3. Nor yet a holy dislike and singularity, standing aloof from public corruptions, as Lot in Sodom, and ' Noah walked with God in his generations,' Gen. vi. 9. God's children most commonly are forced to walk in a counter motion to the times. Paul, when he had accused the times as evil, adviseth Christians to ' walk circumspectly,' Eph. v. 16. Worldly wisdom would draw quite another conclusion. The times are bad, let us do as well as we can. There is no living in the world unless we yield a little. The oak is rent to pieces with the fury of the wind when the willow boweth and bendeth. Shall we alone resist such a torrent ? Thus would we reason ; but the Spirit doth not loosen the reins, but straiten them, upon this consideration, ' The days are evil/ therefore 'be circumspect;' that is, be careful to keep close to rule, lest you be blinded and perverted by the subtleties of those that lie in wait to deceive, and elsewhere : ' Shine as lights in the midst of a perverse generation.' Dead fishes swim with the stream. There is a difference between subjection to God and compliance with men, &c.
But now, positively, what is the fault there reproved? I an- swer : —
[1.] Foolish murmurings, or such a fond and unthankful admiration of former times that we have not a good word for the present. Taci- tus observed it, Vitio malignitaiis humance Vetera laudantur, ijroesentia fastidio sunt. It is a common evil, men are praising past times and declaiming against the present : querulous natures are never pleased, neither full nor fasting. Past temptations are forgotten, and therefore present evils seem worst, and laziness many times occasioneth com- plaints. Many repine against God because he hath given us our lot in such an age, wherein public contests put us upon the trouble of prayer, discourse, and diligent searching in the mind of God ; now usually to excuse other duties we fall a-complaining.
Again, private discontent may exasperate some ; things are not suitable to their humours and interests. No wonder if Demetrius and the coppersmiths call those evil times when the gospel is like to get up, because their craft is like to go down, and they are not favoured as they desire. Again sottish carnality may be in the wind ; carnal men will extol the happiness of former times, their great hospitality and kind neighbourhood, their honest dealing, and good devotion, what a merry time it was, and how plentiful all things were before the new gospel came in, and they had nothing but mass and matins ; as those sots, Jer. xliv. 18, 19. Formalists cry up the goodness of the old religion to disparage times of reformation ; so the pagans said that the Eoman empu'e thrived more under false gods than under the Christian religion; wherefore Augustine wrote his book, De Civitate Dei, to answer that charge. Christians, these times may be the worse for those that went before ; we may smart for their blood
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and idols and hatred of the people of God ; judgments were then in the causes, as the clouds gather before the rain falleth.
[2.] When we pass over the good, and look only upon the evil ; we should counterbalance our afflictions with our mercies : ' Shall we receive good and not evil at the hands of God ?' Job ii. 10. It is rail- ing to gather up the failings of others and not to take notice of their graces ; so it is a railing against providence and an ill office to be only like flies pitching upon a sore place. Is there no blessing with all this bad ? with our temporal calamities have we not some increase of spiritual privileges, as in the wilderness they had God's presence, though they had a tedious passage of it ? The free use of ordinances will countervail all public burdens. Some suppose that Solomon, in that Eccles. vii. 10, alludeth to the people's murmuring in his time ; there was a temple building, but the taxes were great, and therefore they cried ' The former times were better than these.' See 1 Kings xii. 4.
[3.] When we charge our guilt upon the times. Man is apt to transfer his faults upon others, and obliquely upon God himself: ' The woman which thou gavest me,' &c. ; and so usually the times wherein we live are such, &c. Why, God ordered them, and if you were as you should be, the times could not hurt you. A great deal of fire falleth upon a stone and it burnetii not, but a dry chip soon taketh fire. Men thirdv, if they be corrupt, the fault is not theirs, but the times. It is yours certainly ; it is bad men make bad times, as I shall show anon.
Let me now give you a few remedies.
(1.) When your hearts storm, look back ; there were inconveniences in the wilderness, but a sore bondage in Egypt ; a good memory is a help to thankfulness. For my own case, when I am brimful, I con- sider the times that are past, — see 2 Chron. xv. 3-6 — when there was ' no peace to him that went out or came in,' when private meetings were a conventicle, and in public we could only sigh, not speak ; when maypoles and carnal sports were preferred before the Sabbath ; when afternoon preaching was suppressed to make way for those sports ; when it was a crime to go from a doting service-reader to hear the preach- ing of the word. Surely they that are so ready to return into Egypt have forgotten their bondage, when their cry came up to God because of the anguish of their souls. Our ' hard taskmasters,' the domineer- ing prelates, and their oppressing filthy courts, are forgotten, our promiscuous communions, and the flat and cold repetitions of an imposed liturgy quite forgotten; so the confinement of preaching, and the restraint of doctrines ; these things are out of feeling, and therefore out of remembrance. One great defect the people of God are troubled withal is a bad memory : Micah. vi. 5, ' 0 ray people 1 remember,' &c. I tell you, if we did but remember how we were pre- late-bitten, we would not murmur, but give thanks.