- Rev. xii. 7, 8; Ileh. ii. 10; Rev. ii. 10; John xv. 19,20; Heb. xii. 14, xiii. 4; Bom. viii. 15-17.
1 Our dissensions are one of the Jews' greatest stumbling-blocks. Can you think of it, aud your hearts uot bleed ?
2 Cor. II. 11.] against satan's devices. 133
recorded as his honour.1 Ah ! how doth the God of peace, by his Spirit and messengers, pursue after peace with poor creatures. God first makes offer of peace to us :> ' Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us : we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God,' 2 Cor. v. 20. God's grace first kneels to us, and who can turn their backs upon such blessed and bleeding embrace- ments, but souls in whom Satan the god of this world kings it? God is the party wronged, and yet he sues for peace with us at first : ' I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name/ Isa. lxv. I.2 Ah ! how doth the sweetness, the freeness, and the riches of his grace break forth and shine upon poor souls. When a man goes from the sun, yet the sunbeams follow him ; so when we go from the Sun of righteousness, yet then the beams of his love and mercy follow us. Christ first sent to Peter that had denied him, and the rest that had forsaken him : ' Go your ways, and tell his disciples and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee : there shall ye see him, as he said unto you/ Mark xvi. 7. Ah ! souls, it is not a base, low thing, but a God-like thing, though we are wronged by others, yet to be the first in seeking after peace. Such actings will speak out much of God with a man's spirit, &c.
Christians, it is not matter of liberty whether you will or you will not pursue after peace, but it is matter of duty that lies upon you ; you are bound by express precept to follow after peace ; and though it may seem to fly from you, yet you must pursue after it : ' Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man can see the Lord,' Heb. xii. 14.3 Peace and holiness are to be pursued after with the greatest eagerness that can be imagined. So the psalmist : ' Depart from evil, and do good ; seek peace and pursue it,' Ps. xxxiv. 14. The Hebrew word that is here rendered seek, is in Piel, and it signifies to seek earnestly, vehemently, affectionately, studiously, industriously. ' And pursue it/ That Hebrew word signifies earnestly to pursue, being a metaphor taken from the eagerness of wild beasts or ravenous fowls, which will run or fly both fast and far rather than be disappointed of their prey. So the apostle presses the same duty upon the Romans : ' Let us follow after the things that make for peace, and things wherein one may edify another,' Eom. xiv. 19. Ah ! you froward, sour, dogged Christians, can you look upon these commands of God without tears and blushing ?
Ihave read a remarkable story of Aristippus. though but a heathen, who went of his own accord to iEschines his enemy, and said, ' Shall we never be reconciled till we become a table-talk to all the country ?' and when iEschines answered he would most gladly be at peace with him, ' Remem- ber, then, said Aristippus, that though I were the elder and better man, yet I sought first unto thee.' Thou art indeed, said iEschines, a far better man than I, for I began the quarrel, but thou the reconcilement.4 My prayer
1 They shall both have the name and the note, the comfort and the credit, of being most like unto God, who first begin to pursue after peace-
2 Behold me ! behold me ! It is geminated [doubled] to shew God's exceeding forward- ness to shew favour and mercy to them.
3 a^kste, It signifies to follow after peace, as the persecutor doth him whom he per-
4 Plutarch. [Cf. Diogenes Lao'rtius, ii. 65 ; also Horace, Ep. i. 1. 18, and i. 17, 23.— G.]
134 PRECIOUS REMEDIES [2 COR. II. 11.
shall be thai this licit hen may not rise in judgment against the flourish- in- professors of our times: ' Who whet their tongues like a sword, and bend their hows i<> shoot their arrows, even .bitter words/ Ps. lxiv. 3.
/i' - dy LO). The tenth remedy against this device of Satan is, For savnts to joim together and walk together in the ways of grace, and holiness so far as they do agree, making the word their only touch- stone and judge of their actions. That is sweet advice that the apostle rives : ' I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,' Philip, iii. 14-16. ' Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, — comparatively or conceitedly1 so, — be thus minded. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.' Ah ! Christians, God loses much, and you lose much, and Satan gains much by this, that you do not, that you will not, walk lovingly together so far as your ways lie together. It is your sin and shame that you do not, that you will not, pray together, and hear together, and confer together, and mourn together, &c, because that in some far lesser things you are not agreed together. What folly and madness is it in those whose way of a hundred miles lies fourscore and nineteen together, yet will not walk so far together, because that they cannot go the other mile together ; yet such is the folly and madness of many Christians in these days, who will not do many things they may do, because they cannot do everything they should do.2 I fear God will whip them into a better temper before he hath done with them. He will break their bones, and pierce their hearts, but he will cure them of this malady, &c.
And be sure you make the word the only touchstone and judge of all persons and actions : ' To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them/ Isa. viii. 20. It is best and safest to make that to be the judge of all men and things now that all shall be judged by in the latter day : ' The word, saith Christ, that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day/ John xii. 48. Make not your dim light, your notions, yonr fancies, your opinions, the judge of men's action, but still judge by rule, and plead, ' It is written.'
When a vain importunate soul cried out in contest with a holy man, ' Hear me, hear me/ the holy man answered, 'Neither hear me, nor I thee, but let us both hear the apostle.'3
Constantine, in all the disputes before him with the Arians, would still call for the word of God as the only way, if not to convert, yet to stop their mouths, &c.
Remedy (1 1). The eleventh remedy against this device of Satan is, To he much in a If-judging : 'Judge yourselves, and you shall not be judged of the Lord/ 1 Cor. xi. 31. Ah! were Christians' hearts more taken up in judging themselves and condemning themselves, they would not be so apt to judge and censure others, and to carry it sourly and
1 Those who have reason to conceive themselves ' perfect.'— G.