Jeremiah Burroughs :: Sermon Three

SERMON III

For I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content (Philippians 4:11).

The Mystery of Contentment — Continued

The mystery of contentment will appear yet further. A gracious heart gets contentment in a mysterious way, a way that the world is not acquainted with.

VIII. He Lives on the Dew of God’s Blessing

Eighthly, he lives upon the dew of God’s blessing. It’s the simile of one Adrian Junius, setting out a contented man by a grasshopper, leaping and skipping up and down, that lives upon the dew, and he has this motto, I am content with what I have, and hope for better. A grasshopper does not live upon the grass as other things do; you cannot know what it feeds on. Other things though as little as grasshoppers, yet feed on seeds or little flies, and such things, but the grasshopper, you know not what it feeds on. So, a Christian can get food that the world knows not of; in a secret way is a Christian fed by the dew of the blessing of God. A poor man or woman that has but a little, which has grace, lives a more contented life than his rich neighbor that has a great deal coming in. We find it so ordinarily–so that though they have but a little, yet they have a secret blessing of God going in it, that they are not able to express to any other man. If you would come to them and say: ‘How comes it that you live so comfortably as you do?’ They are not able to tell you what they have, but they find there is a sweetness in what they do enjoy, and they know this by experience that they never had such sweetness in former times. Even though they had more plenty in former times than now they have, yet they know they had not such sweetness, but how this comes they cannot tell. We may show some particulars, even in that godly men do enjoy, that make their condition to be sweet.

As now, take these four or five particulars that godly men find contentment in what he has, though it be never so little:

1. Because in what he has, he has the love of God. He has God’s love to him in what he has. If a king should send a piece of meat from his own table, it is a great deal more comfortable to a courier than if he had twenty dishes at ordinary allowance. If the king sent but any little thing and said, ‘Go and carry this to such a man as a token of my love’, Oh, how delightful is that to him? Are your husbands at sea and send you a token of their love, it is more than forty times so much that you have in your houses already. Every good thing the people of God do enjoy, they enjoy it in God’s love, as a token of God’s love, and coming from God’s eternal love to them, and this must needs be very sweet to them.

2. What they have it is sanctified to them for good. Other men have what they enjoy in a way of common providence, but the saints in a special way. Others have what they have and that is all: they have meat, and drink, and houses, and clothes, and money and that’s all. But a gracious heart finds contentment in this, I have it, and I have a sanctified use of it too. I find God going along with what I must draw my heart nearer to him, and sanctify my heart to him. If I find my heart drawn nearer to God by what I enjoy; it’s more a great deal than if I have it without any sanctifying my heart by it. There’s a secret dew that goes along with it: there’s the dew of God’s love in it, and the dew of sanctification.

3. A gracious heart has what he has free of cost; he is not likely to be called to pay for what he has. The difference between what a godly man has and a wicked man is in this: A godly man is as a child in an inn, an inn–keeper has his child in his house, and the father provides his diet, and lodging, and what is fit for him. Now there comes a stranger, and the stranger has dinner and supper provided, and lodging, but the stranger must pay for all. It may be the child’s fare is meaner than the fare of the stranger, the stranger has boiled, and roasted and baked; but he must pay for it, there must come a reckoning for it. Just therefore it is; many of God’s people have but mean fare; but God as a father provides it, and it is on free of cost, and they must not pay for what they have; it is paid for before, but the wicked in all their pomp, and pride, and bravery, they have what they call for, but there must come a reckoning for all. They must pay for all in the end, and is it not better to have a little on free cost, than to come to have all to pay for? Grace does show a man that what he has, he has it on free cost, from God as from a Father, and therefore must need be very sweet.

4. A godly man may very well be content, though he has but little, for what he has he has it by right of Jesus Christ, by the purchase of Jesus Christ. He has a right to it, another manner of right to what he has then any wicked man can have to what he has. A wicked man has these outward things; I do not say they are usurpers of what they have; but they have a right to it, and that before God, but how? It is a right by mere donation, that is, God by his free bounty does give it to them; but the right that the saints have, it is a right of purchase: it is paid for, and it is their own, and they may in a holy manner, and holy way, challenge whatever they have need of. We cannot express the right of a holy man, the difference between his right, and the right of the wicked more fully than by this simile: a criminal that is condemned to die, yet he has by favor granted to him his supper provided overnight. You cannot say though the criminal has forfeited all his right to all things, to every bit of bread, yet if he shall have a supper granted to him he does not steal it. Though all his right is forfeited by his fault, after he is once condemned he has no right to anything. So, it is with the wicked: they have forfeited all their right to all comforts in this world, they are condemned by God as criminals and are going to execution; but if God will in his bounty give them something to preserve them here in the world, they cannot be said to be thieves or robbers. Now a man has granted to him a supper over night before his execution, but is that like the supper that he does not have in his own house, when he eats his own bread, and had his wife and children about him? Oh, a dish of green herbs at home would be a great deal better than any dainties in such a supper as that is. But now a child of God has not a right merely by donation, but what he has it is his own through the purchase of Christ. Every bit of bread that you eat, if you best a godly man or woman, Jesus Christ has bought it for you. When you go to market and buy your meat and drink with your money, but know that before you have bought it, or paid money, Christ has bought it at the hand of God the Father with his blood. You have it at the hands of men for money, but Christ has bought it at the hand of his Father by his blood. And certainly it is a great deal better and sweeter now though it be but a little.

5. There’s another thing that shows the sweetness that there is in that little that the Saints have, by which they come to have contentment, whereas others cannot, that is: Every little that they have, it is but as an earnest penny of all the glory that is reserved for them, it is given them by God, but as the forerunner of those eternal mercies that the Lord intends for them. Now if a man has but twelve pence given to him as an earnest penny for some great possession that he must have, is not that better than if he had forty pounds given to him otherwise? So every comfort that the saints have in this world is an earnest penny to them of those eternal mercies that the Lord has provided for them. As every affliction that the wicked have here it is but the beginning of sorrows, and forerunner of those eternal sorrows that they are like to have hereafter in Hell, so every comfort you have is a forerunner of those eternal mercies you shall have with God in heaven. Not only the consolations of God’s Spirit are the forerunners of those eternal comforts you shall have in Heaven, but when you sit at your table, and rejoice with your wife and children and friends, you may look upon every one of those but as a forerunner, yea the very earnest penny of eternal life to you. Now then if this be so, no marvel though a Christian be contented, but this is a mystery to the wicked. I have what I have out of the love of God, and I have it sanctified to me by God, and I have it of free of cost from God by the purchase of the blood of Jesus Christ, and I have it as a forerunner of those eternal mercies that are reserved for me; and in this my soul rejoices. There’s a secret dew of God’s goodness and blessing upon him in his estate that others have not. By all this you may see the meaning of the Scripture, ‘Better is a little with righteousness, then great revenues without right’ (Proverbs 16:8). A man that has but a little, yet if he has it with righteousness, it is better than a great deal without right, yea, better than the great revenues of the wicked–so you have it in another Scripture. That’s the next particular in Christian contentment: the mystery is in this, that he lives on the dew of God’s blessing, in all the good things that he does enjoy.

IV. A Christian Sees God’s Love in Afflictions

The ninth thing wherein the mystery of Christian contentment consists, is this, not only in good things does he have, he has the dew of God’s blessing in them, and they are very sweet to him, but in all the afflictions, all the evils that do befall him he can see love in them all. And can enjoy the sweetness of love in his afflictions, as well as in his mercies. Yes, the truth is, the afflictions of God’s people come from the same eternal love that Jesus Christ did come from. And the saying of Jerome, ‘He is a happy man that is beaten when the stroke is a stroke of love.’ All God’s strokes are strokes of love and mercy, all God’s ways are mercy and truth, to those that fear him and love him (Psalm 25:10). The ways of God, the ways of affliction, as well as the ways of prosperity, are mercy and love to him. Grace gives a man an eye, a piercing eye to pierce into the counsel of God, those eternal counsels of God for good to him, even in his afflictions; to see the love of God in every affliction as well as in prosperity. Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them, and makes them rich, but they think God loves them not when he does afflict them. That’s a mystery, but grace instructs men in that mystery, grace enables men to see love in the very frowns of God’s face, and so comes to receive contentment.

X. His Afflictions Are Sanctified in Christ

In the tenth place, a godly man has contentment in the way of a mystery, because as he sees all his afflictions come from the same love that Jesus Christ did, so he sees them all sanctified in Jesus Christ, sanctified as a Mediator. He sees, I say, all the sting and venom, and poison of them all to be taken out by the virtue of Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and Man. As now for instance, thus, a Christian when he would have contentment, works out: what is my affliction? Is it poverty that God strikes me with? Jesus Christ had not a house to hide his head in, the fowls of the air had nests, and the foxes had holes, but the Son of man not a hole to hide his head in; now my poverty is sanctified by Christ’s poverty. I can see by faith the curse and sting and venom of my poverty, taken out by the poverty of Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus he was poor in this world to deliver me from the curse of my poverty, that it should not be cursed to me. Then my poverty is not afflictive, if I can be contented in such a condition. That is the way, not to stand and repine, because I have not what others have, no, but I am poor, and Christ was therefore poor, that he might bless my poverty to me.

And so again, am I disgraced or dishonored? Is my good name taken away? Why, Jesus Christ he had dishonor put upon him; he was called Beelzebub, and a Samaritan, and they said he had a devil in him. All the foul aspersions that could be, were cast upon Jesus Christ, and this was for me, that I might have the disgrace that is cast upon me to be sanctified to me. Whereas another man’s heart is overwhelmed with dishonor, and disgrace, and he goes this way to work to get contentment: perhaps if you be spoken ill of, you have no other way to ease and right yourselves, but if they do rail upon you, you will rail upon them again; and therefore you think to ease yourselves. Oh, but a Christian has another manner of way to ease himself: others rail and speak ill of me, but did they not rail upon Jesus Christ, and speak ill of him? And what am I in comparison of Christ? And the subjection of Christ to such an evil, it was for me, that though such a thing should come upon me, I might know that the curse of it is taken from me through Christ’s subjection to that evil. Therefore, a Christian can be contented when anybody speaks ill of him. Now, this is a mystery to you to get contentment after such a manner as this is. So if men jeer and scoff at you, did they not do so to Jesus Christ? They jeered and scoffed at him, and that when he was in his greatest extremity upon the cross: they say, ‘Here’s the King of the Jews’, and they bowed the knee, and said, ‘Hail King of the Jews’, and put a reed into his hand, and mocked him. Now I get contentment in the midst of scorns and jeers, by considering that Christ was scorned, and by acting faith upon that which Christ did suffer for me. So, am I in great pain of my body? Jesus Christ had as great pain on his body as I have, though it’s true he had not such kind of sicknesses as we have, but yet he had as great pain and tortures in his body, and that which was deadly to him, as well as any sickness is to us. The exercising of faith on what Christ did endure, that’s the way to get contentment in the midst of our pains. One lies vexing and fretting, and cannot bear his pain: are you a Christian? Have you ever tried this way of getting contentment, to act your faith on all the pains and sufferings that Jesus Christ did suffer? This would be the way of contentment, and a Christian gets contentment under pains after this manner. Sometimes one that is very godly and gracious, you shall have them lie under grievous pains and extremities very cheerfully, and you wonder at it. This is the way that he gets it, he gets it by acting his faith on what pains Jesus Christ did suffer. You are afraid of death – the way to get contentment, it is by exercising your faith on the death of Jesus Christ. Yes, it may be you have inward troubles in your soul, and God withdraws himself from you, but still your faith is to be exercised on the sufferings that Jesus Christ endured in his soul. He poured forth his soul before God, then when he sweat drops of water and blood, he was in an agony in his very spirit, and he found even God himself in a way to forsake him. Now the acting your faith on Jesus Christ, therefore, brings contentment, and is not this a mystery to carnal hearts? A gracious heart finds contentment in a way of a mystery; no marvel though Saint Paul says, ‘I am instructed in a mystery, to be contented in whatever condition I am in.’

XI. He Fetches Strength from Christ

There is yet a further mystery, for this I hope you will find a very useful point, and you will see what a plain way there is, for one that is skilled in religion to get contentment, though it’s hard for one that is carnal. I say, the eleventh mystery in contentment is this: A gracious heart has contentment by fetching strength from Jesus Christ, he is able to bear his burden by fetching strength from another. Now this is a riddle, indeed, and it would be a ridiculous thing to be spoken of in the schools of philosophers, to say, if there be a burden on you, you must fetch strength from another. Indeed to have another come and stand under the burden, that way they would know, but that you shall be strengthened by another’s strength, that is not near you to your outward view, that they would think ridiculous. But now a Christian finds satisfaction in every condition by getting strength from another, by going out of itself to Jesus Christ, and by faith acting upon Christ, and bringing the strength of Jesus Christ into its own soul, and thereby is enabled to bear whatever God lays upon him, by the strength that he finds from Jesus Christ. Of his fullness do we receive grace for grace; there is strength in Christ not only to sanctify and save us, but strength to support us under all our burdens and afflictions, and Christ expects that when we are under any burden that we should act our faith upon him to draw virtue and strength from him. The acting of faith that’s the great grace that is to be acted under afflictions, it’s true, other graces should be acted, but the grace of faith it draws strength from Christ, in looking on him that has the fullness of all strength to be conveyed into the hearts of all believers.

Now if a man has a burden upon him, yet if he can have strength added to him – if the burden be doubled, yet if he can have his strength to be tripled – the burden will not be heavier but lighter than it was before to our natural strength. Indeed, our afflictions may be heavy, and we cry out, oh, we cannot bear them, we cannot bear such an affliction. Though you cannot not tell how to bear it with your own strength, yet how can you tell what you shall do with the strength of Jesus Christ? You say you cannot bear it? Why do you think that Christ could not bear it? But if Christ could bear it why may you not come to bear it? You will say, ‘Can I have the strength of Christ?’ Yes, that is made over to you by faith: the Scripture says That the Lord is our strength, God himself is our strength, and Christ is our strength. Many Scriptures we have that way, that Christ’s strength is yours, made over to you, so that you may be able to bear whatever lies upon you, and therefore we find such a strange kind of expression in the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Colossians, praying for the saints, ‘That they might be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power’, to what? ‘To all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.’ Strengthened with all might, according to the power of God, the glorious power of God, to all patience, and longsuffering with joyfulness. You may not therefore be content with a little strength, so that you are able to bear what a man might bear by the strength of reason and nature, but to be strengthened with all might, according to the glorious power of God, to all patience, and to all longsuffering.

Oh, you who are now under very heavy and sad afflictions more than ordinary, look at this Scripture, and consider how this Scripture is made good in you; why may you not have this Scripture made good in you, if you be godly? You should not be quiet in your own spirits, except that you in some measure do get this Scripture to be made good in you so that you may with some comfort say, ‘Through God’s mercy, I find that strength coming into me that is here spoken of in this Scripture.’ You should labor when you are under any great affliction (you that are godly) to walk so that others may see such a Scripture made good in you. Here is the glorious power of God that does strengthen his servants to all longsuffering, and that with joyfulness. Alas, it maybe you do not exercise so much patience, as a wise man or a wise woman that has but natural reason. But where is the power of God, the glorious power of God? Where’s the strengthening with all might, to all longsuffering and patience and that with joyfulness? It is true, the spirit of a man may be able to sustain his infirmities, may be able to sustain and keep up his spirits, the natural spirit of a man, but much more then when this spirit is acted with grace and holiness, and when it is filled with the strength of Jesus Christ. This is the way of a godly man gets contentment, the mystery of it, it is by fetching in strength from Jesus Christ.

XII. He Makes up His Wants in God

Another mystery, that there is, That a godly heart, enjoys much of God in everything it has, and does know how to make up all wants in God himself. That is another mystery, he has God in what he has. That I spoke too somewhat before, in showing the dew of God’s blessing in what he has, for God is able to let out a great deal of his power in little things, and therefore the miracles that God has wrought, have been as much in little things as in great. Now as God lets out a great deal of his power in working miracles in smaller things, so he lets out a great deal of goodness and mercy, in comforting and rejoicing the hearts of his people in little things, as well as in great. There may be as much riches in a pearl as in a great deal of lumber; but now this is a distinct thing.

Further, a gracious heart as he lives upon God’s dew in a little that he has, so when that little that he has shall be taken from him, what shall he do then? Then, you will say, ‘If a man have nothing, there can be nothing fetched out of nothing.’ But if the children of God have their little taken from them, they can make up all their wants in God himself. Such a man is a poor man, the plunderers came and took away all that he had; what shall he do then when all is gone? But when all is gone, there is an art and skill that godliness teaches, to make up all those losses in God. Many men that have their houses burnt, go about gathering, and so get up by many hands a little; but a godly man knows where to go to get up all, even in God himself, so as he shall enjoy the quintessence of the same good and comfort as he had before, for a godly man does not live so much in himself as he lives in God. This is now a mystery to a carnal heart. I say a gracious man does not live so much in himself as he does in God; he lives in God continually. If there be any thing cut off from the stream he knows how to go to the fountain, and makes up all there. God is his all in all while he lives; I say it is God who is his all in all. ‘Am not I to thee’, says Elkanah to Hannah, ‘instead of ten children?’ So says God to a gracious heart: ‘You want this, your estate is plundered: Why? Am not I to you instead of ten houses, and ten shops, I am to you instead of all, yet not only instead of all, but come to me, and you shall have all again in me.’

This indeed is an excellent art, to be able to draw from God what one had before in the creature. Christian, how did you enjoy comfort before? Was the creature any other to you but a conduit, a pipe that did convey God’s goodness to you? ‘The pipe is cut off,’ says God, ‘come to me the fountain and drink immediately.’ Though the beams be taken away, yet the sun remains the same in the firmament as ever it was. What’s that which satisfies God himself, but because he does enjoy all fullness in himself, so he comes to have satisfaction in himself. Now if you enjoy God to be your portion, if your soul can say with the Church in Lamentations 3:24, ‘The Lord is my portion, saith my soul,’ why should you not be satisfied and contented as God? God is contented, he is in eternal contentment in himself; now if you have that God to be your portion, why should not you be contented with him alone? God is contented with himself alone, if you have him you may be contented with him alone, and it may be, that is the reason that your outward comforts are taken from you, that God may be all in all to you. It may be while you had these things here they did share with God in your affection, a great part of the stream of your affection ran that way; God would have the full stream run to him. As you know it is with a man that has water come to his house, and if there be several pipes, upon which he finds the water comes but scantly into his wash–house, he will rather stop the other pipes that he may have all the water come in where he would have it. So here it may be God had some stream of your affection that ran to him then when you did enjoy these things; yes, but a great deal was let out to the creature, a great deal of your affections did run waste. Now the Lord would not have the affections of his children to run waste, he does not care for other men’s affections, but for yours they are precious, and God would not have them to run waste; therefore does he cut off your other pipes that your heart might run fully upon him. As if you have children, because you have servants perhaps do feed them and give them things, you perceive that your servants do steal away the hearts of your children, you would hardly be able to bear it, you would be ready to turn away such a servant. When the servant is gone, the child is at a great loss, it has not the nurse, but the father or mother intends by her putting away, that the affections of the child might run the more strongly towards himself, or herself; and what loss has the child that the affections that ran in a rough channel before towards the servant, it runs now towards the mother? So those affections that runs towards the creature, God would have them run towards himself, that so he may be all in all to you here in this world.

And a gracious heart can indeed tell how to enjoy God as to be all in all to him. That is the happiness of heaven to have God to be all in all. The saints in heaven have not houses, and lands, and money, and meat and drink, and clothes; you will say, they do not need them – why do they not? It is because God is all in all to them immediately. Now while you live in this world, you may come to enjoy much of God, you may have much of heaven; while we live in this life we may come to enjoy much of the very life that there is in heaven, and what is that but the enjoyment of God to be all in all to us. There is one text in Revelation that speaks of the glorious condition of the Church that is likely to be even here in this world: ‘And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb are the temple of it; and the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof’ (Revelation 21:22). They had no need of the sun or moon. It speaks of such a glorious condition that the church is likely to be in here in this world; this does not speak of heaven: and that appears plainly that this is not spoken of heaven, but of a glorious estate that the church shall be in this world. For it follows in the verse 24 and 26, ‘And they,’ speaking of the kings of the earth: ‘And the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor to it.’ Why, the kings of the earth shall not bring their glory and honor into Heaven, but this is such a time, when the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor to the church. And in the 26th verse, ‘And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it’; therefore it must mean this world and not in heaven. Now if there be such a time here in this world, that God shall be all in all, that in comparison there shall be no such need of creatures as now there is, then the saints shall labor to live as near that life as possibly they can, that is, To make up all in God.

Oh, that you would but mind this mystery, that it may be a reality to the hearts of the saints in such times as these. They would find this privilege, that they get by grace, to be worth thousands of worlds. Hence is that statement of Jacob’s that I mentioned in another case; it is remarkable, and comes in fully here. In that notable saying of Jacob, in Genesis 33, when his brother Esau did meet him, you find in one place, that Esau, he refused Jacob’s present; in the 8th verse, when Jacob gave his present to him, he refused it, and told Jacob that he had enough: ‘What meanest you by all this drove which I meet? And he said, these are to find grace in your sight: And Esau said, I have enough.’ Now in the 11th verse, there Jacob urges it still, and says Jacob, ‘I beseech thee, take it, for I have enough.’ Now in your Bibles it is the same in English: I have enough, says Esau, and I have enough, says Jacob – but in the Hebrew, Jacob’s word is different from Esau’s: Jacob’s word signifies, I have all things, and yet Jacob was poorer than Esau. Oh, this should be a shame to us, that an Esau should say, I have enough. But now a Christian should say, I have not only enough, but I have all. How has he all? Because he has God that is all. And it was a notable saying of one, ‘He has all things, that has him that has all things’. Surely you have all things, because you have him for your portion who has all things: God has all things in himself, and you have God to be yours for your portion, and in that you have all, and this is the mystery of contentment. It makes up all wants in God, this is what the men of the world have little skill in.

Now I have many other things yet to open in the mystery of contentment. I should show likewise that a godly man not only makes up all in God, but finds enough in himself to make up all, to make up all in himself, not from himself, but in himself, and that may seem to be stranger than the other. To make up all in God is something, nay, to make up all in himself, not from himself, but in himself, that is, a gracious heart has so much of God within himself, that he has enough there to make up all his wants that are without. In Proverbs 14:14, ‘A good man shall be satisfied from himself,’ from that which is within himself – that is the meaning, a gracious man he has a bird within his own bosom that makes him melody enough, though he wants music. ‘The Kingdom of heaven is within you’ (Luke 17:21). He has a Kingdom within him, and a Kingdom of God; you see him spoken ill of abroad, he has a conscience within him that makes up the want of a name and credit, that is instead of a thousand witnesses.

XIII. He Fetches Contentment from the Covenant

A gracious heart fetches contentment from the covenant that God has made with him. Now this is a way of fetching contentment that the men of the world know not of: they can fetch contentment, if they have the creature to satisfy them; but to fetch contentment from the covenant of grace that they have little skill in. I should have opened two things here, first, how to fetch contentment from the covenant of grace in general, but I shall speak to that in the next sermon and now only a word to the second. Secondly, how he fetches contentment from the particular branches of the covenant, that is, from the particular promises that he has for the supplying of every particular want. There is no condition that a godly man or woman can be in, but there is some promise or other in the Scripture to help him in that condition. And that’s the way of his contentment, to go to the promises, and fetch from the promise, what they may supply. But this is but a dry business to a carnal heart; but it’s the most real thing in the world to a gracious heart: when he finds want of contentment he repairs to the promise, and the covenant, and falls a pleading the promises that God has made. As I should have shown several promises that God has made, let the affliction be what it will, I will but only mention one, that is, the saddest affliction of all, in case of the visitation, and the plague (Psalm 91:6). Now those that cannot have their friends come to them by reason of the plague, and that cannot have other comforts, in other afflictions they might have their friends and other things to comfort them, but in that they cannot, Psalm 21:10, ‘There shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling’; then here is a promise for the penitence in the 5th and 6th verses, this is a Scripture to those that are in danger of it. You will say this is a promise that the plague shall not come near them; but mark these two are joined: ‘there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall the plague come nigh thee’; the evil of it shall not come near you.

Objection. You will say, It does come to many godly men, and how can they make use of this Scripture, it is rather a Scripture that may trouble them, because here’s a promise that it shall not come near them, and yet it does come near them as well as others.

Answer.

1. This is the answer I would give, the promises of outward deliverance that were made on the people of God in the time of the law, were to be understood then a great deal more literally, and fulfilled more literally, than in the times of the gospel when God makes it up otherwise with as much mercy. Though God made a covenant of grace and eternal life in Christ with them, yet I think there was another covenant too, which God speaks of as a distinct covenant for outward things, to deal with his people according to their ways, either in outward prosperity, or in outward afflictions, more than now, in a more punctual, set way, then in the times of the gospel. Therefore when the children of Israel did sin against God, they were sure to have public judgments to come upon them, and if they did well, always public mercies; the general, constant way of God was to deal with the people of the Jews according as they did well or ill, with outward judgments, and outward mercies. But it’s not so now in these times of the gospel; we cannot bring such a certain conclusion, that God did deal so severely with men by such and such afflictions, that he will deal so with them now, and so, that they shall have outward prosperity as they had then. Therefore, that’s the first thing, for the understanding this and all other texts of the kind.

2. It may be their faith does not reach to this promise; and God brings many outward afflictions, because the faith of his people does not reach the promise, and that not only in the Old Testament, but in the times of the New Testament. Zachariah’s time may be said to be in the time of the New Testament, when he was struck with dumbness because he did not believe, and that is given to be the cause why he was struck with dumbness. But you will say now, has faith warrant to believe deliverance, that it shall be fully delivered? I dare not say so, but it may act upon it, to believe that God will make it good his own way. Perhaps you have not done so much, and so upon that, this promise is not fulfilled to you.

3. When God does make such promises to his people, yet still it must be with this reservation, that God must have liberty to these three things.

First, that notwithstanding his promise, he will have liberty to make use of anything for your chastisement.

Secondly, that he must have liberty, to make use of your wealth, or liberties, or lives, for the furtherance of his own ends, if it be to be a stumbling block to wicked and ungodly men. God must have liberty, though he have made a promise to you he will not lose the propriety that he has in your possessions and lives.

Thirdly, God must have so much liberty to make use of what you have, to show that his ways are unsearchable, and his judgments past finding out. God reserves these three things in his hand still.

Objection. But you will say, What good then is there in such a promise that God makes to his people?

1. That you are under the protection of God more than others. But what comfort is this if it does befall me?

Answer. You have this comfort, that the evil of it shall be taken from you, that if God will make use of this affliction for other ends, yet he will do it so as he will make it up to you some other way. Perhaps you have given your children something, but afterwards if you have use of that thing, you will come and say, ‘I must have it.’ ‘Why, father?’ may the child say, ‘you gave it me.’ ‘But I must have it’, says the father, ‘and I will make it up to you some other way.’ Now the child does not think that the father’s love is ever a whit the less to him. So when there is any such promise as this is, that God by his promise gives you his protection, and yet for all that, such a thing befalls you, it is but as if the father should say, ‘I gave you that indeed, but let me have it and I will make it up to you some other way that shall be as good.’ God says, ‘Let me have your health and liberty, and life, and it shall be made up to you some other way.’

2. Whenever the plague or pestilence comes to those that are under such a promise, it is for some a particular and notable work, and God requires of them to search and examine in a particular manner to find out his meaning; there is so much to be learned in the promise that God has made concerning this particular evil, that the people of God they may come to quiet and content their hearts in this affliction. I read in this Psalm that God has made a promise to his people, to deliver them from the plague and pestilence, and yet do I find it to come. It may be I have not made use of my faith in this promise heretofore; and if God do bring afflictions upon me, yet God will make it up some other way. God made a promise to deliver me, or at least to deliver me from all the evil of it; now if this thing does befall me and yet I have a promise of God, certainly the evil of it is taken away. This promise tells me that if it does befall me yet it is for some notable end, and because God has use of my life, and intends to fetch about his glory some way that I know not of. And if he will come in a fatherly way of chastisement, yet I will be satisfied in the thing. So a Christian heart, by reasoning out of the Word, comes to satisfy his soul in the midst of such a heavy hand of God, and in such a distressed condition as that is. Now carnal hearts they find not that power in the Word, that healing virtue that there is in the Word, to heal their distracted cares, and the troubles of their spirits; but now, those that are godly when they come to hear the Word they find out, that in the Word there is as a plaster to all their wounds, and so they come to have ease and contentment in such conditions as are very grievous and miserable to others. But now, for other particular promises, and more generally for the Covenant of grace, how and in what mysterious way the saints do work to fetch out contentment and satisfaction to their souls, we shall refer to the next sermon.