, especially as they are the intended
subject of this discourse, which in so vast an argument I must necessarily
set limits unto.
(1.) By thoughts the Scriptures do comprehend all the internal acts of
the mind of man, of what faculty soever ; all those reasonings, consultations,
purposes, resolutions, intents, ends, desires, and cares of the mind of man,
as opposed to our external words and actions. So, Isa. Ixvi. 18, all acts are
divided into those two, ' I know their works and their thoughts.' What is
transacted within the mind is called the thoughts ; what thereof do manifest
themselves and break out in actions are called works. And so, Gen. vi. 5,
'Every imagination of the thoughts' — omne fgmentum, all the creatures the
mind frames within itself, purposes, desires, &c., (as it is noted in the mar-
gin) — 'are evil;' where by thoughts are understood all that 'comes within
the mind,' (as, Ezek. xi. 5, the phrase is,) and so indeed we vulgarly use it
and understand it. So to ' remember ' a man is to ' think ' of him. Gen. xl.
14 ; to have purposed a thing, we say, I thought to do it; to take care
about a business, is to ' take thought,' 1 Sam. ix. 5. And the reason why
aU may thus be called the thoughts, is because indeed all afiections, desires,
purposes, are stirred up by thoughts — bred, fomented, and nourished by them.
No one thought passeth, but it stirreth some affection of fear, joy, care, grief,
&c. No, although they are thus largely taken here, yet I intend not to
handle the vanity of them in so large a sense at present. I must confine
myself, as strictly as may be, to the vanity of that which is more properly
called the thinking, meditating, considering power of man, which is in his
understanding or spirit, that being the subject I have in hand; thoughts
not being in this sense opposed only to year works, but unto purposes
and intents. So, Heb. iv. 12, as the soul and sjurit, so thoughts and in-
tents seem to be opposed. Ajid, Job xx. 2, 3, ' thoughts ' are appropriated
to the ' spirit of understanding.' And again, yet more strictly, for in the
understanding I mean not to speak of, generally, all thoughts therein, neither,
as not of the reasonings or deliberations in our actions, but those musings
only in the speculative part.
And so I can no otherwise express them to you than thus : Those same
JbR. IV. 14.] THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. 511
first more simple conceits, apprehensions that arise, those fancies, medita-
tions, which the understanding, by the help of fancy, frames within itself
of things ; those whereon your minds ponder and pore, and muse u^jon
things ; these 1 mean by thoughts. I mean those talkings of our minds with
the thujgs we know, as the Scripture caUs it, Pro v. vi. 22 ; those same par-
leys, interviews, chattings, the mind hath with the things let into it, with
the things we fear, with the things we love. For all these things our
minds make their companions, and our thoughts hold them discour.se, and
have a thousand conceits about them ; this I mean by thoughts. For
besides that reasoning power, deliberating power, whereby we ask ourselves
continually, What shall we do 1 and whereby we reason and discuss things,
which is a more inward closet, the cabinet and privy council of the heart,
there is a more outward lodging, that presence-chamber, which entertains
all comers, which is the thinking, meditating, musing power in man, which
suggesteth matter for deliberations, and consultations, and reasonings, which
holds the objects tiU we view them, which entertaineth all that come to
speak with any of our affections.
(2.) I add, ' which the mind frames within itself;' so the Scripture ex-
presseth their original to us, and their manner of rising, Prov. vi. 14, ' Fro-
wardness is in his heart,' — fabricatur, — ' he forgeth mischief,' as a smith doth
iron, hammers it out. And the thoughts are the materials of this froward-
ness in us ; upon all the things which are presented to us, the mind begets
some thoughts, imaginations on them ; and as lusts, so thoughts are con-
ceived, James i Isa. Hx. 4, ' They conceive mischief, and bring forth ini-
quity, and hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave spiders' webs.' And, ver. 7,
he instanceth in ' thoughts of iniquity,' because our thoughts are spun out
of our own hearts, are eggs of our own laying, though the things presented
to us be from without.
And this I add to sever them from such thoughts as are injected and cast
in only from without, which are children of another's begetting, and often
laid out of doors : such as are blasphemous thoughts cast in by Satan,
wherein if the soul be merely passive, (as the word ' buffeting ' implies, 2 Cor,
xii. 7,) they are none of your thoughts, but his ; wherein a man is but as
one in a room with another, where he hears another swear and curse, but
cannot get out from him ; such thoughts, if they be only ' from without,'
defile not a man. For ' nothing defiles a man but what comes from within,'
Matt. XV. 18, 19, or which the heart hath begotten upon it by the devil, — as
thoughts of uncleanness, &c., — wherein, though he be the father, yet the heart
is the mother and womb, and therefore accordingly affect the heart, as natural
children do. And by that we may disting-uish them from the other, namely,
when we have a soft heart, an inward love unto them, so that our hearts
do kiss the ctuld, then they are our thoughts; or else when the heart broods
upon those eggs, then they are our thoughts, though they come from without.
Though this is to be added, that even those thoughts wherein the soul is
passive, and which Satan casts in, which we do noways own, wherein he
ravisheth the heart, rather than begets them on us, (if there be not any con-
sent to them in us, then it is but a rape, as in law it is,) I yield those
thoughts are punishments often of neglect of our thoughts, and of our suf-
fering them to wander ; as Dinah, because she went cunningly out, to ' view
the daughters of the land,' was taken and ravished ; though against her will,
yet it was a pimishment of her curiosity. Or else they are the punishment
of the neglect of good motions of the Spirit ; which resisting, we thereby
grieve him, and so he deals with us as we with our children, suffers us to be
512 THE Vanity of thoughts. [Jer. IV. 14.
scared witli buglDears, and to be grieved by Satan, that we may learn what
it is to neglect him and harbour vanity. Lastly, I add, ' which the mind, in
and by itself, or by the help of fancy, thus begets and entertains,' because
there are no thoughts or likenesses of things at any time in our fancies, but at
the' same time they are in the understanding also reflected unto it. As when
two looking-glasses are placed opposite and nigh each to other, look, what
species appears in the one do also in the other.
2. Secondly, let us see what vanity is. Take it in all the acceptations of it,
it is true of our thoughts that they are vain.
(1.) It is taken for unprofitableness. So, Eccles. i. 2, 3, * All is vain,' be-
cause there is 'no profit in them under the sun.' Such are our thoughts by
nature ; the wisest of them will not stand as in any stead in time of need, in
time of temptation, distress of conscience, day of death or judgment : 1 Cor.
ii. 6, ' All the wisdom of the wise comes to nought ; ' Prov. x. 20, ' The
heart of the wicked is little worth,' not a penny for them all. Whereas the
thoughts of a godly man are his treasure : ' Out of the good treasure of his
heart he brings them forth.' He mints them, and they are laid up as his
riches. Ps. cxxxix. 17, ' How precious are they ! ' He there speaks of our
thoughts of God, as the object of them; 'Thy thoughts' — that is, of thee
— ' are precious.'
(2.) Vanity is taken for lightness. 'Lighter than vanity' is a phrase
used, Ps. Ixii. 9 ; and whom is it spoken of ? Of men ; and if anything in
them be lighter than other, it is their thoughts, which swim in the upper-
most parts, float at the top, are as the scum of the heart. When all the best,
and wisest, and deepest, and solidest thoughts in Belshazzar, a prince, were
weighed, they were found too light, Dan. v. 27.
(3.) Vanity is put for folly. So, Prov. xii. 11, ' vain men' is made all one
with men ' void of understanding.' Such are our thoughts. Among other
evils which are said to ' come out of the heart,' Mark vii. 22, a<poo6b)^r\ is
reckoned as one, foolishness ; that is, thoughts that are such as madmen
have, and fools, nothing to the purpose, of which there can be made no use,
which a man knows not whence they should come, nor whither they would,
without dependence.
(4.) It is put for inco7istancy and frailty ; therefore vanity and a shadow
are made synonymous, Ps. cxliv. 4. Such are our thoughts, flitting and
perishing, as bubbles : Ps. cxlvi. 4, ' All their thoughts perish.'
(5.) Lastly, they are vain ; that is, indeed, tviclced and sinful. Vanity in
the text here is yoked with wickedness ; and vain men and sons of Belial
are all one, 2 Chron. xiii. 7. And such are our thoughts by nature : Prov,
xxiv. 9, ' The thought of foolishness is sin.' And therefore a man is to be
humbled for a proud thought, Prov. xxx. 32. For so 'laying hand on the
mouth ' is taken, as Job xl. 4, for being vile in a man's own eyes.
3. And because this is the sense I chiefly must insist on in handling the
vanity of the thoughts, and also men usually think that thoughts are free, I
wiU therefore prove this to you, which is the only doctrine raised, that
thoughts are sins.
(1.) The laiv judgeth them, Heb. iv. 12 ; rebukes a man for them, 1 Cor.
xiv. 25 ; and therefore they are transgressions of the law. And so also did
Christ rebuke the Pharisees for their ' ill thoughts,' Matt. ix. 4 ; which argues
the excellency of the law, that reacheth thoughts.
(2.) Because they are capable of pardon^ and must be pardoned, or we
caniiat be saved, xlcts viii. 22 ; which argues the multitudes of God's com-
passions, seeing thoughts are so infinite.
JeR. IV. 14. TUil \ AXITY 07 THOUGHTS. 513
(3.) Tiiey are to he repented of; yea, repentance is expressed as to begin
at them : so, Isa. Iv. 7, ' Let the unrighteous man forsake his tlioughts.'
And a man is never truly and thoroughly wrought on, as 2 Cor. x. 4, 5, till
'every thought be brought into obedience;' which argues that they are na-
turally rebellious, and contrary to grace. And this also argueth the power
of grace, which is able to rule and to subdue so great an army as our thoughts
are, and command them all, as one day it will do, when we are perfectly
holy.
(4.) They defile the man ; which nothing defiles but sin : Matt. xv. 18, 19,
'Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts ; these defile the man.'
(5.) They are an abomination to the Lord, who hates nothing but sin,
and whose 'pure eyes can endure to behold no iniquity,' Hab. L 13. As
good meditations are acceptable, Ps. xix. 14, so, by the rule of contrary, bad
are abominable.
(6.) They hinder all good we should do, and spoil our best performances.
Vain thoughts draw the heart away in them, that when a man should draw
nigh to God, his heart, by reason of his thoughts, is ' far off from him,' Isa.
xxix. 13. A man's heart goes after his covetousness, when he should hear,
as the prophet speaks, because his thoughts thus run. Now, nothing else
but sin could separate ; and what doth estrange us from God is sin, and en-
mity to him.
(7.) Our thoughts are the first motioners of all the evil in us. For they
make the motion, and also bring the heart and object together, are panders
to our lusts, hold up the object till the heart hath played the adulterer with
it, and committed folly : so in speculative uncleanness, and in other lusts,
they hold up the images of those gods they create, which the heart falls
down and worships ; they present credit, riches, beauty, till the heart hath
worshipped them, and this when the things themselves are absent.
4. To come now to those particulars wherein this vanity of the thinking,
meditating power of the mind consists : —
First, I will discover it in regard of thinking what is good — how unable
and loath, &c., it is to good thoughts ; and, secondly, in regard of the readi-
ness of it to think of evil and vain things.
For the^rs^, it is seen, (1.) in a want of ability ordinarily and naturally to
raise and extract holy and useful considerations and thoughts from all ordi-
nary occurrences and occasions ; which the mind, so far as it is sanctified, is
apt unto. A heart sanctified, and in whose atfections true grace is enkindled,
out of all God's dealings with him, out of the things he sees and hears, out
of all the objects are put into the thoughts, he distilleth holy, and sweet, and
useful meditations ; and it naturally doth it, and ordinarily doth it, so far
as it is sanctified. So our Saviour Christ, all speeches of others which he
heard, all accidents and occurrences, did still raise and occasion in him hea-
venly meditations, as we may see throughout the whole Gospels. When he
came by a well, he speaks of the ' water of life,' John iv., &c. Many in-
stances might be given. He in his thoughts translated the book of the
creatures into the book of grace, and so did .A dam's heart in innocency. His
philosophy might be truly termed divinity, because he saw God in all ; all
raised up his heart to thankfulness and praise. So now, in like manner, our
minds, so far as they are sanctified, will do. As the philosopher's stone
turns all metals into gold, as the bee sucks honey out of every flower, and a
good stomach sucks out some sweet and wholesome nourishment out of what
it takes unto itself ; so doth a holy heart, so far as sanctified, convert and
digest all into spiritual iiseful thoughts. This you may see^ Ps. cvii. 43.
VOL. III. 2 K
514 THE VAXITY OF THOUGHTS [JeR. IV. 14.
That psalm gives many instances of God's providence, and 'wonderful works
which, he doth for the sons of men ;' as deliverances by sea, where men see
his wonders ; deliverance to captives, &c. : and stiU the foot of the song is,
' O that men would therefore praise the Lord for the wonderful works he
doth for the sons of men.' Now, after all these instances, he concludes,
that though others pass over such occurrences with ordinary slight thoughts,
yet says he, 'The righteous shall see it, and rejoice,' that is, extract com-
fortable thoughts out of all, which shall be matter of joy ; and ' whoso is
wise will observe these things,' that is, makes holy observations out of all
these, and out of a prmciple of wisdom he understands God's goodness in all,
and 80 his heart is raised to thoughts of praise, and thankfulness, and obedi-
ence. Now, compare with this the 9 2d Psalm, made for the Sabbath,
when, in imitation of God, who that day \T.ewed his works, we are, on our
Lord's day, still to raise holy praiseful thoughts out of them to his glory,
which he that penned that psalm then did, ver. 1, 2, and ver. 5, 6, ' How
great are thy works !' (fee. 'A brutish man knows not, nor will a fool under-
stand this ;' that is. he being a beast, and having no sanctified principle of
wisdom in him, looks no further than a beast into all the works of God and
occurrences of things ; looks on all blessings as things provided for man's
delight by God ; but he extracts seldom holy, spiritual, and useful thoughts
out of all, he wants the art of doing it.
If injuries be offered us by others, what do our thoughts distil out of those
wrongs, but thoughts of revenge ? We meditate how to requite it again.
But see how naturally David's mind distils other thoughts of Shimei's curs-
ing, 2 Sam. xvi 11, ' God hath bidden him,' and it may prove a good sign
of God's favour, ' God ma}- requite good for it.' When we see judgments
befall others, severe thoughts of censure our minds are apt to raise against our
brother, as Job's friends did. But a godly man, whose mind is much sancti-
fied, raiseth other thoughts out of it, Prov. xxi. 29, ' wisely considers,' (fee.
So when outward mercies befall us, the next thoughts we are apt to have
is to project ease by our wealth, ' Thou hast goods for many years ;' and when
judgments befall us, we are apt to be fiUed with thoughts of complaint, and
fears, and cares how to wind out again. But what were the first thoughts
Job had upon the news of the loss of all ? God hath given, and the Lord
hath taken, blessed be the Lord for aU.
Such thoughts as these, which all opportunities hint unto, a good heart is
apprehensive of, and doth naturally raise for its o\vn use. So far barren as
our thoughts are, so far vain.
(2.) The vanity and sinfulness of the mind appears in a loathness to enter-
tain holy thoughts, to begin to set itself to think of God, and the things
belonging unto our peace ; even as loath they are to this as schoolboys are
to their books, or to busy their minds about their lessons, their heads being
full of play ; so loath are our minds to enter into serious considerations, into
sad, solemn thoughts of God or death, (fee. Men are as loath to think of
death as thieves of the execution ; or to think of God, as they are of their
judge. So to go over their own actions, in a review of them, and read the
blurred writing of their hearts, and to ' commune with them,' at night in the
end of the day, (as Da\dd did, Ps. Ixxvii 6,) men are as loath to do this as
schoolboys are to parse their lessons, and the false Latins they have made.
Job xxi. 14, ' Depart from us,' say they in Job unto God ; from their thoughts
they meant it, for it follows, ' we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.'
They would not think of him, or know him, by their good wills. And there-
fore our minds, like a bad stomach, are nauseated with the very scent of
JkR. IV. 14.] THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. 515
good tilings, and soon cast them up again : Rom. L 28, * They like not to
retain the knowledge of God.' Let us go and try to wind up our souls, at
any time, to holy meditations, to thiiik of what we have heard, or Avhat we
have done, or what is our duty to do, and we shall find our minds, like the
pegs of an instrument, slip between our fingers, as we are a- winding them
up, and to fiiU down suddenly again, ere we are aware of it ; yea, you shall
find, will labour to shun what may occasion such thoughts, even as men go
out of the way when they see they must meet with one they are loath to
speak withal ; yea, men dare not be alone, for fear such thoughts should re-
turn upon them. The best shall find a gladness for an excuse by other
occasions to knock off their thoughts from what is good ; wherea.s in think-
ing of vain earthly things, we think the time passeth too fast, clocks strike
too soon, hours pass away ere we are aware of it.
(3.) The vanity and sinfulness of the mind appears in the godly, that though
they entertain good thoughts, yet the mind is not, will not, be long intent
on them. Some things there are which we are and can be intent upon,
and accordingly dwell long upon them; and therefore, in Job xvii. 11, the
thoughts are called the ' possessions of the heart,' — so it is in the original,
and noted in the margin. Such thoughts as are pleasing, the heart dwells
on them ; yea, so intent are we often, that they hinder our sleep : as it is
said of wicked men, ' They cannot sleep for multitude of thoughts,' Eccles.
v. 1 2 ; so, ' to devise froward things,' Solomon says, Pro v. xvi 30, that ' a
man shuts his eyes,' that is, is exceeding attentive, poreth upon his plots ;
for so a man doth use to do, to shut his eyes when he would be intent, and
therefore it is so expressed. But now let the mind be occupied and busied
about good things, and things belonging to our peace, how unsteady is it !
Which things should yet draw out the intention of the mind ; for the more
excellent the object is, the stronger our intention should be. God is the
most glorious object our minds can fasten on, the most alluring : the
thoughts of whom therefore should swallow up all other, as not worthy to
be seen the same day with him. But I appeal to aU your experiences, if
your thoughts of him be not most unsteady, and are, that I may so compare
it, as when we look upon a star through an optic glass, held with a palsy-
shaking hand. It is long ere we can bring our minds to have ken of him,
to place our eyes upon him ; and when we have, how do our hands shake,
and so lose sight ever and anon ! So whilst we are in never so serious talk
with him, when all things else should stand without, and not dare to offer
entrance till we have done with him, yet how many chinks are there in the
heart at which other thoughts come in ! and our minds leave God, and fuUow
them, and ' go after our covetousness,' our credit, &c., as the prophet's phrase
is, Ezek. xxxiii. 31. So when we are hearing the word, how do our minds
ever and anon run out of the church, and come in again, and so do not hear
half what is said ! So when we are at our callings, which God bids us to
be conversant about with all our might, Eccles. ix. 10 ; yet our minds, like
idle truants, or negligent servants, though sent about never so seri(jus a busi-
ness, yet go out of the way to see any sport, run after the hares that cross
the way, follow after butterflies that buzz about us.
And so when we come to pray, Christ bids ' watch to prayer,' Mark xiiL
33 ; that is, as if we were at every door to place a guard, that none come in'
and disturb and knock us off. But how oft doth the heart nod, and fall
asleep, and run into another world, as men in dreams do ! Yea, so natural
are distractions to us, when we are busied about holy duties, that as excre-
ments come from men, when very weak and sick, ere they are aware of it,
516 t;ie vanity of thouohtr. [Jeu. IV. 14.
so do worldly thoughts from us, and we are carried out of that stream of
good our mind was running in, into some by-creek, ere we are aware of it.
(4.) The vanity of the mind appears, in regard of good things, that if he
doth think of them, yet it doth it unseasonably. It is with your thoughts
as with your speeches, their goodness lies in their placing and order, Prov.
XXV. 11 : if 'fitly spoken,' they are 'as apples of gold in pictures of silver.'
And as a man is to bring forth actions, so thoughts, ' in due season ;' as those
fruits, so those buds should come out in season, Ps. i. 3. Now the vanity
of the mind appears in thinking of some good things, sometimes unseason-
ably. When you are praying, you should not only liave no worldly thoughts
come in, but no other than praying thoughts. But then haply some notions
of, or for a sermon wUl come readily in. So in hearing, a man shall often
have good thoughts that are heterogeneal to the thing in hand. So when a
man is felling down to prayer, look, what thing a man had forgotten when
it should have been thought of, will then come in, or what will affect a man
much comes in to divert him. This misplacing of thoughts, suppose they
be good, is yet from a vanity of the mind ; did those thoughts come at
another time, they should be welcome. We find our minds ready to spend
thoughts about anything rather than what God at present calls unto. When
we go to a sermon, we find we could then spend our thoughts more wUlingly
about reading, or haply searching our hearts ; unto which at another time,
when called to it, we should be most unwilling to. We could be content to
run wild over the fields of meditations and miscellaneous thoughts, though
about good, rather than to be tied to that task, and kept in one set path.
In Adam and Christ no thought was misplaced, but though they were as
many as the stars, yet they marched in their courses, and kept their ranks.
But ours as meteors dance up and down in us. And this disorder is a vanity
and sin, be the thought materially never so good. Not every one that hath the
best part must therefore first step up the stage to act, but take his right cue.
In printing, let the letters be never so fair, yet if not placed in their order, and
rightly composed, they mar the sense. Soldiers upon no terms should break
their ranks; so nor should our thoughts. Prov. xvi. 3, there is a promise
to a righteous man, that, as some read it, ' his thoughts shall be ordered.'
And so much for the first part, the privative sinfulness in our thoughts,
in respect of what is good.
Now, secondly, I proceed to discover that positive vanity which appear-
eth in our thoughts in regard of what is evil. And liere it is not to be ex-
pected, nor indeed can it be performed by any man, to reckon up the several
particularities of all those vain thoughts which run through man's heart. I
will insist only on some more general discoveries, to which particulars may
be reduced for a taste of the rest.
(1.) The vanity of them discovers itself in that which Christ calls, Mark
vii. 22, a^^oauvri, foolishness, — that is, such thoughts as madmen have, and
fools, — which foolishness is seen both in that unsettled wantonness and un-
stayedness of the mind in thinking, that, like quicksilver, it cannot fix, but
as Solomon says, Prov. xvii. 24, ' A fool's eyes are in the ends of the earth,'
are garish, and run up and down from one end of the earth to the otlier,
shooting and streaming, as those meteors you see sometimes in the air. And
though indeed the mind of man is nimble and able thus to run from one
end of the earth to another, which is its strength and excellence, yet God
would not have this strength, and nimbleness, and mettle spirit in curvetting
and trembling, as I may call it, but in steady directing all our thoughts
straight on to his glory, our own salvation, and the good of others ; he gave
Ji U. IV. 1-4.] THE VANITY OF THOUGHTa 517
it this uimbleness to turn away from evil, and the first appearance of it. As
we are to walk in God's ways he calls us to, so every thought, as well as
every action, is a step, and therefore ought to be steady ; ' Make straight
steps to your feet,' says the Apostle, Heb. xii. 1 3, turning not to the right
hand nor to the left, until we come to the journey's end of that business we
are to think of. But our thoughts at beat are as wanton spaniels, who,
though indeed they go with and accompany their master, and come to their
journey's end with him in the end, yet do run after ever)' bird, and wi.dly
pursue every flock of sheep they see. This unsteadiness ariseth from the
like curse on the mind of man as was on Cain, that it being ' driven from
the presence of the Lord,' it proves a vagabond, and so ' men's eyes are in
the ends of the earth.'
This foolishness, or uZioaJ^rj, is also seen in that independence in our
thoughts ; they hanging oft together as ropes of sand. This we see more evi-
dently in dreams. And not only then, but when awake also, and that when
we would set ourselves to be most serious, how do our thoughts jingle and ring
backward ! And as wanton boys, when they take pens in their hands, scribble
broken words that have no dependence, thus do our thoughts ; and if
you would but look over the copies thereof which you write continually,
you would find as much nonsense in your thoughts as you find in madmen's
speeches. This madness and distemper is in the mind since the fall, (though
it appears not in our words, because we are wiser,) that if notes were taken of
our thoughts, we should find thoughts so vagrant, that we know not how
they come in, nor whence they come, nor whither they would. But as God
doth all things in weight, nuiaber, and measure, so doth his image in us, so
far as it is renewed. And by reason of these two, the folly, unsettledness,
and independence of our thoughts, we bring our thoughts often to no issue,
to no perfection, but wilder away our time in thinking, as you use to say, of
nothing. And as Seneca says of men's lives, as of ships that are tossed up and
down at sea, it may be said they have been tossed much but sailed nothing ;
the like in this respect may be said of the thoughts. Or as when men
make imperfect dashes, and write nonsense, they are said to scribble, they
do not write ; so, in these foUies and independencies, we wilder and loafe our-
Belves, we do not think. But —
(2.) On the contrary, if any strong lust or violent passion be up, then our
thoughts are too fixed and intent, and run in so far into such sinful objects,
that they cannot be pulled out again, or any way diverted or taken off :
which is another vanity. For our thoughts and our understanding part was
ordained to moderate, allay, and cool, and take off our passions, when they
are a- playing over, to rule and govern them. But now our thoughts are
themselves subjected to our affections, and, like fuel put under them, do but
make them boil the more. And although our thoughts do first stir up our
fears, joys, desires, &c., yet these being stirred up once, chain, and fix, and
hold our thoughts to those objects, so as we cannot loosen them again.
Therefore says Christ to his disciples, ' Why are you troubled, and why do
thoughts arise in your hearts ? ' For perturbations in the affections cause
thoughts like fumes and vapours to ascend. Thus if a passion of fear be up,
how doth it conjure up multitudes of ghostly thoughts which we cannot
conjure down again, nor hide our eyes from, but which haunt us, and fol-
low us up and down wherever we go, so as a man runs away pursued by his
own thoughts; 'the heart meditates on terror,' as Isa. xxxiii. 18. So when
sorrow is up, how doth it make us study the cross that lights upon us,
which to forget would be an ease unto the mind I But a man's passions
518 THE VAXITY OF THOUGHTS. [JeR. IV. 14.
make his thoughts to con it, and to say it by heart, over and over again, as
if it would not have us forget it. So when love and desire is up, be the
thing what it will we are taken with, as preferment, credit, beauty, riches,
it sets our thoughts a-work to view the thing aU over, from top to toe, as
we say, to observe every part and circumstance that doth make it amiable
unto us, as if a picture were to be drawn of it. So when joy is up, we
view the thing we rejoice in, and read it over and over, as we do a book we
like, and we mark every tittle, we are punctual in it ; yea, so inordinate are
we herein, as often we cannot sleep for thinking on them. Eccles. v. 12,
'Abundance of riches will not suffer him to sleep, for the multitude of
thoughts in his head,' speaking of a man who is covetous. How do thoughts
trouble the Belshazzars and Nebuchadnezzars of the world ! Dan. iv. 19. So,
Prov. iv. 16, 'They sleep not unless they have done mischief;' if their de-
sires remain unsatisfied, they do disturb their thoughts, like froward children
by their crjdng. So as often these which men count free, as the most do
thoughts, do prove the greatest bondage and torment in the earth unto them,
and do hinder sleep, the nurse of nature, eat out and live upon the heart
that bred them, weary the spirits, that when a man shall say, (as Job vii. 13,)
' My bed shall comfort me,' by putting a parenthesis to his thoughts and
sad discourses which he hath when awake, yet then they haunt a man, and,
as ver. 14, ' terrify him.' A man cannot lay them aside as he doth his
cloak : and when men die they wid foUow them to heU, and torment them
worse there ; your thoughts are one of the greatest executioners there, even
* the worm that dies not.'
(3.) The vanity of the mind appears in curiosity, a longing and itching to
be fed with, and to know, and then delighting to think of, things that do
not at all concern us. Take an experiment of this in scholars, whose chief
work lies in this shop : how many precious thoughts are spent this way ! as
in curiosity of knowledge, as appears by those the apostle often rebukes, that
affect, as 1 Tim. vi. 4, 20, ' oppositions of science falsely so called,' curiosities
of knowledge ' of things they have not seen.' So, Col. ii. and 1 Tim. iv. 7,
he calls such issues of men's brains they dote on, ' old wives' fables;' because,
as fables please old wives, so do these their minds, and of that itch they
have in them, even as women with child, in their longings, content not them-
selves with what the place affords or the season, with what may be had, but
often long after some unheard-of rarity, far fetched, or, it may be, not at all
to be had. Thus men, not contenting themselves with the wonders of God
discovered in the depth of his word and works, they will launch into another
sea and world of their ovm making, and there they sad with pleasure, as
many of the school-men did in some of their speculations, spending their pre-
cious wits in framing curious webs out of their own bowels.
Take another instance also in others, who have leisure and parts to read
much : they should ballast their hearts with the word, and take in those
more precious words and wisdom and sound knowledge to profit themselves
and others, and to build upon their own souls, and whereby they may be
enabled to serve their country ; but now what do their curious fancies carry
them unto, to be versed in, but play-books, jeering pasquUs, romances, feigned
stays,* which are the curious needlework of idle brains, so as they load
their heads with ' apes and peacocks' feathers,' instead of pearls and precious
stones ; so as a man may say as Solomon, Prov. xv. 14, * The heart of him
that hath understanding seeketh knowledge : but the mouth of fools feeds on
foolishness,* Foolish discourses please their ears and eyes to read ; all these
• Qu. 'staves'?— Ed.
JeR. rV. 14.] TIIIC VANITY OF THOUGHTS. 319
being but purveyors, as it were, for food for the thoughts : like chameleons,
men live on air and wind.
To leave them : how do others out of mere curiosity to know and please
their thoughts, listen after all the news that flies up and down the world,
scum all the froth that floats in foolish men's mouths, and please themselves
only with talking, thinking, and hearing of it ?
I do not condemn all herein : some their ends are good, and they can
make use of it, and do as Nehemiah did, who inquired how things went at
Jerusalem, to rejoice with God's people, and mourn with them, and pray for
them, and to know how to fashion their prayers accordingly. But I con-
demn that curious itch that is in them, when it is dcnie but merely to please
their fancies ; which is much delighted with new things, though they concern
us not. Such the Athenians were. Acts xviL 21, How do some men long
aU the week till they have events and issues, and make it a great part of the
happiness of their lives to study the state more than their own hearts, and
affairs of their callings ; who take actions of state as their text to study the
meaning of, and to preach on wherever they come ! I speak of those that
yet lay not to heart the miseries of the church of Christ, nor help them with
their prayers, if at any time they happen.
The like curiosity is seen in many, in desiring to know the secrets of other
men, which yet would do them no good to know, and who do study men's
actions and ends, not to reform, or do good to them, but to know them, and
think and muse thereof, when alone, with pleasure. This is curiosity, and pro-
perly a vanity of the thinldng power, which it mainly pleaseth ; and is indeed
a great sin, when much of men's most pleasing thoughts are spent on things
tliat concern them not. For the things we ought to know, and which do con-
cern us, are enough to take up all our thoughts alone, neither shall we have
any to spare : and thoughts are precious things, the immediate fruits and
buds of an immortal nature ; and God hath given us power to coin them, to
lay them out in things that concern our own good, and of our neighbours,
and his own glory ; and thus not to spend them is the greatest waste in the
world. Examine what corn you put in to grind, for God ought to have toll
of all. Prov. xxiv. 8, ' He that deviseth evil shall be called a mischievous
person,' not always he that doth a mischievous action, but that deviseth it ;
and, ver. 9, he aggravates it, d, minon, 'for every thought is sin :' then a
combination and conspiracy of wicked thoughts is much more. But —
(•i.) There is a worse vanity than this, and that is that intimated, Rom.
xiii. 14, ' Taking thought to fulfil the lusts of the flesh,' ii^oyoiav woiuadai, to
make projects for it. For thoughts are the caterers for our lusts, and lay in
all their provision ; they are they that look out where the best markets are,
the best opportunities for sinning in any kind, the best bargains for credit,
for preferment, for riches, &c. For example, would a man rise? His
thoughts study the art of it, men frame their own ladder to climb withal,
invent ways how to do it ; though often it proves, as to Haman, their own
gallows. Would they be rich, what do they study ? Even all cheats and
tricks on the cards, as I may so speak ; that is, all the cunning tricks of the
world, all the ways of oppressing, defrauding, and going beyond their breth-
ren, so to pack things in all their dealings, that they themselves should be
the winners, and those that deal with them the losers. Isa. xxxii. 7, it is
said, that ' the instruments of the churlish are evil, and he deviseth wicked
devices to destroy the poor.' Would a man undermine his opposite, as
one that stands in his light, and who hinders his credit? He'll dig and
fall a-pioning, with his thoughts, his engines, in the night ; dig a pit, as the
520 THE VANITY OF TUOL'GHTS. [JeK. IV. 14.
Scripture phrase is, and dig deep to hide his counsel, to blow him up in the
end, and so as he shall not know who hurt him. And this is worse than all
the former, this studied, artificial villany. The more demising there is in sin,
the worse ; therefore the fact about Uriah, not so much that of Bathsheba,
is objected against David, because he used art in it ; he ' took thought for
it,' but, in the matter of Bathsheba, thoughts took him.
(5.) The fifth is the representing or acting over sins in our thoughts and
imaginations, personatmg those pleasures by imagination which at present
we enjoy not really, feigning and imagining ourselves to act those sinful
practices we have not opportunity outwardly to perform ; speculative wicked-
ness, divines do call it ; which to be in the power of imagination to do is
e\T.dent to you by your dreams, when fancy plays its part most, and, to al-
lude to what the prophet says, makes us believe ' we eat when we are an
hungry, and drink when our souls are thirsty,' Isa. xxix. 8. But I mean not
to speak of the power and corruption of it, as in our dreams ; it were well
if, as the Apostle speaks of drunkenness, this speculative wickedness were
only ' in the night.' But corrupt and distempered affections do cast men
into such dreams in the day, and when they are awake ; there are then, to
borrow the Apostle's expression, 'filthy dreams,' Jude 8, that 'defile the
flesh,' even when awake ; when, their lusts wanting work, their fancy erects
to them a stage, and they set their imaginations and thoughts a-work to enter-
tain their filthy and impure desires with shows and plays of their own making,
and so reason and the intention of their minds sit as spectators all the while
to view with pleasure, tUl their thoughts inwardly act over their own unclean
desires, ambitious projects, or whatever else they have a mind unto.
So vain and empty is the heart of man become ; so impatient are our de-
sires and lusts of interruption in their pleasures ; so sinful and corrupt !
First, Vain and empty it appears to be in this ; for take all the pleasures
of sin, when they are never so fully, solidly, really, and substantially enjoyed,
they are but shadows, a mere outside and figure, as the Apostle calls the
world. It is opinion of imagination that casts that vamish of goodness on
them which is not truly in them. So Felix* and Bernice's pomp is termed
TOAupavraff/a. But now this speculative enjoying of them only in imagination,
(which many men's hearts take so much pleasure in,) the pleasing ourselves
in the bare thoughts and imaginations of them, this is but a shadow of these
shadows. That the soul should, Ixion-like, embrace and commit adultery with
clouds only, this is a vanity beyond all other vanities, that maketh us vainer
than other creatures, who though ' subject to vanity,' yet not to such as this.
Secondly, It argues our desires to be impatient, to be detained from, or
interrupted of their pleasures. When the soul shall be found so greedy that
when the heart is debarred or sequestered from those things it desires, and
wants means or opportunities to act its lusts, as not being to stay, it will at
least enjoy them in imagination, and in the interim set fancy to entertain
the mind with empty pictures of them drawn in its own thoughts.
Thirdly, Thus they appear also to be exceeding sinful and corrupt. An
outward act of sin, it is but as an act of whoredom with the creature when
really enjoyed ; but this is incest, when we defile our souls and spirits with
these imaginations and likenesses which are begotten in our own fancies,
being the children of oiir own hearts.
And yet, my brethren, such speculative enjoying of pleasures, and acting
over of sins, the mind of man is full of, as vsdll appear in many particulars.
First, Look what comforts men have at present in their possession and at
• Agrippa. — Ed.
JeE. IV. 1-t.] TlIK \ AMTV Ui' XUUUUiiTi. 521
command, what excellencies or endowments, men love to be alone to study
and think of them ; and when they are sequestered from the present use of
them, yet they will thtn be again and again recounting and casting of thum
up, talcing a survey of their happiness in them, api)lauding their own hearts
in their conditions. And as rich men that love money, love to be looking
on it, and telling it over ; so do men to be summing up their comforts and
privileges they enjoy, which others want : as how rich they are, how great,
how they excel others in parts and gifts, &c. Oh, how much of that precious
sand of our thoughts funs out this way ! Thus he in the gospel, he keeps an
audit in his heart : ' Soul,' saith he, ' thou hast goods laid up for many
years.' So Haman, Esther v. 11, takes an inventory of his honours and
goods; he talks of ' all the glory of his riches, and all the things wherein the
king had promoted him.' So Nebuchadnezzar, Dan. iv. 30, as it may seem,
he was alone walking and talking to himself like a fool, saying to himself,
' Is not this the great Babel which I have built by the might of my power,
for the glory of my majesty V
And as thus upon their comforts, so also upon their excellencies, as their
learning, wisdom, parts, &c. Men love to stand looking upon these in the
glass of their own speculation, as fair faces love to look often and long in
looking-glasses : which, as it ariseth from the self-flattery is in men, so also
that they might keep their happiness still fresh and continued in their eye ;
"which thoughts, when they raise not up the heart to thankfulness to God,
and are not used to that end, but are bellows of pride, they are vain and
abominable in the eyes of God, as appears by God's dealing with those
before-mentioned ; for to the one he says, ' Thou fool, this night ;' the other,
' whilst the word was in his mouth,' (giving him no longer warning,) he
strikes with madness and brutishness : and Haman, you know, was like a
wall that doth swell before it breaks and falls to ruin and decay.
Secondly/, This speculative enjoying of pleasures, and acting over sins thus
in fancy, doth appear in regard of things to come ; which when we have iu
view, or any hopes of men's thoughts go forth before to meet them, with
how much contentment do men's thoughts entertain their desires ; with vain
promisings and expectations beforehand of their pleasures that are in view,
and in possibility to be enjoyed ! So they in Isaiah wind up their hearts to
a higher pin of jollity in the midst of their cups, in that their hearts thought
and promised them, ' To-morrow shall be as to-day, and much more abund-
ant,' chap. Ivi. 12, So they, James iv. 13, they say with themselves, 'We
will go to such a city, and continue there a year, and get gain.' And the
promise of this, and the thoughts of it beforehand, feeds them, and keeps up
their heart in comfort. When men rise in a morning, they begin to fore-
think with much pleasure what carnal pleasures they have the advowson
and promise of that day or week; as to go to such company and there be
merry, to go such a pleasant journey, enjoy satisfaction in such a lust, hear
such news, <kc. And thus, as godly men ' live by faith' in God's promises,
Hab. ii. 4 ; Isa. xxxviii. 1 6, ' By these men live, and this is the spirit of my
life,' saith Hezekiah, even 'what God hath spoken,' ver. 15: so do carnal
men live much upon the promises of their own hearts and thoughts before-
hand, for to this head of vain thoughts these vain promisings are to be re-
duced, Ps. xHx. 11, 'Their inward thought is, their houses shall continue
for ever,' and this thought pleaseth them. What pleasure almost is there,
which a man makes much account of, but he acts it first over in private in
his own thoughts ? And thus do men foolishly take their own words and
promises ; and so ' befool themselves in the end/ as Jeremiah speaks, chap.
522 THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. [JeR. IV. 14.
xvii. 11. They take up beforehand in their thoughts, upon trust, the plea-
sures they are to enjoy, even as spendthrifts do their rents, or heirs their
revenues before they come of age to enjoy their lands, that when they come
indeed to enjoy the pleasures they expected, either they prove but ' dream-
ers,' as Isa. xxix. 8, they find their • souls empty,' or so much under their
expectation, and so stale, as they have little in them, that there still provea
more in the imagination thafl in the thing, which ariseth from the vastness
and greediness of men's desires, as the cause hereof; for that makes them
swallow up all at once. So, Hab. ii. 51, ' Enlarging -his desires as hell, he
heaps up all nations, swallows them up in his thoughts.' So an ambitious
scholar doth all preferments that are in his view.
Thirdly, This speculative wickedness is exercised in like manner towards
things past, in recaUiug, namely, and reviving in our thoughts the pleasure
of sinful actions passed ; when the mind runs over the passages and circum-
stances of the same sins, long since committed, with a new and fresh delight ;
when men raise up their dead actions, long since buried, in the same like-
ness they were transacted in, and parley with them, as the witch and Saul
did with Satan in Samuel's likeness. And whereas they should draw cross
lines over them, and blot them out through faith in Christ's blood, they
rather copy and write them over again in their thoughts with the same con-
tentment. So an unclean person can study and view over every circum-
stance passed in such an act, with such a person committed ; so a vain-
glorious scholar doth repeat in his thoughts an eminent performance of his,
and all such passages therein as were most elegant. And thus men chew
the cud upon any speech of commendation uttered by others of them. And
all this even as a good heart doth repeat good things heard or read, with the
remembrance also of what quickness they had in such and such passages, and
with what affections they were warmed, when they heard them ; or as a
godly man recalls with comfort the actions of a well-passed life, as Hezekiah
did, ' Lord, I have walked before thee with a perfect heart ;' and thereby do
also stir and provoke their hearts to the like temper again. So, on the con-
trary, do wicked men use to recall and revive the pleasingest sinful passages
iu their lives, to suck a new sweetness out of them. Than which nothing
argues more hardness or wickedness of heart, or provokes God more. For —
1. It argues much wickedness of heart, and such as, when it is ordinary
with the heart to do thus, is not conipatible with grace ; for in the 6th of
the Romans, ver. 21, the Apostle shews that a good heart useth to repeat no
such fruit of sinful actions past : ' But what fruit had you of those things
whereof ye are now ashamed?' The saints reap and distil nothing out of all
those flowers but shame and sorrow, and sad sights : when Ephraim remem-
bered his sin, he was ' ashamed and repented;' and canst thou, in thy thoughts,
; reap a new harvest and crop of pleasure out of them again and again ?
2. It argues much hardness of heart ; nothing bemg more opposite to the
truth and practice of repentance, the foundation of which is to call to mind the
sin with shame and sorrow, and to recall it with much more grief than ever
there was pleasure in the committing of it ; and whose property is to ' hate
the appearance ' of it, and to inflame the heart with zeal and revenge against
it. And thereby it provoketh God exceedingly, our hearts are thereby im-
brued in a new guilt, we thereby stand to and make good our former act :
even so, by remembering it mth pleasure, we provoke God to remember it
with a new detestation of it, and so to send down new plagues ; who, if we
recall it with grief, would ' remember it no more.' We shew we take delight
to rake in those wounds we have given Christ already. To view the sins of
JER. IV. 14. J THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. 523
others with pleasure, Rom. i. 32, is made more than to commit them ; but
much more to view and revive our own with a fresh delight : and therefore
know, that however you may take delight here to repeat to yourselves yoiir
old sins, yet that in hell nothing will gall you more than the remembrance
of them ; every circumstance in every sin will then be as a dagger at thy
heart. This was the rich man's task and study in hell, to ' remember the
good things he had received,' and his sins committed in the abuse of them.
And if godly men here be made to * possess the sins of their youth' with horror,
as Job, and to ' have them ever before them,' as David, how will wicked men
be continually affrighted with them in heU 1 — whose punishment is in a
great part set forth to us by Ps. 1. 21, 'I wiU set them in order before thee.'
Fourthly, The fourth thing wherein the speculative vanity appears is in
acting sins upon mere imaginary suppositions. Men feign and contrive to
themselves, and make a supposition to themselves in their own thoughts,
first of what they would be, and then what they would do. Men create
fool's paradises to themselves, and then walk up and down in them : as,
if they had money enough, what pleasures they would have ! if they were
in such places of preferment, how they would carry themselves ! — to
allude to that Absalom said, 2 Sam. xv. 4, ' Oh, if I were a judge in the
land, I would do this or that,' <fcc., — doing this with a great deal of pleasure,
almost as much as those that really enjoy them. This may well be the
meaning of Psalm 1. 18, where of the hypocrite, who outwardly abstains
from gross sins, it is said that ' he consenteth with the thief, and partaketh
with the adulterer,' namely, in his heart and fancy, supposing himself with
them, and so desires to be doing what they do. Thus take one who is
naturally ambitious, whom both nature, parts, and education have aU made
but ' a bramble, never to rule over the trees,' and hath jfixed in a lower sphere,
as incapable of rising higher or being greater as the earth is of becoming a
star in heaven ; yet he wiU take upon him in his own heart, feigning and
supposing himself to be, and then act the part of a great man there, erect a
throne, and sit down in it, and thinks with himself what he would do if a king
or a great man, &c. So take a man that is unclean, but now grown old, and
a dry tree, and so cannot act his lust as formerly, yet his thoughts shall
supply what is wanting in his strength or opportunity. And he makes his
own heart both bawd, brothel- house, whore, whoremonger, and all. So a
man that is naturally voluptuous, loves pleasures, but wants means to pur-
chase them, yet his inchnations will please themselves with the thoughts of
what mixture and composition of delights he would have ; he will set down
with himself his bUl of fare, how he would have, if he might wish, his cup
of pleasure mingled, what ingredients put into it. So a man that is revenge-
fil, and yet wants a sting, yet he pleaseth himself with revengeful thoughts
and wishes, and will be making invectives and railing dialogues against hhv\
he hates when he is not by. A man in love, in his fancy he will court his
paramour though absent, he will by his imagination make her present, and
80 frame solemn set speeches to her.
In a word, let men's inclinations and dispositions be of what kind soever,
and let the impossibilities and improbabilities be never so great of being
what they desire ; yet in their fancies and thoughts they will discover them-
selves what they would be. Totumque guod esse desiderant sihi apud seme-
zipsos cogitationihus depingunt ; men will be drawing maps of their desires,
calculating their own inclinations, cut out a condition of life which fills their
hearts, and they please themselves withaL And there is no surer way to know
a man's natural inclination than by this.
524 THE VANITY OF THOUGUTS. [JeR. IV. 14.
1. Whicli yet, first, is as great a folly as any other, imitating children
herein ; for is it not childish to make clay pies and puppets, (what else are
such fancies as these 1) and to be as children acting the parts of ladies and
mistresses 1 And yet such childishness is in men's hearts.
2. And, secondly, a vanity also, because a man sets his heart on what is
not ; the things themselves are not, if a man had them, Prov. xxiii. 5 : but
to please themselves with suj^positiuns is much worse.
3. Thirdly, this argues the greatest incontentation of mind that may be,
when men will in their own thoughts put themselves into another condition
than God ever ordained for them.
Use 1. — Having discovered the vanity of your thoughts and your estates
thereby, be humbled for them. This I ground upon Prov. xxx. 32, where Agur
teacheth us to humble ourselves as well for thoughts as actions : ' If thou hast
done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thy hand
upon thy mouth.' Now as ' smiting upon the thigh ' is put for repentance,
and shame, and sorrow in Ephruim, Jer. xxxi. 19; so is laying the hand upon
the mouth put for greater and deeper humiliation, as arguing full conviction
of one's guilt : Rom. iii. 19, ' Every mouth must be stopped.' Having no-
thing to say, not to plead and excuse that thoughts are free, and it is impos-
sible to be rid of them, &c., but, as Ezek. xvi. 63, 'to remember, and to be
confounded, and never to open thy mouth more,' — to be vile, and not to
answer again, as Job xl. 4, — this is to lay thy hand on thy mouth ; that is,
to humble thyself.
And indeed there is nmch cause ; for your thoughts, they are the first-
begotten and eldest sons of original sin, and therefore ' the strength' of it, as
Jacob called Pieuben the first-born ; yea, also, and the parents and begetters
of all other sins, their brethren ; the first plotters and contrivers, and Ahi-
thophels, in all the treasons and rebellions of our hearts and lives ; the bellows
and incendiaries of all inordinate afi"ections ; the panders to all our lusts, that
take thought to provide for the satisfying of them ; the disturbers in all good
duties, that interrupt, and spoil, and fly-blow all our prayers, that they stink
in the nostrils of God.
And if their heinousness will nothing move you, consider their number,
for they are continually thus; which makes our sins to be in number more
than the sands ; the thoughts of Solomon's heart were as the sand, and so
ours ; not a minute but as many thoughts pass from us as in a minute sands
do in an hour-glass. So that suppose that, taken severally, they be the
smallest and least of your sins, yet their multitude makes them more and
heavier than all your other. Nothing smaller than a grain of sand, but if
there be a heap of them, there is nothing heavier : Job vi. 3, ' My grief is
heavier than the sand.' Suppose they be in themselves but as farthing tokens
in comparison of gross defilements, yet because the mint never lies still,
sleeping or waking, therefore they make up the greatest part of that treasure
of wrath which we are a-laying up : and know, that God will reckon every
farthing, and in thy punishment bate thee not one vain thought. And that
God looks upon our thoughts thus, see but the indictment he brings in against
the old world, which stands stUl upon record. Gen. vi. When he pronounced
that heavy judgment of destroying the old world, doth he allege their mur-
ders, adulteries, and gross defilements chiefly as the cause 1 Their thoughts
rather ; which, because so many and so continually evil, provoked him more
than all their other sins. Go down therefore into thy heart, and consider
them well, to humble thee, to make thee vile ; and if in one room such a
treasure of wickedness be found laid up, what in all those other ' chambers
JeR. IV. 1 4.] THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. 525
of the belly,' as Solomon calls tliein 1 Consider them to humble thee, but
not, for all this their multitude, to discourage thee. For God hath more
thoughts of mercy in him than thou hast had of rebellion : Ps. xl. 5, ' Thy
thoughts to us-ward' (speaking of thoughts of mercy) 'are more than can be
tmmbered.' Thou begannest but as yesterday to think thoughts of rebellion
against him, but his thoughts of mercy have been ' from everlasting,' and
reach ' to everlasting : ' and therefore, in Isa. Iv. 7, having made mention of
our thoughts, ' Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts, and he will
have mercy on him,' because this objection of the multitude of them might
come in to discourage men from hopes of mercy, therefore purposely he adds,
' he will multiply to pardon ;' anil to assure us that he hath thoughts of mercy
to outvie ours of sin, he adds, ' for my thoughts exceed yours, as heaven doth
the earth.'
Use 2. — Let us make for ever conscience of them ; so Job did, chap,
xxxi. 1, 'I made a covenant with mine eyes; why should I think upon a
maid 1 ' Solomon gives in especial charge, ' Above all keeping, keep thy
heart,' Prov. iv. 23.
First, Thou art to ' keep the Lord's day holy,' ' thyself unspotted of the
world ;' to 'keep thy brother;' to ' keep all the commandments ;' but, above
all, to ' keep thy heart,' and in it thy thoughts, for this is the great com-
mandment, because it extends itself, as the foundation, unto them all : for
as in the same commandment where murder is forbidden, a malicious thought
is also, and so of the rest ; so in keeping the thoughts thou virtually keepest
all the commandments. As original sin is said to be forbidden in aU the
commandments, so are the thoughts taken order for in all.
Secondly, ' Out of it are issues of life ;' thoughts and affections are the
spring, speeches and actions the stream. As are our thoughts, so are our
allections, for these are the bellows ; so also our prayers, so all, for they are
in the soul as the spirits in the body, they run through all, move all, act all.
Thirdly, If you look to God, our thoughts are that spot of ground which
he proclaims himself sole Lord of, and makes it one of his greatest titles
that he 'knows them, and judgeth them.' Kings attempt to rule your
tongues, to bind your hands, and rule your actions ; but God only your
thoughts. By them we chiefly sanctify him in our hearts, by them we walk
with God ; and shall we not make conscience of them ?
Fourthly, If you look to the work and power of grace, wherein lies it but
in ' bringing every thought into obedience ? ' 2 Cor. x. 5. This is the glory
of our religion above all other in the world. Wherein lies the difficulty of
it, the strictness of it, what makes it so hard a task, but the observing and
keeping the thoughts in bounds? Wherein lies the diiference between sincere-
hearted Christians and others, but the keeping of our thoughts, without
which all religion is but ' bodily exercise 1 * Papists may mumble over their
prayers, hypocrites talk, but this is godliness.
Fifthly, If we look to things we have a care of; if we have a care of
speeches because Christ hath said we shall ' answer for every idle word,' why
not also, for the same reason, should we have a care of thoughts, which are
the words of the mind, only they want a shape to be audible to others, which
the tongue gives them ; for which you must answer as well as for words,
Heb. iv. 1 2 ; 1 Cor. iv. 5. If you be careful what companions you have,
and whom you lodge in your houses, and who lie in your bosoms, then much
more of your thoughts, which lodge in your hearts, which are not yours but
God's houses, built for himself, and for Christ and his word to dwell in ; see-
ing also the things you think of have the most near intimate fellowship and
526 THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. [JeR. IV. 14.
converse with you. And therefore, when you think of the word, it is said
to ' talk with you,' Prov. vi. 22. K you be careful of what you eat, because
such blood you have, &c., then be careful what you think, thoughts being
pabulum animce, as Tully calls them. ' Thy words did I eat,' says Jeremiah,
speaking of meditating on it.
Sixthly, If you look to the issue of things ; what shall be the subject of
that great inquest at the day of judgment 1 The thoughts and counsels, 1
Cor. iv. 5. And after the day of judgment, men's thoughts shall prove their
greatest executioners. What are the cords God lashes you with to all eter-
nity 1 Your own thoughts ; thoughts accusing, whereby you study over
every sin ; and every one will be as a dagger, Isa. xxxiii. 18. The hypo-
crite's torment is to ' meditate terrors,' to study God's wrath, and the saints'
blessedness, and their own sins and misery.
Remedies against vain thoughts.
The first is to get the heart furnished and enriched with good stock of
sanctified and heavenly knowledge in spiritual and heavenly truths ; for ' a
good man,' saith Christ, hath a ' good treasure in his heart,' Matt. xii. 35, —
that is, he hath all graces, so many precious truths, which are as gold in the
ore, which his thoughts, as the mint, doth coin and beat out, and which
words bring forth. ' A good man out of the good treasure of his heart
brings forth good things.' If, therefore, there be not mines of precious
truths hid in the heart, no wonder if our thoughts coin nothing but dross,
frothy, vain thoughts ; for better materials, which should feed the mind, are
wanting. Therefore, Solomon saith, ' Wicked men forge,' mint, or hammer,
* wickedness,' Prov. vi. 14 ; so Junius reads it. Or if men have store of
natural knowledge, and want spiritual useful knowledge to themselves ; al-
though in company with others they may bring forth good things in speeches,
yet when alone, their thoughts run not on them. For this take a place of
Scripture, Deut. vi. 6, 7, which shews that laying up the word in the heart,
and being much conversant in it, and getting knowledge out of it, is an
effectual means to keep our thoughts well exercised when we are alone;
for the end why those words of the law are commanded to be ' laid up in the
heart,' ver. 5, 6, is, as to teach them to others, so to take up our thoughts
when we are most retired and alone, and when a man can do nothing but
barely exercise his mind in thinking. For when a man is a-riding, or walking,
or lying down, and rising up, (which are often and usually our most retired
times for thoughts, and are wholly spent in them, and many ride alone, and
lie alone, &c.,) yet then, saith he, thou slialt talk of the word : which com-
mand he that is alone cannot do, therefore the talking there meant is not
only Xoyoi Trso^of/xoj, outward conference with others, (though intended as
occasion of talking wdth others is given,) as to talk to thy bedfellow of it,
and to thy companion ; but suppose thou hast none, then to talk of it to
thyself, for thoughts are Xoyoi hdiudsroi, talking of the mind. And so, compar-
ing Prov. vi. 22 with this place, which will fitly interpret it, it appears ; for
Solomon, exhorting to the same duty of ' binding the word to the heart,'
useth this motive, which is the fruit thereof, ' that when thou awakest, it
shall talk with thee,' — that is, by thy thinking of it, it wiU talk with thee
when thou and it art alone, — so as thou shalt not need a better companion
it will be putting in and suggesting something.
Secondly, Endeavour to preserve and keep up lively, holy, and spiritual
affections in thy heart, and suffer them not to cool : fall not from thy first
love, nor fear, nor joy in God ; or if thou hast grown remiss, endeavour to
recover those affections again. For such as your affections are, such necea-
JeE. IV. 14.] THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS. 527
sarily must your thoughts be ; and they incline the mind to think of such or
such objects as will please them, ratlier than others. Therefore, says David,
Ps. cxix. 97, ' How do I love thy law ! it is my meditation day and night.*
It was his love to it made him think of it so frequently. So, Mai. iii. 1 6,
* Those that feared the Lord, and thought upon his name,' are joined : for
what we fear we often think of, and also speak of often ; therefore it is added,
* They spake oft one to another.' Fear made them think much of his name,
and thinking of it made them speak of it : such affection, such thoughts, and
such speeches as they both are. And, indeed, thoughts and affections are
sibi mutiio causce, — the mutual causes of each other : ' Whilst I mused, the
fire burned,' Ps. xxxix.; so that thoughts are the bellows that kindle and in-
flame affections ; and then if they are inflamed, they cause thoughts to boil ;
therefore men newly converted to God, having new and strong affections,
can with more pleasure think of God than any.
Thirdhj, Of aU apprehensions else, get thy heart possessed with deep,
strong, and powerful apprehensions and impressions of God's holiness, ma-
jesty, omnipresence, and omniscience. If any thoughts be of power to settle,
fix, and draw in the mind of man, they are the thoughts of him. What is
the reason that the saints and angels in heaven have not a vain thought to
eternity, not a wry stroke 1 His presence fixeth them, their eye is never off
him. Take a wanton, garish, loose spirit, let him be but in the presence of
a superior whom he fears and reverenceth, and it consolidates him. Job
made therefore conscience of his thoughts, that he durst not look awry, chap.
xxxi. 1, 2, because God sees it, saith he. This drew in and fastened David's
thoughts; Ps. cxxxix. 1-12, he manifests what continual apprehensions he
had of God's greatness, majesty, and omnipresence. And what effect had
this ? ' When I awake I am even before thee,' ver. 17. Look what objects
they are have most strong and deep impressions in the mind, of those when
a man awaketh he thinks of first. Now such strong impressions had David's
thoughts of God, that still when he awaked he was with him. And therefore
we find it by experience to be a means to avoid distractions in prayers, to
enlarge a man's thoughts in his preparations before, or at the beginning, with
a consideration of God's attributes and relations to us : and it will and doth
make us serious.
Fourthly, Especially do this when thou awakest, as David did there :
' When I awake, I am still with thee.' To prevent wind, which ariseth from
emptiness, men use to take a good draught in the morning, which the sto-
mach feeds ; so, to prevent those vain, windy, frothy thoughts the heart natu-
rally engenders, and which arise from emptiness, first fill thy heart with the
thoughts of God ; go down into his wine-cellar. Observe it when you will,
when you first open your eyes there stand many suitors attending on you, to
speak with your thoughts, even as clients at lawyers' doors, many vanities
and businesses ; but speak thou mth God .first, he will say something to thy
heart will settle it for all day : and this do before the crowd of businesses
come in upon thee. Of some heathens it is said, that they worship that as
their god for all day which they first see in the morning ; so it is with the
idols of men's hearts.
Fifthly, Have a watchful eye, and observe thy heart all day ; though they
crowd in, yet observe them, let them know that they pass not unseen. If a
man would pray aright, he must watch also who comes in and who goes out.
Where strict watch and ward is kept, and magistrates observant, the marshal
and constable diligent to examine vagrant persons, you shall have few there ;
that such swarms of vagrant thoughts make their rende2rvous, and pass, is
because there is not strict watch kept.
528 THE VANITY OF THOUGHTS, [Jer. IV. 14,
This is in a manner all tliou canst do, for they will piss however; but yet
complain thou of them, wliip them, and give them their pass.
Sixthly, Please not thy fancy too much with vanities and curious siglits;
this engenders vain thoughts : therefore Job says, chap. xxxi. 1, that he
* made a covenant with his eyes, lest he should think of a maid ;' Prov. iv.
25, ' Let thine eyes look right on."
Sevtnthly, Be diligent in thy calling ; and ' what thine hand finds to do,
do it with all thy might,' as it is, Eccles. ix. 10 ; that is, putting to all the
intention and strength of the mind that may be in it. Let all the stream
run to ruin about thy mill ; the keeping thy thoughts to that channel keeps ^
them from overflowing into vanity and folly. 2 Thess. iii. 11, those that
labour not are busyboclies ; and, 1 Tim. v. 13, idle, wandering, cre^/spyo/;
they are not only called a^yoi, idle only, because not busy about what they
should, but Ti^iityoi, as intent on things they should not ; they go from
house to house : so their bodies do, because their minds do wander, having
no centre. When David walked alone, what extravagancy did his spirit run
into ! Let the ground lie fallow, and what weeds wiU there soon grow in
it ! God hath appointed us our callings to entertain our thoughts, and to
find them work, and to hold them doing in the interims between the duties
of his worship, because the spirit and thoughts of men are restless, and will
be busied some way. As therefore kings keep those men that have active
spirits in continual employment, lest their heads should be working and
plotting amiss, so did God appoint even in paradise the active spirit of man
a calling to keep him doing. God hereby hedgeth in man's thoughts, and
sets them to go in a narrow lane, knowing that if they are unconfined and
left at liberty, they would like ' wild asses snufi" up the wind,' as Jeremiah
speaks, chap. ii. 24. Only take heed of encumbering thy mind with too
much business, more than thou canst grasp. It made Martha forget that
' one thing necessary,' being ' cumbered with many things,' Luke x. 4. This
breeds cares, //.sy/.ai/ai, which distract the mind, (so the word signifies, ccto
roD iMioi^iiM,) as dividing it, and so cause wandering thoughts, nothing more,
so that the mind is not itself. For this weakens it, enervates it, and this
being vanity, — Exod. xviii. 18, said Jethro to Moses, when encumbered with
business, ' Thou a^ ilt fade away as a leaf,' out of which the moisture is dried
up, — even that juice which should be left for good duties will be exhausted.
As dreams come through multitude of business, Eccles. v. 3, so do a multi-
tude of thoughts from a cumber of business.
Eight} dy. In thy calling, and all thy ways, for the success and thy ways
therein, ' commit thj?- ways to God.' Prov. xvi. 3, ' Commit thy way unto
the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established,' or ordered ; that is, keep
from that confusion and disorder, and those swarms of cares, which others
are annoyed with, and thereby thy aims may be as well accomj^lished. A
few thoughts of faith would save us many thoughts of cares and fears, in the
businesses we go about ; which prove therefore vain, because they forward
not at all the business we intend. When such waves toss the heart and tur-
moil it, and the winds of passions are up, if a few thoughts of faith come into
the heart, they calm all presently.
END OF VOL. III.
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