destruction upon them. When the prophet would express the indubitable ruin of the Philistines impending-, mark what prognostic he gives, ' Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea-coast ! the word of the Lord is against you;' as if he had said. You are a lost, undone people ; the whole world cannot save you, for tlie word of the Lord is against you. The threatening of the word, like light- ning or mildew, blasts wherever it goes, and its curse burns to the very root. Hence all the seven nations of Canaan fell into the hand of the Israelites, like ripe figs into the mouth of him that shakes the tree. The word of the Lord cui'sing them had gone before them to make their conquest certain. This Balak knew, and therefore woidd have given ever so much for a few words out of Balaam's mouth to have cursed Israel in God's name. The truth is, though we look upon the monarchs of the world, and their armies, as those which have the sway of the aliairs of the world, yet these are no more than the fly on the wheel ; it is the word of God that hath the great stroke in all that is done on the world's stage : ' I have set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, to build, and to plant,' Jer. i. 10. Indeed, the whole earth is God's ground ; and who hath power to build on his ground, or pull down, but himself? And in his word he hath given his mind what he will have done to his enemies, and for his saints ; and therefore, as all the mercies they have, they receive and acknowledge as gracious performances of the pro- mise, so all the judgments executed on their enemies as accomplishments of .the threatenings of the word, called therefore, ' the judgments written.'
CHAPTER XIV.
"^VHEREIN IT IS SHEWN HOW VICTORIOUS A SWORD OVER THE SEDUCER AND HERETIC THE WORD OF GOD IS.
The seducer is another enemy the Christian hath to cope with, and no less dangerous than the other, nay, in this respect, far more formidable ; the per- secutor can kill only the body, but the seducer comes to poison the soul. Better to be slain outright by his sword, than to be taken alive (as the apostle phraseth it) in this snare of the devil, which these whom he sends forth privily lay where they are often least suspected. When Paul fell into the hands of the persecutor, he could glory and rejoice that he had escaped the latter : ' I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith, hence- forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,' 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. See how this holy man triumphs and flourishes his colours, as if the field were fought, and the day won ; whereas, good man, he was now going to lay his head on the block undei- the hand of bloody Nero, as you may perceive, ver. (5, ' I am now ready to be ofi'ered up :' alluding to the kind of death, it is likely, he was shortly to undergo. But you will say, What great cause, then, had he to cry victoria, when his affairs were in such a desperate condition ? This made him triumph, ' he had kept the faith ;' and that was a thousand times more joy and comfort to him, than the laying down his life was a trouble. If he had left the faith, by cowardice, or chosen instead of it any false doctrine, he had lost his soul by losing that ; but having kept the faith, he knew that he did but part with his life to receive a better at God's hafid than was taken from him by man's. The locusts, mentioned Ilev. ix. 3, (which Mr. Mede takes to be the Saracens, who were so great a scoiu-ge and plague to the Roman world newly Christianized,) we find, ' they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails,' ver. 10; which that learned writer interprets to be their cursed Mahometan doctrine, with which they poisoned the souls, wherever their con- quering sword came. It seems, though the sword of war in the hand of a bloody enemy be a heavy judgment to a people, yet the propagation of cursed errors is a greater; this is the sting in the tail of that judgment. I do not doubt but many that were godly might fall by the sword of that enemy in such a general calamity, but only those that were not among God's sealed ones felt the sting in their tail, by being poisoned with their cursed imposture ; and, ' therefore, they alone ai-e said to be hurt by them, ver. 4, We may be cut off" by an enemy's sword and not be hurt, but we cannot drink of their false doctrine, and say so. Now, the word of God is the sword, whereby the Spirit enables the saints to defend themselves against this enemy ; yea, to rout and ruin this
2 I- 2
580 AN^ '^^^ SWORD OF THE SPIRIT.