Tidings of Peace to Be Spoken to Consciences Distressed
God will speak peace unto his people and to his saints,
The main thing intended to be insisted upon out of these words is dispatched; 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
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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 consciences: 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 captivity, both in Isaiah xlviii. from 20 to the end, and Isaiah lvii. from l-l- to the end, 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 destroy 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 jDlaces doth appear. Therefore in 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 intends 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 Otser. 1.
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Obser. 2.
own children, whether a people or a particular man; so with a nation: Isaiah lxiii. 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, Psal. li. 8, Make me to hear again of joy and gladness; and Psal. 1. 7, Hear, oh my people, and I will speak; but not against them, they might hope, because he owns them for his people; Hear, oh Israel, and I will testify against thee; and yet it follows, / 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. Job xiii. 26, he writing over in his conscience the sins of his youth in letters of blood, and wrath and terrors for them.
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 people: they had fallen into some gross folly or other; some sinful, inordinate dispositions had been indulged unto and nourished 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: TJiey rebelled,
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Use 1.
and he fought against them, Isaiah lxiii. 8; For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wrath, Isaiah lvii.
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.
1. As peace with God is dear to you, so to take heed of turning unto folly. 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 break the peace between God and us, unless they be approved of, and consented unto, nourished and maintained with some presumption; 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.
The second use is: doth God take up quarrels against his own? then upon any breach made, go forth to meet him. It is St. Paul’s exhortation, 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 Use 2.
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Uses.
Ephes. ii.
2.
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He down and sleep in peace, Psalm iv. 8.
The third use: if the peace of God’s own people be thus often interrupted, who yet are the sons of peace, Luke 10, what wrath is reserved for the children of disobedience and open rebels, that are children of wrath, because of disobedience? There is no peace to the wicked, says my God, Isai. lvii. God is a preparing against thee, whoever thou art, that goest on in sin, if thou turn not, Psal. vii. 13; 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, Eccl. 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.
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 till God speak it. God must speak peace if ever his people have it: therefore, says he here, / will hear what God loill speakj 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 first: 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.
Secondly, because God is the Judge of all the world, and the party offended, at whose suit all arrests and controversies do come; now when a condemned man stands at the bar, let all the standers-by say what they will, bid
Reason 1.
Reason 3.
Reason 4,
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him be of good comfort, and tell him that his cause will go well, yet till 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.
Thirdly, 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. / create the fruit of the lips, peace, Isaiah lvii. 19; men may speak it, but I must create it. A word of power, such as went forth 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.
Fourthly, 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 him: therefore nothing gives peace but the restoring of his favour and the light of his countenance; the same dart that wounded must heal again: Isaiah lvii. 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 is wounded 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.
1. Use. In case thou art in distress,
Usel.
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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? thou hast no such cause to be cast down: but all these are miserable comforters (as Job said) unless God speak peace. David heard by the prophet Nathan that his sin was pardoned, but yet his soul was not at quiet till God would second it immediately by his spirit; therefore, says he, when Nathan had been with him, Psal. li. 8, Make me to hear of joy and gladness. Art thou baited with hellish blasphemies 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, TJie Lord rebuke 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.
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? 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? Job xxxiv. 29, If he hides his face, who can behold him? None can shew his face, as the opposition 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 Use 2,
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Reason I.
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? How foolish then are those who neglect seeking after God till the assault of death comes, and the king of fears, with all his terrors, hath encompassed them round?
4. 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 used here; 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 1. 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 he lights 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 heart most tumultuous and raging, a word from him can still them.
Secondly, because the light which God gives to a man’s spirit 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: If he give quietness, who can trouble? 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 froyn above, which enlighteneth a mans eyes, is
P2
Reason 2.
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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 not 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 heats the air, 1 Cor. xiv. 9. Now therefore, surely God, when he speaks 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, v. 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, v. 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 testimony as is taken for infallible, for the end of it is to put an end to the controversy, 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.
And therefore, in the second place, it is a satisfying light also: it is such a light as dispels darkness, as answers all objections, and so speaks peace home. As in a question and controversy in divinity or logic, when some one bottom truth is understood, 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 that in God’s free grace, and in Christ, which doth answer to all, he.
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or all the devils can say against him, from what wants or objections are in himself. 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.
1. Use, is an 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. Consider, 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 apprehension 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 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 well as those who are near: as himself says, Isai. lvii. 19, for, says he, it is I that speak 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.
Secondly, is the Church in any distress? (as the Church here at this time
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was,) he can redeem it out of all with a word. A word spoken to Cyrus his heart, did set them in their own land again, so you have it expressed, Isai. xliv. 26, 27, 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 Jerusalem, 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, Psal. xliv. 4, Thou art my King, command deliverances; a
Tidings cf Peace. mandamus from God doth it, and will do it at any time.
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:
1. If we consider but who this God is, that is to speak peace, / 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 therefore willing to speak peace. Now,. 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 to-Obser. 5.
Reason 1,
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wards his enemy; so as he cannot contain and forbear expressing it towards him; that as David says, his thoughts did hum within him, and at last break forth; so in God, / hnoic the thoughts, I think towards you (says he to them of the captivity) Jer. xxix. 11, They are thoughts of peacey 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 will speak it; even as Joseph, though he spake roughly a-while to his brethren, yet could not in the end contain, Gen. xlv. 1. so nor God.
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 question, but he will speak peace; though he seems angry for a while. They are his people, that is the reason given, 1 Samuel xii. 22, He will not cast off his people: as also Isai. lxiii. 8, 9, When they rebelled, he was wrath, yet he said, surely they are my people, so I was their Saviour. 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 o-ropyrj in the Lord, that moves him to speak peace in the end to them: as the dumb son of Croesus, when he saw his 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, 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
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my fatherly affection to him, hut my bowels are stirred and I will surely have mercy on him.
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, Isai. lvii, The spirit would fail before me. When the child s wounds in the whipping, God lets fall 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 therefore 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 child-like aiFection to God, would offend such a God, that be thy distresses what they will 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 lohoring after many lovers, Jer. iii. 1, 2, 14. still, he says. Return, for lam married to thee: as, therefore, when man and wife are fallen out, they consider, we must live together, and therefore they reconcile
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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 Israelites: 1 Sam. xii. 22, You have committed this great sin, yet turn not aside from following the Lord, for God icill not cast you off, you are his peoj)le. 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, Isai. lvii. 18, 19, though he went on stubbornly, yet God healed him, and would not lose his child, therefore I will return of myself.