That Only Is to Be Accounted True Grace Which Is Able to Endure All the Trials Appointed for the Discovery of It
Sect. I. — -The most wise God has seen fit to set all his people in a state of trial in this world. First, he tries, and then he crowns them: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation;” that is, probation or trial; “for when he is tried, he shall receive a crown of life.”
No man can say what he is, whether his graces are true or false, till they have been tried and examined by those things which are to them as fire is to gold. The self-deceivers in the text thought they had grace; yea, they thought they had been rich in grace: but it proved no better than dross; and, therefore, Christ here counsels them to buy of him gold tried in the fire; that is, true grace indeed, grace which will appear to be grace after the various proofs and examinations of its sincerity that are to be made in this world, as well as in the great solemn trial it must come to in the world to come.
The Scripture speaks of a twofold trial: 1. A trial of men’s opinions; and, 2. A trial of their graces.
1. The opinions and judgments of men are tried as by fire; in which sense we are to understand that passage: “Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” This text speaks of such persons as held the foundation of Christianity, but yet superstructed such doctrines and practices as were no more able to endure the trial, than hay, wood, or stubble can endure the fire. Such a person hereby brings himself into danger; and though the apostle will not deny the possibility, yet he asserts the difficulty of his salvation: “He shall be saved, yet so as by fire;” as a man is saved by leaping out of his house at midnight, when it is all on fire about his ears; for so that phrase imports, Amos iv. 11. and Jude 23.; glad to escape naked, and with the loss of his goods; blessing God he has his life for a prey. And just as little regard as this shall men have to their erroneous notions and unscriptural opinions at last.
2. The graces of men are brought to the test, as well as their opinions. Trial will be made of their hearts, as well as of their heads; and upon this trial the everlasting safety and happiness of the person depends. If some of a man’s opinions be found hay or stubble, yet so long as he holds the Head and is right in the foundation, he may be saved; but if a man’s supposed graces be found hay or stubble, all the world cannot save him. There is no way of escape, if he finally deceive himself herein. And of this trial of graces my text speaks. Sincere grace is gold tried by fire.
There is a twofold trial of grace — active and passive.
1. There is an active trial of it; in which we try it ourselves. “Examine yourselves; prove yourselves.” Measure your hearts, duties, and graces, by the rule of the word: see how they answer to that rule; bring your hearts and the word together by solemn self-examination. Confer with your reins, and commune with your own hearts.
2. There is a passive trial of it. Whether we try it or not, God will try it. He will bring our gold to the touchstone and to the fire: “Thou, O Lord, knowest me; thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart towards thee,” says the prophet.
Sometimes he tries the strength and ability of his servants’ graces: and thus he tried Abraham, Heb. xi. 17. And sometimes he tries the soundness and sincerity of their graces: so the Ephesian angel was tried, and found dross. Rev. ii. 2.; and so Job was tried, and found true gold. Job xxiii. 10. These trials are not made by God for his own information, for he knows what is in man; his eyes pierce the heart and reins: but for our information; — which is the true sense of Deut. viii. 2. “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart;” that is, to make thee know it, by giving thee such experiments and trials of it in those straits and difficulties in the wilderness.
And these are the trials of grace I am here to speak of, not excluding the active trials made by ourselves. No; all these trials made by God upon us, are designed to put us upon the trial of ourselves. When God tries, we should try too.
Now, the method into which I shall cast this discourse, shall be to show you, 1. What those things are which try the sincerity of our graces, as fire tries gold. 2. For what ends God puts the graces of his people upon such trials in this world. 3. That such grace only is sincere as can endure these trials. 4. I shall apply the whole.
Sect. II. — I shall show, in the first place, what those things are which try the sincerity of grace, as fire tries sold.
Before I enter into particulars, it will be needful to acquaint you, that the subject before me is full of difficulties. There is need of much cautious respect to the various degrees of growth among Christians, and the vicissitudes of their inward cases; else we may darken and perplex the way instead of clearing it.
The portraiture of a Christian is such as none can draw to one model, but it must be drawn with a due respect to the infancy of some, as well as to the age and strength of others.
Great heed ought, also, to be taken in the appHcation of marks and signs. We should first try them, before we try ourselves or others by them. Marks and signs are, by some, distinguished into exclusive, inclusive, and positive. Exclusive marks serve to shut out bold pretenders, by showing them how far they come short of a saving work of grace: and they are commonly taken from some necessary common duty, as hearing, praying, &c. He who has not these things, cannot have any work of grace in him; and yet if he has them, he cannot from thence conclude his state to be gracious. He who so concludes, deceives himself.
Inclusive marks discover the degrees, rather than the truth of grace; and are intended for comfort rather than conviction. If we find them in ourselves.
we find not only sincerity, but eminency of grace; they being taken from some raised degree, and eminent acts of grace, in confirmed and grown Christians.
Betwixt these two, there is a middle sort of marks, which are called positive marks; and they are such as are always in regenerate souls, and in them only. The hypocrite has them not; the grown Christian has them, and that in an eminent degree; the poorest Christian has them in a lower, but yet in a saving degree. Great care must be taken in the application of these marks. And it is past doubt, that many weak and injudicious Christians have been greatly prejudiced by finding the experiences of eminent Christians, proposed as rules to measure their sincerity by. Alas! these no more fit their souls, than SauPs armour did David’s body.
These things being premised, and a due care carried along with us through this discourse, I shall next come to the particulars, and show you what those things are which discover the state and tempers of our souls. And though it is true, that there is no condition we are in, nor providence that befalls us, but takes some proof, and makes some discovery of our hearts; yet, to limit this discourse, and to come to particulars as soon as we can, I shall show what trials are made of our graces in this world, by our prosperity and our adversity, by our corruptions and our duties, and lastly, by our suffering upon the score and account of religion.
Sect. III. — Prosperity, success, and the increase of outward enjoyments, are to grace, what fire is to gold. Riches and honours make trial what we are; and by these things many a false heart has been detected, as well as the sincerity and eminency of the graces of others discovered. We may fancy the fire of prosperity to be rather for comfort than trial; to refresh us, rather than to prove us: but you will find prosperity to be a great discoverer, and that scarcely any thing proves the truth and strength of men’s graces and corruptions more than that does. “To find humility with honour,” says Bernard, “is to find a phcenix.” Let an obscure person be lifted up to honour, and, how steady and well composed soever he was before, it is a thousand to one but his eyes will be dazzled, and his head run round, when he is upon the lofty pinnacle of praise and honour: “As the fining pot for silver, and the furnace for gold, so is a man to his praise.” Put the best gold into the fining pot of praise, and it is a wonder if a great deal of dross does not appear. The vain-glory of good Hezekiah rose like froth or scum upon the pot, when heated by prosperity, Isa. xxxix. 2. It was such a fining pot to Herod, as discovered him to be dross itself, Acts xii. 23. How did that poor man swell under this trial into the conceit of his being a god, and was justly destroyed by worms, because he forgat himself to be a worm! We little think what a strange alteration an exalted state will make upon our spirits. When the prophet would abate the vain confidence of Hazael. who would not believe that ever he could be turned into such a savage beast as the prophet had foretold, he only tells him, “The Lord hath showed me, that thou shalt be king over Syria.” The meaning is. Do not be too confident, Hazael, that thy temper and disposition can never alter to that degree: thou never yet sattest on a throne. When men see the crown upon thy head, then they will better see the true temper of thy heart.
How humble was Israel in the wilderness! The people were tame and tractable in a lean pasture; but bring them once into Canaan, and the world is strangely altered: then “Wc are lords,” say they; “we will come no more unto thee.” Prosperity is a crisis, both to grace and corruption. Hence is that caution to Israel, “When thou hast eaten, and art full, then beware lest thou forget the Lord thy God:” then, beware; that is the critical time. Surely that man must be acknowledged rich, very rich in grace, whose grace suffers no diminution or eclipse by his riches; and that man deserves double honour, whose pride the honours of this world cannot provoke and inflame.
It is related of a pious divine in Germany, that, being on his death-bed, and being somewhat disconsolate on reflecting upon the barrenness of his life, some friends took thence an occasion to commend him, find reminded him of his painful ministry and fruitful life among them; but he cried out, “Withdraw the fire, for I have yet chaff in me:” meaning, that he felt his ambition, like chaff, catching fire from the sparks of their praises. Like this was the saying of another, “He that praises me, wounds me.”
But, to descend to the particular discoveries that prosperity and honour make of the want of grace in some, and of the weakness of grace in others, I will show you what symptoms of hypocrisy appear in some men under the trial of prosperity, and what signs of grace appear in others under the same trial.
Sect. IV. — Prosperity discovers many sad symptoms of an ungodly heart; and, among others, these are ordinarily most conspicuous: —
1. It casts the hearts of some men into a deep oblivion of God, and makes them lay aside all care of duty. The altars of rich men seldom smoke, Deut. xxxii. 13 — 15. Jeshurun sucked honey out of the rock, eat the fat of lambs, and kidneys of wheat; but what was the effect of this? He kicked, and forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. Instead of lifting up his heart in an humble thankful acknowledgment of God’s bounty, he lifted up the heel in a wanton abuse of his mercy. In the fattest earth we find the most slippery footing.
He who is truly gracious, may in prosperity remit some degrees; but a carnal heart loseth there all that in a low condition it seemed to save. Agur’s deprecation, as to himself, was, no doubt, built upon his frequent observation how it was with others: “Lest I be full, and deny God.”
It is said, that “the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.” And I wish that were the worst injury it did him; but, alas! it will not suffer him to pray, to meditate, to give time and thought to his eternal concerns. He falls asleep in the lap of prosperity, and forgets that there is a God to be served, or a soul to be saved. O this is a dangerous symptom of a very graceless heart!
2. Prosperity meeting with a graceless heart,
makes it wholly sensual, and entirely swallows up its
thoughts and affections. Earthly things transform
and mould such a heart into their own similitude and
M 60 nature; the whole strength of the soul goes out to these enjoyments. Thus, these graceless yet prosperous persons are described in Job xxi. 11 — 13. “They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ: they spend their days in wealth,’* They take the timbrel, not the Bible. “They rejoice at the sound of the organ:” not a word is said of their rejoicing in God. “They sent forth their little ones in the dance:” that is all the catechism they are taught. “They spend their days in wealth:” their whole time, that precious stock and talent, is wholly laid out on these sensitive things. Either the pleasure of it powerfully charms them, or the cares of it wholly engross their mind; so that there is no time to spare for God. “They live in pleasure upon earth,” as it is in James v. 5. just as the fish lives in the water, its proper element. Take such a man off from these things, and put him on spiritual, serious, heavenly employments, and he is a fish on the dry land.
Now, though prosperity may too much influence and ensnare the minds of good men, and estrange them too much from heavenly things, yet for worldly things thus to engross their hearts, and convert them into their own similitude and nature, so that these things should be the centre of their hearts, the very proper element in which they live, this is utterly impossible. A hypocrite indeed may be brought to this, because, though Janus like, he has two faces, yet he really has but one principle, and that is wholly carnal and earthly; so that it is easy to make all the water run into one channel, to gather all into one entire stream, in which his heart shall pour out all his strength to the creature. But a Christian indeed has a double principle influencing him. Though he has a law of sin that moves him one way, yet there is in him also the law of grace which thwarts and crosses that principle of corruption; so that as grace cannot do what it would, because of sin, so neither can sin do what it would, because of grace, Gal. v. 17. The heart of a Christian, in the midst of ensnaring sensual enjoyments, finds indeed a corrupt principle in it, which would incline him to fall asleep on such a soft pillow, and forget God and duty; but it cannot. O no! it cannot do so. There is a principle of grace within him, that never leaves disturbing and calling upon him, till he rise and return to his God, the true rest of his soul.
3. A false pretender to religion, a hypocritical professor, meeting with prosperity and success, grows altogether unconcerned about the interest of religion, and senseless of the calamities of God’s people. Thus the prophet convinces the Jews of their hypocrisy, in Amos vi. 1 — 6. “They were at ease in Zion, and trusted in the mountain of Samaria;” and so, having a shadow of religion and a fulness of all earthly things, they fell to feasting and sporting: “they drank wine in bowls, and anointed themselves Tvith the chief ointments, but were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.” They condoled not over the breakings or tearing to pieces of Joseph. If they were once out of danger, let the church shift for itself; they are secure in a warm nest: let the birds of prey catch and devour that flock with which they sometimes associated, they are not touched with it. Moses could not do so, though in the greatest security
M 2 and confluence of the honours and pleasures of Egypt, Acts vii. 23. Nehemiah could not do so, though the servant and favourite of a mighty monarch, and wanting nothing to make him outwardly happy; the pleasures of a king’s court could not cheer his heart, or scatter the clouds of sorrow from his countenance, whilst his brethren were in affliction, and the city of his God lay waste, Nehem. ii. 1 — 3. Nor indeed can any gracious heart be unconcerned and senseless; for that union which all the saints have with Christ their Head, and with one another as fellow-members in Christ, will beget sympathy among them in their sufferings, 1 Cor. xii. 26.
Sect. V. — But as the fire of prosperity discovers this and much more dross in a graceless heart, so it discovers the sincerity and grace of God’s people. I say not that it discovers nothing but grace in them. O that it were so! Alas! many of them have had a great deal of dross and corruption discovered by it. But yet, in this trial, the graciousness and uprightness of their heart will appear in these and such like workings of it.
1. Under prosperity, success, and honour, the upright heart will labour to suppress pride, and keep itself lowly and humble; and still the more grace there is, the more humility there will be. If God lift him up, he will lay himself low, and exalt his God high. So did Jacob when God had raised and enlarged him: “I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands,” Gen. xxxii. 10. Great was the difference in Jacob’s outward condition at his return, from what it was at his first passage over Jordan; then poor, now rich; then single and comfortless, now the head of a great family: yea, hut though his outward estate was altered, the frame of his heart was not altered. Jacob was a holy and humble man when he went out, and so he was when he returned. He saw a multitude of mercies about him; and, among them all, not one but was greater than himself.
I dare not say every Christian under prosperity can at all times manifest like humility; but I am sure that what pride and vanity soever may rise in a gracious heart tried by prosperity, there is that within him which will check it. He dares not suffer such proud thoughts to lodge quietly in his heart: for, alas! he sees that in himself, and that in his God, which will abase him. Grace will make him look back to his original condition, and say, with David, “What am I, O Lord God, and what is my father’s house, that thou hast brought me hitherto?” It will make him look within, and see the baseness of his own heart and the corruptions that are there, and wonder at the dealings of God with so vile a creature. Oj thinks he, if others did but know of me what I know of myself, they would abhor me more than they now esteem and value me.
2. Prosperity usually draws forth the saints’ love to the God of their mercies. That which heats a wicked man’s lusts, warms a gracious man’s heart with love and delight in God.
These were the words of that lovely song which David sang in the day that the Lord delivered him out of the hands of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: he said, “I will love thee, O Lord, my strength,” Psalm xviii. These outward things are not the main grounds and motives of the love of the saints to God; no, they love him when he takes away, as well as when he gives; but they are sanctified instruments to inflame their love to God. O in what an ardour of love did David go into the presence of God under the sense of his mercies, his melting mercies, when he thus poured out his whole soul in a stream of love to his God, 2 Sam. vii. 19, 20. ‘* Is this the manner of men, O Lord God? And what can David say more unto thee?” — an expression that turns up the very bottom of his heart.
3. Prosperity and comfortable providences usually become cautions against sin, when they meet with a sanctified soul. This is the natural inference of a gracious soul from them — Has God pleased me? then has he obliged me to take more care to please him. O let me not grieve him, who has comforted me! So Ezra ix. 13. “After such a deliverance as this, should we again break thy commandments?” What! break his commandments who has broken our bonds? God forbid! It was an excellent resolution of a Christian, who, receiving an eminent mercy, at the same time that he felt himself under the power of a special corruption, said, “Well, now will I go forth in the strength of this mercy, to mortify and subdue that corruption.” I will not measure every Christian by the eminent workings of grace in some one; but surely so far I may safely go, that sincerity knows not how to sin, because grace has abounded; any more than it dares sin, that grace may abound.
4. A truly gracious soul will not be satisfied with all the prosperity and comforts in the world for his portion. “Not thine, Lord, but thee,” is the voice of grace. When Providence had been more than ordinarily bountiful in outward things to Luther, he began to be afraid of its meaning, and earnestly protested that God should not put him off so. “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul,” Lam. iii. 24.; and the soul can best tell what it has made its choice, and whereon it has bestowed its chief delights and expectations. An unsound heart will accept worldly things for its portion. If the world be sure to him, and his designs fail not there, he can be content to leave God, and soul, and heaven, and hell, at hazard; but so cannot the upright. These things in subordination; but neither these, nor any thing under the sun, in comparison with, or opposition to God.