Objection 2: The Lord Hath Smitten Me in My Nearest and Dearest Comforts

Object. 2. “Oh! but, sir, the Lord hath smitten me in my nearest and dearest comforts and contentments, and how, then, can I hold my peace? God hath taken away a husband, a wife, a child, an only child, a bosom-friend, and how then, can I be silent?” &c.

Ans. To this I answer, 1. If God did not strike thee in that mercy which was near and dear unto thee, it would not amount to an affliction. That is not worthy the name of an affliction, that doth not strike at some bosommercy; that trouble is no trouble, that doth not touch some choice contentment; that storm is no storm, that only blows off the leaves, but never hurts the fruit; that thrust is no thrust, that only touches the clothes, but never reaches the skin; that cut is no cut, that only cuts the hat, but never touches the head; neither is that affliction any affliction, that only reaches some remote enjoyment, but never reaches a Joseph, a Benjamin, &c.

2. The best mercy is not too good for the best God; the best of the best is not good enough for him who is goodness itself; the est child, the best yoke-fellow, the best friend, the best jewel in all thy crown, must be readily assigned to thy best God; there is no mercy, no enjoyment, no contentment, worthy of God, but the best; the milk of mercy is for others, the cream of mercy is due to God; the choicest, the fairest, and the sweetest flowers are fittest for the bosom of God; if he will take the best flower in all thy garden, and plant it in a better soil, hast thou any cause to murmur? wilt thou not hold thy peace?

3. i our near and dear mercies were first the Lord’s before they were yours, and always the Lord’s more than they were yours. When God gives a mercy, he doth not relinquish his own right in that mercy* “All things conrg of thee, and of thine own have we given thee,” 1 Chron. xxix* 14. The sweet of mercy is yours, but the sovereign right to dispose of* your mercies is the Lord’s. Whatsoever thou artp thou owest to him that made thee; and whatsoever thou hast, thou owest to him that redeemed thee. You say, it is but just and reasonable that men should do with their own as they please; and, is it not just and reasonable that God, who is Lord paramount should do with his own as he pleases? Dost thou believe that the great God may do in heaven what he pleases, and on the seas what he pleases, and in the nations and kingdoms of the world what he pleases, and in thy heart what he pleases? and dost thou not believe that God may do in thy house what he pleases, and do with thy mercies what he pleases? “Behold, he taketh away,” or he snatcheth away, (it may be a husband, a wife, a child, an estate,) uwho can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doest thou?” Job ix. 12. Job plainly alludes to God’s taking awTay his children, servants, and cattle. Who dares cavil against God? who dares question that God that is unquestionable, that chief Lord that is uncontrollable, and who may do with his own what he pleaseth?” And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and tNDER THE SMARTING ROD. 135

none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?” Dan. iv. 35. Where is the prince, the peasant, the master, the servant, the husband, the wife, the father, the child, that dares say to God, What doest thou? In matters of arithmetical accounts, set one against ten, ten against a hundred, a hundred against a thousand, a thousand against ten thousand, although there be great odds, yet there is some comparison; but if a man could set down an infinite number, then there could be no comparison at all, because the one is finite, the other infinite; so, set all the princes and powers of the earth in opposition to God, they shall never be able to withstand him. He can raise all the world in arms, to own him, to contend for him, or to revenge any affronts that by any are put upon him; and, therefore, who shall say unto him, what doest thou? Water is stronger than earth, fire stronger than water, angels stronger than men, and God stronger than them all; and, therefore, who shall say unto God, What doest thou? when he takes their nearest and their dearest mercies from them. But,

4. It may be thou hast not made a happy improvement of thy near and dear mercies, whilst thou enjoyedst them; thou hast been taken with thy mercies, but thy heart hath not been taken up in the improvement of them; there are many who are very much taken with their mercies, who make no conscience of im* proving their mercies. Have thy near and dear mercies been a star to lead thee to Christ? have they been a cloud by day, and a pillar of light by night, to lead thee towards the heavenly Canaan? have they been a Jacob’s ladder to thy soul? hast thou by them been provoked to give up thyself to God as a living sacrifice? Rom. xii. 1; hast thou improved thy near and dear mercies to the inflaming of thy love to God; to the strengthening of thy confidence in God; to the raising thy communion with God; and to the engaging thy heart to a more close and circumspect walking before God? &c. If thou hast not thus improved them, thou hast more cause to be mute than to murmur; to be silent, than to be impatient; to fall out with thyself, than to fall out with thy God. Children and fools are taken with many things, but improve nothing; such children and fools are most men; they are much taken with their mercies, but they make no improvement of their mercies, and therefore no wonder if God strip them of their mercies. The candle of mercy is set up, not to play by, but to work by.

Pliny speaks of one Cressinus, who im* proved a little piece of ground to a far greater advantage than his neighbors could a greater quantity of land; thereupon he was accused of witchcraft; but he to defend himself, brought into the court his servants and their working* tools, and said, These are my witchcrafts, O ye Romans! these servants, and these wordingtools, are all the witchcraft that I know of. When the people heard this plea, with one consent they acquitted him, and declared him not guilty; and so his little piece of ground was secured to him. There is no way to secure your mercies, but by improving them; there is nothing that provokes God to strip you of your mercies, like the non-improvement of them. “Take, therefore, the talent from himy and give it unto him that hath ten talents,” Matt. xxv. 24 — -30. By some stroke or other God will take away the mercy that is not improved. If thy slothfulness hath put God upon passing a sentence of death upon thy dearest mercy, thank thyself, and hold thy peace.

5. If in this case God had made thee a precedent to others, thou must have held thy peace; how much more then shouldest thou be mute when God hath made many others precedents to thee? Did not God smite Aaron in his near and dear enjoyments; and did not he hold his peace? Lev. x. 1 — 3. Did not God smite David in his Absalom,, and Job in his sons, daughters, estate, and body, and Jonah in his gourd? Art thou more beloved than these? No. Hast thou more grace than thes? No. Hast thou done more for Divine glory than these? No. Art thou richer in spiritual experience than these? No. Hast thou attained to higher enjoyments than these? No. Hast thou been more serviceable in thy generation than these? No. Hast thou been more exemplary in thy life and conversation than these? No. &c. Then why shouldst thou murmur and fret at that which hath been the common lot of the dearest saints?

Though God hath smitten thee in this or that near and dear enjoyment, it is thy wisdom to hold thy peace; for that God who hath taken away one, might have taken away all. Justice writes a sentence of death upon all Job’s mercies at once, and yet he holds his peace; and wilt not thou hold thine, though God hath cropt the fairest flower in all thy garden? When our hearts begin to storm and take on, when God smites us in this near mercy, and in that dear enjoyment; oh! let us lay the law of silence upon our hearts, let us charge our souls to be quiet; for that God who hath taken away one child, might have taken away every child; and he who hath taken away one friend, might have taken away every friend; and he who hath taken away a part of thy estate, might have taken away thy whole estate: therefore hold thy peace; let who will murmur, yet be thou mute.

6. It may be thy sins have been much about thy near and dear enjoyments; it may be thou hast over-loved them*, and over-prized them, and overmuch delighted thyself in them; it may be they have often had thy heart, when they should have had but thy hand; it may be that care, that fear, that confidence, that joy, which should have been expended upon them. Ah! how often hath one creature comfort, and sometimes another, come in between Christ and your souls! How often have your dear enjoyments stood in Christ’s place! Now, if a husband, a child, a friend, shall take up that room in thy soul that is proper and peculiar to God, God will either imbitter it, remove it, or be the death of it. If once the love of a wife runs out more to a servant, than to her husband, the master will turn him out of doors, though otherwise he wrere a servant worth gold. The sweetest comforts of this life are but like treasures of snow: do but take a handful of snow7, and crush it in your hands, and it will melt away presently; but if you let it lie upon the ground, it will continue for some time; and so it is with the comforts of this world; if you grasp them in your hands, and lay them too near your hearts, they will quickly melt and vanish away; but if you will not hold them too fast in your hands, nor lay them too close to your hearts, they will abide the longer with you. There are those that hug their mercies to death, that kiss them till they kill them. Many a man hath slain his mercies, by setting too great a value upon them; over-loved mercies are seldom long-lived. “When I take from them the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters,” Ezek. xxiv. 25. The way to lose your mercies, is to indulge them; the way to destroy them, is to fix your minds and hearts upon them; thou mayst write bitterness and death upon that mercy first, that hath first taken away thy heart from God. NowT, if God hath stript thee of that very mercy with which thou hast often committed spiritual adultery and idolatry, hast thou any cause to murmur? hast thou not rather cause to hold thy peace, and to be mute before the Lord? Christians, your hearts are Christ’s royal throne, and in this throne Christ will be chief, (as Pharaoh said to Joseph, Gen. xli. 40,) he will endure no competitor. If you shall attempt to enthrone the creature, be it ever so near and dear unto you, -Christ will dethrone it, he will destroy it; he will quickly lay them in a bed of dust, who shall aspire to his royal throne. But,

7. Thou hast no cause to murmur, because of the loss of such near and dear enjoyments, considering those more noble and spiritual mercies and favors that thou still enjoyest. Grant that Joseph is not, Gen. xlii. 36, and Benjamin is not; yet Jesus is; he is yesterday, and to-day, and the same forever, Heb. xiii. 8. Thy union and communion with Christ remains still, the immortal seed abides in thee still, the Sun of Righteousness shines upon thee still, thou art in favor with God still, and thou art under the anointings of the Spirit still, and under the influences of heaven still, &c.; why then shouldst thou mutter, and not rather hold thy peace? Ah, christians! hath God blessed you with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, Eph. i. 3; hath the Lord given you himself for a portion; hath he given you his Son for your Redemption, and his Spirit for your instruction; and will you murmur? Hath he given his grace to adorn you, his promises to comfort you, his ordinances to improve you, and the hopes of heaven to encourage you; and will you mutter? Paulinus Nolanus, when his city was taken from him, prayed thus: Lord, (said he,) let me not be troubled at the loss of my gold, silver, honor, &c. for thou art all, and much more than all these unto me, In the want of all your sweetest enjoyments, Christ will be all in all unto you, Col. hi. 11. My jewels are my husband, said Phocion’s wife; my ornaments are my two sons, said the mother of the Gracchi; my treasures are my friends, said Constantius; and so may a Christian, under his greatest losses, say, Christ is my richest jewels, my chief treasures, my best ornaments, my sweetest delights; what all these things are to a carnal heart, a worldly heart, that (and more) is Christ to me.

8. If God, by smiting thee in thy nearest and dearest enjoyments, shall put thee upon a more thorough smiting and mortifying of thy dearest sins, thou hast no cause to murmur. There is some Delilah, some darling, some beloved sin or other, Ps. xviii. 23; Heb. xii. 1, that a christian’s calling, condition, constitution, or temptations, lead him to play withal, and to hug in his own bosom, rather than some other. As in a ground that lieth untilled, amongst the great variety of weeds, there is usually some master-weed that is rifer and ranker than all the rest; and as it is in the body of man, that although, in some degree or other, more or less, there be a mixture of all the four elements, not any of them wholly wanting, yet there is some of them predominant, that gives the denomination ‘h in which regard, some are said to be of a sanguine, some of a phlegmatic, some of a choleric, and some of a melancholy constitution; so it is also in the souls of men, though there be a general mixture and medley of all evil and corrupt qualities, yet there is some one usually that is paramount, which, like the prince of devils, is most powerful and prevalent, that swayeth and showeth forth itself more eminently and evidently than any other of them do. And as in every man’s body there is a seed and principle of death, yet in some there is a proneness to one kind of disease more than another, that may hasten death; so, though the root of sin and bitterness hath spread itself over all, yet every man hath his inclination to one kind of sin rather than another, and this may be called a man’s proper sin, his bosom sin, his darling sin. Now, it is one of the hardest works in this world, to subdue and bring under this bosom sin. Oh! the prayers, the tears, the sighs, the sobs, the groans, that it will cost a christian, before he brings under this darling sin! Look upon a rabbit’s skin, how well it comes off till it comes to the head, but then what hauling and pulling is there before it stirs! So it is in the mortifying, in the crucifying of sin. A man may easily prove and mortify pride and such and such sins, but when it comes to the head sin, to the master sin, oh, what tugging and pulling is there, what striving and struggling is there, to get off that sin!

Now, if the Lord, by smiting thee in some near and dear enjoyment, shall draw out thy heart to oppose thy master sin, and shall so sanctify the affliction as to make it issue in the mortification of thy bosom corruption; what eminent cause wilt thou have rather to bless him, than to sit down and murmur against him! And, doubtless, if thou art dear to God, God will, by striking thy dearest mercy, put thee upon striking at thy darling sin; and therefore hold thy peace, even then when God touches the apple of thine eye.

9. Consider, that the Lord hath many ways to make up the loss of a near and dear mercy to thee, Matt. xix. 27 — 30. He can make up thy loss in something else that may be better for thee, and he will certainly make up thy loss, either in kind or in worth. He took from David an Absalom, and he gave him a Solomon; he took from him a Michal, and gave him a wise Abigail; he took from Job a fair estate, and afterwards doubled it to him; he removed the bodily presence of Christ from his disciples, but gave them more abundantly of his spiritual presence, John xvi. 7, 8, &c. Acts ii., which was by far the greater and the sweeter mercy. If Moses be taken away, Joshua shall be raised in his room; If David be gathered to his fathers, a Solomon shall succeed him in his throne; if John be cast into prison, a greater than John, even Christ himself, will preach. He that lives upon God in the loss of creature comforts, shall find all made up in the God of comforts; he shall be able to say, Though my child is not, my friend is not, my yoke-fellow is not, yet my God liveth, and blessed be my rock, Ps. xviii. 46. Though this mercy is not, and that mercy is not, yet covenant mercies, the sure mercies of David, continue, 2 Sam. xxiii. 5; these bed and board with me, these will go to the grave, and to glory with me. I have read of a godlyman who, living near a philosopher, did often persuade him to become a christian; Oh! but, said the philosopher, I must, or may lose all for Christ; to which the good man replied, If you lose any thing for Christ, he will be sure to repay it a hundred-fold. Ay, but, said the philosopher, will you be bound for Christ, that if he doth not pay me, you will? Yes, that I will, said the good man! So the philosopher became a christian, and the good man entered into bond for performance of covenants. Some time after, it happened that the philosopher fell sick on his death-bed, and holding’ the bond in his hand, sent for the party engaged; to whom he gave up the bond, and said, Christ hath paid all, there is nothing for you to pay; take your bond and cancel it. Christ will suffer none of his children to go by the loss; he hath all, and he will make up all to them; in the close, Christ will pay the reckoning. No man shall ever have cause to say, that he hath been a loser by Christ; and therefore thou hast much cause to be mute, thou hast no cause to murmur, though God hath snatched the fairest and the sweetest flower out of thy bosom.

10. How canst thou tell, but that which

thou callest a near and dear mercy, if it had

been continued longer to thee, might have

proved the greatest cross, the greatest calamity and misery that ever thou didst meet with in this world? Our mercies, like choice wines, oftentimes turn into vinegar! our fairest hopes are often blasted; and that very mercy which we sometimes have said should be a staff to support us, hath proved a sword to pierce us. How often have our most flourishing mercies withered in our hands, and our bosom contentments been turned into gall and wormwood! If God had continued the life of David’s child to him, it would have been but a living monument of his sin, and then all who knew the child would have pointed at him, Yonder goes David’s natural child, and so would have kept David’s wound still a bleeding. Many parents, who have sought the lives of their children with tears, have lived afterwards to see them take such courses and come to such dismal ends, as have brought their grey heads with sorrow to their graves. It had been ten thousand times a greater mercy to many parents, to have buried their children as soon as ever they were born, than to see them come to such unhappy ends as they often do. Well, christian, it may be the Lord hath taken from thee such a hopeful son, or such a dear daughter, and thou sayest, How can I hold my peace? But hark, christian! canst thou tell me how long thou must have travailed in birth with them again, before they had been regenerated, before they had been twice born? Would not every sin that they had committed against thy gracious God have caused a new throe in thy soul? would not every temptation by which they had fallen been as a dagger at thy heart? Would not every affliction that should have befallen them, been as a knife at thy throat? What are those pains, and pangs, and throes of childbirth, to those after-pains, pangs, and throes, that might have been brought upon thee, by the sins and sufferings of thy children? Well, christians, hold your peace, for you do not know what thorns in your eyes, what goads in your sides, nor what spears in your hearts, such near and dear mercies might have proved, had they been longer continued.

1 1. Thou canst not tel how bad thy heart might have proved under the enjoyment of those near and dear mercies that thou now hast lost. In the winter men gird their clothes close about them, but in the summer they let them hang loose; in the winter of adversity, many a christian girds his heart close to God, to Christ, to the gospel, to godliness, to ordinances, to duties, &c. who in the summer of mercy hangs loose from all.

Who can seriously consider this, and not hold his peace, even then when God takes a jewel out of his bosom? Heap all the sweetest contentments, and most desirable enjoyments of this world upon a man, they will not make him a christian; heap them upon a christian, they will not make him a better christian; many a christian hath been made worse by the good things of this world, but where is the christian that hath been bettered by them? Therefore be quiet when God strips thee of them.

Lastly, Get thy heart more affected with spiritual losses, and then thy soul will be less afflicted with those temporal losses that thou mournest under. Hast thou lost nothing of that presence of God that once thou hadst with thy spirit? Hast thou lost none of those warnings, meltings, quickenings, and cheerings, that once thou hadst? Hast thou lost nothing of thy communion with God, nor of the joys of the Spirit, nor of that peace of conscience, that thou once enjoyedst? Hast thou lost none of that ground that once thou hadst got upon sin, Satan, and the world? Hast thou lost nothing of that holy vigor, and heavenly heat, that once thou hadst in thy heart? If thou hast not, (which would be a miracle, a wonder,) why dost thou complain of this or that temporal loss? For what is this, but to complain of the loss of thy purse, when thy gold is safe? But if thou art a loser in spirituals, why dost thou not rather complain, that thou hast lost thy God, than that thou hast lost thy gold? and that thou hast lost thy Christ, than that thou hast lost thy husband? and that thou hast lost thy peace, than that thou hast lost thy child? and that thou art a loser in spirituals, than that thou art a loser in temporals? Dost thou mourn over the body the soul hath left? Mourn rather over the soul that God hath forsaken, as Samuel did for Saul, 1 Sam. xv. 35.

What is the loss of a husband, a wife, a child, a friend, to the loss of God, Christ, the Spirit, or the least measure of grace, or communion with God? &c. Yet so simple and childish are many christians, that they are more affected and afflicted with the loss of this and that poor temporal enjoyment, than they are with the loss of their most spiritual attainments. Ah, christians! be but more affected with spiritual losses, and you will be more quiet and silent under temporal losses. Let these things suffice for answer to the second objection.