John Owen · 24 of 157

Sermon III. Jeremiah xv. 19, 20. · Part 3

Use 2. “Be wise now therefore, O ye [rulers;] be instructed, ye judges of the earth; serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling,” Ps. ii. 10, 11. See whence your assistance cometh; see where lie the hills of your salvation, and say, “Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy,” Hos. xiv. 3. It is God alone who is “a sun and shield: his ways do good to the upright in heart.” Behold, here is a way to encompass England with a brazen wall: let the rulers of it walk in right ways with upright hearts. Others have been careful to preserve the people to them, and the city to them; oh, be you careful to preserve your God unto you! He alone can make you a fenced wall; if he departs, your wall departs, your shade departs. Give me leave to insist a little on one particular, which I choose out among many others. When God leads out his people to any great things, the angel of his presence is still among them. See at large, Exod. xxiii. 20–22. The angel of the covenant, in whom is the name of God, that hath power of pardoning or retaining transgressions, — Jesus Christ, the angel that redeemeth his out of all their troubles, Gen. xlviii. 16, — he is in the midst of them, and amongst them. And God gives this special caution, if we would have his assistance, that we should beware of him, and obey him, and provoke him not. Would you, then, have God’s assistance continued? — take heed of provoking the angel of his presence: provoke him not by slighting of his ways; provoke him not by contemning his ordinances: if you leave him to deal for himself, he will leave you to shift for yourselves. What though his followers are at some difference, (the best knowing but in part) about the administration of some things in his kingdom; the envious one having also sown some bitter seeds of persecution, strife, envy, and contention among them? — what though some poor creatures are captivated by Satan, the prince of pride, to a contempt of all his ordinances, — whose souls I hope the Lord will one day free from the snare of the devil; — yet I pray give me leave (it is no time to contest or dispute it) to bear witness in the behalf of my Master to this one truth, that if by your own personal practice and observance, your protection, countenance, authority, laws, you do not assert, maintain, uphold the order of the gospel, and administration of the ordinances of Christ, — notwithstanding the noise and clamours of novel fancies, which, like Jonah’s gourd, have sprung up in a night, and will wither in a day, — you will be forsaken by the angel of God’s presence, and you will become an astonishment to all the inhabitants of the earth. And herein I do not speak as one hesitating or dubious, but positively assert it, as the known mind of God, and whereof he will not suffer any long to doubt, Ps. ii. 12.

Use 3. “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you,” Isa. xxxv. 3, 4. Let the most weak and fearful, the fainting heart, the trembling spirit, and the doubting mind, know, that full and plenary security, perfect peace, attends the upright in the ways of God. You that are in God’s way, do God’s work, and take this cordial for all your distempers, — Return not to former provoking ways, and he will make you” a fenced brasen wall.”

And so I come to the third thing which I proposed to consider, —

III. The opposition which men cleaving to the Lord in all his ways shall find, with the issue and success of it: “They shall fight against thee; but shall not prevail.”

The words may be considered either as a prediction depending on God’s prescience of what will be; or a commination from his just judgment of what shall be.

In the first sense the Lord tells the prophet, from the corruption, apostasy, stubbornness of that people, what would come to pass; — in the second, what, for their sins and provocations, by his just judgment, should come to pass. Time will not allow me to handle the words in both acceptations, wherefore I shall take up the latter only, — viz., that it is a commination of what shall be for the farther misery of that wretched people; they shall judicially be given up to a fighting against him.

Observation. God oftentimes gives up a sinful people to a fruitless contention and fighting with their only supporters and means of deliverance..

Jeremiah had laboured with God for them, and with them for God, that, if possible, peace being made, they might be delivered; and, to consummate their sins, they are given up to fight against him.

I cannot now insist upon particular instances; consult the history of the church in all ages, — you shall find it continually upon all occasions verified. From the Israelites opposing Moses, to the Ephrahnites’ contest with Jephthah, the rejecting of Samuel, and so on, to the kings of the earth giving their power to the beast to wage war with the Lamb, with the inhabitants of the world combining against the witnesses of Christ, is this assertion held out. In following story, no sooner did any plague or judgment break out against the Roman empire, but instantly, “Christianos ad leones;” — their fury must be spent upon them who were the only supporters of it from irrecoverable ruin.

Now the Lord doth this, —

1. To seal up a sinful people’s destruction. Eli’s sons hearkened not, “because the Lord would slay them,” 1 Sam. ii. 25. When God intends ruin to a people, they shall walk in ways that tend thereunto. Now, is there a readier way for a man to have a house on his head, than by pulling away the pillars whereby it is supported? If by Moses standing in the gap the fury of the Lord be turned away, certainly if the people contend to remove him, their desolation sleepeth not. When, therefore, the Lord intends to lay cities waste without inhabitants, and houses without men, to make a land utterly desolate; the way of its accomplishment is by making the hearts of the people fat, and their ears heavy, and shutting their eyes, that they should not see and attend to the means of their recovery, Isa. vi. 10, 11, — so gathering in his peace and mercies from a provoking people, Jer. xvi. 5.

2. To manifest his own power and sovereignty in maintaining a small handful, ofttimes a few single persons, a Moses, a Samuel, two witnesses, against the opposing rage of a hardened multitude. If those who undertake his work and business in their several generations should have withal the concurrent obedience and assistance of others whose good is intended, neither would his name be so seen nor his ways so honoured as now, when he bears them up against all opposition. Had not the people of this land been given up (many of them) to fight against the deliverers of the nation, and were it not so with them even at this time, how dark would have been the workings of providence which now, by wrestling through all opposition, are so conspicuous and clear! When, then, a people, or any part of a people, have made themselves unworthy of the good things intended to be accomplished by the instruments of righteousness and peace, the Lord will blow upon their waves, that with rage and fury they shall dash themselves against them; whom he will strengthen with the munition of rocks, not to be prevailed against. So that God’s glory and their own ruin lie at the bottom of this close working of providence, in giving up a sinful people to a fruitless contending with their own deliverers, if ever they be delivered.

Obj. But is not a people’s contending with the instruments by whom God worketh amongst them, and for them, a sin and provocation to the eyes of his glory? How, then, can the Lord be said to give them up unto it?

Ans. Avoiding all scholastical discourses, as unsuited to the work of this day, I shall briefly give in unto you how this is a sinful thing, yet sinners are given up unto it without the least extenuation of their guilt, or colour for charge on the justice and goodness of God.

(1.) Then, to give up men unto a thing in itself sinful is no more but so to dispose and order things, that sinners may exercise and draw out their sinful principles in such a way. Of this that the Lord doth the Scripture is full of examples, and hath testimonies innumerable. That herein the Holy One of Israel is no ways co-partner with the guilt of the sons of men, will appear by observing the difference of these several agents in these four things:—

[1.] The principle by which they work.

[2.] The rule by which they proceed.

[3.] The means which they use.

[4.] The end at which they aim.

[1.] The principle of operation in God is his own sovereign will and good pleasure. He doth whatsoever he pleaseth, Ps. cxv. 3. He saith his purpose shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure, Isa. xlvi. 10. He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth, Rom. ix. 18; giving no account of his matters, Job xxxiii. 13. This our Saviour rendereth the only principle and reason of his hidden operations, “O Father, so it seemed good in thy sight,” Matt. xi. 26. His sovereignty in doing what he will with his own, as the potter with his clay, is the rise of his operations; so that whatever he doth, “who will say unto him, What doest thou?” Job ix. 12. “Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” Rom. ix. 20. And hence two things will follow:—

1st. That what he doth is just and righteous; for so must all acts of supreme and absolute dominion be.

2dly. That he can be author of nothing but what hath existence and being itself; for he works as the fountain of beings. This sin hath not. So that though every action, whether good or bad, receives its specification from the working of providence, — and to that is their existence in their several kinds to be ascribed, — yet an evil action, in the evilness of it, depends not upon divine concourse and influence; for good and evil make not sundry kinds of actions, but only a distinction of a subject in respect of its adjuncts and accidents.

But now the principle of operation in man is nature vitiated and corrupted; — I say nature, not that he worketh naturally, being a free agent, but that these faculties, will and understanding, which are the principles of operation, are in nature corrupted, and from thence can nothing flow but evil. “An evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit.” “Men do not gather figs from thistles.” “A bitter fountain sends not forth sweet waters.” “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” If the fountain be poisoned, can the streams be wholesome? What can you expect of light and truth from a mind possessed with vanity and darkness? what from a will averted from the chiefest good, and fixed upon present appearances? what from a heart the figment of whose imagination is only evil?

[2.] Consider the difference in the rule of operation. Every thing that works hath a rule to work by; — this is called a law. In that thing which to man is sinful, God worketh as it is a thing only; man, as it is a sinful thing. And how so? Why, every one’s sin is his aberration from his rule of operation or working. Ἁμαρτάνειν, is “aberrare à scopo:” to sin is not to collime aright at the end proposed. Ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία is a most exact definition of it. Irregularity is its form, if it may be said to have a form; a privation’s form is deformity. Look, then, in any action wherein an agent exorbitates from its rule, — that is sin. Now, what is God’s rule in operation? His own infinite, wise will alone. He takes neither motive, rise, nor occasion for any internal acts from any thing without himself; he doth whatever he pleaseth, Ps. cxv. 3; he “worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will,” Eph. i. 11; — that is his own law of operation, and the rule of righteousness unto others:— working them agreeably to his own will, which he always must do, he is free from the obliquity of any action. What, now, is the rule of the sons of men Why, the revealed will of God, “Revealed things belong to us, that we may do them,” Deut. xxix. 29. God’s revealed will is the rule of our walking, our working; whatever suits not, answers not this, is evil. “Sin is the transgression of the law,” 1 John iii. 4. Here, then, comes in the deformity, the obliquity, the ataxy, of any thing. God works, and man worketh; those agents have several rules. God works according to his rule; hence the action is good, as an action; — man deviates from his rule; hence it is sinful, in respect of its qualifications and adjuncts. Man writes fair letters upon a wet paper, and they run all into one blot; not the skill of the scribe, but the defect in the paper, is the cause of the deformity. He that makes a lame horse go, is the cause of his going; but the defect in his joints is the cause of his going lame. The sun exhales a steam from the dunghill; the sun is the cause of the exhalation, but the dunghill of the unwholesome savour. The first cause is the proper cause of a thing’s being, but the second of its being evil.

[3.] Consider the several operations and actings of God and man; for instance, in a rebellious people’s fighting against their helpers under him.

Now, the acts of God herein may be referred to six heads.

1st. A continuance of the creature’s being and life; — “upholding him by the word of his power,” Heb. i. 3, when he might take him off in a moment; — “enduring them with much long-suffering,” Rom. ix. 22, when he might cut them off, as he did the opposers of Elijah, with “fire from heaven,” 2 Kings i. 12.

2dly. A continuance of power of operation to them, when he could make their hands to wither, like Jeroboam’s, when they go about to strike, 1 Kings xiii. 4; or their hearts to die within them, like Nabal’s, when they intend to be churlish, 1 Sam. xxv. 37. But he raiseth them up, or makes them to stand, that they may oppose, Rom. ix. 17.

3dly. Laying before them a suitable object for the drawing forth their corruption unto opposition, giving them such helpers as shall in many things cross their lusts, and exasperate them thereunto, — as Elijah, a man of a fiery zeal, for a lukewarm Ahab.

4thly. Withholding from them that effectual grace by which alone that sin might be avoided, — a not actually keeping them from that sin by the might of his Spirit and grace. That alone is effectual grace which is actual. “He suffers them to walk in their own ways.”

And this the Lord may do, —

(1st.) In respect of them judicially, — they deserve to be forsaken: Ahab is left to fill up the measure of his iniquities, — “Add iniquity to iniquity,” Ps. lxix. 27.

(2dly.) In respect of himself, by way of sovereignty, — doing what he will with his own, — hardening whom he will, Rom. ix. 18.

5thly. He positively sends upon their understandings that which the Scripture sets out under the terms of blindness, darkness, folly, delusion, slumber, a spirit of giddiness, and the like: the places are too many to rehearse. What secret actings in and upon the minds of men, — what disturbing of their advices, — what mingling of corrupt affections with false, carnal reasonings, — what givings up to the power of darkness, in Satan the prince thereof, — this judicial act doth contain, I cannot insist upon. Let it suffice, God will not help them to discern, yea, he will cause that they shall not discern, but hide from their eyes the things that concern their peace, and so give them up to contend with their only helpers.

6thly. Suitably upon the will and affections he hath several acts, — obfirming the one in corruption, and giving up the other to vileness, Rom. i. 24, 26, until the heart become thoroughly hardened, and the conscience seared; not forcing the one, but leaving it to follow the judgment of practical reason, — which being a blind, yea, a blinded guide, whither can it lead a blind follower, but into the ditch? — not defiling the other with infused sensuality, but provoking them to act according to inbred, native corruption, and by suffering frequent vile actings to confirm them in ways of vileness.

Take an instance of the whole: God gives helpers and deliverers to a sinful people; because of their provocations, some or all of them shall not taste of the deliverance by them to be procured. Wherefore, though he sustains their lives in being, whereby they might have opportunity to know his mind and their own peace; yet he gives them a power to contend with their helpers, causing their helpers to act such things as, under consideration of circumstances, shall exceedingly provoke these sinners. Being so exasperated and provoked, the Lord, who is free in all his dispensations, refuseth to make out to them that healing grace whereby they might be kept from a sinful opposition: yea, being justly provoked, and resolved that they should not taste of the plenty to come, he makes them foolish and giddy in their reasonings and counsels, — blinds them in their understandings, that they shall not be able to discern plain and evident things, tending to their own good, but in all their ways shall err like a drunken man in his vomit; whence, that they may not be recovered, because he will destroy them, he gives in hardness and obstinacy upon their hearts and spirits, leaving them to suitable affections, to contend for their own ruin.

Now, what are the ways and methods of sinful man’s working in such opposition, would be too long for me to declare; what prejudices are erected, what lusts pursued, what corrupt interests acted and followed, — how self is honoured, what false pretences coined, how God is slighted, — if I should go about to lay open, I must look into the hell of these times, than which nothing can be more loathsome and abominable. Let it suffice, that sinful self, sinful lusts, sinful prejudices, sinful blindness, sinful carnal fears, sinful corrupt interests, sinful fleshly reasonings, sinful passions, and vile affections, do all concur in such a work, are all woven up together in such a web.

[4.] See the distance of their aims. God’s aim is only the manifestation of his own glory — than which nothing but himself is so infinitely good, nothing so righteous that it should be [his aim] — and this by the way of goodness and severity, Rom. xi. 22; — goodness, in faithfulness and mercy, preserving his who are opposed, whereby his glory is exceedingly advanced; — severity towards the opposers, that, by a sinful, cursed opposition, they may fall up the measure of their iniquities, and receive this at the hand of the Lord, that they lie down in sorrow, — wherein also he is glorious.

God forbid that I should speak this of all that for any time, or under any temptation, may be carried to an opposition, in any kind or degree, to the instruments of God’s glory amongst them. Many for a season may do it, and yet belong to God, who shall be recovered in due time. It is only of men given up, forsaken, opposing all the appearances of God with his saints and people in all his ways, of whom I speak.

Now, what are the ends of this generation of fighters against this brazen wall? and how distant from those of the Lord’s! “They consult to cast him down from his excellency” whom God will exalt, Ps. lxii. 4. They think not as the Lord, neither doth their heart mean so; but it is in their heart to destroy and to cut off, Isa. x. 7. To satisfy their own corrupt lusts, ambition, avarice, revenge, superstition, contempt of God’s people because his, hatred of the yoke of the Lord, fleshly interests, — even for these, and such like ends as these, is their undertaking.

Thus, though there be a concurrence of God and man in the same thing, yet, considering the distance of their principles, rules, actings, and ends, it is apparent that man doth sinfully what the Lord doth judicially; which being an answer to the former objection, I return to give in some uses to the point.

Use 1. Let men, constant, sincere, upright in the ways of God, especially in difficult times, know what they are to expect from many, yea, the most of the generation, whose good they intend, and among whom they live; — opposition and fighting are like to be their lot; — and that not only it will be so because of men’s lusts, corruptions, prejudices, but also it shall be so from God’s righteous judgments against a stubborn people. They harden their hearts that it may be so, to compass their ends; and God hardens their hearts that it shall be so, to bring about his aims. They will do it, to execute their revenge upon others; they shall do it, to execute God’s vengeance upon themselves. This may be for consolation, that in their contending there is nothing but the wrath of man against them whom they oppose (which God will restrain, or cause it to turn to his praise); but there is the wrath of God against themselves, which who can bear? This, then, let all expect who engage their hearts to God, and follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

Men walking in the sincerity of their hearts are very apt to conceive that all sheaves should bow to theirs, that all men should cry, “Grace, grace,” to their proceedings. Why should any oppose? “Quid meruere?” Alas! the more upright they are, the fitter for the Lord by them to break a gainsaying people. Let men keep close to those ways of God whereto protection is annexed, and let not their hearts fail them because of the people of the land. The storm of their fury will be like the plague of hail in Egypt; it smote only the cattle that were in the field; — those who, upon the word of Moses, drove them into the houses, preserved them alive. If men wander in the field of their own ways, of self-seeking, oppression, ambition, and the like, doubtless the storm will carry them away; but for those who keep house, who keep close to the Lord, though it may have much noise, terror, and dread with it, it shall not come nigh them. And if the Lord, for causes best known, known only to his infinite wisdom, should take off any Josiahs in the opposition, he will certainly effect two things by it.

(1.) To give them rest and peace.

(2.) To further his cause and truth, by drawing out the prayers and appeals of the residue; and this living they valued above their lives.

All you, then, that are the Lord’s workmen, be always prepared for a storm. Wonder not that men see not the ways of the Lord, nor the judgments of our God; — many are blinded. Admire not that they will so endlessly engage themselves into fruitless oppositions; — they are hardened. Be not amazed that evidence of truth and righteousness will not affect them; — they are corrupted. But this do; Come, and enter into the chambers of God, and you shall be safe until this whole indignation be overpast. I speak of all them, and only them, who follow the Lord in all his ways with upright hearts and single minds: if the Lord will have you to be a rock and a brazen wall for men to dash themselves against, and to break in pieces, though the service be grievous to flesh and blood, yet it is his, whose you are. Be prepared, the wind blows, — a storm may come.

Use 2. Let men set upon opposition make a diligent inquiry, whether there be no hand in the business but their own? whether their counsels be not leavened with the wrath of God, and their thoughts mixed with a spirit of giddiness, and themselves carried on to their own destruction? Let me see the opposer of the present ways of God, who, upon his opposition is made more humble, more self-denying, more empty of self-wisdom, more fervent in supplications and waiting upon God, than formerly; and I will certainly blot him out of the roll of men judicially hardened. But if therewith men become also proud, selfish, carnally wise, revengeful, furious upon earthly interests, full, impatient; doubtless God is departed, and an evil spirit from the Lord prevaileth on them. O that men would look about them before it be too late; see the Lord disturbing them, before the waves return upon them; know that they may pull down some antics that make a great show of supporting the church, and yet indeed are pargeted posts supported by it! The foundation is on a rock that shall not be prevailed against.

Use 3. See the infinite wisdom and sovereignty of Almighty God, that is able to bring light out of darkness, and to compass his own righteous judgments by the sinful advisings and undertakings of men. Indeed the Lord’s sovereignty and dominion over the creature doth not in any thing more exalt itself, than in working in all the reasonings, debates, consultations of men, to bring about his own counsels through their free workings. That men should use, improve their wisdom, freedom, choice, yea, lusts, not once thinking of God; yet all that while do his work more than their own, — “this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”

Of the last part of my text I shall not speak at all; neither indeed did I intend.