The Designs and Ends of God in Bringing the Professors of Religion into Such Various Trials
Sect. I. — These are some of the ways and methods in which God brings his gold to the touchstone and to the fire, even in this world, before the awful and solemn trial we must come to in the final judgment; and if we desire to be satisfied what the design or end of God in making such probations of his people is, we must conclude, in the general, that he certainly designs his own glory, and his people’s advantage and profit by them. If he suffer them to be tried by reproaches, “happy are they, the Spirit of God and of glory resteth on them;” there is their profit: and though his name be evil-spoken of, yet in the meekness of their spirits “he is glorified,” as it is in 1 Pet. iv. 14. “If the scourge slay suddenly, he laugheth at the trial of the innocent:” not their afflictions, but at the effects and blessed issues and results of them; not that it gives them pain, but that it gives them glory. On this account the apostle bids us count it all joy, when we fall into manifold temptations or trials; and still the more trials the more joy; for thereby God will produce such effects as are “more precious than gold that perisheth.” O who can value the comfort that is tasted by the soul upon the trial and discovery of its sincerity, when, after some sore temptation wherein God has helped us to maintain our integrity, or after some close pinching affliction, wherein we have discovered in ourselves a sweet resignation to, and contentment in, the will of God, a heart cleaving to the Lord, purged and made more spiritual under the rod, we can turn to the Lord, and appeal to him, as the prophet did, “But thou, O Lord, knowest me; thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart towards thee:” I say, who can duly value such an advantage? Who would exchange such a comfort for all the gold and silver in the world? How many trials soever God brings his people under, neither his own glory nor their interest shall suffer any damage by them.
Sect. IL — But more particularly let us bring our thoughts close to the matter before us, and we shall find many great advantages and benefits rising out of these trials of sincerity.
I. Hereby hypocrisy is unmasked and discovered. The vizard is plucked off from the false professor, and his true natural face and complexion shown to the world; and in this there is a great deal of good.
Obj. Good! you will say; where lies it? All the world sees the mischief and sad effects of it; many are stumbled, many are hardened by it. Woe to the world because of offences!
Sol. True, some are prejudiced and hardened by it, so as never to have good thoughts of the ways and people of God more; and this is sad indeed. However, herein God accomplishes his word, and executes his decree; and though these perish, yet others are warned, awakened, and set to search their own hearts more narrowly than ever; and this is good: “Now these were our examples; wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.”
Hereby also sin is ashamed; and it is good when sin, that has exposed men to so much shame, shall be itself exposed to shame. This is the just reward of sin: “This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the Lord; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood. Therefore will I discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame may appear.” The turning up the skirt is a modest expression of exposing a person to the greatest shame in the day of trial. God, by discovering hypocrisy, shames the hypocrite; and surely many such discoveries are made of men at this day. We may see sin, that lurked close in the heart before, now laid open before all Israel, and before the sun.
Hereby too the poor self-cozening hypocrite has the greatest opportunity and advantage that ever was before him in all his life, to recover himself out of the snare of the devil. Now all his pretences are gone; now that which like a shield was advanced against the arrows of reproof and conviction is gone; now the poor creature stands naked and stripped out of all his pleas, as a fair and open mark to the world and his own conscience; and happy will it be for him, if now the Lord make conviction to enter into his soul. All these are blessed effects of the discovery of hypocrisy.
2. By these trials integrity is cleared up, and the doubts and fears of many upright and holy ones allayed and quieted, resolved and satisfied.
O what would many a poor Christian give for satisfaction in this great point of sincerity! How many tears have been shed to God in secret on that account! How many hours have been spent in examination of his own heart about it! And still.
jealousies and fears hang upon his heart. He doubts what he may prove at last. Well, says God, let his sincerity then come to the test; kindle the fire, and cast in my gold. Trials are the highway to assurance. Let my child see that he loves me more than these; that his heart is upright with me. I will try him by prosperity and adversity, by persecutions and temptations, and he shall see that his heart is better than he suspects it to be. This shall be the day of resolution to his fears and doubts.
The apostle, speaking of heresies, 1 Cor, xi. 19. puts a necessity upon them: “There must be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest.” The same necessity there is, and for the same end, of all other trials of grace, that the lovely, beautiful, sweet face of sincerity may be opened sometimes to the world, to enamour them; and to the soul in which it is, to satisfy it that it does not personate a Christian, but lives the very life of a Christian, and has the very spirit and principles of a Christian in it.
3. By these trials pride and self-confidence are destroyed and mortified in the saints, as much as by any thing in the world.
We never see what poor weak creatures we are, until we come to the trial. It is said, in Deut. viii. 2. that God led Israel through the desert, “to prove them and to humble them.” When we are proved, then we are humbled. Those who over-reckon their graces before the trial, see they must come to another account, and take new measures of themselves after they have been upon trial. Ah! little did I think, says one, that I had so much love for the world and so little for God, until afflictions tried it. I could not have believed that ever the creature had got so deep into my heart, until Providence either threatened or made a separation, and then I found it. I thought I had been rich in faith, until such a danger befell me, or such a want began to pinch hard, and then I saw how unable I was to trust God for protection or provision. O it is a good thing that our hearts be kept humble and lowly, how rich soever they be in grace!
4. By trials, grace is kept in exercise, and the gracious soul preserved from security and spiritual sloth fulness.
Trials are to grace what the tides and continual agitations of the waters are to the sea, or what the racking of wine from the lees is to it. Were it not for our frequent trials and exercises, we should quickly settle upon the lees, and our duties would be, as God complains of Ephraim, Hos. iv. 18. like sour or dead drink, flat and spiritless. “Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel; neither hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.’’ Much after this rate it would be with our hearts, did not the Lord frequently try and exercise them. Let the best man be without some trial or other but a few months, and you may find the want of it in his prayers and conferences quickly. O what formality will be found in them! And is it for the honour of God, or profit of his people, that it should be so? No, the Lord knows it is not; but how shall their spirits be brought to their former zealous, heavenly temper again? Why, says the Lord, they must be put into the furnace again; “I will melt them and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?” I love them too well to lose them for want of a rod. Alas! if I should suffer thino-s to so on at this rate, what will become of them in a little time? What delight can I take in their duties, when the faith, fervour, humility, and holy seriousness of their spirits are wanting in them? I will therefore “refine them as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried, and they shall call upon my name, and I will hear them; and I will say. It is my people; and they shall say. The Lord is my God,” And thus the Lord chides himself friend again with his people: thus he recovers them to their true temper; and thus his visitations preserve their spirits. And when the Lord sees these sweet effects of his trial upon them, it greatly pleases him. O now, says God, I like it. This providence has done them good; this rod was well bestowed; the letting loose of this temptation or that corruption upon them has made them find their knees again. Now I hear the voice of my child again.
Beloved, this is a blessed fruit and effect of our frequent trials; and how ungrateful soever they are to flesh and blood, which desired ease, and is loath to be disturbed, yet they are necessary to the preservation of our spirits.
6. By the trial of our graces Satan is defeated, and his accusations of the saints found to be mere slanders.
It is a very common thing with the devil and wicked men, to accuse the people of God of hypo-P 60 crisy, and to tell the world they are not the men and women they are taken to be; and that if their inside were but turned out by some thorough trial or deep search, it would appear that religion did not indeed live in their souls, as they pretend, but that they only act a part, and personate heavenly and mortified persons upon the public stage of profession. Thus the accuser of the brethren suggests the hypocrisy of Job: “Put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.” Well miffht Job serve thee whilst thou hast been so bountiful a master to him; he hath been well rewarded for all the service he hath done thee; but if thou stop the current of his prosperity, thou shalt see how quickly he will stop the course of his duty; a few lashes from thy hand will make him curse thee to thy face. But O what shame and disappointment was it to that envious spirit, what a vindication of Job’s in- / tegrity when, under the greatest trials of his faith and patience, he still held fast his integrity, and showed himself as great a pattern of patience under the cross, as he had been of piety in the days of his greatest prosperity! Satan gets nothing by bringing forth the saints upon the stage, to be made a spectacle to angels and men, 1 Cor. iv. 9.
6. The frequent trials of grace exhibit a full and living testimony against the atheism of the world.
These prove beyond all words or arguments that religion is no fancy, but the greatest reality in the world. Men would make religion but a fancy, and the zeal of its professors but the intemperate heat of some crazy brains, over-heated with a fond notion. They who never felt the real influences of religion upon their own souls, will not believe that others feel thera. Serious piety is become a ludicrous subject, with which the wanton wits of this atheistical world sport themselves. But behold the wisdom and goodness of God, exhibiting to the world undeniable testimonies of the truth of religion, as often as the sincere professors thereof are brought to the test by afflictions from the hand of God, or persecution from the hands of men. Lo! “here is the faith and patience of the saints;” here is their courage, meekness, and self-denial, shining as gold in the fire. They have the real proofs of it before their eyes. Instead of casting them into hell, and convincing them by eternal fire, he is pleased to cast his own people into the fire of affliction, that they who scoff at them may be convinced at an easier and cheaper rate. It is no new thing to see the enemies of religion brought over to embrace it, by the constancy and faithfulness of the saints in their trials and sufferings for it. God grant that the atheism of this present generation do not occasion a more fiery trial to the people of God in it, than they have yet suffered!