VeR. 13.] SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN iir. 105
and surely he hath rage enough against the sanctified ; and they have then* portion in this world, Ps. xvii. 14, all that which they prize and value. These are one of the parties which are here described, the world.
Secondly, What God's children are and should be ? A wise, holy, and self-denying company, whose work and scope it is to please, and glorify, and enjoy God.
1. They are such as place all their hopes and happiness in a life to come ; there is their treasure, Mat. vi. 20, and there are their hearts and affections, Col, iii. 1, 2. They dare not choose perishing things for their portion, but look mainly to things unseen and eternal, 2 Cor. ivr. 18.
2. They make it their business to get thither : Phil. ii. 12, ' Work out your salvation with fear and trembling ;' and Phil. iii. 20, ' But our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for a Saviour.' Their life and love, time and strength, minds and hearts, are wholly taken up about these things.
3. They use this world only in order to the next : Heb. xi. 13, ' And were persuaded of them,' viz., the promises, 'and embraced them, confessing they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.' And con- temn all the wealth and glory of the world in comparison of God and their own salvation, and meddle sparingly with the delights of the flesh, lest their hearts be perverted or diverted from better tilings : 1 Peter ii. 11, 'As strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.'
4. They are willing to take others along with them to heaven, partly out of j)ity, as having been once of the world themselves, as opposite to God and godliness and godly people, and unmindful of heavenly things, as others are, till the Lord Jesus delivered them out of that cursed estate : Gal. i. 4, ' Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world.' Therefore moved with the more pity and compassion towards others, who are left in these chains of darkness and sensuality : Titus iii. 2, 3, ' Showing meekness to all men ; for we ourselves were sometimes disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts.' And partly because grace is diffusive, and will seek to propa- gate itself, as fire turneth all about it into fire : 1 John i. 3, ' That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us ; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus.' Mules and creatures of a bastard production do not propagate after their kind. A good man would be saving all he can ; he that believeth heaven and hell cannot think with patience of the perishing of souls for which Christ died, but endeavours to save them. Now these are the children of God, or such as these they should be ; and it will be hard for a holy man to pass through his whole life without his portion of the world's hatred. Certainly few that are truly wise, good, and heavenly can escape it. Two things in this kind of conversation are distasted —
[1.] It is convincing, and has the force of a reproof on those that will not submit to this way of living: Heb. xi. 7, 'Noah condemned the world.' When you convince and condemn the foolish, furious world, it will show itself an opposite world.
106 SERMONS UPON 1 JOHN III, [SeR. XIX.
[2.] It is provoking : 2 Cor. ix, 2, ' Your zeal had provoked very- many.' The holy, heavenly, charitable life hath an excellency in it ; it provoketh to imitation, or it provoketh to envy, or heart-rising indignation and opposition ; and therefore because the good have no mind to imitate the bad, the bad will emulate or hate the good. They convince the carnal, provoke the lazy ; therefore they hate them, and do not imitate and follow them ; but where God blesseth the example of heavenly, mortified, and self-denying christians, to the conversion of others, it hath a provoking efficacy in it. Holy conversa- tion worketh as the word worketh ; some are pricked at the heart, some are cut at heart : Acts ii. 37, with Acts vii. 54, they that were pricked at heart were converted and healed ; they that were cut at heart gnashed upon Stephen with their teeth.
Thirdly, The implacable hatred of the carnal to the sanctified showeth itself many ways, but they may be refen-ed to these two — violence and calumny or reproach. So our Saviour hath sorted them : Mat. V. 10, 11, ' Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteous- ness' sake^ for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake.' There is a twofold effect of hatred — persecution and slander ; the greater or lesser sort of persecu- tion, when they pursue their persons with violence, casting them out of the church, yea, out of the world : John xvi. 2, ' They shall put you out of the synagogues ; yea, the time cometh, that he that killeth you thinketh that he doeth God good service.' But sometimes men's hands are restrained from blood, but their hearts boil with malice ; therefoi'e they seek to make religion odious, and cast out the names of the people of God as evil, by scorning and reviling them, and taking all occasions to slander them and misrepresent them, and that either with princes, by insiimating to them that they who are seriously godly are enemies to their interests, and such an odious sort of men as are unfit to live in their dominions. As Haman said of the Jews, ' There is a certain people whose laws are divers from all people, neither keep they the king's laws, and therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them to live.' Alas ! were we conscious to all the insinuations which are whispered and buzzed into the ears of the kings and princes of the earth, we should wonder more at God's providence and our protection. Sometimes they take all occasions to slander them to the populacy ; as those envious Jews, Acts xvii. 6, ' These have turned the world up- side down, and are come hither also.' , It may be they may be trouble- some to a corrupt world, as a physician is with his medicines to a body filled with ill humours. If they trouble the world, it is for their health, for their peace, for the saving of their souls. Again, they revile and scorn them upon ordinary private occasions ; as David was the song of the abjects and hypocritical mockers in feasts, Ps. xxxv. 15, 16. They expose them to the contempt of base people, and their names are torn and rent in pieces in every jovial and festival meeting ; and Avhen they are warming themselves with wine and good cheer, one dish brought to the table is John Baptist's head in a charger, some godly, christian, and grave minister ; and usually scoffs and jests at godli- ness are the most relishing sauces of all their banquets. The dinner