the tribute of praises which God expects for all his blessings. (3.) They pleased themselves with the gifts solely, never regarding the love of the Giver. Beasts care not with what affection any thing is given to them so that they have the thing which they want. These sensualists desired not that the gifts which they enjoyed might be turned into mercies; not considering that the love of God is the fulness of every enjoyment in this worse than some beasts, who suspect a snare when provision is most plentiful. These never caring whether the heart of God were toward them or no, so as his hand were opened; and using the gifts of a Creator, not regarding the affection of a Father; not questioning whether their provisions were bestowed upon them as children, with love; or whether as condemned prisoners, to keep life in them against the day of execution: and in short, like beasts, as the apostle saith, they were made to be destroyed, 2 Pet. ii. 12; they so knew these sensitive objects, as not knowing whether they were fatted by them for slaughter. (4.) They knew these things so brutishly, as not to know how to improve them; they cared not to be fitted by them for service. Brute beasts only live to eat; and so these made their sensual pleasures the end of their living, never referring them to gloryends; not making them vehicula, chariots, to carry them faster, and to raise them up higher to God in a way of love and duty; but vincula, bonds, to keep and bind them down to the satisfaction of sense. They used not their comforts as wings, to make their thoughts and affections mount up to heaven; but as birdlime to their wings, and hinderances from all heavenly both desires and services. 2 Pet. iii., drinking away sorrow; like the old world, eating and drinking though the flood were approaching, and never considering that their wine was soon to be turned into water. (8.) They so brutishly knew these things, as not to know how to part with them. A beast knows no other woe but want of provender, nor sensualists any other penalty but the parting with sensual objects: these never learn, with Paul, how to want, and how to abound; or with Job, to bless God when taking away as well as giving. They so addict themselves to sensitive delights that they cannot be without them; and so are they fastened to them, and their heart so set upon them, that the pulling them away is the pulling off their very flesh. When they enjoy them, they are so secure, as if God could never remove them; when they want them, they are so impatient, as if God could never restore them. Juvenis corrup 3. In what respect by their knowing naturally they are here said to " corrupt themselves." The words "corrupt themselves" are contained in one word in the original, 40tipovrat, which signifies properly so to spoil and deprave or mar a thing, as that it loses its former worth and excellency, or is unfit for that use to which it should be employed. Among profane writers it is often used to note the violating and abusing of the body by unchastity; and so it is commonly said, that a virgin tor, Virgo coror her virginity is corrupted or violated. rupta. And thus Epiphanius understands it in this place, who saith that the Spirit of God by Jude shows these seducers to be φθειρομένους καὶ φθείροντας, corrupted, and corrupters, in respect of their lasciviousness. But the Scriptures use the word to express any other kind of violation or abuse of a thing. So 1 Cor. xv. 33, "Evil communications corrupt good manners." And Eph. iv. 22, the old man is said to be corrupt, according to deceitful lusts. And 2 Cor. xi. 3, the apostle uses it to express the corruption of the mind, &c. And in this larger sense I take it in this place; as noting not only bodily, but even spiritual and eternal corruption. And the word 0tipovraι includes that other word, "themselves;" it being not (5.) They knew no measure in using these things. They, like swine, wallowed over head and ears in the mud of sensual enjoyments, being themselves gulfs of them, and ingulfing themselves in them; and not tasting them, but even bursting with them. Like some horses, they had rather break their wind than their draught. Their hearts were overcharged with surfeiting, Luke xxi. 34. They ran to excess of riot. Instead of cheering, they clogged nature, turn-altogether of the passive form, but of the active and ing Christianity into epicurism; they made their belly their god, and they served it, Rom. xvi. 18; Phil. iii. 19. Their sensual appetites were boundless and unlimited; they rather pampered than fed themselves. (6.) They so brutishly knew these things, as not to know instruction or any restraint; growing untamed and impatient of the yoke, like a backsliding heifer. They would not endure admonition; and he, saith Solomon, who hateth reproof is brutish, Prov. xii. 1. Like Jeshurun, they waxed fat, and kicked, Deut. xxxii. 15. Hence they despised and opposed all dominion and government, like the wild ass, which snuffing up the wind, is not to be caught, Jer. ii. 24; Hos. viii. 9. A brute beast fed to the full endures not to be beaten; these seducers resisted the truth which opposed their lusts, 2 Tim. iii. 8, and quarrelled with the word of life; like brute beasts, which though never so sick, will strike at those who let them blood, or give them wholesome drink. It was as easy to catch a hare with a tabret, as to make them hear reproof in their sensual enjoyments. They who are in a harvest of worldly pleasures commonly have harvest ears, not at leisure to hear what may regulate them in their sensual prosecutions. (7.) They knew these things so brutishly, as never to consider of a removal of them, or the approach of the hatchet; they were sensually secure, like the beast, feeding themselves without fear; they mocked at the denunciations of judgment, as Peter speaks, passive together, answering to the Hebrew conjuga- Vide Junium in loc. And more particularly, by their sensual knowledge of carnal objects they incurred a fourfold corruption: (1.) They corrupted themselves with a natural corruption; in bringing upon their bodies sundry kinds of diseases, by their luxury and intemperance, making themselves old before their time, and hastening their death. As vermin haunt those places where there is much food; so diseases abound in those bodies which are used, or rather abused, to excess of riot. More (saith one) are Immodicis brevis drowned in the cup than in the sea; est tas, et rara and gluttons are said to dig their graves with their teeth. senectus. (2.) They corrupted themselves with a civil cor. ruption; overthrowing their families, and wasting their substance, to maintain their intemperance, bringing themselves to a morsel of bread. Sensual and intemperate persons swallow their estates down their throats. "The drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty," Prov. xxiii. 21. Diogenes once said of a drunkard whose house was to be sold, I thought he would ere long vomit up his house, alluding to his vomiting in drunkenness. The prodigal wasted his portion upon harlots. These corrupters are worse than infidels, nay beasts, who by the light of nature provide for their young. (3.) They corrupted themselves inwardly and spiritually. And that, 1. By clouding their reason and understanding; drunkenness being (as one wittily saith) an interregnum of the mind, which for the present loses the use of reason, whereby a man should be governed. Many have drunk away their wit and wealth too. When wine gets in, wit (we say) goes out. Wise men are seldom excessive. Wine and women take away the heart, Hos. iv. Anima sicca, ani. 11. 2. By hindering the spiritual, heama sapientissima. venly, and supernatural actings of the soul, making it unfit for holy services, prayer, hearing, meditation, &c. Hence the apostle opposes being drunk with wine to being filled with the Holy Ghost. Excess in sensual hinders spiritual pleasures. Hence it was a good rule of Ambrose, So to rise from table as to be fit for prayer. How can he have his heart in heaven, who, as they say of the fish called the ovog, or the ass fish, has it in his stomach? Grace is starved, while the flesh is pampered. Meat is to be used as our medicine. Feasting days are soulstarving days, and fasting days are soul-fatting days. (4.) They corrupted themselves eternally; destroying themselves soul and body, by the loss of those pleasures at God's right hand, Psal. xvi. 11, to which here in this life they preferred the pleasures of sin for a season. Sweetly bitter pleasures! sweet in the palate, bitter in the stomach; bitter to the soul and body for ever! How dismal a retribution will a river of brimstone be for a cup of wine! Drunkards are in the catalogue of the excluded from the kingdom of God. They who are here drowned in profuseness, shall hereafter be drowned in perdition; yea, here they begin to be so. Cognitio sui intellectus, licet præstantior sit, quavis cognitione brutorum, referunt eam ad ex sensualium, ut satisfaciant appe libus. Lor. in loc.. Obs. I. How great a confusion and disorder has sin made in this little world, man! He whose reason was once wholly subjugated to God, and whose appetite was guided by and submissive to his reason, has now an understanding which has cast off the ercitium operum government of God, and an appetite which has cast off the guidance of his titionibus carna- understanding. In the state of innocence, the sensitive appetite of man was ruled by the golden sceptre of reason; the sensitive powers were not factious, but were willingly subject to the higher powers, to the intellectual. The first bubblings of the soul (as one saith) were pure and crystalline, and streamed out freely, without any murmuring or foaming; but now, alas! the soul is full of insurrections. The master waits, and the servant is master. The knowledge of the understanding is made a vassal to this natural knowledge. That leading faculty in a man, his understanding, is now a page to wait upon the sensual appetite, or the knowledge of the senses; and all the contrivances and inventions of the former are referred to the service of the latter. The master not now leads his horse, but the horse drags and hurries the master, even as a beast sometimes draws a condemned malefactor to the place of execution. All the confusions we see in the world are but derivations from this. Reason casts off religion, and then sense and carnal appetite cast off reason. All the errors in doctrine proceed from the former, and the irregularities of practice flow from the latter. The servant casts off the master in the state, because it has first cast him off in the soul. ligere quæ sunt naturæ. Obs. 2. They who oppose spiritual knowledge, justly lose even that which is reasonable. They grow, with these seducers, mere sensualists; not admitting the former, de- Quia nolunt intelservedly they part with the latter. gratiæ, amittunt These seducers opposing the truth of Sapere quæ sunt the gospel, denying the Lord Jesus Christ, and becoming enemies to supernatural knowledge; now what they knew, they knew but naturally, and only with the knowledge of the outward senses. They would not be real saints, and they came to be not so much as visible. They would not be saints, and at length they ceased to be men. The heathens by opposing even the faint light of nature, were by God given up to uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves, to vile affections, and a reprobate mind, Rom. i. 21, 24, 26, 28. He who will put out light revealed, shall justly extinguish light implanted. It is righteous with God to leave them to sense, who will not be guided by grace. From him who hath not, shall be taken away even what he hath: even appearances of goodness shall be taken away. Brass but silvered over, will at length plainly appear to be but brass. A face only beautiful with paint, shall, when wrinkles grow deep, be destitute not only of complexional, but even fictitious beauty also. How exquisitely do these days of ours comment upon this truth! Oh that we could not say, that hundreds, whose eyes have seemed to be fixed upon the stars, themselves pretending to a seraphical pitch of knowledge, have yet fallen into a ditch of beastly sensuality! None so shamefully beggarly as he who breaks after much trading and trusting. Christians, beg of God that your grace may be true and supernatural, and then it will be growing; but if it be only appearing, and not arising to true sanctity, it may soon arrive at sensual bestiality. Obs. 3. The light of reason is too weak to contend with sensual appetite. When these seducers had bid adieu to spiritual light, notwithstanding their rational light, they grew sensual and brutish. Should the sky be furnished with millions of torches, they all could not, as one sun, bestow those influences upon the earth whereby it could be made green and fruitful. The light of grace is only influential upon the heart and life; that of reason produces no fruit truly savoury. That which it draws forth is but like the fruit which, requiring a hotter soil and sunshine, when men sometimes plant it in our colder countries, never comes to perfection, and has hardly half heat enough to concoct it. The greatest (if a mere) scholar in the world knows nothing as he ought to know, and therefore loves nothing as he ought to love. He sees not, without renewed light, in any way of God that prevailing transcendent excellency which outbids the bravery of every other object. The light of reason in the most knowing heathen that ever was in the world was but a candle-light, notwithstanding which he was yet in the night; it scattered not the works of darkness; nor did he, as one saith well, warm his hands at this candle: notwithstanding this, famous moralists have been cold in their devotions, and dissolute in their practices. The wisest heathens, (Rom. i.,) how sensual and impure were they, notwithstanding their most refined reason! Obs. 4. Outward enjoyments make no man excellent. He may, yea, unless he be more than a man, he will become a beast by using them. The four monarchies of the world were repre- Quatuor imperia sented to Daniel under the similitudes ostensa sunt of beasts, not of men, because they militudine bestiwere neither erected nor exercised in a num, quia non way of reason, but of brutish sensuality. insurrexerunt per Danieli, sub si arum, non homi tatis. Durand. de Orig. Jurisd. viam rationis, sed A man may be laden with gold, and yet impetu sensuali be as a brute. His being changed from poor to rich is but a poor change, unless he be changed from natural to spiritual, from an old to a new man. Even the wealthy is called a fool, and a brutish person, Psal. xlix. 10; and ver. 12, "Man being in honour abideth not; he is like the beast that perisheth." Nero was a lion, Herod a fox, the princes of Israel wolves, kine of Bashan, notwithstanding worldly glory. Outward ornaments make no inward alteration. Hence see what is the true standard of honour. Lust is the soul's degradation, even in all earthly abundance; only grace makes us excellent; it destroys not, but elevates nature. Sensual objects do not elevate, but corrupt us. Latrones quasi laterones; viatoribus amice se quasi amoditas jungunt, ut in Cautos eo facilius grassentur. Obs. 5. Sensual appetite is deceitful. When these seducers knew things naturally, with sensual knowledge, they were led to corruption. An ignis-fatuus leads men into bogs and precipices. Natural knowledge carries men, like silly beasts, into a snare: "If the blind lead the blind, both must fall into the ditch." The lusts of the sensitive appetite are foolish, 1 Tim. vi. 9, and therefore foolish because they make men fools who are led by them; and Eph. iv. 22, the old man is said to be "corrupt according to deceitful lusts,” κατὰ τὰς ἐπιθυμίας τῆς ἀπάτης. As man shows his infection with original pollution principally by his lusts, so those lusts principally discover themselves in their deceitfulness. When they tempt a man to sin, they promise pleasure and contentment; they perform nothing less, but leave the poor seduced sinner spoiled of his happiness, and corrupted both inwardly, outwardly, and eternally. Sensual delights strangle with a silken halter, kill a man in embracing him, and, like thieves, will ride friendly and pleasantly with the passenger, that so unawares they may the more easily destroy him. St. James saith a man is drawn away of his own lusts, and deλealóuevos, enticed. They bait over every hook. Oh that when a man saith, How can I forbear the bait? he would ask himself, How can I endure the hook? Oh, will the comfort countervail the corruption; the spoiling, not only of my body, of my goods, but the loss of my soul, my grace, my heaven, my God, my all? Consider the bitter farewell of all sinfully sweet morsels; view them with a Scripture prospective; look upon them as going away as well as coming. Behold their back, their black side; they are venenate delicia, poisoned pleasures. It is easier to pass by than get out of the snare. "If thou be a man of appetite, put a knife to thy throat," Prov. xxiii. 2. Lust betrays with a kiss. All carnal delights go out in a stink, and commonly it is that of brimstone. As we cannot walk in this life by sight in respect of glory, so should we not in respect of sensuality. As we are absent from heaven in regard of sense, and present there in regard of love; so though we are present among earthly enjoyments in respect of sense, yet should we be absent in regard of affection. To conclude this, consider the difference betwixt spiritual and sensual pleasures: the former are good in harvest, the latter only in seed-time; ("He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting," Gal. vi. 8;) the former are bitterly sweet, the latter sweetly bitter; the former turn water into wine, the latter wine into water. In that which a man knows spiritually, and to which he is led by the guidance of the Spirit, in that he preserves himself. And it is observable how the apostle opposes "the deceitful lusts" to "the truth in Jesus," Eph. iv. 21, 22. Christ is truth; lust is vanity and deception. Christ | gives true happiness, and more than was ever expected; lust deludes, disappoints, corrupts. To end this needful point: In all worldly pleasures wisely draw off thy soul, by comparing such sordid puddles with the crystal rivers of eternal joys. Let moderation and heavenly discourse be two dishes at every banquet. A soldier supping with Plato, who had provided nothing but green herbs, said, He who sups with Plato shall be better the next day. Tertullian said of the primitive Christians, that they did not tam cœnam cœnare, quam disciplinam. One would have thought they had been at a sermon, not at a supper. Oh that spiritual delights were more tasted! He who lives at the table of a king despises scraps; and such are all worldly pleasures esteemed by him who has tasted how sweet the Lord is. The more pleasant any thing is to us, the more suspected let it be by us. Satan lies in ambush behind our lawful enjoyments. As the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, so is Christian temperance the adituus, or keeper of that temple. VERSE 11. Tertullian. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. Ar this verse, and so on to the seventeenth, our apostle prosecutes the third part of that second argument, whereby he puts the Christians upon contending for the faith against seducers. That second argument was taken from the certainty of the destruction of those seducers, and is prosecuted from the fourth to the seventeenth verse of this Epistle. In managing which the apostle first set down several examples of God's wrath upon others in former times for their sins, from the fourth to the eighth verse. And secondly, declared that these seducers lived in the same sins which God had formerly punished in others, from the eighth to this eleventh verse. He now, thirdly, concludes, that these who practise their impieties, shall partake of their plagues. And this conclusion he prosecutes throughout this eleventh verse unto the seventeenth. In handling which the apostle concludes their destruction, 1. By propounding; 2. By expounding it. Or, 1. By a denunciation; and, 2. By a delineation thereof. 1. By propounding and denouncing it in those words of this eleventh verse, "Woe unto them!" 2. By expounding or delineating it in the following expressions of this and the other verses to the seventeenth; and he expounds it by a mixed description of their sin and misery; and he mixedly describes their sin and miseries (the effects of their sins) three ways: tres fuere Dei, hostes, ac fideles (1.) From the suitable examples of Nominat hos tres Cain, Balaam, Core, in this eleventh præ aliis, quia hi verse, whom he rather mentions than fidei, et sanctitatis any others, because of their great injury to the church by cruelty, seduction, and sedition, they being the types and forerunners of these seducers. seducere, et ecclesiam perdere fuerunt Simonis, voluerunt; unde Gnosticorum, et hæreticorum typi et prodromi. Cor. Lapide in foc. (2.) From sundry elegant comparisons, ver. 12, 13. (3.) From the certain and infallible prophecy of Enoch, propounded and amplified ver. 14—Î6. This eleventh verse, then, consists of these two parts. 1. A denunciation of woe and judgment. 2. An amplification thereof, from the three examples of Cain, Balaam, Core. 1. The denunciation of judgment, in these words, "Woe unto them!" It may be demanded in what sense the words, "Woe unto them!" are here used, and how to be understood. The uttering of this word "woe," denoting in Scripture grievous calamities and miseries, either present or approaching, is used three ways: Væ condolentis, dicentis. (1.) There is væ dolentis, and condoimprecantis, præ- lentis, when woe is used as an exclamation of grief, pity, and commiseration; and then it imports as much as if the apostle had said, Alas, how am I grieved, in consideration of their approaching ruin, for these wretched sinners, who are running to their own destruction! And thus | the word woe is often taken in Scripture; as Micah vii. 1, 2, where the church resenting the general corruption of the times, and her small number, cries out, "Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the gleanings of the vintage. The good man is perished out of the earth; and there is none upright among men." Thus also the prophet Isaiah, chap. xxiv. 16, laying to heart the wickedness of the people, and the judgments which were to follow, expresses his holy sympathy in these words, "Woe unto me! the treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously." Thus the same prophet again, chap. vi. 5, "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." So Jer. iv. 31; vi. 4; xiii. 27; xlv. 3; Lam. v. 16. Now though it cannot be denied that the faithful do and ought with holy commiseration to lay to heart the miseries of others, yet I understand not this expression of woe in this place in this sense; for besides that Jude knew that these seducers were ungodly men, and appointed to this condemnation, his scope was not to express his sorrow for them, but to warn the church of them, by discovering the judgments of God against them. Non dicit aposto don, reddat. Sunt non verba prædi (2.) There is va imprecantis, a woe of cursing and imprecation, used sometimes by godly men against the implacable and irrecoverable enemies of God. Thus the prophet Habakkuk utters it against the Chaldean, who wasted the church, Hab. ii. 6, 9, 12, 15, 19. Thus David prays for the destruction of his enemies, Psal. cix. 6-9, &c.; xl. 14, 15. That the apostles had this power of cursing the incurable enemies of the church, whose destruction the Lord had extraordinarily revealed to them, and that they used it, is very evident. Paul prays that the Lord would "reward Alexander the lus, ἀποδώσει, coppersmith according to his work," reddet: sed uro 2 Tim. iv. 14. And it is hard to deny vota imprecantis, that Jude in this place puts forth that centis. Rivet. in power against these seducers. Sure I Psal. xl. am, Paul prays that the false teachers might be cut off who troubled the church, Gal. v. 12; and He who enabled the apostles to foreknow the ruin of seducers certainly, without error, might help them to desire it holily, without revenge. And never did either Christ or his apostles express so much heavenly vehemency against any, as against those who hindered the eternal salvation of souls: witness the woes eight times repeated by Christ against the scribes and Pharisees, Matt. xxiii.; as also Paul's carriage towards Elymas the sorcerer, Acts xiii. Some (indeed) of this impious rabble, who were not so obstinate, malicious, and subtle as others, Jude might spare; he desiring the Christians afterward, that on some they should have compassion, putting a differ ence. And if it be here demanded how the apostle could lawfully say, "Woe unto them!" I answer, 1. He expresses not this "Woe unto them" in respect of his own cause, but the cause of God; not as they were his, but God's enemies. 2. He directs not his imprecations against persons curable, but incurable; and he might know them to be so by some extraordinary inspiration. 3. His affections herein were not carnal, but divine and spiritual, stirred up purely by zeal to God's glory and the safety of the church. In a word, if this woe here pronounced by Jude were a woe of imprecation, he was carried to the uttering thereof by the same Spirit by which he penned the Epistle. (3.) There is a va prædicentis, a woe of prediction and denunciation, whereby imminent and impendent evils are foretold and denounced against others; and in this sense it is commonly used and uttered in Scripture, Eccl. iv. 10; x. 16, and most commonly by the prophets: "Woe unto the wicked! for it shall be ill with them," Isa. iii. 11. "Woe unto them that join house to house," &c.! Isa. v. 8. And, "Woe to them that rise early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink," ver. 11; Isa. xxviii. 1; xxx. 1; xxxi. 1; Hos. ix. 12. "Woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!" Matt. xxiv. 19. And this sense, though some learned men exclude not that which was last mentioned, we may safely admit in this place; our apostle concluding, that undoubtedly they who were as bad as the worst of former sinners in respect of sin, should be as miserable as they were in regard of punishment. Obs. 1. Spiritual and eternal woes are the true woes. To be woeful indeed is to be under the wrath of God. This is the woe here by Jude denounced against, and by God inflicted upon, these seducers. Whatever woe comes without God's wrath, may have more of weal in it than of woe. Other woes touch the skin, these the soul. Other woes part between us and our estates, names, worldly comforts; but these between us and God, in whom is laid up all happiness. How foolish is every sinner to fear the name, the shadow, and not to tremble at the thing, the reality of woe! like the beast, who is more affrighted with the flash of the fire, and the noise of the report which is made in shooting off the gun, than with the fear of the bullet. Eternal woes come with less noise, and therefore with more neglect than others. They kill, though they do not affright. The fear which Christ commands is of Him who kills the soul. What proportion of misery is there between the soul's leaving the body, and God's leaving the soul? Bodily miseries are but opinionative and appearing. There is not a drop of true woe in a deluge of outward troubles which befall a saint. Obs. 2. Wickedness ends in woe. Sinners may see nothing but wealth in the commission, but they shall find nothing but woe in the conclusion of sin. Every lust, though it kisses, yet betrays. "The end" (as the apostle speaks) "is death," Rom. vi. 21. It is the truest wisdom to consider whether, when we find it difficult to overcome the present temptation, it be not more difficult to undergo the following woe. Oh, could we but look upon the blackness of the back of sin, how little should we be allured with the fairness of its face! How far from wisdom will it be for the deluded sinner hereafter to say, I did not think it would have been thus with me, that hell was so hot, that God's wrath was so heavy! The mirth of every secure sinner that goes dancing to hell is no better than madness. How bitter should that drop of pleasure be to Amara sintom us, which is answered and overtaken bus respondent, with a sea of pains! There is no judg nia gaudia qui æterna supplicia. ing of our future, either woe or happiness, by what appears at present. The portion of the cup of God's people is to have the best, and of the wicked to have the bitterest, at the bottom; and yet the top of the cup seems to promise the contrary to both. a proximo avertit; et facit Deo inJuriam, quia seipsum judicem constituit, et | | Obs. 3. Scripture imprecations and cursings must not be used as our examples. We may, indeed, pray against the wicked practices of others, (1.) That God would stop and hinder them; with David, that God would turn the wisdom of Ahithophel into foolishness. (2.) It is lawful for us to pray for temporal afflictions to befall the wicked, to the end, that they, being sensible of God's anger against sin, may be brought to repentance, and so to salvation. But, (3.) Prayers for the eternal confusion of others are not absolutely to be put up to God. They who will imitate the Scripture in imprecations against others must be sure they imitate those holy men who uttered them, in being led by the same Spirit, both of infallibility in discerning of men's persons and estates; and also of purity, or freedom from those corrupt affections wherewith our zeal for God's glory is ever too much mixed, and therefore to be suspected. This counsel Christ gave his disciples, who, asking whether (after the example of Elijah) they should pray that fire might come down from heaven to consume the Samaritans, were answered by Christ, that they knew not what spirit they were of, Luke ix. 55. Our Master's precept was, "Bless them that curse you," | Matt. v. 44; yea, bless and curse not: and his pattern left us is, "When he was reviled, he reviled not Ideo Deum a se again," I Pet. ii. 23. The time of prayer, expellit, qui illum saith Chrysostom, is the time of meekness. And he, saith Augustine, drives away God from himself, who would turn him away from others; he being injurious to God, in making him the executioner, and himself the judge. Obs. 4. God warns of woe before he sends woe. He takes not sinners at the advantage, as he might, in the act of sin, but he foretells the woe before he inflicts it. He usually cuts men down by the mouth of his ministers, before he cuts them off by the hand of executioners; by the sword of his mouth, before he does it by the mouth of the sword. God's method is to give premonition before he inflicts punishment. The two destructions of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and Romans came not till foretold by the prophets and Christ. Of the two general destructions of the world, the past by water, Gen. vi. 3, and the future by fire, 2 Pet. iii. 7, sufficient warning has been given. God hereby speaks himself gracious, and the wicked inexcusable. He threatens that he may not smite; and he smites that he may not slay; and he slays some sometimes temporally, that they may not be destroyed eternally. God foretells ruin that it Venturum se præ- may be prevented. Jonah's prophesydicat, ut cum ing of Nineveh's overthrow, was, as Chrysostom saith, a kind of overthrow veniat. Greg. of the prophecy. And hereby the wicked are proclaimed inexcusable. They cannot say in their greatest suffering but that they had premonition. Even the enemies of God shall justify him when he condemns them. They cannot but excuse God from desire of revenge, the desirers whereof are Professa perdunt not wont to give warning. Christians, odia vindicta lo- take heed of turning the denunciations cum. Sen. Medea. of woe into wantonness. It is neither for want of sin in man, nor strength in God, that instead of wounding he only warns. His hand is not weakened that it cannot strike, nor his arm shortenNon ille poten- ed that it cannot reach us; he has not bam perdidit, sed lost his power, but he exercises his patience, and he exercises his patience venerit, quos damnet non in patientiam exer cet. us. Patientiam exer pœnitentiam ex in expecting our repentance. Let us prepare to meet our God, even when he cet suami, dum is coming toward us, before he come at pectat tuam. Let us despatch the messengers of Aug. prayer and reformation to meet him, and make peace with him while he is yet in the way, and afar off. Though God's patience lasts long, it will not last ever. If we will sin, notwithstanding a woe threatened, we shall be punished, notwithstanding a mercy promised. He who is long before he strikes, strikes heavy. The longer it is ere woe comes, the heavier will it be when it comes. No metal so cold as lead before it is melted, but none more scalding afterward. Causam populi Dei apud popu gavit. Obs. 5. Ministers must denounce woes against the wicked. Jude describes the fierceness of seducers, and exhorts the Christians to compassion; and yet his meekness abolished not his zeal. The regard of God's glory, and the souls of the saints, draws forth this severe denunciation against the enemies of both. He is as bold to foretell their woe as they to proclaim their wickedness. The like spirit we may behold in the holy men before him: Moses so meek, that when he was with God, though he pleaded the cause of the people with prayers, apud Deum preyet when he was with the people, he cibus; causam pleaded the cause of God with the lum gladiis allesword. The prophets after him, Samuel, a Gre Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, were cold and calm in their own cause, but full of heavenly heat in God's cause. Their denunciations of woes, like lightning which smites the highest towers, spared not the greatest, if enemies to God. Prophetic zeal struck at sin wherever it found it; witness all those numerous threatenings scattered in every leaf of their prophecies. The apostles had their rod as well as the spirit of meekness, and partook of that Spirit which was represented as well by fiery tongues as by the shape of a dove. Paul strikes Elymas blind, and cursed Alexander. Christ himself, whose mouth was so full of beatitudes, Matt. v., no less than eight several times denounced woes against the enemies of God. It is the disposition of saints to be holily impatient when God's glory suffers; and, though never else, then to esteem anger seemly: disgraces against their Father they cannot endure, these injuries they cannot concoct. Their commission likewise requires this temper: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins," Isa. Iviii. 1. "Whatsoever I command thee, that thou shalt speak: be not afraid of their faces," Jer. i. 7, 8. A dumb dog is good for nothing but the halter. Though the children in the house must not be bitten, yet the thief either without or within must not be spared: sinful silence and flattery most oppose a minister's function. If sinners will be bold, let not ministers be bashful. The most zealous ministers have lived in the worst times; and they who are most hated for their holy vehe mency, can better endure the hatred of people for the discharge of duty than the wrath of God for its neglect. He that reproves shall have favour at the last both of God and man. And even here a zealous reprover is honoured when he is hated; and the cause (saith one) why God makes the world so bitter to ministers by sufferings, is because they are no more bitter to the world by reprehensions. To conclude this, let none, no, not the greatest, be angry with ministers for their faithfulness in reproving. If there were physicians or surgeons only provided for the poor, and not for the rich, the rich would be accounted of all the most miserable; and truly they were much more miserable for their souls, if they only were de Chrysost. |