First, In point of affliction. Psa. ciii. 14, "He knoweth onr frame, lie renieniberetli that we are but dust.' Not like some unskilled enipyric, who hath but one receipt for all, strong or weak, young or old ; but as a wise physician considers his patient, and then wi'ites his bill : men and devils are but God's apothecaries ; they make not our physic, but give what God prescribes. Balaam loved Balak's fee well enough, but could not go a hair's breadth beyond God's commission. Indeed, God is not so choice with the wicked, Isa. xxvii. 7: ' Hath he smiten him as he smote those that smote him?' In a saint's cup the poison or the affliction is corrected, not so in the wicked's ; iind therefore what is medicine to the one is ruin to the other.
Secondly, In duty ; be knows you are but flesh, and therefore pities and accepts thy weak service, yea, he makes apologies for thee ; ' The spirit is willing,' saith Christ, ' but the flesh is weak.'
Thirdly, In temptations he considers thou art flesh, and proportions the temptation to so weak a nature : such a temptation as is common to man, a moderate temptation, as in the margin, fitted for so frail a creature. When- ever the Christian begins to faint under the weight of it, God makes as much haste to his succour, as a tender mother would to her swooning child ; there- fore he is said to be nigh to revive such, lest their spirits should fail.
Section III. — The second thing follows ; the conjuncture of the saint's enemies : we have not to do with naked man, but with man led on by Satan ; not with flesh and blood, but principalities and pov/ers acting in them. There are two sorts of men the Christian wrestles v/ith, good men and bad; Satan strikes in with both.
First, The Christian wrestles with good men. Many a sharp conflict there hath been betv/een saint and saint, scuffling in the dark through misitnder- standing of the truth and each other. Abraham and Lot, at strife. Aaron and Miriam jostled with Moses for the wall, till God interposed and ended the quarrel by his inmiediate stroke on Miriam. The apostles, even in the pre- sence of their Master, were at high words, contesting who should be greatest. Nov/ in these civil wars among saints, Satan is the great kindle-coal, though little seen, because, like Ahab, he fights in a disguise, playing first on one side, and then on the other, aggravating every petty injury, and thereupon pro- voking to wrath and revenge ; therefore the apostle, dehorting from anger, useth this argument ; 'Give no place to the devil;' as if he had said, fall not out among yom'selves, except you long for the devil's company, who is the true soldier of fortune, as the common phrase is, living by his sword, and therefore hastes thither where there is any hopes of war. Gregory compares the saints in their sad differences to two cocks, which Satan, the master of the pit, sets on fighting, in hope, when killed, to sup with them at night. Solomon saith, Prov. xviii. 6, ' Tlie mouth of the contentious man calls for strokes.' Indeed, we by our mutual strifes give the devil a stafl' to beat us with ; he cannot well work without fire, and therefore blows up these coals of contention, which he useth as his forge, to heat our spirits into wrath, and then we are malleable, easily hammered as he pleaseth. Contention puts the sovil into disorder, and inter arnia silent leges. The law of gi-ace acts not freely, when the spirit is in a commotion ; meek Moses, provoked, speaks unadvisedly. Methinks this, if nothing else will, should sound a retreat to our unhappy differences, that this Joab hath a hand in them ; he sets this evil spirit between brethren ; and what folly is it to bite and devour one another, to make hell sport ! We are prone to mistake our heat for zeal, whereas commonly in strife between saints it is a fireship sent in by Satan to break their unity and order ; wherein while they stand they are an armada invincible : and Satan knows he hath no other way but this to shatter them : when the Christians' langviage, which should be one, begins to be confounded, they are then near scattering ; it is time for God to part his children, when they cannot live in peace together.
Secondly, The Christian wrestles with wicked men. ' Because you are not of the world,' saith Christ, ' the world hates you.' The saints' nature and life are antipodes to the world ; fire and water, heaven and hell, may as soon be reconciled, as they with it. Tlie heretic is his enemy for truth's sake, the pro- fane for holiness ; to both the C'hristian is an abomination, as the Israelite to
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