Wherein Is Declared His Cross, Complaints, And Prayers. Most Necessary To Be Read Of All Them For Their Singular Comfort That, Under The Banner Of Christ, Are By Satan Assaulted, And Feel The Heavy Burden Of Sin With Which They Are Oppressed.
The patient abiding of the sore afflicted was never yet confounded.
PART 1.
TO HIS BELOVED MOTHER, J. K., SENDETH GREETING IN THE LORD.
THE desire that I have to hear of your continuance with Christ Jesus in the day of this his battle, which shortly shall end to the confusion of his proud enemies, neither by tongue, neither yet by pen, can I express, beloved mother. Assuredly it is such, that it vanquisheth and overcometh all remembrance and solicitude which the flesh useth to take, for feeding and defense of herself. For in every realm and nation, God will stir up some one or other, to minister those things that appertain to this wretched life; and if men will cease to do their office, yet will he send his ravens. So that in every place, perchance, I may find some feathers to my body. But, alas!
where I shall find children to be begotten unto God by the word of life, that can I not presently consider. And therefore, the spiritual life of such as sometimes boldly professed Christ, God knoweth is to my heart more dear, than all the glory, riches, and honor in earth; and the falling back of such men as I hear daily to turn back to that idol again, is to me more dolorous, than I trust the corporal death shall be, whenever it shall come at God’s appointment. Some will ask, then, why did I fly? Assuredly I cannot tell;
but of one thing I am sure, the fear of death was not the chief cause of my flying. I trust that one cause hath been, to let me see with my corporal eyes, that all had not a true heart to Christ, that in the day of rest and peace bare a fair face. But my flying is no matter. By God’s grace I may come to battle, before that all the conflict be ended. And haste the time, O Lord, at thy good pleasure, that once again my tongue may yet praise thy holy name before the congregation, if it were but in the very hour of death!
I have written a large treatise touching the plagues that assuredly shall apprehend obstinate idolaters, and those also that dissembling with them, deny Christ, in obeying to idolatry; which I would you should read
diligently. If it come not to you from the South, I shall provide that it shall come to you by some other means. Touching your continual trouble, given unto you by God for better purpose than we can presently espy, I have begun unto you the exposition of the Sixth Psalm; and as God shall grant unto me opportunity, and health of body (which now is very weak,) I purpose to absolve the same.
THE ARGUMENT OF THE SIXTH PSALM.
It appeareth that David after his offense, fell into some great and dangerous sickness, in which he was sore tormented, not so much by corporal infirmities, as by sustaining and drinking some large portion of the cup of God’s wrath. And albeit that he was delivered as then from the corporal death, yet it appeareth, that long after, (yea, and I verily believe, that all his life,) he had some sense and remembrance of the horrible fear which before he suffered in the time of his sickness. And therefore, the Holy Ghost speaking in him, showeth unto us what be the complaints of God’s elect under such cross; how diversely they are tormented; how that they appear to have no sure hold of God, but to be abject from him; and yet what are the signs that they are God’s elect. And so doth the Holy Ghost teach us to seek help of God, even when he is punishing, and appeareth to be angry with us.
“O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure.” — David, sore troubled in body and spirit, lamentably prayeth unto God; which that you may more surely understand, I will attempt to express it in more words. David speaketh unto God, as he would speak unto a man, in this manner: O Lord, I feel what is the weight and strength of thy displeasure. I have experience how intolerable is the
heaviness of thy hand, which I, most wretched man, have provoked against myself by my horrible sins. Thou whippest me, and scourgest me bitterly;
yea, so thou vexest me, that unless thou withdraw thy hand, and remit thy displeasure, there resteth nothing unto me but utterly to be confounded. I beseech thee, O Lord, rage not, neither be commoved against me above measure: f19 remit and take away thy heavy displeasure, which by my iniquity I have provoked against myself.
This appeareth to have been the meaning of David in his first words, whereby he declareth himself to have felt the grievous wrath of God before he burst forth in these words. In which first is to be noted, that the prophet acknowledgeth all trouble that he sustained as well in body as in spirit, to be sent of God, and not to happen unto him by chance. For herein
peculiarly differ the sons of God from the reprobate, that the sons of God know both prosperity and adversity to be the gifts of God only, as Job witnesseth; and therefore in prosperity commonly they are not insolent nor proud, but even in the day of joy and rest they look for trouble and sorrow:
neither yet, in the time of adversity, are they altogether left without
comfort; but by one mean or other, God showeth to them that trouble shall have end. While contrariwise the reprobate, either taking all things of chance, or else, making an idol of their own wisdom, in prosperity are so puffed up that they forget God, without any care that trouble should follow; and in adversity they are so dejected, that they look for nothing but hell.
Here must I put you in mind, dearly beloved, how often you and I have talked together of these present days, till neither of us could refrain tears, when no such appearance there was seen by man. How oft have I said to you, that I looked daily for trouble, and that I wondered that so long I did escape it? What moved me to refuse, and that with displeasure of all men, (even of those that best loved me,) those high promotions that were offered, by him whom God hath taken from us for our offenses?f19
Assuredly, the foresight of trouble to come. How oft have I said unto you, that the time would not be long, that England would give me bread?
Advise with the last letter I wrote unto your brother-in-law, and consider what is therein contained.
While I had this trouble, you had the greater, sent, I doubt not, to both of us of God, that in that great rest, and, as we may call it, when the Gospel triumphed, we should not be so careless and so insolent as others were,
who, although they professed Christ in mouth, yet sought they nothing but the world, with hand, with foot, with counsel, and wisdom. And albeit at this present, our comfort appear not, yet before all the plagues be poured forth, it shall be known, that there is a God who taketh care for his own.
Secondly, it is to be noted, that the nature and ingine of the very sons of God, in the time of their trouble, is to impute unto God some other affection than there is, or can be in him, towards his children; and
sometimes to complain upon God, as that he did those things that in very deed he cannot do to his elect. David and Job often complain, that God had left them, was become their enemy, regarded not their prayers, and took no heed to deliver them. And yet, impossible it is that God either shall leave his chosen, or that he shall despise the humble petitions of such as call upon his support. But such complaints are the voices of the flesh,
wherewith God is not offended to the rejection of his elect; but pardoneth them amongst other innumerable infirmities and sins. And, therefore, dearly beloved, despair you not, albeit the flesh sometimes bursteth out in heavy complaints, as it were, accusing God. You are not more perfect than was David and Job; and you cannot be so perfect as Christ himself was, who upon the cross cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Consider, dear mother, how lamentable and horrible f20 were these words in the only Son of God. And David, in <198801>Psalm 88, (which for better
understanding I desire you to read,) complaineth upon God, that night and day he had cried and yet he was not delivered, “But (saith he) my soul is replenished with dolours; I am as a man without strength: I am like to those that are gone down into the pit, of whom thou hast no more mind;
like unto those that are cut off by thy hand. Thou hast put me in a deep dungeon; all thy wrath lyeth upon me. Why leavest thou me, O Lord; why hidest thou thy face from me? Thou hast removed all my friends from me, thou hast made me odious unto them.” — And thus he endeth his psalm and complaint, without mention of any comfort received. And Job, in divers places of his book, maketh even the like complaints, sometimes saying, that God was his enemy, and had set him, as it were, a mark to shoot at, and therefore that his soul desired the very destruction.
These things I recite unto you, dearly beloved, understanding what have been your troubles heretofore, and knowing, that Satan will not cease now to persuade your tender conscience, that none of God’s elect have been in like case as you are. But by these precedents, and many other places which now to collect I have no opportunity, it plainly appeareth, that God’s
chosen vessels have suffered the like temptations. I remember, that oft you have complained upon the grudging and murmuring that you found within yourself, fearing, that it provoked God to more displeasure. Behold and consider, dear mother, what God hath borne with in his saints before. Will he not bear the same with you, being most sorry for your imperfection? He cannot otherwise do; but as his wisdom hath made us all of one mass and nature, earth and earthly; and as he hath redeemed us with one price, the blood of his only Son, so must he, according to his promises, like
mercifully pardon the offenses of all those that in call the name of the Lord Jesus — of those, I mean, that refuse all other righteousness but his own.
But to our matter of these precedents. — Plain it is, that God’s elect before you, suffered the like cross, as presently you suffer; that they have
complained as you complain; that they have thought themselves abject, as you have thought, and yet may think yourself; and yet, nevertheless, they were sure in God’s favor. Hope, dear mother, and look you for the same:
hope, I say, against hope.
How horrible the pain is to endure that cross, none can express, except such as have proved it. Fearful it is for the very pain itself; but most fearful it is, for that the godly so tormented, judge God to be angry and in fury against them, as it is before expressed. Seeing we have found this cross to pertain to God’s children, profitable it shall be and necessary to search out the causes of the same.
Plain it is, that not only God worketh all to the profit of his elect, but also, that he worketh it from such love towards them, and with such wisdom, that otherwise things could not be. And this to under- stand is very profitable, partly to satisfy the grudging complaints of the flesh, which in trouble commonly questioneth, Why doth God this or that? And albeit in this earth the flesh can never be fully satisfied, but even as hunger and thirst from time to time assault it, so do other more gross imperfections; yet the inward man, with sobs to God, knowing the causes why the very just are sore troubled and tormented in body and spirit in this life, receiveth sure comfort, and getteth some stay of God’s mercy, by knowing the causes of the trouble. All causes I may not here recite, but two or three of the principal I will touch.
The first is, to provoke in God’s elect a hatred of sin, and unfeigned repentance of the same. Which cause, if it were rightly considered, were sufficient to make all spiritual and corporal troubles tolerable unto us. For
since it is, that without repentance no man obtains God’s mercy, (for it is now appointed by Him whose wisdom is infinite, I mean, of those that are converted to the conviction of sin,) and that without mercy no man can come to joy, is not that which letteth us understand what repentance is, gladly to be received and embraced?
Repentance containeth within it a knowledge of sin, a dolor for it, and a hatred of it, together with hope of mercy. It is very evident, that God’s own children have not at all times the right knowledge of sin; that is to say, how odious it is before God; much less have they the dolor of it, and hatred of it. The which if they had, as they could not sin, so could they never be able, (having always the true sense of God’s wrath against sin,) to delight in any thing that appertaineth to the flesh, more than the woman whom God hath appointed by the help of man to produce mankind, could ever delight in man, if at all times she felt the same pangs of dolor and pain, that she doth in her child-birth. And therefore doth God, for such purposes as are known to himself sometimes suspend from his own children this sense and feeling of his wrath against sin, as, no doubt, he did here with David, not only before his sin, but also some time after. But lest the sons of God should become altogether insolent, like the children of the world, he sendeth to them some portion of this foresaid cup, in drinking whereof they come to such knowledge, as they never had before. For, first, they feel the wrath of God working against sin, whereby they learn the justice of God to be even such as he himself pronounceth, and that he may suffer no sin unpunished. And thus begin they as well to mourn for their offenses, as also, to hate the same, which otherwise they could never do; for nothing is so pleasing to the corrupt nature of man, as sin is; and things pleasing to nature, cannot nature of itself hate.
But in this conflict as God’s children feel torments, and that most grievous;
as they mourn, and by God’s Holy Spirit, begin to hate sin, so come they also to a more high knowledge, that is, that a man cannot be savior to himself. For ‘how shall he save himself from hell, that cannot save himself from anguish and trouble here in the flesh, while yet he hath strength, wit, reason, and understanding? And therefore must he be compelled in his heart to acknowledge, that another Mediator there is betwixt God’s justice and mankind, than any that ever descended of the corrupted seed of Adam, yea, than any creature that only is a creature. And by the knowledge of this Mediator, at last the afflicted cometh to some sense and lively feeling of God’s great mercies declared unto mankind, albeit they be not so sensibly
felt as is the pain; and albeit the torment by this knowledge is not hastily removed, yet hath the patient some hope, that all griefs shall have end.
And that is the cause why he sobbeth and groaneth for an end of pain; why also he blasphemeth not God, but crieth for his help, even in the midst of his anguish.
How profitable this is to the children of God, and what it worketh in them, as the plain Scripture teacheth, so experience lets us understand. Verily, even so profitable as it is to mourn for sin, to hate the same, to know the Mediator betwixt God and man, and finally, to know his love and mercy towards them, so necessary is it to drink this foresaid cup. What it worketh in them none know but such as taste it. In David, it is plain, it wrought humility and abjection of himself: it took from him the great trust that he had in himself: it made him daily to fear, and earnestly to pray, that
afterwards he should not offend in like manner, or be left in his own hands.
It made him lowly, although he was a king; it made him merciful, when he might have been rigorous; yea, it caused him to mourn for Absalom, his wicked son.
But to the rest of the causes. — The second cause why God permitteth his elect to taste of this bitter cup, is to raise up our hearts from these
transitory vanities. For so foolish are we, and forgetful by nature, and so addicted are we to the things that are present, that unless we have another schoolmaster than manly f21 reason, and some other spur and perpetual remembrance, than any that we can choose or devise ourselves, we neither can desire, neither yet rightly remember the departure from this vain and wicked world, to the kingdom that is prepared.
We are commanded daily to pray, “Thy kingdom come.” Which petition asketh, that sin may cease, that death may be devoured, that transitory troubles may have an end, that Satan may be trodden under our feet, that the whole body of Christ may be restored to life, liberty, and joy; that the powers and kingdoms of this earth may be dissolved and destroyed, and that God the Father may be all in all things, after his Son Christ Jesus our Savior hath rendered up the kingdom for ever.
For these things we are all commanded to pray — but which of us, at the time when all aboundeth with us, when neither body nor spirit hath trouble
— from our hearts and without dissimulation can wish these things? Verily none. With our mouths we may speak the words, but the heart cannot thirst for the thing to come, except we be in such state, that worldly things